Possible solution for crafters and adventurers alike. (ATTUNE Flag)

[waswas-f]

It seems to me like the base problem that is being worked on by Sony with the attune change is that in this virtual economy there is an unlimited supply of armor and items coming into the world. The attune change tries to undo this by sink holing the armor back to /dev/null when players go to sell it (merchants just make it poof). One of the negative side effects of this change is that you have taken away all power and choice in the market from the buyers and have given it to the sellers. An adventurer that buys crafted gear (or non crafted for that matter) for large amounts of money can no longer look at the investment as worthwhile – the gear goes from being sellable (at an inflation loss) to junkable (sell back to a merchant for pennies on the dollar). Meanwhile the crafters now have the only power to make and set prices and profits in the game. What I ask is that you flip this problem on its side. If you want to limit the number of crafted items being resold in the game make crafted armor chained. What do I mean by that? Well if you need A,B,C,D + rare combined to make tier 1 heavy armor, for tier 2 take away some of the A2 B2 C2 D2 components and require the tier 1 heavy armor and the rare to be combined.This effectively limits the older armor in the market. You use it for 6 levels, and then instead of selling it at a loss in a flooded market you use that investment to move to the next range of armor. This gives both sides of the house power, players and crafters. You want to move onto a different class of armor or to quested armor or mob drop armor? Make a choice, sell your crafted on the broker (at a higher sustained rate then before – more valuable to both crafters and adventurers) or hold on to it in the bank in case you need to upgrade it later on (effectively holding it out of the economy. This gives players a gentile push towards armor and crafted item INVESTMENT, it fits better with a game that forces con on items versus just attuning all items and further removing choice from, the game.I think this would be an easy to implement change that would help correct the economy of the game using a lighter hand, without taking away power or freedom from players. Just my two cents.-Waswas

[Miral]

<DIV>yep thats what I've been tryin to say... let armorers UPGRADE armor.... maybe let em do repairs too...</DIV>

[Zholain]

An excellent suggestion.

[Dashofpepp]

<DIV>wow...5 stars for you.  That is the most ingenious idea I've heard of in days.  (Aside from my own elsewhere ^^ )</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Kind of reminds me of Final Fantasy 8.  You take your current stuff and upgrade it.  Please please Puh-LEEASE pray that someone in a tiny, poorly-lit cell somewhere in the vastness of the SoE emporium gets a chance to read this, give it to their task-master, and get a tremendous raise for a brilliant suggestion!  Then they can go buy their very own island and role-play!  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Well, enough of a bonus for a cup of coffee for another 18 hour day would be nice too.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Retribution - Befallen</DIV>

[Yama Seish]

Wonderful suggestion.The mechanics of a change like this would take a good bit of testing in order to balance the price of upgrades, to both the benefit of crafters and adventurers. So long as older armor can be made an optional requirement for armor upgrades, irrespective of how many more items are needed to make the final combine, then its value will be maintained without overflowing the market.Problems:1- Cost of upgrading is too low once original investment is made at the early (therefore cheap) levels if only a single item is needed to upgrade the armor through tiers.Solution: Make the component requirement lower than what would take to make from scratch but still sufficient to award an appropriate compensation to the crafter's time. Example: A tier 2 piece of leather armor may need a few of the components needed to make tier 3 armor from scratch, but not all such components. Otherwise crafters would simply make t3 pieces without relying on older sets of armor.2- Realism. How can one squeeze a set of steel out of lesser quality ore used in previous armor upgrades/creations? I already see people suggesting that this is not realistic.Solution: A simple one really. Realism is not what a computer game is about. Only certain things need to be "realistic" for players to feel immersed within a world. These things are "rules" and "appearances". Consistency and familiarity are what matters, not wether an event in-game is physically possible in Real Life. That's why we play a "fantasy" game. If it were like RL, I assure you, nobody would play games, RL is already challenging enough as it is.3- Dropped loot. If it cannot be upgraded, then its value would be much lower than that of crafted items. This is part of the design of live patch #3. However, adventurers rely on dropped loot to make money to afford future adventuring. If its value is significantly lower than crafted items, then adventuring will not be a reliable source of income. I do not agree that players should be forced to take on a trade-skill if they want to be solvent.Solution: Increase NPC purchase rate for dropped items accordingly accross loot tables so that adventuring can be a viable investment. On top of addressing this imaginary change that we are discussing, it would also address the very real posibility now open in the live servers, namely, that adventuring gains will not cut it when it comes down to upgrading armor because scarcity of items will make prices very high compared to their pre-patch rate.Overall, great suggestion, Waswas. The only other solution I've seen that comes close is to make items attuneable but with a number of uses (2-3 for example) So that items leave the economy, scale in price according to their remaining possibility of future investment, and allow adventurers and crafters to both purchase and sell, respectively, without choking either's freedom of choice.Thanks for the great post, keep the good suggestions coming.Peace.