GW2 and Item Decay -- Yay or Nay?

The purpose of this thread is to

1. State (and explain) your opinion about item decay in MMOs. For it? Against it?
2. If interested, brainstorm a possible implementation methodology for a meaningful item decay system that works in a sensible way that players can accept.
3. Tell us, do you think Anet should put it in GW2?

Obviously if you're absolutely against item decay in any form, there's no point in answering #2.

I have no idea if Anet will put item decay in GW2 or not, and this isn't meant to start any rumors. Just playing advocate.

item decay as like.....items losing stats over time?

in gw people pay a lot of money of cool looking weapons and a lot less making them good. It would really piss a lot of people off

No, no no no no.

I played SWG for 2 years; Item decay sucks. I think it would go counter to the GW philosophy. Alex hit the nail right on the head.

Nay!

Item decay/Durability is a shoddy mechanic that should stay in the 90s. It's old style thinking. The mechanic is just a gold sink that forces the player into tedious, repetitive maintenance that could otherwise be avoided.

1. State (and explain) your opinion about item decay in MMOs. For it? Against it?

I hated Diablo because of item decay - I hate item decay - I hate it I tells you!

2. If interested, brainstorm a possible implementation methodology for a meaningful item decay system that works in a sensible way that players can accept.

ummm... don't do it....

3. Tell us, do you think Anet should put it in GW2?

No!!!!! No....... Don't give me a reason NOT to buy GW2!

I'm for a decay system which works like on Oblivion : your weapon slowly decays when you use it, and it costs some gold to repair it.
On the other hand, I think it would be completly fool to make fully destructible weapons, players who paid for thoose would be pissed off :s

I don't really like it.

I played MU Online where it had item decay, and it sucked, terribly. You had to pay to get your armor and weapons repaired every 3 hours.

Just plain no.

First, what's your definiton of Item Decay? Is it when items become damaged and you have to repair them?

If yes, then it depends. While it is a decent gold sink, it's also very incovienient and annoying to the casual player.

Other than that I have no clue.

In the games I have played with ID, items never fully "rot away," their effectiveness just diminishes with time or when they are used to much. With that, there have always been NPCs that "repair" said items and make them as good as new.

Not too sure what you mean by item decay, but item durability I can see being implemented.

Where your items, and armor take damage from being involved in combat and can be repaired either by players with the skill or tradespeople in the outposts.

I think equipment durability should be in GW2.

1. I think the concept of item decay makes sense and adds an element of realism to gaming. I think that every implementation of item decay I've ever seen in any game absolutely sucked! Item decay adds a level of complexity to a game that one could debate is/isn't conducive to enjoying the experience of the game and may/not distract from the main focus/purpose for playing. All-in-All, I am for "the right" implementation of Item Decay
2. So what is "the right" implementation of item decay? I'll get back to my opinion in a subsequent post because I intend to make a proposal, give specific formulas, & point out the strengths and weaknesses of the system I think up.
3. Yes I do think it should be in GW2 for one reason only.... How else does Anet intend to control item rarity?

In GW1 green weapons used to be the bomb. As time has gone on the actual rarity of such weapons amongst the population has decreased. Yes... item customization decreases availability to an extent, but there are never repeat customers for the same item. As time goes on the game will inevitably become saturated with green weapons (I already have a around a dozen from me and my heroes). Was this the original design intent when green weapons were thought of? So what can be done to keep item rarity at a level that is in line with the original design intent? What does it do for game replayability? I don't count grinding as replayable content, so what would I do if my item wore out and I needed a new one? I'll undertake to account for these questions in my proposal.

My vote goes with the "Hell No!" crowd.

Item decay in Diablo 2 was one of the most irritating aspects of that game.

If by item decay you mean durability of the item, in a sense that it will break and have to be repaired before it is useful again such as in many other MMOs(WoW, EQ2, D&D Online...) I'm not sure if I would be for it or not.

Repair bills in MMOs are a form of money sink. It is an essential way of removing currency and in effect keeping the value of currency up as all players have to repair and the economy loses money.

With the current Guild Wars system, the economy is tightly controlled by Arena.net in the form of material, rare material, dye and armor vendors as well as the occasional salvage or ID kit. Arena.net's money sinks come in the form of non-required things such as prestige armor, guild halls and upgrades, skills buying. All of which are non-essentials.

Money sinks, such as repair bills, work only in an economy in which the majority of players control and craft materials. With the acquisition of most materials coming from a player grinding for themselves or from vendors and then being returned to the system, repair bills in the system would be more of a burden than just a simple annoyance as they are in say World of Warcraft.

Of course, in any MMO all money eventually returns to the system. But let's look at WoW for instance.(I know ppl don't always like it, but the economies in WoW are very good examples.) All materials(or almost all) in WoW come from the players themselves, with the exception of the most basic of materials(thread for example). The items created in WoW can be resold to any player(as long as they are not bind on pickup). So players are able to charge higher prices than cost for materials in WoW and make profit. In the current GW, you can't craft items to sell and make profit. This means the only income you get comes in the form of drops period. Unless buying a weapon or material from another player, all money returns to the system. There is no room for a large scale player run economy where money changes hand between user and user forcing the system to have a way to get rid of currency from the player base. The system in Guild Wars is predisposed to getting rid of money.

Unless GW2 has a large scale, fully functional economy where the player based is allowed to create and sell items, and the freedom to do so without having to be logged in(IE an auction house of sorts) I see no reason to have item decay, durability, or repairs because the system in its current form needs no more money sinks to keep the economy in check.

Item decay sucks. It's a useless gold sink that makes as much sense as your toon's hair growing and needing to be cut. I would much rather stick to spending my money in other ways.

Did you just describe Skill Trainers?? Why do I have to farm for 1 platinum for each and every Factions and Nightfall skill I want my level 20 Prophecies character to be able to use?

My point is... a lot of things can be viewed the way you just described Item Decay. Bad implementations in other games is not an acceptable justification for being down on the concept.

It isn't?

We previously tried X idea and it sucked.
There does't seem to be anything new about my copy of idea X,
Then logically idea X will suck in my game Y.

jkyarr - you're making arguments before presenting your proposal. Let's hear what you propose & how it's different from prior implementations.

(Going by prior implementations, yes, item decay is a pointless and minorly annoying gold sink. I don't want reality or realism in a fantasy game, y'know? That's not the point. But if you've built a better mousetrap, let's see the plans before we start arguing about them...)

I couldn't disagree with your assessment of the current GW economy more STB. I've seen players with 1,000s of platinum... way more than any item in the game costs. The only factor in the game that has a price significant enough to be called a gold sink are the guild hall NPCs, and they were added as an afterthought and priced as such just for that purpose.

One of my biggest frustrations about GW1 is that everyone around me seems to be so flippin uber-rich that they can toss plats around without remorse like I toss skales. You've got to take a closer look at the flow of the money before you start using words like "economy". Fact is there's very little that serves the purpose of removing wealth from the economy because players ability to amass wealth has far surpassed the cost of NPC services. The increased usage of Runes of Superior Vigor and rise in the number Guild Hall NPCs are clear indications of that.

GW2 could be an entirely different economic paradigm, so that's a big wait and see, but for the purposes of excluding Item Decay based on an incomplete glance at the GW1 economy, I just don't see that argument having any substance to it.

Item decay is simply goldsink. Goldsink that is required for gameplay.

Make decay cheap and its just stupid anyance. There is no point in having it if its like that.
Make decay huge issue and it turns game to grindfest - farm gold for hour so that you can quest for couple of minutes. Not mentioning nightmare if items are not repairable.

Item rarity controlls are in amount of drops, hardness of area where they drop. Rare item becoming nonrare is always just matter of time in any enviroment ... make decay non-issue, it controlls nothing, only bothers people.

but breaking items so that you have rarity is ... doh ... who will gonna aquire rare item under those terms. who will play game where your achievements get every other day nulified and are thus pointless.

this kind of design force people to go out and ebay gold - either for utility repairs or for new items every other day.

for point of view of green farmer, its is positive development, but he will find out soon enough that ... people will not buy his weapon anymore, because they will realize that vendors and colletors offer essentially same thing but cheaper, or they would simply use white drops.

Would you invest 90e for bow that is gonna be gone in month?
Would you invest 90e to bow that will require 30e on repairs monthly?

Depends...

I love the idea of skill vs grind in guild wars and hope it stays in GW2.

If decay over time... if your log in or not.. then I will hate it.

If decay happens while only using ... or over time (while logged) in I would have to see how and what affect it has one what time before passing judgment but leaning towards no.

I don't cherish the idea of having to "repair" armor and weapons over use to act as a gold sink... unless it's dirt cheap. I would hate weapons / armor the degrade to the point of needing "replacement" even more.

But these impression on based on GW1. GW2 will be different disintegrating may fit nicely in to the different style of play.

Summary = Over all no, don't want, but if implement with GW2 .. have to see the new style of play and the system to make judgment.

I like the idea if easy access to max armor and weapons stats and you can grind / farm for "cool" version of it to show off it you would like.

Item decay? Does it add anything meaningful to the game? Does it add fun to the game? Is it even necessary?

You have your answer there.

Why indeed!

This sucks too.

Oh, and, a big bold NO for item decay. This game has enough gold sinks (mini-pets, armor, rare golds, etc) without needing another. (You think this stuff is cheap? Have you seen the prices on the uber-rare minipets, FoW armor, and uber-rare perfect golds? They ain't cheap, and are beyond most players means).

Can you imagine uber-rare Gold prices if they decayed overtime?

And Greens are cheap because they are supposed to be. If Greens were supposed to be rare, Anet would adjust the drop rates accordingly.

As for your argument that some people have millions of gold... wow. Big deal. I have, at the moment, about 6 k. That's it (I've spent a lot on mini-pets recently). I like the fact I don't NEED gold in Guild Wars.

I hope GW2 doesn't change that.

Absolutely horrible idea.

Hence the purpose of #2....

The problem with your logic is that you're copying X... X=implementation
X<> concept... X=concept+effort to bring it into reality. It's the effort to put it in the games that have gone astray.

I might argue that it's an unneccessary level of complexity that takes too much effort on the part of the player to reasonably maintain while I stay on track with the story of the game... but that's purely a subjective point based in evaluating an implementation of the concept as well, since it makes assumptions about the level of effort required on the part of the player. Maybe there are more attractive things on the list to be added to GW2 because they'll provide more bang for the entertainment buck. If a highly sophisticated Item Decay system were implemented and it wasn't detracting from the way the game played would it even be noticed or appreciated? It doesn't seem that item decay attracts people to buy the game... so why do it?

Lots of things can serve as strawman...

Without context Skill traines look like uber grind (1+k skills at 1k each!), but there is one huge definite point you ignored: You can ignore them!

* Thats right, you only need ever buy 6 skills, you get cap sig for elite and res for free. Anything extra is ... extra. With decay systems, you dont repair item X times and then being able to forget about it forever.
* You are not required to go back every couple of hours to rebuy your skillset if you want to use it ... unlike item that needs to be repaired every day.
* You eventually buy them all ... after that, you are done, no more. Unlike decay where you need to go on and on and on.

you see, there is optionality and completability.

QFT. That should end the discussion right there.

I find it odd you're arguing for this, when you are against other forms of grind (and, yes, decay would lead to grind because I would have to repeat steps in order to keep my weapon at peak condition, whatever those steps may be).

Why not add old age to our characters, so more we play them, the weaker and weaker they get until they die. That sounds like fun...

I hate item decay ever since i have tried out WoW (which i dont play anymore) and i dont want it in GW. If GW2 turns out too much like WoW, im gonna stop playing it im srry to say....

/Nay

1) Horsies say Neigh.
2) I am all for weapons and shields breaking after heavy use, say 500 swings of something. This keeps rare weapons as "collector items" and keeps a market of "use-able cheap items".
3) No

well that seems like a pretty definitive community opinion... albeit hasty, Treebeard. I like concepts like this one that video games have just never quiet seemed to get right. I was mulling over what I think it would take to do it right the other day so I thought I'd invite others to do the same.... seems the verdict is in though.... leave defunct mechanics in the past.

No way i'd buy GW2 with item decay,enough of it in diablo2 >_>.

I'd quite like the idea of bonuses (inscriptions and insignias) being like enchantments which wear down over time, but armour or weapons is questionable.

I did think at one point that a system involving "state of repair" and/or "quality of craftsmanship" would be more logical than the current "Reqs" weapons have, but in practice, it could simply be an unnecessary irritation.

Decay come and me go home..

/nay.... decay is gay.

I hate the idea of decay.

Imagine going out farming gold to repair yr decaying sword which is decaying further just by taking it out to farm with.. HELL NO !!!!

Item decay is a crap idea...games are never going to be 100% realistic (just think of the travel time) and this is only an annoyance that you build in that serves no other purpose.

I am 100% against weapon decay. It's one of the many aspects of other RPG (MMO and other) that really kept me from enjoying the game.

Look on the bright side - they could have a weapon polishing title.

i never had a proplem with it in oblivion, but i guess guild wars 2 wont have the whole upgrade skills like this by doing them over and over (that would be a whole new topic) so if its really expensive ppl will hate it and if its cheap , whats the point? keep the new guys down?

/dunno if its implemented well id like it ^^

item decay=me quiting GW forever

In Ultima Online they ended up adding insane amounts of durability for rare items, so that you would never have to repair them. So adding something like durability only makes the game more tedious, it's a useless feature.