Also yes, in Minecraft only diamond equipment or a nice bow is worth repairing in most cases, I’m not familiar with tiers or materials in this game, I’d prefer to get some game play in before making too many suggestions but the no repair system at all through a red flag up in my mind.
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Ideally I too would like to see a repair function of some sort- but not a 100% repair.
In fact, perhaps a repair function is not what we need, but some sort of maintenance function- a way to prolong the life span of consumable items, but at the cost of additional materials.
Some possible reagents to extend different item types:
Blades/Weapons and tools: Sharpening stones could put the edge back on a dented blade, and Oils could keep a weapon from rusting and wearing down.
Armor: Polishes to buff out scratches, (single use?) mallets to tap out dents, thread/patches to close gashes in leather and solder to repair holes in plate armor
These things could be sold at weapons shops for field repair and maintenance, but not restore an item to it’s full potential. I’ll let one of you math gurus come up with some formula for diminishing returns, but the end result should be along the lines of: The more resources you expend on an item, the longer it lasts, up to double the items standard life span.
Edit: In my opinion, low quality items made of wood or stone should not be repairable or maintainable. These resources are extremely abundant and there is little reason to extend their life spans.
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They could very well be repairable if you are in a situation where you really have to. But the costs could also practically be the same or higher than just making a new one because the material is so abundant.
That way you could repair them but in most cases wouldn’t anyway.
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It really depends on how technical you want to get as regards materials and items.
One of the huge advantages of bronze over flint for example was that you can recycle bronze, but if a flint broke the wrong way your screwed. Perhaps you could sharpen a stone edge, and in the case of the Aztec Macuahuitl (The plausible stone edged weapon longer then 10 centimeters or so.) could replace the obsidian shards, so I suppose you could repair lesser items…but I would quite limit the effectiveness of the repair. Having whittled spears, bows and arrows from wood, they end up breaking.
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I think it’s a big question, how much effort you have to do, to get a certain item and how long does it last.
I imagine legendary items of wow (tons of farm runs to create a single weapon).
I don’t see the point: why would someone do this effort, if at some point this effort will completely get lost? Furthermore, if some weapon and armor is necessary to fight certain npcs and if the npc (like a titan) needs several runs to do it, and each time you make a run your weapon runs out… wow, I can’t see the end of effort just to create my armor and weapons again and again… (or at least earn the coins to buy it again).
Furthermore, as @Heurazio said: weapon and armor is kind of reward for effort (progress). And certain effort I want to do once and not repeat all the time. It just unnecessarly kills time - and creates the feeling of getting “used” and bored to something.
Is this really throughthought to lategame content?
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The thing is that we are not going down a super long progression path when talking wearables:
Not in strength anyhow.
Also I am quite sure for it to work the wearable and weapons need to hold more than a single boss. It is al about balancing needing to create a new weapon every hour is tedious, but if the casual players (playing a bit most days and putting in a few hours in the weekends) can go with it for lets say for 2 weeks, or maybe even higher it becomes rare enough to feel more like the regular gameplay loop.
The problem is that in most MMORPG you have maybe 80 level and therefore 15+ sets of gear you need to get and then throw away before reaching the top tier and even after thatyou have no reason to buy new weapons (if not for the skins or the slightly variate your playstyle anyway) this is seriously BAD for a player driven economy. People need to have someone they can sell their produce to, the resources in the game need to have a cycle or the economy will die.
Even if we where working with 15+ tiers in a player driven economy it would be BAD for the economy that the tools don’t break, especialyl at lower tiers the market would quickly flood with so many weapons, tools and armor that there would be no reason to make new ones.
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I concur , I hate ‘equipment tier progression’ , as a legit gamer (No cheating in multiplayer) it’s very discouraging to continue acquiring THE BEST after hours or days or weeks of work…only to have it outdated in the next update.
Minecraft enchantments are a good start in breaking the progression cycle , every armor enchantment , like Protection (I always wear protection.) or Flame Protection is useful…but, in default, you can only have 1 type of protection per armor piece, meaning if you have Flame Protection your vulnerable to something else. In addition, some enchantments , like Thorns, drain durability faster, and the more enchantments you have on an item the more it costs to repair
How to make Equipment not follow a never ending cycle of tiers and balance the economy?
-Certain enchantments are incompatible with others or items, leading to a ‘rock paper scissors’ system
-The repair system is balanced as regards tier (I do think ‘Legendary’ or high quality equipment needs extra consideration) meaning well you can repair something, is it worth your time and materials?
-The repair system is not 100% effective , there are chances to break or damage the item, and it does not return to full effectiveness when repaired
-Eventually the item can’t be repaired/not worth repairing anymore, for higher quality I believe this should take longer, for wood, once , if that, for ‘bronze’ , many times. Steel is a very different beast from bronze, harder to make and fix. Could make for an interesting mechanic, ‘sure steel swords flex and have an sharper edge but we can cast these bronze swords in rapid succession’
Bronze is also naturally corrosion resistant. Bad steel, commonly called iron, rusts like a son of a gun.
Oh that’s another thing, environmental effects. Oxidation and rot?
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Well that sort of is the point…people will have to balance their wants/their wallets/what they need. If you’re going after a super difficult Titan or something then you’ll likely want to spend a bit more to collect better equipment before you go as the reward is worth it. But if you’re just going out and about mining then you probably don’t need the most legendary pike in existence or whatever.
Well this game is being built with social interactions and role specialization in mind. If you’re a fighter, then you’ll be spending coins or selling drops for weapons and wearables that a fellow guild-member or town-member or some travelling merchant makes. If you’re a crafter, you’ll be spending coins on materials needed to make your craft. If you’re a gatherer, you’ll be spending coins on tools and equipment needed to go out and survive in the world while gathering things. Everyone has something they’ll need to buy and it helps make a balanced economy.
I think the biggest problem people are having right now is that they’re thinking of this as minecraft still, where they envision themselves being a one-man-master-of-all. But role specialization is the name of the game here. Diversity is a focus in order to promote social interaction.
All you have to do is shift your thoughts from treating this like it’s a typical progression game. Or think of it like acquiring potions/food/enchants before raiding in WoW. Add weapons/armor to that list before tackling a Titan. Materials and drops from higher-tiered worlds are the end-game here, not legendary wearables and weapons.
Hopefully that helps explain their goal here a bit more.
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Fixed that for you^^
I think, realistically, the game design that we know of today will still make it unrealistic to attempt to be a master-of-all. But I remember from the Titan discussions that you’ll still attempt to 
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I can see that and I already imagined. Anyway my comparism went to something like the legendary hammer of ragnaros (sticking to wow). If anythng would need that much effort (it doesn’t matter what it is, weapon, armor, or other items), then I recommend to make it last forever. Noone want to do this twice, just to try to slay something with it and after the first run (and maybe fail) it’s destroyed again 
Though I like challenges. Epic quest rows with nice rewards, like special recipies to craft unique items would be great!
I guess, i have to trust in our dev’s sense for balance. It’s hard to find the perfect way between “casuals” and “hardcore gamers”. Both need to be satisfied in some way. Let’s see what they make of it!
A dynamic player driven econemy is definetly a nice thing, as long as it has a good concept.
Which is why progression with weapons/wearables isn’t happening. This won’t really be a concern. One of Ben’s more recent posts suggested that stats and wearables are going to be separate.
I am also a lover of nice epic quest chains with cool rewards (think Dragonwrath I guess?) but Boundless is a sandbox. No NPCs, no quests, nearly total freedom. Progression will happen via tiered worlds (as far as I know, that’s still the plan) and individual character progression (see some of Ben’s more recent wireframes for some not-set-in-stone examples of what they’re thinking about). Harder worlds will have rarer resources, more difficult to safely traverse environments, and tougher enemies (I think?). Rewards will be those rarer resources, mob drops, etc. Maybe these will give wearables more durability, or help out with different professions, or provide faster cores for airships, etc. That’s the progression we’re looking at in Boundless.
Basically think of this like minecraft’s durability for stuff, minus the anvil. I’m guessing there will be different levels of durability across different tools/weapons/wearables but not unlimited durability. I doubt higher-end things will just break after a night of use.
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Do you talk about “wearables” = “skins” in this context because you use your statement also for weapons ? At the moment i can’t remember any reference that there WON’T be progression for weapons / stats eg. We know (as you said) for sure that wearables (skins in this context) will be horizontal and won’t show progression.
This quote from @ben (if i read is right) clearly confirms progression of stat-items like armor-rings and therefore i’d assume the same applies to weapons.
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No, ben said that they dropped that plan in a recent post.
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Thank you for sharing. All I can say is that I find this immensely disappointing and can only hope they change their minds again down the road.
Hi guys,
Sorry for not replying sooner, we’ve just had public holidays on Friday and Monday, so this is the first day back at work since I wrote this.
As always it’s been a great discussion you’ve had here, it’s good to read your thoughts and ideas. This really is an excellent forum for genuine debate by well informed gamers.
I would have replied to people individually, but given how long this thread has got I will just try and answer questions and points overall, much of this has been said in this thread, but I’ll collate the current thinking here:
- Wearables (i.e. purely cosmetic items) will not wear out. They will take some resources to make, and as such will demonstrate some kind of wealth, but it won’t be a huge investment so many players will choose to spend time and resources on them because they want to look good. If you are a min-maxer and will only put effort into things that have a direct purpose then you will run around naked. Some people will do that, but I would say many people will put some effort in to their appearance, as they will in decorating their house, because it’s fun to look good. But it’s up to you – you pays your money, you takes your choice.
- @Heurazio asked about storing progression, and that’s a very good question. Progression comes in a few flavours, some of which is stored permanently, and some of which will need to be maintained. You gain experience, and go up levels and select skills as you do so, and that progression is permanent. There is also the physical infrastructure that you own that will never go, i.e. your beacons and machines and buildings. The other side of progression is down to the equipment you have, the money you have, and the reputation you have, and that stuff will all have to be maintained. Having good equipment, and lots of money and being well known should enable you to get more resources, and earn more money, and further build your reputation, but it’s not guaranteed. There is obviously a balance to be struck there between these two types of progression, and we will make sure that the permanent base you build up is strong enough that you never feel like you’ve lost a huge amount by having some bad sessions.
- Amongst others @Vastar asked about how long the weapons and tools would last, and that is something we will need to balance very carefully. Generally we don’t want buying more items to be a chore, or something you constantly have to do, neither do we want people carrying stacks and stacks of them around, but we do want getting hold of new items as a key part of the game loop(s). If I had to put a number on it at this stage I would say each would last many days.
- Various people talked about grinding, and whilst there will obviously be times where people are doing something repetitively in order to gain resources, the idea is that this is a fun part of the game, and not a chore. Once again it comes down to balance, but the idea is that each player will choose the thing(s) that they enjoy doing and do those things, and they will be rewarded for it. It won’t be a case of needing to do a boring thing repetitively before I can go and do the fun thing I want to do. Many people may choose to have a couple of activities they do most, some people may want to be self sufficient and do everything, but most people will join or start a guild and work with other players to achieve what they want to achieve.
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That is all in all what I hoped to hear, though I would like if machines decraded with use so you would need to maintain your machinery in the same way other people maintain their tools and weapons.
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Machines will degrade, and can be repaired. Where tools, weapons etc. have durability which goes down before eventually the item breaks, machines have “Wear” which goes up until it reaches the maximum at which point the machine stops working. Wear can be reduced by using a special tool (the Spanner), which itself loses durability. So effectively you’re “using up” Spanners to keep your machines going.
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Ah nice, I was jsut slightly worried about the crafter profession having a lack of material sink 
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Going back to my original statement…
… I’d like to substitute good with fantastic!!
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