[DIS] Item Rarity for the fusion

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mistergrey
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[DIS] Item Rarity for the fusion

Post by mistergrey »

So with the fusion coming, the topic of how to handle rarity should be addressed. I know this has been discussed about 100000 times, but this time we don't have to worry about players revolting because they lost some cool items they had. Please browse the bold topics and share your opinions.

With that in mind, I'll share some thoughts.

1. "Old" quest items: This is not the biggest problem with TMW's economy, but still an annoying one. One-time quests result in players saving some of the quest items as collectibles, which is also not a bad thing. The problem is that some try to sell those at huge prices later, and many just have a ton of these items rotting in their storage.

My proposed solution: A "quest items for credit" system. Just like how Gak collects candy items from players and converts that to shop credit, we could have an NPC who collects unnecessary old quest items. Those quest items would become credits in the NPC's shop. The shop itself could just contain recolors of existing equipment, or any number of things. The best part is - whatever the shop sells, won't likely mess up the economy because anybody can collect quest materials.

2. One-time Quest Rewards: This is probably what most are concerned about. Currently, item demand is mostly based on how hard an item is to get, and how rare it is. So, when a "one-time" event ends, those rewards are unobtainable after and start gaining value to players.

My proposed solution: Once an event ends, add the rewards to a list of items that GMs can use as rewards for GM events. This list could be given a ranking system, so that items that were much harder to get in an event are given out much less often. Since GMs can have times where they do not do events, perhaps some of these items could be dropped by mobs, with a very low droprate.

3. Seasonal/Yearly Event Rewards: These items have the opposite problem to one-time event rewards - once players have done an annual quest 1-2 times, they often get bored and stop. In my opinion, this is because the rewards are not diverse enough. If an event offers the same reward every year, there is little incentive to repeat it. Offering recolored versions of a reward is acceptable, but only if the item is something that players want in new colors.

My proposed solution: I would suggest that yearly/seasonal events change the reward every year, but to a related item. An example would be if one year's Xmas event rewards players with an Xmas themed hat - perhaps the next year's event could reward matching gloves, to form a set. This would add a lot of motivation for repeating such quests. A way to avoid this making former rewards unobtainable is - during the annual event, have an associated mob drop last year's reward at a semi-low droprate.

4. Regular items: Most of these are fine, as long as somebody keeps track of sell prices. If an item is very easy to collect, and sells for a high price, there is a big problem. This of course does not apply to utility items as much, since demand is an important factor in player prices.

My proposed solution: I don't really have one for these, except that certain utlity items should NEVER be sold by a shop without careful consideration. If shops sell iron ore at 1k, that puts a lock on how much players can charge each other for iron ore - this feels like a bad thing. Utility items should probably sell for high prices in shops, if sold at all.

Please discuss. If there are any categories I've missed, or any alternative solutions you can think of, please share them here.
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Re: Item Rarity for the fusion

Post by Reid »

mistergrey wrote:So with the fusion coming, the topic of how to handle rarity should be addressed. I know this has been discussed about 100000 times, but this time we don't have to worry about players revolting because they lost some cool items they had. With that in mind, I'll share some thoughts.

1. "Old" quest items: This is not the biggest problem with TMW's economy, but still an annoying one. One-time quests result in players saving some of the quest items as collectibles, which is also not a bad thing. The problem is that some try to sell those at huge prices later, and many just have a ton of these items rotting in their storage.

My proposed solution: A "quest items for credit" system. Just like how Gak collects candy items from players and converts that to shop credit, we could have an NPC who collects unnecessary old quest items. Those quest items would become credits in the NPC's shop. The shop itself could just contain recolors of existing equipment, or any number of things. The best part is - whatever the shop sells, won't likely mess up the economy because anybody can collect quest materials.
When we discussed about it sooner today I thought about a conversation that I had with alige, I explain:
On Drazil (the starting area on Evol) we have a delivery quest which asks the player to bring some boxes of vegetable from the island back to the ship. At this time, we drew an icon for each kind of boxes that the player has to carry.
On Artis we redid a delivery quest, a bit larger this time as it mixed different kind of equipment and item that the player has to seek from some places back to Enora. This time we didn't draw icons for these items.
What Alige and I discussed was to use some kind of generic package item, that we could use on most gathering quests (the visual item is just purely aesthetic because we manage the state of the quest from quest variables and not from if the player held or not an item)

That discussion went to oblivion and in the end we didn't add any generic package. Although, that concept could work well with season events, instead of drawing a giant amount of collectible items that the player has to seek, maybe he could seek a generic item shared by all seasonal quests.
Thus it would solve two issues:
- if a player didn't have the time to finish an event, he will be able to use his items for another seasonal quest.
- there won't be rare collectible items but a regular seasonal item.
Btw, that collectible quest is not necessarily a mob drop, it can be won/looted/dropped/etc...
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Re: Item Rarity for the fusion

Post by Mikko »

The solution to one-time event rewards is to not give them out to begin with.

As for the regular items and the in-game economy in general...
Need to run the numbers to have an opinion for this one. :|
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Re: Item Rarity for the fusion

Post by mistergrey »

Mikko wrote:The solution to one-time event rewards is to not give them out to begin with
I have to respectfully disagree with you there :P. When the reward for something is always the same, sure that's nice for new players - not so much for the older ones who already have several and are bored of it. You'll notice that I suggested "one-time event rewards" still be obtainable as an uncommon drop, and there are surely other ways to keep these rewards from being impossible for new players to get.

The nice thing about one-time events is that they don't have to fit some yearly occasion, and the content depends entirely on the developers involved. Why do you think one-time events are a problem, even for the fusion?
Reid wrote: What Alige and I discussed was to use some kind of generic package item, that we could use on most gathering quests (the visual item is just purely aesthetic because we manage the state of the quest from quest variables and not from if the player held or not an item)


Although, that concept could work well with season events, instead of drawing a giant amount of collectible items that the player has to seek, maybe he could seek a generic item shared by all seasonal quests.


Btw, that collectible quest is not necessarily a mob drop, it can be won/looted/dropped/etc...
Reid, I like this idea a lot - it would be perfect for seasonal quests in particular. I think it could be done in 2 ways: a generic package/backpack given during every seasonal event that allows players to "collect" the needed items... or, a permanent version of that same item, bound to the player.

This wouldn't work as well with some ideas, such as a quest item that allows players to warp to a specific map during the event - which is why I think it's perfect for repeated events, and not necessarily one-time events.
Tiana wrote: I apologize if I gave anyone the impression that BC is the troll-king of the GM's. That title is rightfully held by mrgrey :P
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Re: Item Rarity for the fusion

Post by omatt »

mistergrey wrote:When the reward for something is always the same, sure that's nice for new players - not so much for the older ones who already have several and are bored of it.
But players do and redo always love triangle quest, just for sorcerer robe, because useful and dyable like players want. Or Illia quest, for useful weapon.
Then when the reward is good quality, player enjoy to do the quest. Remove red stoking and free level up to xmas quest and nobody do this long quest, without new players what is nice to do the first time (like you say).
A simple seasonal quest who give concentration potion and chicken legs can be loved :mrgreen:
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Re: Item Rarity for the fusion

Post by Mikko »

mistergrey wrote:The nice thing about one-time events is that they don't have to fit some yearly occasion, and the content depends entirely on the developers involved. Why do you think one-time events are a problem, even for the fusion?
I didn't say that one-time events are the problem, I said that one-time event rewards are the problem.
By that I mean specifically items that are unobtainable afterwards. Giving out items that are obtainable elsewhere in the game is totally fine.
mistergrey wrote:You'll notice that I suggested "one-time event rewards" still be obtainable as an uncommon drop, and there are surely other ways to keep these rewards from being impossible for new players to get.
Your proposed solution is workable, but it isn't good enough, because your solution requires actual work to implement, which in this case can be avoided by simply not doing those things that cause the problems in the first place.
mistergrey wrote:I have to respectfully disagree with you there :P. When the reward for something is always the same, sure that's nice for new players - not so much for the older ones who already have several and are bored of it.
Your criticism applies to the rest of the game as well, if everything is the same then why keep playing? All games struggle with this issue, merely changing up the rewards isn't going to solve this.
You're gonna have to add more quests, maps, monsters, items, all kinds of bells and whistles to keep people interested.
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Re: Item Rarity for the fusion

Post by mistergrey »

Mikko wrote:Your proposed solution is workable, but it isn't good enough, because your solution requires actual work to implement, which in this case can be avoided by simply not doing those things that cause the problems in the first place.

Your criticism applies to the rest of the game as well, if everything is the same then why keep playing? All games struggle with this issue, merely changing up the rewards isn't going to solve this.
You're gonna have to add more quests, maps, monsters, items, all kinds of bells and whistles to keep people interested.
Everything requires work, but sometimes work is as simple as adding a few lines of text to an NPC, or a new item to a specific monster's list of dropped items. How do we avoid "doing those things that caused the problems in the first place"? Frankly, one-time events are usually someone's specific project, so the amount of work put into it depends mostly on how much work they want to put into it.

My criticism *can* apply to much of the rest of the game, that is true. But let's face it, TMW has always been lacking features and a consistent development team. This fusion offers a chance to start fresh, keeping in mind the things we lack right now.

That said, many people have conflicting opinions on what the big problems are. I know many view "rares" as a bad idea, but I disagree - hell, the economy itself speaks for what is popular with the players.

The most popular rewards have always been the ones that won't be around the next year, or the ones with actually useful stats (the Illia rewards come to mind, since they are not "rare" but are difficult to get - and therefore cost more than most unobtainables). Personally, I'm not a fan of using free level-ups as a quest reward, but of course that would also be popular - it's incentive, saves a lot of grinding time, gets players willing to repeat the same quest a 2nd/3rd year in a row.

I guess my point is - different types of quests/events satisfy different types of players more or less. Everyone has their preferences. If a developer has a cool event in mind, and is willing to do the work involved, I don't see how it's a problem to use my suggestion to keep a new reward obtainable. It's basically modifying a few text files to keep the reward circulating in the game after the event is done, to keep newer players from feeling they can never get something they want. In what way is that not "good enough", then?
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Re: Item Rarity for the fusion

Post by Mikko »

mistergrey wrote:That said, many people have conflicting opinions on what the big problems are. I know many view "rares" as a bad idea, but I disagree - hell, the economy itself speaks for what is popular with the players.

The most popular rewards have always been the ones that won't be around the next year, or the ones with actually useful stats (the Illia rewards come to mind, since they are not "rare" but are difficult to get - and therefore cost more than most unobtainables). Personally, I'm not a fan of using free level-ups as a quest reward, but of course that would also be popular - it's incentive, saves a lot of grinding time, gets players willing to repeat the same quest a 2nd/3rd year in a row.
Rare items are popular in-game because certain game design choices(unobtainable, very rare drop) made them popular, so using the in-game popularity of items to justify your design decisions makes no sense.
mistergrey wrote:How do we avoid "doing those things that caused the problems in the first place"?
It's basically modifying a few text files to keep the reward circulating in the game after the event is done, to keep newer players from feeling they can never get something they want. In what way is that not "good enough", then?
mistergrey wrote:Frankly, one-time events are usually someone's specific project, so the amount of work put into it depends mostly on how much work they want to put into it.

My criticism *can* apply to much of the rest of the game, that is true. But let's face it, TMW has always been lacking features and a consistent development team. This fusion offers a chance to start fresh, keeping in mind the things we lack right now.

I guess my point is - different types of quests/events satisfy different types of players more or less. Everyone has their preferences. If a developer has a cool event in mind, and is willing to do the work involved, I don't see how it's a problem to use my suggestion to keep a new reward obtainable.
On one hand you want me to tell you objectively whether or not certain game design choices are good or not,
on the other hand you're telling me it doesn't matter how good or bad the design is as long as someone is willing to put in the work for it.
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Re: Item Rarity for the fusion

Post by WildX »

I think we can have a clearer idea on how to make this work if we consider each item on a case-by-case basis. Whenever a new item is released, it should be routine to figure out how it should be distributed to players without making it break the economy.

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Re: [DIS] Item Rarity for the fusion

Post by mistergrey »

Mikko wrote:Rare items are popular in-game because certain game design choices(unobtainable, very rare drop) made them popular, so using the in-game popularity of items to justify your design decisions makes no sense.
That's just your interpretation. Another way one can see it is that an item being rare IS a design choice, it just happens to also be a popular one with a lot of players. Game design can't force players to like an item, or work hard for it during an event, so perhaps using game design to justify your personal opinion also makes no sense? The only way to truly tell is to see a game with more varied options, and see if the same things remain popular when they are not the only option, in my opinion.
Mikko wrote:On one hand you want me to tell you objectively whether or not certain game design choices are good or not,
on the other hand you're telling me it doesn't matter how good or bad the design is as long as someone is willing to put in the work for it.
You are putting words in my mouth, so I'll clarify for you. I asked you for your opinion, that is true. Your "on the other hand" portion though, is assumption. I said nothing about the quality of the design in what I said; I only said that if a developer makes a good event that isn't meant to be repeated, my suggestion is one way to keep that "one-time reward" circulating. I assume quests won't be added for the fusion if they are lacking in quality, so that really does not seem to be the issue at hand. Other ways to keep rewards circulating in a balanced manner would also be appreciated.

This topic is only meant to discuss ways to improve on what we have, and do better with a fresh start. I do have my own opinions of course, but our focus should be on "How" to make this fun for everyone, rather than arguing about what the problems are (in our respective opinions, of course).

WildX is right too; things need to be kept balanced as they are put in game, something we've not had the most success with up until now.
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Re: [DIS] Item Rarity for the fusion

Post by wushin »

Terms:
  • BOP - Binds on Pickup - Item is bound to the player who gets it. No Trade, No Loan, No Drop, No Sell to player.(force equip if you have too).
  • BOE - Binds on Equip - Item is only bound to player once equipped. No Trade, No Loan, No Drop, No Sell to player after equip.
  • Drop - Item from a Monster in-game
  • Drop Rate - Chance an item will be dropped by a mob
Type of items

Usable items
Usable items should be separated into different types.

examples
  • Poison - Heal (0, 10) and gives Poison (ie: sea drop)
  • Foods - Heal (10, 50) and could give an additional effect (ie: plushroom)
  • Alcohol - Heal (0,50) and give a drunk effect (ie: redplush's wine)
  • Potions - Heal (100, 10000), no side effect
  • Crafted Potions - Heal (100, 10000), side effects
Equipment
Equipment can be crafted and improved.
All equipment from a set uses the same level requierement
Every x levels, a new set should be available for a game story path. (ie: if the player choose, the legion path, he should be able to have a lvl 10 set, a lvl 15 set, a lvl 20 set, etc... if the decided gap is of 5lvls, it prevents huge gaps between levels).
A set doesn't necessarily involve every items type, but a good half at least.

examples
  • One-Handed
  • Two-Handed
  • Ranged
  • Wooden Bow
  • Crafted Bow
  • Crafted Bow with Ribbon (can be different color for each stat it could give)
  • Off-hand
  • Charm
  • Ammo
  • Shield
  • Necklaces
  • Rings
  • Chests
  • Boots
  • Gloves
  • Pants
  • Shields
  • Head Gears
  • Neck Armors
  • Pets
  • Quest
  • Drop/Generic/Misc
  • Cards
Define Item Quality
examples
  • Vendor Trash - Common and useless
  • Standard - Base level of common drop rate
  • Uncommon - One Step up
  • Superior - One more Step up
  • Epic - One more Step up (Quest Only & Boss Fight)
  • Artifact - One more step up (Quest Chain Only & Boss Fight & BOP)
Thoughts about Items and making it in game.
  • Item quality will reflect the game world as well.
  • Item quality will be determined before game entrance.
  • Define what happens to Items gained through Exploit
  • Quest Items should be removed from Inventory once player completes quest with quest only specific items
  • Define what happens to Items gained through script bug
  • Requirements to use items
Last edited by WildX on 08 Nov 2016, 13:40, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Fixed your lists cause they were broken <3
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Re: [DIS] Item Rarity for the fusion

Post by Mikko »

mistergrey wrote:This topic is only meant to discuss ways to improve on what we have, and do better with a fresh start. I do have my own opinions of course, but our focus should be on "How" to make this fun for everyone, rather than arguing about what the problems are (in our respective opinions, of course).
By all means carry on.
wushin wrote:
What exactly do you want us to do with this?
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Re: [DIS] Item Rarity for the fusion

Post by wushin »

Mikko wrote:What exactly do you want us to do with this?
This is everything that needs to be defined with in the scope of Items & Rarity.
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Re: [DIS] Item Rarity for the fusion

Post by Mikko »

wushin wrote:
Mikko wrote:What exactly do you want us to do with this?
This is everything that needs to be defined with in the scope of Items & Rarity.
Ok...
Spoiler:
Terms:
  • BOP - Binds on Pickup - Item is bound to the player who gets it. No Trade, No Loan, No Drop, No Sell to player.(force equip if you have too).
  • BOE - Binds on Equip - Item is only bound to player once equipped. No Trade, No Loan, No Drop, No Sell to player after equip.
  • Drop - Item from a Monster in-game
  • Drop Rate - Chance an item will be dropped by a mob
Type of items

Usable items
Usable items should be separated into different types.

examples
  • Poison - Heal (0, 10) and gives Poison (ie: sea drop)
  • Foods - Heal (10, 50) and could give an additional effect (ie: plushroom)
  • Alcohol - Heal (0,50) and give a drunk effect (ie: redplush's wine)
  • Potions - Heal (100, 10000), no side effect
  • Crafted Potions - Heal (100, 10000), side effects
Equipment
Equipment can be crafted and improved.
A set of equipment is comprised of two or more items.

examples
  • One-Handed
  • Two-Handed
  • Ranged
  • Wooden Bow
  • Crafted Bow
  • Crafted Bow with Ribbon (can be different color for each stat it could give)
  • Off-hand
  • Charm
  • Ammo
  • Shield
  • Necklaces
  • Rings
  • Chests
  • Boots
  • Gloves
  • Pants
  • Shields
  • Head Gears
  • Neck Armors
  • Pets
  • Quest
  • Drop/Generic/Misc
  • Cards
Define Item Quality
examples
  • Vendor Trash - Common and useless
  • Standard - Base level of common drop rate
  • Uncommon - One step up
  • Superior - One more step up
  • Epic - One more step up
  • Artifact - One more step up
Thoughts about Items and making it in game.
  • Item quality will reflect the game world as well.
  • Item quality will be determined before game entrance.
  • Define what happens to Items gained through Exploit
  • Quest Items should be removed from Inventory once player completes quest with quest only specific items
  • Define what happens to Items gained through script bug
  • Requirements to use items
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Re: [DIS] Item Rarity for the fusion

Post by WildX »

Well, once you introduce the idea of BOP and BOE there is no problem anymore. If you can't trade it, you can't break the ecnomy with it.

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