GetTrippy wrote:Is there any plan to change how the blueprints work, because lets get real here if I was to learn a blueprint on how to make a piece of armor I wouldn't forget how to make it right after I made my first piece. Its already hard enough going around just to get the special iron for it. So why not just let us remember the basic blueprints like plate armor but just make it really rare to learn any of the royal armors?
Warning, this post ended up as huge wall of text even when I aimed for something much shorter The basic problem faced gameplay wise was that everyone and their mother was running in tier 3, it was just normal. The devs don't want that for the MMO - plain and simple. So they came with the blueprint system, which overdid it yes, but fundamentally is kind of spot on - it does address what they wanted to change. Their vision is simple:
- tier 1 (as called Novice armor) is supposed to be easy, cheap, "training one" - entry level armor that you provide your new recruits before you can entrust them tier 2 armor.
- tier 2 (as called Regular armor) is let's say standard issue armor for your warriors.
- tier 3 (as called Veteran armor) is supposed to be expensive and superior armor reserved only for the "veterans" aka the best warriors in the group (the elite which is small fraction of the guild) and the combat officers.
- tier 4 (as called Royal armor) is supposed to be ridiculously rare and expensive, acquired and used only by few very influential (let's say really "rich" for the virtual world purpose) individuals like let's say leaders of big guilds, heads of alliances and stuff like that.
The theory is nice and logical, the blueprint system can achieve the aimed design. It's only matter of balance. The current balance fails to achieve 75% of the goals (3 out of the 4 points). The only stuff it achieved is make the tier 2 standard issue armor which is the easiest point of course.
- tier 1 goal is not achieved for 2 very simple reasons - the armor is not cheaper, the linen cloth requirement (which is the limiting factor in mass production of armors) is the same, but that's not even the main reason. You get no tier 3 blueprints by making tier 1 armor, so why would you ever spent the limited amount of linen cloth that you have on tier 1 armor? Instead everyone just mass produces tier 2 armor and puts the lower quality one aside (used worse q linen and metal) to serve the tier 1 purpose while still having the benefit of new blueprints due to the mass production.
- tier 2 goal is met, tier 2 is indeed the standard issue armor that is mass used by everyone.
- tier 3 goal is also not achieved, because they are just too rare (the blueprints, not the regional resources needed for them). Right now they fill the role of royal armor - they are just that rare and valuable ( OK, not really valuable, just very rare) and can only act as show off armor. Seen such armor only on remarkable PvPers (their level on themself) or high ranking officers/leaders, but in both cases only for non-battle situations and for pure show off. It's definitely not the "veterans" BATTLE armor (which they will pick in battle instead of it being way too rare to risk in battle).
- tier 4 goal is even way more off, up to ridiculous levels. So tier 3 fills the role of the royal one, while it is nowhere to be found/seen in the current balance, so everyone pretends it's not existing
For me the problem is the current chance to get the blueprint, not fundamentally the blueprints system. Yes it's "unrealistic" to "forget" the recipes, but gameplay always comes first - stuff like "realistically" and "historically accurate" are secondary.
In the current state of LiF the armor piece itself can not be made that valuable to prevent the mass production of tier 3 armor and it's mass use (the design goal). During testruns 1 and 2 of the MMO wave 1 (so 4 weeks combined) just 2 (two) miners in my guild provided me with 150 (hundred fifty) INGOTS of regional iron. That's on top of the fact they were mining more silver/gold to secure enough high quality jewelry and silver/gold/copper for the vostakus steel tools, so regional iron was not their focus. And still that's absolutely mass producing level and if there was no limitation in blueprints my guild would be running in tier 3 armors, which wouldn't be "working as intended". You won't say that regional stuff isn't rare enough, are you? So that means that the "expensive" armor piece is dead end, you just can not make it as expensive (=human hours required to get the final product, that's the only currency) as let's say a massive building like keep. It will make no sense.
I know that everyone wants the best, but that's not the goal in LiF, no matter how much you "grind" (for let's say gold coins), you most likely won't afford a royal armor. Both tier 3 and tier 4 are let's call them "show off" armors. If you meet someone wearing one there are very high chances that it's either elite warrior or player that excelled in organisational/leadership "skill" and is some guild's officer - in both cases not the regular "peasant" (Life is Feudal xD). In theory everyone can grind enough gold coins through basics material collection tasks and buy such armor from a blacksmith, but is it worth it? You can't wear it if you can't afford to lose it (and when you don't have spare one waiting for you yes you can't afford to lose it). And if you wear it nevertheless is it worth it to grind for weeks in order to lose it in the 1st battle? So it's not impossible for everyone to get one, but it's not viable by design - the guys that are supposed to wear it will just get another one from the guild's armory, while a player who isn't supposed to wear one by design will not
Anyway, this wall of text is way longer already, then I wanted to type 15 minutes ago when I started
But as I explained the current state of the "balance" I should add what I proposed for improvement. The 1st time I complained back in December during the 1st testrun of wave 1 the devs examined the database and agreed that the 1% chance to get a blueprint was way too low and too few blueprints existed in the MMO. My view on "significant increase" was to make it 10%, but it seemed to extreme to them back then, so their "significant increase" ended up being 5%.
Everyone playing knows that's still far off from the target goal explained in the design. Having tier 3 armor doesn't mean using it if it's so rare. After 2 months of MMO (8 weeks total uptime so far) my guild has 5 and half tier 3 sets (metal armors only, the leader/padded ones I didn't count as it's not me making them). But I didn't even bother to craft them all as it's pointless anyway if you wouldn't fight with them. My group is one of the biggest and most active on the MMO (one of the reasons to get so many blueprints), the ratio of farmers to armor smiths is like 10:1 yet the end result after 8 weeks is not even enough to give 1 set to the best PvPers without the officers (out of let's say... 50+ players total). And having 1 set is totally worthless, you will just not fight in it if you have no spare armor. If the devs think that the "elite" group of each guild should be 5% (percent I don't agree with, I would say 10%) then that means the chance should be at least x2 in order for the selected few selected for tier 3 to have enough armors to cover the possible losses or they just won't fight in them to begin with.
In my experience each warrior needs at least 3 armor sets stored for him in order to fight optimally and not consider the armor too valuable to lose and play over defensively or even go in the fight naked (only tabard and boots) as it happens in the beginning when the armory is stretched very thin - players just aren't ready to lose something they know they are short of. I personally would like to see something like 15% chance for the blueprints, that will mean you can actually provide tier 3 for selected few to fight in. Let's take as example a big guild of 100 players. Their "operational" armors (the amount they will try not to drop under, so ofc they will stockpile during peace time) will be something like 300 that should be available in the armory all the time with wartime reserves stocked in other places for wartime use. 15% blueprint chance will mean there are about 35 tier 3 sets (because it's random luck based chance that varies a lot, you can get only 1 full set in 100 armors and you get lots of double, triple and so on parts). So having like 35 tier 3 armors for your 100 man guild doesn't mean that 35% of your guys can wear tier 3 as the game designers seem to think. Instead it means that 5-10 (%)players will use them in battle as they won't have the psychological barrier of "oh shit, I have only 1 rare armor, I'm not using it lol, no chance" and will use it in combat and you will see such players on the battlefield. Of course it still costs regional iron and leather that you need trading to get your hands on, so they will still be used for more important battles instead of just wearing them as a daily dress and just traveling around the map with them. Those 35 tier 3 armors will also mean that the 100 man guild will be able to support like 3 royal armors, which in my eyes isn't too much.
Yes the argument can be made that those armors are not "destroyed" on death, they are looted instead, but I still don't see that as "over flooding" the situation. It will take year before smaller groups can afford to use them reliably in battle as well. 1 year is a lot, active players will demand new content by that time in order to be interested in the MMO and new blueprints to keep them grinding are not out of the question for me which is logical
Also if 15% is too much they can always nerf it instead of increasing the chance with tiny bits all the time that are just never enough. Also the wipe after CBT is not so far away, even 20% chance won't be a mistake as we will at least observe the effects and provide feedback (and statistic in the devs DB) in order to get the ratio "right" for OBT instead of going with unresolved problem forward and playing with values during the no-wipe OBT. And while I think they will not go for 15% I really hope they will at least consider 10%