Repair needs work

[bilbous]

I would very much like it if instead of repairs automatically being stopped by another activity there could be a configurable option that could be set to prompt for yes/no i.e. "do you wish to stop your repair .... Yes/no?"
I lost 20 minutes work last night due to unfortunate key presses while chatting and was most annoyed. I realize I should have been more careful under the circumstances but realistically speaking I would not design such a twitchy character normally, and in the exceptional chance I did I would not attempt an extensive repair casually with that character.

[Zan]

You have me to blame for that. I whined about it being impossible to get out of a repair. Back then when you started a repair you couldn't move or do anything else anymore besides chatting.

I do think your way is the best way to handle it though. Asking confirmation when cancelling a repair would be helpful.

On another note, how is the ability to repair items that you can't equip coming along?

[bilbous]

I would think if you cannot equip it you cannot understand it well enough to repair it. I can't say I have tried lately but I do not seem to be able to equip seduction weapons. That would apply to items with magical effects, that is, as you should be able to mend normal armor too heavy for you to wear, for example.

[Zan]

I see your point but then things are getting complicated. Like you said, weight restrictions shouldn't prevet repairing.

 A blacksmith doesn't need to be trained in wearing heavy plate mail day in, day out to be able to make one. At the same rate a repairer doesn't need to be able to wield a weapon efficiently to fix it. They can just put it on the table if it's too heavy and work on it there.

Sure a weapon with intricate magical properties can't be fixed by someone with no sufficient knowledge. But then I think they should make that differentiation in the repair skill level, not the stats that allow you to equip it. Magical weapons will just require a much higher knowledge about repairing the weapon, possibly also magic way skill?

[bilbous]

Well I suppose it really depends on how the magic imbuing is going to be implemented. If it will require the permanent placement of a particular glyph within the handle or blade it might be possible for that to become lost if say the part, handle/blade, it is attached to is replaced as part of the repair. Of course that is more in depth than repair currently gets. And in fact there may be more than one method of imbuing the magic with different levels of effectiveness that require different repair techniques.

Right now it is just hard to damage your weapons due to the AI being down  the last few times I've been on. I had to resort to sparring with another repairman to damage some things. I should have just bought a bunch of axes and handed them to him and let him dull them on my hide because his axe skill was too low to damage me but mine was such that to damage my weapons I had to nearly kill him (three or four actual hits). It was kind of OOC but we both needed, or rather wanted, to practice repair.

[monktbd]

Well if you can carry the weapon in your backpack you should also be able to hold it in your hand, so equipping it should be possible for all unmodified weapons. Whether you can really wield it and do damage is a whole different story.
But repairing should not be prohibited if you cannot properly wield it unless - again - it is a modified weapon.

I also hope for a repair system that takes quality, efficiency and magical modifiers into account when it comes to complexity for repairing and not only the price of the item.
The price only dependency is a minor problem for weapons but a much bigger problem for armor. Maybe different formulas will be used soon as well.

[bilbous]

A blacksmith who does not know how to wear heavy armor is unlikely to make heavy armor that doesn't chaff in all the wrong places. Repairing armor is slightly different, you can patch a hole or reattach a connection without too much trouble although it is still possible to screw up if you do not know how it is worn. I believe a developer has previously agreed that some ability in weapon skills will ultimately be needed to master weapon smithing. Perhaps that has changed or I am mis-remembering.

High repair skill allowing players to equip weapons without the required stats is an interesting idea as currently there does not seem to be too ,uch demand for the skill  and being faced with a 4/50 weapon that take 10 minutes to repair 4 points with greater than 20 skill is rather daunting. That particular weapon I was asked to repair would likely have taken four hours or something of real time. And that is without random bad key presses aborting the process. What might really be good is an option to make a full repair which will log your character off for the duration and not allow it back on until the full time has elapsed. This would allow you to log in with a different character, possibly from a different account if locking the first account was deemed preferable to just locking the first character. As far as I know there is nothing else that ties up your character for such long periods in a single action.

Lastly what is a modified weapon?

[Marqsaynt]

Personally, I don't mind that it cancels automatically if you move or something the most annoying thing I find is that it erases any work already done during that lengthy repair.  Just on a realistic note, if someone spends 5 minutes sharpening a sword out in the great outdoors, it starts raining so they run for shelter, when they sit down by a nice fireplace and pull that same sword out to work on it makes little sense that it's magically become dull again.

If there was someway to make it so if you do move and stop working, the next time you did "/repair" you just pick up where you left off using the same repair kit you'd started with, it'd be a whole lot less frustrating to put in the time to repair those fancy weapons... and would make it a lot easier to not curse Laanx anytime the server decides to go down in the 9th minute of a 10 minute repair wasting a repair kit and even worse your time.

[theirah]

about that, perhaps have a certain time for the quality to go up? that way, you can stop when you want to, which would also solve the problem of the lower levels having an advantage over the higher levels in over-repairing. However, there would have to be a new system for making the quality go down.

[monktbd]

Lastly what is a modified weapon?

I call a modified weapon - or better weapon with a modifier - any weapon that has an additional name to it, like dark, frosty, different material, etc... that changes the properties of that weapon, whether it may be price, speed, damage, requirements, etc..

I agree that a certain weapon skill should be needed to master a sword making skill, same applies to armor. I also think that maybe certain stats are needed to repair certain items, i just don't think it makes much sense for nonmagical weapons to not be able to hold it in your hand when you can already carry it in your backpack. A magical weapon can always have a spell on it that requires certain stats to be able to hold it properly.

On the other hand one could argue that equipping means to be able to hold the weapon properly, i.e. wield it. But then I don't think equipping should be needed in all cases for repairing an item.