more thoughts on repair

[bilbous]

Does anyone think this is worth training? I repaired a1/50 battle axe today, took 97 seconds and was worth all of 3 pp/s @34th level. It needed no second repair. I think it lost 2 points of max quality. Someone gave me the axe as I haven't whittled one down like that  for as long as I can remember. I used to do a lot of hand to hand but it is too annoying now, what with the critters maneuvering and running away, if i wanted to do that I'd get in pvp. Anyway just because I do not like that doesn't mean is isn't a good addition to the game overall.

I was thinking, how about some training weapons that wear out easily and are difficult to repair? Those could be useful, or you could make the practices dummies wear down weapons faster, no need to use a good weapon on them, it doesn't matter how long it takes to destroy them. How about returning a cost factor to weapon repair so that more value gives more experience again? it would be good for the enchanted armor as well as the magic weapons. How about making repair kits multi-use items so that the amount repaired comes off the quality of the kit. If you repair an item that has one point of damage your kit becomes 49/50, if the item is 1/300 you might need 6 kits to repair it if your skill is not high. You could make it so every 50 points of skill you repair an extra point of damage per point of quality. At 25 level you would repair 1.5, at 50 2, at 75 2.5 and so on. Whatever the rate is not important now, just for example.

Just a few ideas, not fully formed. What do you think?

[Rigwyn]

You just ruined a perfectly good training axe. Shame on you!     

If I was training axe, I would have paid more for a nice 1/50 than for a pristine 50/50.

[bilbous]

well buddy who gave it to me to train repair on also gave me a couple reinforced battle axes at the same quality which I deemed not worth practicing repair on. so there is that. I did get 3 times the pp for that repair but 3*1 is still only 3. I suppose I could have added it to a stack of axes and had them all to repair but , frankly, to me that is cheating. no different than making a shortcut with a hundred lines of /pet stay to train empathy with. It is the way these things are done generally.

Too bad you had nothing to say about my ideas, but hey, I've done the same thing myself so it is all good.

[Rigwyn]

I think if you can have fun or make a profit on it that's worth your time, then great.  My main only uses looted weapons for stat modification so they never wear. I have no use for repairs. If I was playing a character who used weapons only, then it would depend on the cost of replacing a weapon versus paying to have it repaired or training the skill myself. I used to do fine with 15 or 20 in repair weapons, but I think the mechanics have changed since then.

I guess I would invest in repairing if the cost of a new weapon was prohibitive and if the cost of repair was significantly less. I would probably only pay someone else to do it if it took a stupid amount of training to repair the weapon adequately.

Now if magic/stat modifiers also wore out with usage ( ie. holding and casting )  then I would have a problem.  o_O

[bilbous]

Thank you for addressing the point, I'll put you down as one who thinks it is not worth training the skill. It is a feeling I share. Personally unless I have a compelling reason to modify my stats I just use whatever is handy for whichever skill I am training. At the moment I use a bow of Laanx's wrath so I can cast Psychic Blow to train Azure, in a couple levels I won't need it anymore. It would be nice to have an enrage spell that caused the opponent to go toe to toe and not dance around. I'm not quite at the point where I can go toe to toe with an ulber or tough consumer using swords and other things are not strong enough to hold my attention.

My main interest in the game is to try everything and see what works and what doesn't. I have to say repair does not work. It works mechanically, of course, but it doesn't work as a useful addition to the game. I suppose someone could role play a repairman and make it work in that way but I am hard put to see how they would stay in work.

[Eonwind]

We know there are a few incentive to use and train the skill and we are designing some actions to make it more worth.
Just a few note on the skill:

• the greater the weapon's cost the harder to repair (this also mean you can't repair some expensive item until your skill isn't high enough)
• some epuipment is actually quite expensive (enchanted armors may cost a few millions) and may be worth repairing a 300q armor instead of trashing it and buying a new one
• given the cost of a single repair kit now it's not worth using the skill on basic equipment as it's cheaper to buy a new one

A few ideas we threw in to make the skill more worth using are:

• make it so there are different training kits at different prices and change the engine accordingly so we can estimate the repair cost and make it worth using (instead of buying new stuff) for the players willing to bother training the skill
• make it so the skill pays off in term of practice and experience given
• make it so the skill can remove certain "negative" looted modifiers like Ruined, Scruffy, ... this way looted and repaired weapons will immediately gain value (once the modifier is removed)

Now the skills pays off the same amount of experience like any other skill in game and can be trained at the same speed (much faster than in the recent past), the last point is partially implemented and already available in game: you can already remove negative modifiers from looted weapons if your skill is high enough (starting from appropriate repair skill 20 and up). Unfortunately you can only repair damaged items so you cannot repair a newly looted 50q scruffy weapons but you need to use it a few, lower its quality at least to 49/50 then use the skill. This, of course, is not the intended behaviour, as I said more work is required engine side.

[Rigwyn]

make it so the skill can remove certain "negative" looted modifiers like Ruined, Scruffy, ... this way looted and repaired weapons will immediately gain value (once the modifier is removed)

Nice.

[bilbous]

very nice. indeed. I had not come across that. Seeing as  how those scruffy or ruined weapons have much lower than standard slash values, or whichever, does removing the name modifier in this way restore that value to it? Would it be better to make those weapons pre-damaged i.e. scruffy 40/50, tarnished 45/50, tattered 1/50, ruined 1/10? I would imagine there would be nothing you could do to a "copper" or "tin" weapon to remove its negative effect.

[Eonwind]

very nice. indeed. I had not come across that. Seeing as  how those scruffy or ruined weapons have much lower than standard slash values, or whichever, does removing the name modifier in this way restore that value to it? Would it be better to make those weapons pre-damaged i.e. scruffy 40/50, tarnished 45/50, tattered 1/50, ruined 1/10? I would imagine there would be nothing you could do to a "copper" or "tin" weapon to remove its negative effect.

Removing the "scruffy" modifier the weapons stats will get back to normal for example a "Scruffy Longsword of Talad's Arm" repaired removing the scruffy malus will become a "Longsword of Talad's Arm" so: base longsword stats plus all Talad's Arm benefits.
Tin, Copper and modifier like that won't be affected by repair, like you said there's nothing you can do to improve their quality with a repair skill.
About making those weapons pre-damage I'm not sure it's the best way to fix the problem of un-repairable items.

[bilbous]

No I just thought it might be a logical affect of the modifier but if as you say the malus is removed then that works just as well. I tried to repair a ruined sabre today with 34 skill today but it just repaired the damage and didn't remove the malus. Would that have been because I rolled too low on my success chance or some other reason?

[Roled]

RR digs this word, "malus".  Say it again!   

[Eonwind]

RR digs this word, "malus".  Say it again!   

As you wish! 

No I just thought it might be a logical affect of the modifier but if as you say the malus is removed then that works just as well. I tried to repair a ruined sabre today with 34 skill today but it just repaired the damage and didn't remove the malus. Would that have been because I rolled too low on my success chance or some other reason?

The reason is your skill is too low to remove the "ruined" malus
(hint: at your level you'll be able to remove "Scruffy" and with some more training the "Worn" modifier).

[bilbous]

Thank you for the tip

Does removing a modifier increase the xp gained for the action?
Did you give any thought to stepping the removal: worn->scruffy->cleared.
This is a great thing as is though

[Eonwind]

Does removing a modifier increase the xp gained for the action?

for now no specific xp increase is designed for a modifier's removal

Did you give any thought to stepping the removal: worn->scruffy->cleared.

to be honest this would be a lot more work to do and I'm not sure it's worth the effort but I'll think about it.

[Roled]

RR has a new weapon he looted- the Neotin's Foot of Stinky Malus- its almost unique! Now on sale at the Oja market...