A few posts from Wyrom and Coase RE: the changes.
Originally Posted by GM WyromJust wanted to touch base on some of the comments. Likely a long post. No tl;dr offered.
>>1) How is the gem-eating armor script affected by this change? These armors were sold at the recent Grand Auction. The script includes the ability to create very heavy critical padding or damage padding (I'm assuming 12 points on the old scale). It couldn't be padded under the old system since the script apparently took up the flare/padding slot, too.
The armor should be totally updated into the new system, so that spot should get freed up for something else. I can look a little more in depth if you notice an issue.
>>Does it create its padding in the new slot, thus blocking the new W/P/S service?
Yes, armors that generate their own padding will all go into the new slot, thus making it ineligible for additional padding.
>>2) How does the premium padding service work now? Does it still add 10 old (150 new) points of padding? Have the costs changed?
Nothing has changed, Premium padding is still the same price and is still HCP.
>>Have the costs changed for premium flaring and premium enchanting W/P/S items?
Surcharges for other properties have not yet been determined, but it will be soon.
>>3) Regarding W/P/S service costs. Are temporary buffs like 1625 paladin bonding or bless/eblade factored into the costs for the service? Meaning, do paladins need to unbond to their weapons in order to not pay more?
It should not. If you feel it does, post about it.
>>Wyrom lied.
This comment seems to stem from two areas, last April's Duskruin and the State of Elanthia (SoE) keynote where I spoke about lower amounts of weighting/padding being more accessible. This is still the plan.
The NPC blacksmith (smithy) that will do the services is being debuted at Duskruin with a service cap and bloodscrip cost, but it will be offered beyond this event very often. Not just pay events. The frequency of this service will be much greater during normal gameplay than at pay events. GM Merchants are also going to be able to offer this a lot more as well. Prior to this update, we very rarely offered anything beyond "heavy" with services. It wasn't until CCF/RtCF that we worked on items beyond 8x or HCP/HCW. And even then, we had capped amounts of points we were allowed to allocate to items. The majority of players under the old ways of releases were always locked out of these types of services. We never did a whole lot per year.
I know the "lied" comment stems into padding, because there was a padding certificate for unpadded armor that was significantly cheaper. The padded armor (and weighted weapons) was outrageously expensive though. People wanting to go from 10 points to 15 points couldn't justify the cost. Here are the stats for all of 2016 though, the year we had the certificates.
(Table was cut from this post, see it here: http://forums.play.net/forums/GemSto...dding/view/140)
These numbers don't include the opening day of the Scrip Shop, but as you can see, these certificates didn't generate a lot of interest at their price points. While I know looking at historic data on items sold isn't the best way to gauge demand or desire, it did show us something wasn't working well with it. Either way, the W/P/S review began before Duskruin 2017, which is one of the primary reasons those certificates were pulled.
There were a few things during the SoE that were not explained in full details, and due to that, led to some misunderstandings. Moving forward, we need to have SoE front loaded so these types of misunderstandings can get cleared up during SimuCon. I ended up having to leave right after that because I had to get right back to work on Duskruin.
When the W/P/S pricing started taking shape, I had a different impression of it. To say I lied to you is not true, I just had a different understanding at the lower amounts. I used lightly at SoE because the numbers showed how easy and feasible it was. I wasn't made aware of the pricing structure to get up to heavy until a little more recently. At first, I had the same amount of concern that some of you are having. But as it was pointed out to me, the system allows a lot more flexibility as well as service allowance. And it frees up the slot on your item for something else. Choosing flares over lightly weighting or AS boosts over lightly padding was a no brainer prior to this update. Now you don't have to. You can easily have a few points of crit padding, damage padding, and TD on a single armor piece. Or a damage weighted, crit weighted, and defender weapon.
The smithy is just the debut for this new system. The best advice I can offer is that if you're not a fan of the smithy's pricing because it's tied into bloodscrip, hold off on getting this service. Ways to pay silver will be around the corner. I'll also see if there is something we can do for the people who were anticipating "heavy" being offered, but keep in mind with the figures above that it wasn't a quick and easy sale for the majority. Duskruin will allow people to get a head start with improving their items. GM Zissu also pointed out that there is a number at which the pricing will be very cheap if you don't use all 25 services at once.
There are a lot of people that have been working on this update, Zissu being lead, but most of the Development team has been involved. As much as everyone thinks I'm involved in every decision, I can tell you I'm not. GM Coase has been on staff since 2002 and has a very sharp understanding of a lot of the mechanical facets of our game. I trust his decision making. All of my Senior GameMasters oversee their individual teams and make most the decisions on projects, approvals, and so on. I'm not a massive micromanager. We do a lot of collaborative work and there is a very decentralized management structure when it comes to game updates. I have a great understanding of the game, but GM Coase is who I'd call an expert when it comes to the core game mechanics. GM Estild is an expert on our core magic systems. GM Finros is an expert on our core combat systems. They know a lot more than me in their areas of expertise. No single person is pulling the trigger though. We all work really hard on this game to bring you a final product that's worth playing.
I've been working every day since SimuCon for anywhere between 12 to 15 hours each day. Saturday was the first day that I got to do something with my son since July (we went mini golfing, but even that got delayed due to the game crashing). I'm trying really hard to make sure we continue to offer players new and interesting ways to play the game. This update was a big thing for the game and itemization. We'll keep discussing these changes though, and I'm sure tweaks will be often. While you might think I'm just pressing buttons and creating cash grabs, I'm actually dedicating all my time and energy to this game to make sure it lasts a long time. You're welcome to your opinion of me and how I do things, but my goals are in the best interest of GemStone IV.
Wyrom, PMOriginally Posted by GM CoaseOne important thing I would like to emphasize is this is explicitly -not- a "Duskruin" implementation. While this was released during a Duskruin event and it made sense to have the merchant aspect debut at the ongoing event, this is an expansion to the entire game and not just something that is only for players that attend pay events. It is, in fact, a major update to all gear, as you can now have pretty much any armor padded or any weapon weighted/sighted and any existing weighted/padded items have become much more useful:
-You can now bless it to varying degrees.
-You can now eblade it to varying degrees.
-You can now enchant it.
-You can now stack it with many other properties.
You now also have the very easily accessible option of steadily improving pretty much any gear that you have with a benefit that, due to the above, no longer comes with quite so many restrictions. While it may seem underwhelming to only be able to put 2 points of weighting on a fresh item at this one event, that two points is now quite a lot better than two points was a few days ago, since it no longer restricts you in quite so many ways. It is also important to note that since this Duskruin is the very first outing of the system, we made the decision to be very conservative with access to make sure the system is actually working as it should. It wouldn't be ideal for either side if we allowed unlimited services, only to need to refund large amounts of purchases if it turned out that price or other changes needed to be made.
Cost and time-wise, while the prices will vary significantly based upon the exact attributes of your item, we have designed the system such that if you want to to gradually improve your 5x weapon from 0 to heavy weighting over a few years, you can do it for less than 12k bloodscrip (and will be able to break up part of that cost into silvers too) or for around 9m if you go the all-silvers route (silvers is the primary currency that we designed this for, BTW, not scrip or any other alternate currency).
If you want to do it faster, then you also have the -option- to pay more, either silver or scrip. And the option to pay silvers was pretty much completely unavailable outside of pay events in the past. That will not be the case going forward. Wandering merchants can and will offer services for your gear. Merchants at free events will offer these services. Going to pay events will offer opportunities for guaranteed access and the option to pay in alternative currencies but, again, this is a game expansion, not a Duskruin or pay event expansion. It is for everyone, whether you grind bloodscrip or just want to play the game and improve your favorite pieces of gear over time.
Coase
Originally Posted by GM Coase>This is true and what I love about the new system. But the kill-buzz is thinking just how long is it going to take me to get to something like +10 crit padding, +10 damage padding, and +TD or flares on my armor? Half a decade or thousands of upfront dollars or a prohibitive amount of silvers? I guess I'll have to wait and see.
The combination of armor properties you're describing was pretty hard to achieve at all just a few days ago. It would have definitely required many years of waiting for very rare raffle/auction wins -or- paying a lot of money across multiple events. What these changes have done is give you a clear definable path to achieving that goal and allow you to make decisions based upon that information. There was no path in the past, just hoping that an event -might- offer one part of that service and then hoping that you could jump through all the correct hoops while also hoping that someone else didn't beat you to it.
>effective levels of W/P/S
One of the driving forces behind this change was to make -any- level of W/P/S "effective". In the past, adding small amounts of W/P/S to an item actively made it worse because you were taking a heavy opportunity cost to have that 1 point of weighting. It closed off improvement and use avenues. That is no longer the case.
>based on the foreshadowed DR implementation
This system is not a Duskruin implementation. Further, this Duskruin run is explicitly limited far more than what we expect to allow once we are confident that the system is working as intended.
Coase