Update #58: Crafting with Tim Cain!

[Monte Carlo]

 

Based on discussions on the forums and conversations I had with people on the team, we will be doing the following:

 

* Removing durability as a mechanic on items.

* Removing the Crafting skill (specifically).  The crafting system and its associated mechanics will remain, as-is.

 

Ultimately, solving skill imbalance and endgame wealth abundance problems is not worth what players perceive as uninteresting and unenjoyable gameplay.  I can still solve the skill imbalance problems by removing the problem skill.  As for endgame wealth abundance, we will continue to create places for you to use wealth in the economy: unique items, the stronghold, optional quest/dialogue gates, etc.  Ultimately, if those options go unused, I'll have to trust that the majority of players won't be significantly troubled by an excess of wealth in the late game.

 

Thanks for all of your feedback.

 

Here's a suggestion:

 

Although durability as it applies to the party has been removed, it could still be applied to enemy gear. When collecting loot, it would add flavor and realism to have some portion of it be badly worn and damaged. If the party finds a particularly nice item that is in poor shape, then a visit to a smithy would get it fixed. Bingo, you get the same result of encouraging interaction with an artisan. Those who don't want to deal with such maintenance can just sell the damaged gear at a lower price.

 

 

This is a really good idea.

[IndiraLightfoot]

I like Lord Crash and when he is upset it makes me sad.

 

Cheer up Crash, it's only durability!

 

I do too. LordCrash is great!

 

So, let's have those corners of your mouth pointing upwards again, shall we?

[Malekith]

 

 

So you pull off a Bioware stunt now? Leaving your vision (or Tim Cain's vision) because some mouthy people claim what the game should be like? Why not doing a proper voting on the topic?

 

I'm pretty disappointed now how this turned out.....

Yeah a bit of a swing and a miss there buddy

 

He wasn't sold on the mechanic in the first place.

 

 

Yeah, but what was the purpose of the update in that case? Are they (Tim and Josh and whoever) not able to clear that in the group BEFORE they go public? It seems like Sawyer only wanted a "backing" for his opinion.....in that case he should have had the guts to talk about the systems and his stance on it himself like "hey guys, we talked about a system in the group and we want to hear your opinion on the topic"......instead he sent Tim to make an update about it withouth mentioning his own doubts.....that's just lame, sorry.

 

Nothing is set in stone yet. In fact believe they talk exactly about the things they aren't so sure about in order to see our opinions... and then back on the design table.

[IndiraLightfoot]

 Here's a suggestion:

 

Although durability as it applies to the party has been removed, it could still be applied to enemy gear. When collecting loot, it would add flavor and realism to have some portion of it be badly worn and damaged. If the party finds a particularly nice item that is in poor shape, then a visit to a smithy would get it fixed. Bingo, you get the same result of encouraging interaction with an artisan. Those who don't want to deal with such maintenance can just sell the damaged gear at a lower price.

 

 

It's an interesting idea. One flaw is that I'm not very fond of good magic items being flawed and in need of repair. And if they are out of this mechanic, wouldn't that leave us players heaps of literal trash that only the greedy would repair in order to sell it at a higher price?

[Shevek]

A few points of clarification:

 

* "Crafting" is one skill, but the crafting system uses multiple skills.  I.e., the crafting system does not rely on the existence of the Crafting skill.

* Other than reaching the edge of a map to access the world map, there is no fast-travel in PE.  That said, we will likely avoid the IWD-style 5-level dungeons without semi-regular shortcuts back to the surface (N.B.: this does not mean Skyrim-style loops).

* Most items do take up space in personal inventories!  The party Stash is unlimited, but the Pack (made of personal inventories) is not.  Crafting items (and quest items) always go into (and come out of) the Stash.  We are doing this specifically to address common complaints about crafting items cluttering the inventory.  Since crafting is typically done at camps or other non-combat locations, allowing the items to come out of the Stash doesn't seem to create any problems.

 

As I posted on SA, Crafting (the skill) and its associated subsystems (like durability) were the elements I felt least confident about in our skill system.  I strongly believe that choices within an array should give the player reasonably balanced benefits.  Because certain fundamental skills (like Stealth) can clearly benefit from multiple party members taking them and can contribute to party effectiveness in combat, I believe that other skills should do the same in their own way -- enough to make all of them appealing choices on multiple party members.  This also has the benefit of making the uses of skills much higher-frequency than the individual uses that depend on designer content (e.g. unlocking doors or gaining a dialogue/quest option).

 

As an example, Medicine in its various Fallout forms contributes to the efficacy of stimpaks.  There are many other places were Medicine can be used in quests and dialogue, but it has high-frequency use with stimpaks (in or between combats).  It's a benefit that can apply to any character who has the skill, even if a character with a higher rating in a party may be "the guy" to perform the high-difficulty actions.

 

With all of the skills other than Crafting (specifically), those high-frequency benefits/uses were easy to come by.  Crafting presented some difficulties and, as I wrote previously, I was concerned about the lack of systemic drains in the economy.  Many people have mentioned a lot of potential uses for wealth.  Most of them are great ideas and ones that we plan to use, but the vast majority of them are not systemic, rather content-dependent or scripted instances (e.g. bribes).  However, it is clear from discussions here and elsewhere that the long-term balance of the economy is not a concern for most players who voiced their opinions -- and almost certainly not in the endgame.

 

Based on discussions on the forums and conversations I had with people on the team, we will be doing the following:

 

* Removing durability as a mechanic on items.

* Removing the Crafting skill (specifically).  The crafting system and its associated mechanics will remain, as-is.

 

Ultimately, solving skill imbalance and endgame wealth abundance problems is not worth what players perceive as uninteresting and unenjoyable gameplay.  I can still solve the skill imbalance problems by removing the problem skill.  As for endgame wealth abundance, we will continue to create places for you to use wealth in the economy: unique items, the stronghold, optional quest/dialogue gates, etc.  Ultimately, if those options go unused, I'll have to trust that the majority of players won't be significantly troubled by an excess of wealth in the late game.

 

Thanks for all of your feedback.

 

Awesome solution and I want to thank you for listening to player concerns. I love the idea that crafting is in but the skill is not. I find that no games balance crafting and other skills very well. I am VERY happy durability is out. I am almost certain that would have been the first thing modded out if possible.

 

Might I make a suggestion for using up some player wealth: Whatever a player uses his gold on should feel like WORTHWHILE advancement not ARBITRARY punishment. This is why durabilty fell flat. I should be either furthering the story or increasing my power or prestige when I use my wealth. This could be as easy as spending gold to upgrade stronghold services (forge, etc), for example.

[Sensuki]

Yeah, but what was the purpose of the update in that case? Are they (Tim and Josh and whoever) not able to clear that in the group BEFORE they go public? It seems like Sawyer only wanted a "backing" for his opinion.....in that case he should have had the guts to talk about the systems and his stance on it himself like "hey guys, we talked about a system in the group and we want to hear your opinion on the topic"......instead he sent Tim to make an update about it withouth mentioning his own doubts.....that's just lame, sorry.

It is a bit unfair to call Josh Sawyer out on that. Tim Cain did not do an update for a long time, since the Kickstarter campaign. People then were then requesting an update from Tim Cain. So Tim Cain came back and did an update. They share the update duties around between Josh, Adam, Rob Nesler and Tim (and now Bobby and Brandon). Since Tim's last update (Update 52), we got a brief update from Bobby Null, a nice big Art update from Rob Nesler, a production update from Adam Brennecke, a class update from Josh Sawyer, a Production update from Brandon Adler and this time it was Tim's turn again.

 

Let me quote the update and cross out the now invalid information

 

Update by Tim Cain, Senior Programmer and Designer

 

 

I have been working on a lot of different gameplay mechanics since my last update about monks (Update #52). All of the classes are in the game now, along with their abilities and spells up to level 5. This should give us a good basis to test encounters in the game's early maps. So I have turned my attention to some of the non-combat skills, including crafting.

 

Crafting Basics

Crafting is the skill that you use to make equippable items like armor and weapons, and consumable items like potions and food. To begin crafting, you must find an appropriate crafting location.

• Forges – these blacksmithing locations can be used to make all of the equippable gear. From helmets to armor to boots, if you can wear it, then you can make it here.
• Labs – these alchemical tables are used to make any enchantments, as well as all alchemical consumables like potions, scrolls or figurines (which let you summon a creature that will fight for you). If you want to improve your gear or brew a potion, you need to find one of these labs.
• Hearths – these cooking spots are used to make food and drink that can give you long-term benefits when you ingest them. Many rest areas will have hearths, so crafting of this sort can often be done “in the field”.

When you use the central object at these locations, such as the anvil at the forge, you will enter a crafting interface that displays all of your forge recipes, broken down into categories such as armor, weapons, boots, helmets, rings, etc. You pick a category and can see all of the recipes you know for that category. Each recipe has a set of ingredients needed to make its item (or items, as some recipes will make batches of items). Some recipes will have additional prerequisites, including requiring you or a companion to have a certain talent or ability or even skill at an appropriate level. Higher level recipes have more prerequisites and need rarer ingredients.

 

You may be wondering where you get recipes. You get a few automatically when you level up your crafting skill, and you can also buy them from vendors. Sometimes you will find recipes in the world, as loot on creatures or as rewards for finishing quests. There will be a lot of recipes in Project Eternity for you to find, so make sure you explore every nook and cranny of this world, especially the crannies.

 

Crafting doesn’t take any time. If you have everything the recipe needs and are at the appropriate crafting location, then you can make the item instantly. Usually the ingredients are used up, but sometimes they are reusable. And for recipes like enchantments, the main ingredient is not used up but is instead improved by the addition of a new bonus. For example, you might have a sword with high accuracy and a Flaming Sword recipe that adds fire damage to any sword. If you use that sword with that recipe, you will have the same sword with a high accuracy bonus but also with additional fire damage! Win win!

 

Crafting can also be used to repair items, but first we should talk about item durability in Project Eternity.

 

Item Durability

Most items don’t degrade over time. This means that boots, rings, helmets, gloves, amulets, cloaks, and belts are not worn down by use. However, weapons, shields, and armor (that is, chest armor) do have durability values and are worn down by use. Specifically, every attack with a weapon degrades that weapon by one unit, and armor and shields are similarly degraded when the wearer is attacked.

 

Items have lots of units of durability, and they do not suffer any negative effects until those units are completely gone. When an item has reached 25% of its maximum durability, it will become “worn” and appear that way in your inventory, but it will not behave any differently until the last unit of durability is lost. At that point, the item is “damaged” and the following effects will happen:

• Weapons – damaged weapons do less damage and have less accuracy
• Armor – damaged armor has lower damage thresholds and the wearer’s attack speed is slower
• Shields – damaged shields lose part of their defense bonuses

Items can never become worse than “damaged”. They will not break or become more damaged. They just stay damaged until you have them fixed.

 

Vendors can repair items for money, so that’s a fast and easy way to keep all of your items in top notch condition. The cost of the repair is proportional to the percentage of the durability lost and the cost of the item, so expensive items tend to be more costly to repair than cheaper ones, especially if you let them lose a lot of their durability before repairing them.

 

However, let’s see how you can save your precious hard-earned money by bringing this discussion back to crafting.

 

A typical Hearth where you can craft food and drink.

Durability and Crafting

You or any companion can repair items by using the crafting skill at a forge. More importantly, you can use materials instead of money, if you have the right ones. The higher your crafting skill or the more materials you have, the less money it costs to repair an item. Some items might even repair for free!

 

But wait...there’s more!

 

The crafting skill also decreases the rate of degradation on items used by a character. So if you have the crafting skill, when you hit someone, your weapon doesn’t lose a whole point of durability. Instead it loses a fraction of a point. And when you are hit, your armor and shield don’t lose a whole point each either. And the higher your crafting skill, the less durability you lose. We are assuming that if you know how to make an item, you also know how to use and take care of it.

 

So a high crafting skill means your weapons, armor, and shields degrade more slowly and you can repair those items (and those of your companions) more cheaply than a vendor. That is such a win-win situation, how can you afford to NOT take the crafting skill?!

 

I’ll answer that question in a future update about the other skills in Project Eternity.

 

I believe that the reason for revealing Crafting was to see whether we would accept Crafting as a skill. It is not dissimilar to their UI update.

 

Beyond the reasoning for their change to Crafting, why are you unhappy, do you miss the Item Durability mechanic or something ? (which is understandable).

Edited July 6, 2013 by Sensuki

[Kamos]

What are you saying exactly? That the people arguing against the durability system represent the whole of Project Eternity backers? In case you misunderstood me, what I'm saying is that not everyone is constantly giving feedback or even paying attention to it, and that that groups wishes may get trampled on by the vocal minority without them ever getting a chance to realize what's happening. As has already happened.

And I say minority but who knows, I'm a dying species, might be there's just a few guys who think like I do. But I do feel cheated nonetheless. I have no idea how many pages of whatever thread Obsidian might have gotten complaints about this, but can you really implement that into design without effectively gauging how big the displeased audience is in relation. Something as rudimentary as a poll would at least give you a sense of the scale. Now it's just "we saw a few negative posts, lets scrap it".

I gave my money to Obsidian, and I have great faith in Sawyer and his vision for what a RPG should be. And now that faith is taken into another direction. If I wished for a game designed by some random forumite, i'd have given him that money instead. This is not a decision you can just half-ass, and go by feel basis.

 

 

Here is the poll you've asked for:

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64050-item-durability/

 

As for "we saw some negative posts, let's scrap it"; it is actually more a case of "we weren't so sure about durability to begin with so thank you for giving us a reason to remove it". Perhaps you should go back a few pages and read some posts?

 

I like the idea of durability, but only if the devs are willing to get it right. "Money sink" isn't getting it right.

Edited July 6, 2013 by Kamos

[IndiraLightfoot]

And they didn't go public. They did what they have done all along. They honour us, their backers, to show us updates that we are supposed to discuss and react on, obviously. And they know we will have different opinions, just as those helping out academics in my example above always have. It make look like a done deal, and sometimes the presentation appears to be more publication-like and definitive than it is, but that's the new digital technologies for you.

Edited July 6, 2013 by IndiraLightfoot

[Lucidbro]

 

What are you saying exactly? That the people arguing against the durability system represent the whole of Project Eternity backers? In case you misunderstood me, what I'm saying is that not everyone is constantly giving feedback or even paying attention to it, and that that groups wishes may get trampled on by the vocal minority without them ever getting a chance to realize what's happening. As has already happened.

And I say minority but who knows, I'm a dying species, might be there's just a few guys who think like I do. But I do feel cheated nonetheless. I have no idea how many pages of whatever thread Obsidian might have gotten complaints about this, but can you really implement that into design without effectively gauging how big the displeased audience is in relation. Something as rudimentary as a poll would at least give you a sense of the scale. Now it's just "we saw a few negative posts, lets scrap it".

I gave my money to Obsidian, and I have great faith in Sawyer and his vision for what a RPG should be. And now that faith is taken into another direction. If I wished for a game designed by some random forumite, i'd have given him that money instead. This is not a decision you can just half-ass, and go by feel basis.

 

 

Here is the poll you've asked for:

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64050-item-durability/

 

As for "we saw some negative posts, let's scrap it"; it is actually more a case of "we weren't so sure about durability to begin with so thank you for giving us a reason to remove it". Perhaps you should go back a few pages and read some posts?

 

I like the idea of durability, but only if the devs are willing to get it right. "Money sink" isn't getting it right.

 

 

Well thanks for the reply, I did read Sawyers post of course, that doesn't change the fact, that what was designed was changed by feedback, if that's the post you're referring to. What's odd here though is that the majority actually voted for item durability, yet it was removed? As well as back to what I was referring to, 120+ voted on this poll.. Out of ~74000 backers. 

[Sannom]

What are you saying exactly? That the people arguing against the durability system represent the whole of Project Eternity backers?

I said that the people you hear the most, whichever side they choose in a given argument, are backers. In this case, all sides were backers, one side made good arguments and the developers agreed with them. End of story.

 

So you pull off a Bioware stunt now? Leaving your vision (or Tim Cain's vision) because some mouthy people claim what the game should be like? Why not doing a proper voting on the topic?

The vote idea is stupid because this whole thing shouldn't be run like a democracy.

 

Yeah, but what was the purpose of the update in that case? Are they (Tim and Josh and whoever) not able to clear that in the group BEFORE they go public?

Well, of course not, else they wouldn't have gone to the public in the first place.

 

Although durability as it applies to the party has been removed, it could still be applied to enemy gear. When collecting loot, it would add flavor and realism to have some portion of it be badly worn and damaged. If the party finds a particularly nice item that is in poor shape, then a visit to a smithy would get it fixed. Bingo, you get the same result of encouraging interaction with an artisan. Those who don't want to deal with such maintenance can just sell the damaged gear at a lower price.

No. Item durability should be all or nothing.

[Archmage Silver]

Based on discussions on the forums and conversations I had with people on the team, we will be doing the following:

 

* Removing durability as a mechanic on items.

* Removing the Crafting skill (specifically).  The crafting system and its associated mechanics will remain, as-is.

 

Ultimately, solving skill imbalance and endgame wealth abundance problems is not worth what players perceive as uninteresting and unenjoyable gameplay.  I can still solve the skill imbalance problems by removing the problem skill.  As for endgame wealth abundance, we will continue to create places for you to use wealth in the economy: unique items, the stronghold, optional quest/dialogue gates, etc.  Ultimately, if those options go unused, I'll have to trust that the majority of players won't be significantly troubled by an excess of wealth in the late game.

 

Thanks for all of your feedback.

I applaud your solution, kudos!

[Jhonrock]

I'm ok with the craft skill out of the game, i didn't liked the concept very much, but i loved the craft system and i'm very happy that it will stay in the game as it is now. There's no motive to cut out the craft system from the game. The ones who doesn't like to craft, just keep playing and using the looted items. I'm sure that in the game we will find good items in both ways, crafting or looting.

 

[JWestfall]

I've had my early concerns about the devs pandering too seriously to the vocal crowd, and the dangers of "design by committee" - I think I may even have voiced them somewhere on these forums.  However, it has been made clear many times that the devs primarily stick to their vision, but remain open to feedback when it makes sense. And there has been a lot of great ideas posted by the community, there is a ton of creativity present here - I would think a designer would love to have a resource like that to draw from, even if 98.6% of the feedback has to be culled since it won't work with the game as a whole.

 

I applaud the developers for listening and responding to feedback, together with the amazing amount of transparency.

 

On a more serious note: in addition to elf parts as crafting components, please consider letting us harvest dwarf organs as well. That way, with enough pieces, the astute and dedicated craftsman can assemble a customized dwelf golem as a companion.

[Lucidbro]

 

What are you saying exactly? That the people arguing against the durability system represent the whole of Project Eternity backers?

I said that the people you hear the most, whichever side they choose in a given argument, are backers. In this case, all sides were backers, one side made good arguments and the developers agreed with them. End of story.

 

Well, your words were "The backers are the loudest group" which is a bit odd, given that I was trying to tell you that Obsidian was only listening to its loudest backers.. But that's besides the point, as is your post. And If you don't want to reply to what I'm trying to say that's fine, but there is no "end of story here". What I have been trying to say here is that the marginal group that's being vocal here, as evidenced by the poll is in my mind, insufficient to warrant a change in design especially with a reception so mixed. People have placed their trust in Obsidian, not forumites. 

 

Don't take this as me being against taking feedback into account however, but I do believe that it should always be more or less unanimous, otherwise you'll just end up with a game made by someone else.

[forgottenlor]

 

 

 

Maybe you should communicate some ideas if you are quite sure about them. It's weird to see a kickstarter update which is pretty worthless now because most of the stuff has been changed only days after the publication. "Listening to the backers" doesn't mean listening to the mouthiest backers.....that has nothing to do with iteration.

 

So how did they noticed that the idea is not so good? They thought for weeks to implement it and then decided a turn-around in two days....and I read Sawyer's reply. I just don't agree with it. If you want to listen to fan feedback how about making some real "trend investigation" instead of claiming that there were many complains about the features. And after all I thought Project Eternity would be a team effort and not a "Josh Sawyer one man show"....

 

 

In defense of the team, I'm not sure how they are supposed to go about doing this. There are 10,000+ backers. Should one send out an email and see if they all come and vote? Can we assume how the vast majority would have voted? There is from what I see a vocal minority of backers for or against durability. Some people really like it, others do not. Then there are people like me who could care less. I think in such a forum one can get ideas what people like or do not like and what could be potential problems. Either they say we make the game so and don't ask fans anything, living and dying by our vision, or we ask them and consider their input. Obviously they've gone with the latter. 

Sawyer is the boss. In every team someone has to make decisions especially when there isn't universal agreement. Personally it's not a job I'd want. You get maybe some praise if things work out, and your blaimed for everything that goes wrong.

[Undecaf]

 

Based on discussions on the forums and conversations I had with people on the team, we will be doing the following:

 

* Removing the Crafting skill (specifically).  The crafting system and its associated mechanics will remain, as-is.

 

 

Does removing crafting as a skill mean that everyone can craft everything just as long as the ingredients are provided? If that's the case, I don't think it's a very good solution -- in that it doesn't sound like a mechanically interesting feature.

[Sannom]

Have you read the most recent Dungeons and Dragons comic series? Dwarves in that thing literally used Elven parts as crafting material!

[Malekith]

I want to craft with human parts...

[Darji]

Personally I think it is pretty sad that crafting as a skill is now out of the game. RPGs in general had bad crafting systems (Like in NWN2 for example) and I really hoped that this game could finally show other developers how to do it right.  Crafting should be something you need to level. Crafting everything is just stupid in my opinion.  Same goes for durability. Durability makes the world way more realistic. Of course it should not break after a few times but after certain things. For  example some enemies like Rock Golemsc could damage or even break your sword in very are cases. Crafting could be integrated  that you actually can repair or reinforce your weapons like add some special steel or so so that could not happen later in the game.

 

I thought we wanted  a core  RPG and in such games you need "unpleasant" mechanics so you can deal with the effects or your choices for example not having a party member with  a crafting skill in your party and then instead paying a lot of gold to repair it. 

[rjshae]

 

 Here's a suggestion:

 

Although durability as it applies to the party has been removed, it could still be applied to enemy gear. When collecting loot, it would add flavor and realism to have some portion of it be badly worn and damaged. If the party finds a particularly nice item that is in poor shape, then a visit to a smithy would get it fixed. Bingo, you get the same result of encouraging interaction with an artisan. Those who don't want to deal with such maintenance can just sell the damaged gear at a lower price.

 

 

It's an interesting idea. One flaw is that I'm not very fond of good magic items being flawed and in need of repair. And if they are out of this mechanic, wouldn't that leave us players heaps of literal trash that only the greedy would repair in order to sell it at a higher price?

 

Thanks. Well they could weight the odds of parts being damaged based on the original quality and the likelihood that it is being maintained. Low quality/value = high odds, high quality/value = lower odds, magic quality = nearly impossible to damage.

[Archmage Silver]

As expected, there are a lot of differing opinions about Obsidian's decision, but I'd like to point out that it was mentioned in the Kickstarter campaign that Obsidian will develop Project Eternity according to their vision, but will sometimes take ideas from the fanbase if they consider them good. As far as I know, Obsidian has done exactly what they told us they would do.

 

Carry on.

[IndiraLightfoot]

That makes sense. I mean few magical things should be unbreakable, but still it should be harder to do it, and thus damaged magical items are much rarer.

In a sense, this would be in part like how it works in FNV, but without the hassle of keeping your own gear in working condition all the time. There, you find that the enemies you kill have damaged/worn items, and you can go and have them repaired at a few locations.

 

However, with the repair skill gone, your party can't fix damaged items they find. So, potentially, your inventory will be full of things that you see are damaged, but only a few smiths can repair them. Another weird side effect is that you presumably get to wear damaged items that you've found, but all items you buy are pristine. As item degradation is gone, your characters can have damaged items equipped that never degrade further - they will not go into disrepair - that will mess up the realism a bit.

 

I suppose this leads to a simple dichotomy: whole or broken, and broken can't be equipped, but in can be repaired at some highly skilled smith's forge.

[LordCrash]

Tbh I don't have that much problems with the durability gone (though I liked the idea for normal, not magical stuff), my concern is more about the way of communication and the iteration itself.

 

In my opinion this wasn't communicated well enough by Sawyer that he had doubts about these mechnics from the beginning. And the short time between announcement and "180" does let me doubt that this was part of a regular iteration. I fear (and that's more a feeling) that Sawyer just used the public backlash to pull his opinion through.

 

I would have been satisfied with a reaction like this "We saw that many people are upset about the durability mechanics and the crafting skills and we will think about these mechanis in deep. Please give us feedback on the forums about the topic." This kind of very sudden 180 turn without much reason is just strange. But perhaps I'm only upset because of the increasing numbers of sudden 180s in the last time.....

Btw: why not introducing durability as a flexible game mechanic or as a part of a difficulty setting. "Annoying" mechanis are probably not annoying to everyone, just keep that in mind. It's also not about the wealth in endgame, it's about "realism" in game, like hunger mechanics or perma-death. There are better ways to prevent wealth in end game: just lower the rate of gold which can be found in the game. Only enable a big income as part of treasure hunting or as part of quest rewards but not as part of finding regular stuff in the game.....

Edited July 6, 2013 by LordCrash

[Maf]

In my opinion this wasn't communicated well enough by Sawyer that he had doubts about these mechnics from the beginning. And the short time between announcement and "180" does let me doubt that this was part of a regular iteration. I fear (and that's more a feeling) that Sawyer just used the public backlash to pull his opinion through.

Instead of worrying about what the devs intended, have a little faith?

You're starting to sound a little paranoid.

If they decided to remove durability it's because they decided to do so internally, you should be celebrating I think? haha.

Nothing is set in stone yet, if they change their minds about something then it's because they have a good reason to.

 

My personal opinion:

I like the removal of durability, it's a nuisance and doesn't add anything to the game other than a slight feel of "realism".

Basically it was something that simply could not be defended.

Realism is -ok- if the setting allows it, as example: Stalker has a great setting for "realism" and I usually play Stalker on it's hardest setting.

A fantasy world has this less so, realism isn't really something you should be looking for specifically imho.

Wealth is not something that has to be a problem, unless it's not intended (because plot dictates you should be poor that moment or w/e).

And when wealth is not intended... money can always be removed forcefully

"I'm sorry sire, the city found discrepancies in old tax reports for the keep."

"I'm afraid we're now bankrupt, oh it appears the guard is here to send you off to prison."

Edited July 6, 2013 by Maf

[Falkon Swiftblade]

Ok, now I'm confused. What does crafting as a skill has been removed mean? Can we get a real world in game example of how things are gonna work now?