In EVE, when you kill rats you sometimes get to loot "scrap metal".
This can be refined into actual minerals you can use to produce things. The amount you get from refining the scrap metal is much lower than if you were refining an actual ore that is expected to become the mineral/metal.
*New Loot Drop*
In PFO - you could provide a new loot drop of something called "ruined metal armor" (I think there is already a salvage item like that) but instead of it being an instant 1:1 usage as a replacement crafting item, you would have to "refine it" into a new crafting material called "salvaged armor" or "salvaged leathers" etc. On its own, this ruined metal armor cannot be used for anything else, or equipped, etc.
*Salvaging into alternative Crafting item*
This new crafting resource could then be used as an alternative for the crafting requirements for say Iron Ingots, as opposed to ore or something. But you can have it so that it takes 10 ruined metal armor to make 1 salvaged armor piece, as a sink to remove the loot items from the economy.
The other result being that making armor from mined metal is probably more efficient, but fighters can still loot stuff that can eventually be turned into equipment.
With this system, I think you can provide more loot theoretically, but still have it involved in the player crafting system, so not flooding the market with looted gear. Players still have to do stuff to make it usable.
As it is, the lack of any loot drops is a bit disappointing sometimes, I think it is ingrained in many people's heads to expect something.. even more so if there is no experience gain from killing mobs in this game.
Goblin Squad Member
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I'm opposed to this, not because it was fundamentally a bad idea, but because it takes time and resources to temporarily fix a problem that will only ever be there for a very short period of time. Before long, the market will be flooded with tier 1 gear. Most companies will have a large store available, both to replace loss and to fit new members, while older members move up to tier 2 gear. Once the economy starts up, beginner gear availability is not going to be much of a problem. There are much more serious issues that need adressing.
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I don't see it as trying to fix an issue with beginner gear at all.
I see it as a way to fix an issue where killing mobs doesn't really provide any satisfaction or purpose or reward.
I don't bother killing mobs because really, it's a waste of my time.
Sure, maybe later they will increase drop rates, but then you have the problem of too much looted gear on market.
My suggestion actually addresses the opposite of what you are saying. It would *reduce* the flooding of tier 1 gear on the market since you could make it so mobs don't drop as much fully usable gear.
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Ok, so then this feature would allow for more loot drops without "further" flooding the market. So that crafters don't have to compete as much with PvE loot.
The point is, as it stands, why should I do anything other than avoid mobs?
People like to get loot.
This salvage mechanic would add more components to the crafting system, and give combat players even more reasons to trade with crafters. Or give another entry-level recipe for beginning crafters to use.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Considering how easy it is to kill low level mobs, if drop rates remain the same as they are now I don't see much of a market for crafted starter gear. After a few hours of farming I have multiple copies of armor, weapons and implements. The time it takes to actually craft starter armor or weapons is not trivial and neither is the amount of materials needed for it. I hope the starter gear drop rate is just an alpha thing and they mostly drop "broken weapons", "broken armor" etc. in the future.
I do think it would be more satisfying to get 1/10th of a resource every fifth mob than 1 resource every fifty mobs.
"I do think it would be more satisfying to get 1/10th of a resource every fifth mob than 1 resource every fifty mobs."
Yes, thank you. That is what this is really trying to address. The market flooding is really just a side issue.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Considering how easy it is to kill low level mobs, if drop rates remain the same as they are now I don't see much of a market for crafted starter gear. After a few hours of farming I have multiple copies of armor, weapons and implements. The time it takes to actually craft starter armor or weapons is not trivial and neither is the amount of materials needed for it. I hope the starter gear drop rate is just an alpha thing and they mostly drop "broken weapons", "broken armor" etc. in the future.
I do think it would be more satisfying to get 1/10th of a resource every fifth mob than 1 resource every fifty mobs.
For me to make a short bow, I need artificer level 5. If we have no loot drops, there will be little to no equipment for people for the first couple weeks of EE.
Sure small amounts will be made after the first few days... but not much.
Regardless of anything, there will be tons of starter equipment after a couple months. All crafters need achievements to get to higher levels. Which means crafting.
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I don't bother killing mobs because really, it's a waste of my time.Don't forget the need to advance your Achievements, though.
Good point. But after completed, there is not really a compelling reason to engage in PvE combat anymore, is there?
I just think a lot of people will be turned off by the fact that killing mobs nets you not much of anything except a tally mark on a spreadsheet. No EXP, little chance of loot.
I'd almost say it is a net negative to engage in PvE because the risk of being ganked while engaged, and the risk of being overwhelmed and getting kill by mobs - mobs which don't give you anything ueful.
"Regardless of anything, there will be tons of starter equipment after a couple months. All crafters need achievements to get to higher levels. Which means crafting."
Here is another idea - you could allow crafters to salvage player crafted items as well, and get a *small* fraction of the resources back.
That would provide a sink for entry level gear, or an alternative route for acquiring the Salvaged Metal pieces to be used in crafted usable equipment again.
It's also a feature in Eve, were you can "reprocess" manufactured items and get back some of the raw materials.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The problem you are trying to solve is one of perception, not mechanics. This will become a non-issue when they implement listing the items that you are auto-looting, thus ameliorating the sense that you're not getting anything. You will be able to then see the various consumables, weapons, armor, recipes, and components that are already filling your inventory in abundance but that don't give you that sense of satisfaction you desire because you can't see them with each kill.
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But that's the thing, I do check, and I am not getting anything.
Even knowing now that I need to target level one mobs like Bandit Recruits, IIRC the drop rate is still only 10% or something.
And you are right, it is mostly about perception, and I put forward that perception is everything. Even if there is a notification of when you get loot, if that is once every 50 kills, it will be very unsatisfying.
Not to mention, unrealistic. Out of all those kills, not one of those bad guys had something I could make use of? That seems strange.
It's about as bad as running around a forest full of trees, and not being able to forage for a pine log for 5 hours.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Once past opening, once the crafters are able to supply everyone with everything, PVE will be settlement affairs to remove threats (escalations). But there is no need to create a broken weapons loot table beyond what is already present (broken goblin weapons are already a source of iron just as tattered peasant clothing is a source of wool) if it is made possible to recycle low level gear into component materials.
The question, to my mind, is whether doing so will create too much of an increase in available resources, such that there isn't a need to trade between regions.
"The question, to my mind, is whether doing so will create too much of an increase in available resources, such that there isn't a need to trade between regions."
Which is why I suggested the ruined weapons loot table so that it is no longer a 1:1 swap out for craftable materials, and instead sucks up much more of the loot drops just to get 1 alternative crafting resource.
It's really not an exotic concept, it's pretty standard in other MMORPGs, and is a basic feature of EVE which I think many here have played.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I wasn't thinking 1:1. Broken stuff is low quality. Good material is refined from it but I'd guess broken gear is much more bulky to carry around than good refined steel ingots, probably almost as poor as standard ore.
They already have dropped basic weapons and armor. Why multiply tables for the same effect?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Don't I recall that monsters dropping starter gear is a stop-gap measure for very-early Early Enrollment and is designed to have the spigot turned off after a short time?
My understanding is that low-level mobs near the starter towns will always drop starter gear, so that Characters always have a way to bootstrap themselves into the game.
"They already have dropped basic weapons and armor. Why multiply tables for the same effect?"
From what I've seen the alternative replacement salvage items are all 1:1 replacements. Hence why I suggest an alternative item table that was not 1:1
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think this is a great idea.
I think people are overestimating the amount of PvP that will be happening in the first couple years. Unless you expect to start feuds and wars because you are bored?
PvP may be the main focus, but the PvE shouldn't be a chore. Adding a little bit of reward in the form of ruined materials will make it feel less so.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Unless you expect to start feuds and wars because you are bored?
I expect people will do just that. The three major powers aren't going to sit there and just stare at eachother forever. Eventually tensions will reach a point between two of them that will lead to war unless a 4th major power is introduced.
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Goblin Squad Member
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That's terrible.
I'd rather its because they have territorial ambitions than "just 'cause." Can we at least inject some role play into our RPG people?
If you want conquest, make a conquest-centric nation.
Please remember that while some people have come to PFO from tabletop (and play-by-message board) Pathfinder, others have arrived (and may soon arrive in larger numbers) from the MMORPG and general computer gaming communities. They are less likely to focus on immersion and in-character motivations, and more likely to view PFO as a team-based, but still competitive, video game.
I sincerely hope that the two sides of the community can get along, but it will require some patience from both sides.
Edit: I'm not a fan of battles being waged because "Peace is boring", either. I think it will expose a settlement to unnecessary risk if the leadership spends too much of their time looking for "good fights", and not enough time building up a prosperous community at home.
I'm opposed to this, not because it was fundamentally a bad idea, but because it takes time and resources to temporarily fix a problem that will only ever be there for a very short period of time. Before long, the market will be flooded with tier 1 gear. Most companies will have a large store available, both to replace loss and to fit new members, while older members move up to tier 2 gear. Once the economy starts up, beginner gear availability is not going to be much of a problem. There are much more serious issues that need adressing.
I'll have to see the map, but it seems to me at this point in the game... if stuff stays as it is, there will be a big issue with gear.
They need to take a hard look at the mats required or increase mat drops. There will be plenty of ore, sure. haha. Everything else might be an issue. Especially they need to look at craft times.
I think having more loot drops is good... and allowing them to be salvaged. But they already have that, they just need to increase their frequency. Like I said before, maybe have skills that affect it. If you kill 5 goblins and can't come up on one broken weapon, what is going on?
Obviously, it can't be 1:1 (unless they changed the numbers yet again), but I'd like to see a lot more loot in general. I don't think you can have too much loot because if people don't want it, they will just leave it.
My point is that if this stuff can tier into salvage mats which can be used... probably at the bottom and all the way up, I am intrigued by the idea.
edit: double point. Super edit day. I think people should be able to make a good living farming. You want to make people farm pve. Sure, recipes but what else are you getting of worth? Very little, to me. I'm not even talking about starter gear cuz I could not care less... I want stuff that will help me craft. Why can't I smelt some of this stuff, or tailor. Of course... you CAN but at a maybe 1% drop rate.
My original post had nothing to do with PvP, so I'm kind of confused about what half the people in this thread are talking about. <scratches head>
The problem I'm trying to address is there are not a lot of loot drops, and much of it is not useful to me as a player in my scope of play.
You may disagree, but after 3 days of play I still have no weapon, armor, or equipment (besides the bow I can get as a cheat from the tutorial NPC).
Not to mention, since you don't get EXP from killing mobs, there is notably less satisfaction and motivation to do PvE combat. (In my opinion)
It would just be nice to get something that is at least marginally useful when I kill a goblin, and from a realism standpoint there should always be something somewhat salvageable, unless you disintegrate the buggers.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Apart from recipes, some crafting materials and some other stuff, one of the main points of farming mobs is to get coin. There is no other source for coin that I know of right now. I guess the limited quests we're getting somewhere down the line will provide some coin too but the majority of it I think will come from killing mobs.
That is not saying they shouldn't drop scraps of crafting material too, I definitely want them to do that. The more interdependence and interaction between different "roles" (crafters, PvEers etc.) the better.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...there should always be something somewhat salvageable...
Unfortunately, I don't see how, if this were implemented, you'd avoid completely swamping the crafting system with materials, thus necessitating recipes requiring dozens of items each just to soak them up. Encumbrance, once it enters the game, will become burdensome far faster than planned, meaning many more trips back to town to dump off spoils, so each salvaged item might need to become a fraction of its current weight; that would likely start the next round of realism-discussion.
The idea of not finding something salvageable on every corpse feels, to me, like the one about not being able to chop down every tree to get wood: many trees just aren't going to yield anything useful, and many corpses' equipment and body parts take too much damage during their dying to leave anything our crafters can utilise.
...there should always be something somewhat salvageable...Unfortunately, I don't see how, if this were implemented, you'd avoid completely swamping the crafting system with materials, thus necessitating recipes requiring dozens of items each just to soak them up. Encumbrance, once it enters the game, will become burdensome far faster than planned, meaning many more trips back to town to dump off spoils, so each salvaged item might need to become a fraction of its current weight; that would likely start the next round of realism-discussion.
The idea of not finding something salvageable on every corpse feels, to me, like the one about not being able to chop down every tree to get wood: many trees just aren't going to yield anything useful, and many corpses' equipment and body parts take too much damage during their dying to leave anything our crafters can utilise.
Well, the issue would be that you'd be getting less pure stuff. A goblin weapon wouldn't be the same as a true ore. I think coin is good, and there will be some coin that is created by mobs, but coin will then circulate. So, you won't have to farm to get coin. Like I said, I feel like farming should be a legit 'profession.' In a lot of games with crafting systems, it seems you can get salvage mats from mobs. That is the part I agree on.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I would like to propose that any crafted item can be salvaged as part of a crafting process, by replacing one unit of one component type required to craft the item, at the same total bonus as the item being recycled.
That would make the equipment drops at least as valuable as a refined item, set a floor on the value of damaged-but-not-yet-destroyed equipment, and seems like it would have very little deflationary effect on the overall economy.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Seems to me the scarcity of some resources in some areas is probably deliberate to encourage trade. An example being the "yew is East and pine is West" situation in Alpha 8.
A salvaging mode would bypass this feature that is meant to enforce inter-settlement trade allowing people to be isolationist and try and create self sufficient settlement islands .
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Goblin Squad Member
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Seems to me the scarcity of some resources in some areas is probably deliberate to encourage trade. An example being the "yew is East and pine is West" situation in Alpha 8.
A salvaging mode would bypass this feature that is meant to enforce inter-settlement trade allowing people to be isolationist and try and create self sufficient settlement islands .
Why? You have not demonstrated this in the slightest.