Also doesn't help when each change is so small you will never notice a difference after a service.

So, a couple questions:

For clarification: is the W/P/S 60-day cooldown for prices combined between damage and critical, or are damage and critical weighting/padding costs calculated independently?

Second, I would agree that it seems to be incredibly expensive to move an item to 25 (halfway between 2 and 3 points) on the old scale in bloodscrip, with these services being a 1:1 ratio, especially after Wyrom indicated that items would be able to go to heavy for a (generally) lower cost than previous Duskruins. Is there any possibility the weighting can be adjusted to 6:1 for Duskruin, so it is possible to get to 150 points (10, heavy) for Bloodscrip?

You slam your mithril spikestar into the slowly descending meteor!
A large piece of the meteor shatters, exposing an opening!

People flipped when HCW/HCP Was available for 15k. I don't think less will really be an option.

I love that we can now enchant padding/weighted things, this was a much needed buff to enchanting. Love that perhaps it is now possible to enchant a katana. I strongly dislike how horribly underwhelmingly slow and expensive the padding service is, especially at DR. Things got worse than better in that regard. The idea that I can spend a small fortune on my 6hcp at not move it a point with all 25 services is horrible. Especially considering the cost that would be involved.

For anyone who thinks you will be able to bless a claid now even with 1604, you can forget it. Not happening.

Fyrentennimar


Quote: "Jaynah says, "This is more fun than rolton tipping and blood eagle ridin combined.""

<They are asking for it not to be 80k +tickets+grinding at every event for the next decade to get still have meh gear. (yes, I realize this is hyperbolic, get over it)>

Hmmm, not really hyperbole in my case if my math and understanding is right?

Zissu, if 1 service (currently) equals 1 pt, and the spread between old +45 and +50 is 1,500 points um, does that mean I need 60 services (each with a 1-25 service), that per your uber weapon example was about 62,700 bloodscrip (yes some events may be silver but I cringe at what that is!). So, in bloodscrip, and assuming events that are capped at 25 services per (some may be unlimited), it would take 60 of these 25 service events to finish my project that previously cost 125K per +5?

For a cost of 3,762,000 bloodscrip?

Or I could be real cheap and do 1-20 services per event to prevent the 21-25 increase surcharge, but then I need 125 sessions, paying about 27,765 each. Otherwise, in bloodscrip anyway, 3,470,625 bloodscrip?

Is my math and timeline right? :/

Are drakar/rhimar/zorchar/gornar katanas now an option? And if so, can either appear in the regular treasure system with these changes?

Yes please!

Keith/Brinret/Eronderl

Keith is correct

-Wyrom, APM

Keith is correct.

-GameMaster Estild

Lol, thanks.

I'm not going to do the math on super thrifty, pretty sure it ends up at me being dead!

Ok, I couldn't help myself - 50 years! :D

Let us begin then, for I shall not have on my tombstone, "...he only achieved incredible, not wondrous things."

>> Temporary buffs like 925, bless, and eblade are ignored in the cost calculations. No need to unbond or strip them.

Cue rabbling until you review part of this statement....

I just think I found my first ever sig!!


If it makes you feel any better, I saw your item convert and I freaked a bit because I thought I had a bug...

Zissu - Combat and Magic Systems Dev Lackey

Yeah these numbers are insane. I was hoping at least that the new system would at LEAST allow you to get to somewhat/decent padding (i.e. old 5 points) at reasonable cost - maybe 10k bs. But these numbers look ridiculous high and long. Not surprised, another example of Simu now trying to drag things out as long as possible to get more cash microtransactions.

>>Not surprised, another example of Simu now trying to drag things out as long as possible to get more cash microtransactions.

Or a lot less, depending on what the silver costs might be. So on that note...

GMs in the know, any chance we could get an example of what a "normal" merchant might do along those lines and for how much?

_ _ _
Wyrom gestures at you, causing you to explode.

Just 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.

		April 2016
Quantity	Silver Total	Bloodscrip Total	Item
0	0	0	a crumpled Open Weighting award
0	0	0	a ripped Flat Weighting note
2	0	337500	a small Open Padding deed
7	0	237177	a pink Flat Padding contract
		August 2016
6	0	315500	a pink Flat Padding contract
3	0	675000	a small Open Padding deed
2	0	225000	a ripped Flat Weighting note
3	0	750000	a crumpled Open Weighting award

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, PM

One 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

Wyrom - look, overall most people love the "design" of this new system. Its great flexibility and versatility. Plus everyone knows your intent is to make the game the best it can be, nobody doubts that and we all really appreciate the work you've done on this in the last few years. Its really been an amazing change and improvement to the game.

Really all we need is a couple of number tweaks to the new system because honestly, its fairly absurd the amount of time, cost, and grinding that's going to be needed to get what is not going to even be a noticeable change.

In the 2016 DR, it only cost 50k bs to get +10 fresh padding. To the average player, that's already insane - 50 million to just add HCP. Everyone was really hoping that this new change was going to deliver on the hope that we can realistically see improvements to more gear without the cost being weighed down by the fear of creating super duper equipment (which its been communicated as the reason for the high cost).

But this new system not only fails that test, it kicks it while its down. At BEST, we're looking at 60-70k BS over 8+ months and maybe 50-60k BS over 12+ months (my math may be off) to get what was before a one time fast 50k BS service. Those are not even close to delivering on the goal of making an equivalent level of benefit but with more accessibility. The secondary market NEVER EVER put this much of a cost/time premium on padding/weighting benefit.

However, the great thing about this change is that everyone loves the general changes - its just the number tweaking that's what's giving people grief. I really request just relook at these numbers to 1) make each service event be big enough to give people a noticeable amount of improvement/perceived improvement, 2) reduce the fresh weighing/padding costs, the scaling is really off at the low levels, and 3) readjust scaling if needed for the higher weighing/padding or for other item features (i.e. flares, voln, etc).

Its just really depressing to look at this and think maybe maybe next year, i'll be at a somewhat padded level of benefit added.

<< 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.

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.

I think a lot of us are worried because it seems like it will either take way to long or be too expensive to get up to effective levels of W/P/S, based on the foreshadowed DR implementation. The effects are almost not noticeable at around +1-5 levels it seems.

I am looking forward to the wandering merchants and upcoming events as well, but not really looking forward to having my gear locked out of services because of prohibitive tax costs if one happens to come around before my services charges are reset. I really hope there is a max on what can be taxed, but would prefer the 2 month reduced to maybe a day or no tax for big events like DR, or other rare big events.

I just wanted to commend the development and GM teams for taking this on. The 50 point value weapon/armor "feature" system (e.g. Weighting/Padding - we didn't have "Sighting" back then) was a constricting system that we had to live with for years. At de-Icing time, Warden, Cyper, and I did our best to build a system that would last, but at that time we had a game where most players had yet to hit level 20, and at best the characters would top out at 50.

With a 100 (and beyond) level game, you need a lot more capability for gear advancement through the character's lifetime. As it stood, it was actually possible for a character to receive and make use of the top level enchanted items at level 25, fully 1/4th of the way through their journey. The only other things to look forward to would be stuff like enhancive gear (which we didn't have back then either), scripted items, fusion enchants, etc. but in the end all of that was still constrained by the "50 points" system.

To be fair, more work still needs to be done with ancillary systems recognizing and making use of the broader values, but at least the BASE of what is needed for that to happen is out there. Addressing COST and TIME in character gear advancement is easy compared to what has just been released. This part I am sure will be adjusted and tweaked over time to a value that is comfortable (again, because that's the easy part).

So, again thank you team for a monumental effort, and the guts to make such a broad change to an antiquated system. When my gear converts (if it hasn't already) please let me know how many warnings or errors I generate. :)

>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.

Unless there have been changes to the way padding combines across items, this is still the case. e.g. adding a small amount of damage padding to my armor would cost me half the crit padding on my head and legs.

I want to emphasize again that these base mechanical changes are absolutely stellar. We can do all sorts of incredible things to gear now. Thank you for opening up so many possibilities.

The cost and extent of these services at DR is a different story. It's currently insane.

~ Nuadjha, the Briar Fox

You inhale deeply upon your pipe, puckering your lips as you send out three rings of smoke before you, then puff out a small vine of smoke that darts right through all three which causes them to disperse in a hazy shroud!

<< 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.

Yes I know these services were very hard to get in the past and couldn’t be stacked. In fact, I often deactivate my accounts during non-event periods and re-activate them during major events. I really enjoy character and gear progression so this system intrigues me. I think this kind of gear progression is what GS4 needed for years, especially with limited character progression at the cap.

I’m absolutely stoked for the new system, but that doesn’t mean I’m thrilled that it may take me a few years to cheaply add HCW to a 5x weapon...and then a few years more to add HDW as well to that weapon. Sure I can accomplish this quicker if I want to pay surcharges and get max services every time, but are those surcharges going to be feasible for your average player who might make only a couple million a month? How about for players with 7x-10x gear? Or is the surcharge cost going to be so ridiculously high no one but the truly rich can afford using getting max services multiple times in a two month window, forcing most people to spend years to create an extraordinary piece of gear?

Don’t get me wrong here, I’m very appreciative of all the work put into this system by all you GM’s and I’m really excited about upgrading gear now; but I’m a little skeptical that that the prices or time needed to create such a nice piece of gear is not going to be insane. Maybe they won’t be, but I’m just basing the assumption on the information given thus far, which I know isn’t complete information.

Overall I think Gemstone has made a huge step forwards with allowing this kind of gear progression, and I can feel the hooks starting to sink back in. But I know I’ll drift away again to other games if gear progression is going to be extremely slow or expensive, and I don’t want that.

<< 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.

I get what you’re saying and I agree. What I meant was that adding just 1-5 levels of weighting or padding to fresh gear is a bit underwhelming. The mechanical benefits seem so small it’s almost like you didn’t get any work done. This is why I think reaching the “heavy” tier should be fairly quick and cheap, and then from there the services should start to scale upwards, taking more money or time. A few years to reach the heavy tier at 9 million silvers or 12k BS for just a 5x weapon is absurd. That kind of time gate for the price seems out of whack, and I’d quickly lose interest in my quest to upgrade my own gear.

<< 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.

I understand it’s not a Duskruin implementation, but I used it as an example because it gives me somewhat of an idea of how the system might work outside of DR. I’m looking forward to seeing how this system fully evolves after DR is done and over with.