Items Decay solution

[DeadSquirrel]

Item Decay has it's good sides, but so far MMORPGs I experienced have badly implemented them.
As much as it's wortwhile for Economy Issues, people hate losing their items, causing more grief then relief.

So here's a way it could be implemented into WoW, and avoid having any conflict whatsoever with player:

Items "decay" upon trading, and only if they were worn before the trade.

When someone recieves an item, he either has no use for it and trades it directly, or he wears it before trading it sometime later.

a) He trades it directly: Nothing happens to the item, it stays as good as new.

b) He decides to use the item for some time, and when he gets an upgrade, he sells the item:
Using the item will wear it out slightly, so when he takes it off and sells it to someone, the item will have degraded a bit.

How to degrade the item?
Have the stats diminish, as well as the texture of the item.
A robe worn 5 times before, will have it's stats reduced dramatically, and will look more brownish..
It should be quite easy adding a brownish or greyish tone to items.


Benefits?

1) Good items will not longer sature the market, even after WoW has gone live for months. Rare items will stay rare, and won't have their value drop simply because everyone's twink has one.

2) It encourages people to get their own items, instead of spending their time getting money to buy uglier items.
It will be more rewarding to loot a fresh colorfull and powerfull robe. Then to buy the same robe but less colorfull and a bit less powerfull.

3) It does not annoy anyone. People will not lose items due to this system. Because the item will decay only once the person no longer wants it.
And the person buying the item knows what to expect.


Bad Sides:

I'd appreciate any critics on this, can't come up with any bad sides so far.
Maybe just the Texture deterioration may be impossible to implement...

[JAEF]

I love it. Period.

[Achameleon]

Good ideas...

[Xinhuan]

This seems like a very interesting concept.
I can currently see no flaws in it.

[DeadSquirrel]

Odd thing is that it's so incredibly simple... yet no MMORPGs (that I know of) have tried it yet..
there's got to be a flaw in it somewhere! :spy:

[Brainless]

so the item only degrades once its been traded?

if so, then its a brilliant idea, cant see any flaws

[DeadSquirrel]

Originally Posted by Brainless

so the item only degrades once its been traded?

if so, then its a brilliant idea, cant see any flaws

Well not really, it degrades each time it's traded (if the trader wore it before trading it).

example:
-Player1 gets a 20strength item, but does not wear it. He sells it to player2.
Player 2 will recieve a 20strength item.
-Now if Player2 wears this item, and 2 weeks later decides to sell it to player3.
Player3 would be recieving a 15strength item (it lost 5str to decay).
-If the player3 does not wear the item, and sells it again to player4.
Then player4 would recieve a 15strength item.


The item needs to have been worn by the trader, for it to decay during the trade.
And decay happens only during the trade. The item will never decay while carried by a person.


What will be needed though, is a tag on an item, so that people can see wether the item will decay or not.
Maybe the futur stats in red brackets, next to the current stats. No brackets if the item won't decay.

Just [COLOR=Lime]20 Strength[/COLOR], if the item wasn't worn by the trader.
And [COLOR=Lime]20 Strength[/COLOR][COLOR=Red](15)[/COLOR], if the item is going to decay during the next trade, and end up with 15 Strength.

[Bartleby]

Sounds decent to me, but the question is how much should it decay? That 25% drop you used as an example seems a bit hefty to me.

[GreenFaun]

Yeah, this would be a really good way of shoring up the game economy without directly penalizing anyone in particular. My vote means nothing, but I vote yes!

[DeadSquirrel]

Originally Posted by Bartleby

Sounds decent to me, but the question is how much should it decay? That 25% drop you used as an example seems a bit hefty to me.

Actually, my example was using a -5point reduction, not a 25% one ;).
The decay shouldn't be a %, it would be odd to have the most powerfull items decay the fastest hehe.

Either a static reduction to all stats (-5),
or have different items bare different decay values. Fragile items having (-20) to all stats, while some more solid items only have a (-1).

And of course, some items could be considered Stainless, and never decay ^^.

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By the way, if any of you beta testers like the idea, feel free to post it on the Beta forums or /suggest it.
I'd appreciate it. The public WoW forums aren't really prone to the Devs' attention hehe.