Adding durability and enhancing mechanisms to items

Suggestions and Contributions
1

Continuing the discussion from Secret rooms and the Trap Scarf:

Preface

Items with set durability and enhancements would be potential mechanisms for helping maintain long term balance of items in the game as well as maintain the economy.

Why this would help

Consider the Trap Scarf – a rare but currently easy to obtain item that provides immunity to all traps that can only be lost when the player dies. Now for a moment, think about this with all good items.

As a player, I would only take these items to dungeons I know I’m unlikely to lose in. The greatest benefit would come from using them in the more rewarding yet more difficult dungeons that are still a grey area in how difficult they are.

Now, an item with a set durability or charge before it breaks or stops working. Anyone may be wondering, why on earth would you want that? :growlithethink:

Here’s why.

  • It would be unlosable. All or most equipment items can be lost currently. Unenhanced items with a set durability would not – I could go in any dungeon I want and not have to worry about my hard-earned miracle chest or golden mask being yeeted into the void.
  • The possibility of enhanced items opens up. Look at your trap scarf. Now back to this post. Now back to your trap scarf. Sadly all it does is ignore traps you step on. But if it was enhanced, perhaps it could b r e a k any trap you stepped on.

    Look down. Back up. Where are you? You’re at the Dynamo Soons™ endroom. What’s that in your explorer’s bag? A trap scarf in its final forme – this bad boy breaks all traps within a five tile radius. It’s how you got here in one piece! Your party members thank you. No longer is not wearing a trap scarf a punishment to the rest of your team; we have a battle-hardened leeroy jenkins here. Look again, what’s that? Your party members are now golden seeds. :pikashook:

How this could work

If this were done, the change would not be happening overnight. It would start with items that are in more dire need of balancing and expand until most items are covered. When an item runs out of durability, it either breaks or is reduced to a non-working version of itself. Think Used TMs from PMD Sky as an example.

To bring it back to its working state, you could fuse the worn-out item with key ingredient(s) and a bit of poké. This would in most cases be easier than hunting for a brand new one all over again. Some items may not require fusing at all and would just need to have their durability reset. Enhancements would go by a similar process.

This is an idea that would of course diverge PMU’s mechanics from the PMD games’. For an MMO, this wouldn’t be that crazy. Do share your thoughts!

2

No. This is just creating another money sink. I don’t understand why we need money sinks. If some players devote time farming money and items (I’m not one of them), good on them.

Essentially this means reducing permanent items to few-use items just so that people spend more money.

Realistically speaking, if you know what you’re doing (e.g. revs, escape ropes etc), the only way to lose precious items is through game glitches and crashes (which are not infrequent). So I don’t see this mechanic as necessary or adding any more value. If anything, less players will use said items.

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3

This requires more thought than I think I’m currently capable of putting into it right now, but for the time being I’ll say I have to disagree with you, Etaki

It’s been outlined several times why a number of us believe more money sinks are necessary. While I understand that a durability system is a severe drawback, it’s less janky than the current system of “if you suck or have technical issues we’ll make it so it’s even harder to maintain your stuff” by causing poorly-prepared players to lose their items.

I also believe, as I understand it, that the proposed system won’t effectively “destroy” an item and require you to go to the same level of effort you needed to obtain the item to repair it, but merely add a resource-management element to items that were previously rather binary in their design.

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4

I feel that this description actually encapsulates everything that makes the current system strange. It’s rare, yet it’s easy to obtain and can only be deactivated in a specific instance — one that most players, even casual players, tend to be adept at avoiding past a certain threshold. Once Escape Orbs are obtainable, the risk of fainting becomes extremely low; if the player follows the quickly-given advice to avoid using their first team slot for their main runner, this chance becomes even lower. At that point, any sort of true “difficulty” stems from forgetfulness (which happens), self-imposed restrictions (which is not something I’ve seen any player wish to do), or dungeons that either don’t allow items or overcompensate for the existence of said items. No matter what, the current system doesn’t really mesh all that well.

This is excellent. Instead of having the consequence be the ultimate banishment of your important items, it would allow for more creativity with when to use items, more of a sense of actual preparation for dungeons (which I feel PMU kinda lacks in mid- to late-game), and makes runs feel more like treks in an potentially dangerous dungeon rather than “Oh, don’t mind me, I’m just visiting the jungle again real quick”. There have been many times when I had become utterly terrified to go too dungeons purely because I don’t want to lose everything I own, yet I feel I need them to run the dungeon in the first place.

This is where the idea gets really interesting and why I’m so excited about it! There have been a few times that I’ve been put in some dangerous situations simply by the fact that one member of the party did not have a trap scarf. Not only would this allow for some more interesting items, but also make it so that the whole party isn’t punished for one person not bring an item like a Trap Scarf. Though, you’ve already said that.

This could also fix the problem of overabundance with the items, as outlined in Leostel’s “The State of PMU’s Economy” posts. However, I can also see this as a method to give items like the Stick, Iron Thorn, et cetera some use — other MMOs that I’ve tried to play have had some sort of ingredient/tool/material system in order to craft or repair items and weapons. I think that this could be just the right environment to experiment with something like this, though the exact rates of exchange would need to be discussed, if this method of exchange is even considered. This is more of a wild derivative idea that I had thought of while writing this reply.

Honestly, the fact that this durability idea is coming with the caveat that the item would be

  1. unlosable, and

  2. reparable for significantly less Poké and time investment than completely replacing the item I would have lost,

then I would absolutely prefer the durability system over the one we have. You’re seeing the fact that we would have to pay monetary funds to repair items as a bad thing, but this would be much less than the cost of, say, trying to replace a type globe in the current system. If the globes protect, but have this durability that also prevents having to completely buy another globe if you lose it, then that’s 25 event tokens (or ~600k Poké) that you don’t need to farm just to get an item that you had already owned just moments before. I don’t know about you, but I’ve taken extended hiatuses from other games for less of a loss.

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5

Honestly Airazel pretty much took all the words out of my mouth and then threw in some more I also agree with, there’s nothing really left for me to add that I can think of.

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6

I can add a few things in continuation of how this might work in regard to certain mechanics:

  • Broken items can’t be dropped or traded
  • ‎If you have a broken item, the materials (depending on what they are) could potentially be spawned in eligible dungeons automatically. This would prevent previous and new dungeons from causing an imbalance in the attainability of the materials.
  • The spawns, if done the above way could be excluded from certain dungeons. Optionally, they could have a modifier for how often they show up
  • ‎Repair cost could be determined by an item’s marked rarity, which the game could be using more effectively. Most items are set to the default of 1.

And to bring an example further than just the Trap Scarf, an enhanced Miracle Chest could perhaps give out a higher rate of EXP and even go further to provide that bonus to all your party members.

Each item has a whole bunch of not-far-off possibilities associated with it that I’m sure would make it very much worth the resources spent.

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7

Seems reasonable.

Some problems I can see with this:
-This will push players more towards soloing so that they don’t have to compete with other players to secure the materials
-Only allowing the materials to spawn if you have a broken item will require players to stop whatever they are doing and go farm replacement materials

If items can be instanced to players (If you’ve played Terraria, think expert mode treasure bags. One is dropped for every player present, but you can only see and pick up your own) and there’s some alternate method of acquiring the materials (perhaps straight up buying them from an NPC, which would double as a money sink) then these problems should be fairly easy to alleviate.

This could certainly be a way to render some dungeons less spammable and thus allow them to have more lucrative rewards due to the higher opportunity and poke costs of choosing to run them repeatedly.

Since as you said, it’s not really being used for anything, I don’t see why not.

Sharing it with the party is definitely a good sidegrade, rather than it just pumping out more and more experience as it’s ranked up.

Yeah, it’s definitely important the trade-off is made worthwhile.

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8

love this idea hopefully it goes thru :+1:

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9

I agree with adding durability mechanisms to items for the most part. Some of the enhancing mechanisms eh…

Dungeoning right now is way too easy and a item enhanced trap scarf would hypothetically
make dungeoning a lot easier than it already is. Globes/Family Items/Crystals/Mobile Scarf have allowed to run through the first 50 floors of SF in only 10 minutes, but dungeon balance is for another thread. Perhaps instead of enhancing an item that removes a dungeon mechanic entirely, maybe just a 5% increase in damage to a silk or something along those lines?

I also disagree with making the unlosable. This kind of extends from the idea of dungeoning being too easy. Escape ropes only costs 5k and its worth the investment if you’re holding an item that’s worth more than 100k. If you have a valuable item in your inventory, you shouldn’t lose the risk of losing said item when you dungeon imo. If the player is good enough the person will never die, if they feel uncomfortable with the dungeon, buy an escape rope.

This idea is what made me hooked with this suggestion. Using items that are never used as ingredients to repair an item brings value to these items. Lets say for example, Dark Globe needs Black Glasses/Dark Gem to be repaired or Grass Globe needing Miracle Seed/Grass Gem. Basically using items that are never used and that are somewhat relatable to the item, but only items and no poke.

Slapping durability on the most popular items like silks/miracle chests/globes etc. is PMU is the best way to tackle the economy issue imo. Enhancing items having percentage increase in fine, but making them an additional mechanic kind of breaks balance imo.

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10

I agree SF as a dungeon needs looking at right now. But 10 minutes to reach floor 50 I don’t think is very feasible without godly luck and seems greatly exaggerated, even with speed and a ghost/mobile scarf.

You yourself have acknowledged here that item loss isn’t actually a real threat to a skilled player. It’s a mechanic that punishes primarily laggy or forgetful players and, as I’ve observed, actually reduces the desire for most players to challenge themselves and pushes them to play incredibly safe. There is a stark difference between something being difficult and something being punishing. I’ve not been pushed to a point where my rope has activated in a long, long time, and that’s not because there’s no challenge to be had in PMU, but that I, like many other players, will naturally seek to make use of anything that will minimize the risk of failure when the penalty for wiping is so extreme.

I can agree at a few points in PMU’s progression the game’s difficulty is a problem. (in both directions, mind. The early game as it is now is both far too difficult as well as punishing, and does little to actually teach players how to progress) but even fully kitted out, Dynamo Sands is an example of a dungeon that still poses substantial challenge and can chew through a number of your reviver seeds very easily, eventually forcing you out.

“Sucks to suck” is not a game design philosophy I think PMU should be following. As is, the PMD games had to gut most of their roguelike mechanics from the mystery dungeon side of the crossover to actually function as pokemon games at all, and some of the remaining mechanics are still rather awkward, only becoming worse when placed into an MMO setting where progression is stretched out even further.

My experience with both PMU, PMD, and a number of actual roguelikes with their mechanics correctly built around major progress loss has led me to the conclusion that PMU should be trying to be less of a rogue-lite and more of a pokemon game featuring the less badly-implemented PMD mechanics such as randomly-generated dungeons if it wants to be the most successful and enjoyable experience possible.

I can go over some games like Spelunky, Slay the Spire, etc. to show you what I mean if you want, but a common theme among roguelikes is that everything is built around you being able to lose all your progress at the drop of a hat. With MMOs being all about slow and steady progression, I don’t think that fits in at all.

I’d rather we not force players to run very specific dungeons to repair their items. Not to mention many of the items you just listed aren’t as useless as you claim, I think. The type boosting items such as Miracle Seed and Blackglasses are actually some of my most commonly-used team items behind stuff like the weather rocks, treasure specs, and exp. all. A 20% damage boost seems like a strong contender for the slot to me. The type gems, on the other handle, sell for a decent 500p so they’re something worth gathering for cash.

And there’s another issue I’ve already brought up with using existing items and-instanced loot for repairs. If people are going to need loot not scaled to the number of players in a party to constantly repair their items, then that’s going to push players more towards running solo despite this being an MMO.

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11

Well you’re wrong. Here’s a gif of me completing the first 50 flrs on SF yesterday while multitasking (queue/champ select of League of Legends) in less 10 minutes with less than 10 items here → https://gfycat.com/scaredsmartharrierhawk. Now you can say I’m lucky to get sub 10, but I was mulitasking while doing this and could have completed it in even less time.

Again, this is for another thread. but if you know what you’re doing dungeoning is extremely easy. I know for the past few years PMU staff team has been accommodating for the casual player base like adding crystals/gems for every type, but there should be some difficulty and some punishment for making mistakes/being bad imo. Which is why I don’t believe rare items should be unlosable, this just more casual than it already is. If the staff team just want to pander to the casual playerbase and make every low difficulty then just ignore my post.

Yeah Miracle seed and blackglasses aren’t useless, but they aren’t really used at all. I invite ya to find a few people that actively use items like charcoal/mystic water/miracle seed as consistently as miracle chest/munch belt/exp. all/weather rocks. From my memory people don’t use these items. Since I have a harsh ideas of making repairs for items that are suppose to be rare, maybe just gems or iron thorn spikes can be used as repair tools I guess.

Tl;dr Enhancement items shouldn’t be unlosable this game imo because this game is a tad too casual.

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12

While it’s a little hard to judge the actual time spent there, I have no reason to doubt you and stand corrected. I expected the Unown rooms to eat up more time than they did.

Though to be fair, the experience and loot per hour from running SF like that is going to be rather low. (Though with plenty of endboxes)

But yeah, we can discuss dungeon balance elsewhere, though it would seem we fundamentally disagree on what sort of design philosophy PMU should be following. (Which is totally fine, of course. Just needs to be kept in mind so we don’t run in circles on the subject)

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