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Ok, first with the potions. They are flooding the market and some people are giving them out free. I suggested this to someone just before I posted this (And they were a druid and throught it was a pretty good idea). The suggestion is to stop the NPC from selling bottles. This should lower overall potion production and make them worth more (and people giving less of them away for free I think). For those who make great quantities, it would add a extra degree of time in it making it less of a thing used to mass produce things, and more of one to make things you might actually want to use (or a way to make _some_ money, but not too great amounts)

Next suggestion is to make some spells require material components. Maybe you could require that things like normal fireball take something like coal (possibly you could make coal breakable into chunks that weigh a lot less, and the spell could require a "coal chunk" instead of a full unit of coal.

Third suggestion is that you change smithing a little, make it so that you make some kind of thing like "Iron Bars" out of the Iron ore and coal, and certain items (like plate mail) would require more iron bars than somethign like a dagger.

I think making these skills a little harder will emphasize that not everyone should try and do everything, but rather it's better to have something you are good at (or something you do more often)

Well, please tell me what you think everyone, there's probably a lot that can be said about these idea, both positive and negative, so let's hear it

Uh, I really like some ideas! But keep your ideas until the 6th of August and flood Bror with it when he comes back :biggrin:

First of all ... spells should never include anything else than mana! IMHO that's enough.

But I would like it if smithing would afford more ore and coal ... it would make a plate armour more valuable. Maybe the NPC's prices can be set higher afterwards.

And there's still one thing about the potions: If you make it harder to make a healing potion, it sould also be harder to cast healing spells. (the same with mana potions and mana transfer spell)

hehehe, the heaaling potions WILL be haarder automatically. Because the mana potions will be harder too. That means more rare and expensive. That means the spells are more expensive too...
Material components for spells ? Hmm. Nope, not a good idea. But the others are great!

I was hopeing to get some polishing done on these idea so that they actually make sense/sound good by the time Bror gets back...

I know that if you make potions harder you have to make spells harder also.. That's why I suggested material components for spells, I had thought it might eb a good idea for material components because they could represent what the spell does (I was also thinking along the line that material components would be considered so small, that they'd be virtually weightless, also they'd automatically be used when casting a spell if you had them on you)... any other suggestions for how to make spells harder to balance them with potions? (Maybe they drain more mana?)

Another possibility for spells (athat I just thought up right now) is that you might make spells require a focus until you are highly skilled with them. For example you might have to buy a "Healing Focus" (a amulet) to be able to cast healing spells... I don't know, but I do know that if you are going to make potions harder, magic has to even out with them and be a little harder also... well, maybe not...

well......  i ...i like the idea of making smithing harder... and i like the potion idea aswell..
but i dont agree with ya with the materials needed for the spells , unless the materials would
be need to make some magical equipment...like +1 , +2 ,+3 platemails ans such..

1.) about the smithing.

GREAT! i love the idea!
but the all the prices should rise tooooo....... and really RISE not just 2-3 gps more like 20 -30 gps and ya would make em harder to do...then i would be more medieval platemail thatn now.
now i dont care for losing even 20 platemails , heck im so rich that i can give em away for nothing (Not that i would give YOU anything  )

if it would be something like this.. then i would rock

dagger , 1-2 bar (different types of daggers)
short sword , 2-3 bars
swords 3-5 bars ( different types of swords) (this excludes firesword)
shileds 2-8 bars ( different types of shileds)  
viking helmets 1-5 bars
full helmets 4-8 bars
axes & warhammers 3-6 bars
producting items  1-4 bars (scythes , needles and such)
knigth boots 5 bars
metal gauntlets 5-6 bars (are they called "metal gauntles" , i cant remember?)
useless stuff 1-3 bars ( horns and such)
firesword 9 bars
platemail 12-15 bars (truly hard and expensive to make , so profitable if they would pay for ya
in shop 30-40 gps...
chainmail 8-9 bars ( quite hard ...but not as hard as platemail)

2.) the bottle idea is good... so ppl should have to really MAKE  their bottles and potions..

3.) (my own idea) if there would be some new magic area for making magic items..
there would be two persons needed , high level smith and high level mage ...if they would find some rare materials ( some could be used only by the smith and some only by the mage/druid)
they could unite their powers and make some + something stuff....ofcourse the higher smith and mage/druid the better items could be made...

well what do u think?

sorry about my bad english

The connection of items to spells would just increase
a) the amount of stuff a "weak" mage has to carry
b) the complexity of the system
The effect would be even weaker mages then now hehe... and material components for spells are no good ideas. But book prizes are about 50 gold now, they can still be increased. And another idea would be to increase the difficulty of the spells themselves - so that you can only cast them at 100% efficiency when your rune skill is over 80% high.
Later, it won't be possible to buy many spell books. They must be collected in smaller and bigger quests. That alone will increase the overall difficulty of magic. So for now, we can perhaps change the magic from a single healing spell to a small and a enhanced one (with the "qwan"-rune as a third). That can use the same graphic effect (stars), and only the big one could ressurrect (and cost some more mana).

My opinion on the balance is based around Stats.

When a fighter can all use magic just as strong as a magician something isn't right.. yet magician is not nearly as strong as a fighter.

perhaps give out less points to distribute between stats at creation would help.

Everyone has great ideas and suggestions, but i just want remind and point out a few things that may happen if these ideas come to pass.

The druids that give away lots of potions or sell them at garbage prices are not doing it for profit, so making potions worth more may not stop them. Stopping the npc from selling bottles might stop them, but it might hurt the druids that sell potions for a fair price even more. It becomes harder for them and may repel people from becoming druids. And although this pushes the overall price of potions higher, there will still be competition for business and eventaully the some people will start to sell cheaper, and we will have the same problems again...

I think that the idea of making blacksmithing require more resources is the best idea, although there is no need for iron bars, just make higher level items require more coal and iron. The best items should require a LOT of resources...like maybe 250 each of coal and iron....so that not everyone from newbies to veterans are running around with platemails
and fireswords. I remember reading somewhere a suggestion to make it "harder" to smith such items. This would temporarily reduce the amount of such items but eventaully people would increase their skill level to the point where they can easily smith those items again. And even if it was made so that at "max" skill, the success rate to make those items are low, the resources for them are still abundant and lying on the ground free for all to take, so they could still easily produce lots of those items eventually in a short time. So I think the best solution is to make strong items require LOTS of resources, and maybe the npc buying for a LOT higher price would help too. Of course there are already way to many fireswords and platemails out there now...........

An even better solution would be to make those items very rare and only available through quests, but i get the feeling its gonna be a long while before THAT happens! :biggrin:


Oh yeah, and...give out less points to distribute at creation? then...we'd all probably have to be wiped first

I want to remind you all, that this game is under development. Many functions havent yet been introduced. Prices for items depend strongly on the functions available in the game, the skill gain rates, the success rates, the amount of ressources available, the amount of players....
I don't think it makes much sense to put a lot of effort in balancing all this things out, until the main program stays relatively untouched. If this is the case, we will balance all those little numbers that aren't hard to change. Balancing them now would mean balancing them over and over when new functions are introduced.
The event that may influence the balance the most would be the profession system, since then not everyone will flood the market with platemails etc, but only the smiths.

I will change some of the things from time to time anyway (kile the bottle price yesterday), but I won't put big effort in it.

Right. We should wait with the prize balancing until we have working professions and a good solution for multiclassing too. It my be possible until then to put up a group of merchants / people who control the prizes on the player market. The town council my come in handy then.

1 problem:

Higher prices means higher percentage of thievery...
If you sell things for ridiculously high prices (like Tibia) People are more likely to steal.
I dont care about the magic, magic is the "other side" to me
Soooooo, making things harder for everyone has its advantages and disadvantages...
If you rate them, they are both pretty equal.

I say, raise prices by 3-5 gp on most things,
make it so it takes more than 1 of each item to smith or make potions,
And make it so you can magically enhance weapons. (Ex.-> Ice dagger, Thunder Axe)
Of course the magic will wear out after about 15 uses of the weapon and it will return to normal.