Gear Degradation Mechanic & other sinks

[bleak shore]

Having an horizontal progression system with effective currency and equipment sinks is a great way to keep players engaged while maintaining a balanced game economy.

I’ll elaborate on multiple sinks for game currency and gear to encourage depletion over time, because I'd like to see in Samsara a system that promotes horizontal progression, where players gain variety and flexibility in their gear and playstyle rather than strictly power increases.

1. Players pay currency to craft or enhance items
   such as :

• Upgrading gear level
• Enchanting for unique effects
• Combining monster materials for unique effects.

**Example : **
A player spends 10k samsaries to combine multiple dropped “Snake Fang” with a bought sword to create a “Venom Blade” that has a chance to apply a "Poison" debuff adding tactical variety while retaining its default ATK value.

2. Maintenance cost
   such as :

• Gear degradation over time depending on quality & rarity
• Gear reparation to restore degradation
• Gear reinforcement to limit degradation
• Gear destruction if not restored and you continue to use it

**Example : **
Gear has a life bar depending on its quality (higher quality, better life stat) and it's rarity (the rarest, the more fragile).
This life bar depletes during use in combat & skill use.
A very rare chest piece with 100maxHP degrades after a dungeon run (10HP left) and costs 5k by 10% maxHP depleted to repair.
A very common sword with xHP can be reinforced for a certain time duration to block the degradation and costs more than a repair.

3. NPC sinks
   such as :

• NPC are sellers & crafters

**Example : **
You want to create potions, you go to an Alchemist NPC with the correct items and get a tax to craft it.
This could be replaced from a "human" NPC to a "workbench" sprite being the NPC.

**Gameplay Loop Example : **

1. You farm in a dungeon, and dropped a “Wind Katana” (better than shop gear), 10 “Wind Orbs” (crafting material), and a “Cyclone Gem” (sellable for 20k samsaries).

2. You sell the gem to fund crafting a “Storm Ring” using the 10 Wind Orbs, which boosts your ASPD, complementing your DPS playstyle.

3. The Wind Katana degrades after use, requiring 5k samsaries &or Wind Orbs to repair per 10%maxHP depleted

4. To access a new dungeon, you sacrifice the Wind Katana, unlocking a dungeon for a certain time with new drops (Fire per example), restarting the cycle.

I think that these solutions could be efficient to remove gear from the game pool, making players having to think about efficiency & currency management

(dropped monster items are also part of currencies)

PS : Yes, didn't go too much into details, we don't know enough about the game right now

[tired crescent]

I think Samsara should not go down the theme park route in dungeons where they are instances.

I like to see an open and explorable game world with few quest locked content.

Else that is an interesting system.

[bleak shore]

I think I didn't clarify enough (should have, my bad)

It's basically just a way to open the door of the dungeon for a certain time - server wide - not instanced !

See it as a dungeon access key

[tired crescent]

That would certainly promote cooperation across players. But for that to work probably the items need to be ultra rare else the door will just be permanently open

[bleak shore]

The point is to basically having it permanently open while sinking away equipment or items, creating a loop of having to kill monsters in a zone to be able to open it and access the next, etc

Basically, it's giving the choice to the player of :

• I'll sacrifice this weapon/item
• I'll wait until someone else sacrifice the same weapon/item
• I'll farm some more so I don't have to sacrifice this weapon/item
• I won't access here right now

[verbal trail]

Not too much of a fan tbh, at least not at the launch of samsara. It adds alot of complexicity. I think what made ro a successfull game is the balance of "mechanic variety", too much possibly overwhelms the player, too less bores the player. Complex Games that do everything from launch means that players see that massive learning curve ahead of them that they need for the game. I'd rather have a simple refining mechanic, because, in theory, everything could have fancy complicated mechanics because they are cool and fun, but their existence might overwhelm new players. Give players time to learn the game quickly, then time to enjoy, then introduce changes, updates etc to provide them something new to learn

[graceful totem]

I think Hill was trying to establish more of a baseline for resource sinks than a complex system strictly speaking. Resource sinks are important to establish from the very beginning or you risk them losing value, and since our philosophy is to keep numbers on the lower end for as long as possible, this is a factor to consider

If the market or the player economy gets flooded with shit with no outlet, then there's no more incentive to farm or kill or what have you