Item durability...

[LordRahl86]

A quick search turned up very little information in regards to item durability. I have four ideas of how this might work... as well as problems that could result. The first three require worn defensive procs using the item worn as a reagent (I'm not entirely sure that would work... from what I know of procs, they don't consume reagents, though I seem to recall some items that have required items, such as Mag-summoned lev rings):

1. Consumes a particular item that's crafted with the item (essentially a "power source"). A new item is created that can be re-crafted into the original power source, at a loss (IE 10 burned out power sources would turn into 8 recharged ones). There would have to be some way to ensure that people both wear the armor and carry around the "power sources" for each armor.
2. Stackable armor (named, say, X) that consumes one of itself and produces something along the lines of "broken pieces of X." The repair would work the same as the power sources (10 broken pieces of X result in 8 of X)
3. The worn defensive proc consumes the armor and produces new armor that's at a lower quality. For example, armor X is consumed and produces armor X 90% (with lower AC and stats).
4. Evolving items. As the item gets used, it goes through stages where it becomes less and less effective (for example, armor that gives 50 AC at stage 1 might give 46 at stage 2). In the final stage, the item becomes effectively useless unless repaired, and even then it might not be able to return to its original state (fully repairing the armor at stage 6 would result in an armor with a base AC of 45).

Problems with each:

1. Oh so very much bag space, as well as exploitability (what's to stop people from selling "power sources" to people wanting to keep 2-3 stacks of them?). This also has the problem of items not decreasing in quality over a long period of time.
2. I'm not entirely sure that you can have stackable armor, as well as the problem that is presented above (bag space, though less of an issue here). I believe that it would be possible to work in decreasing quality, but it would mean that you couldn't, say, turn in 50 of a BP, get 40 back, and just restack them with the old ones.
3. First of all, there's the issue with the database. This would require a LOT of items in the database for a relatively small amount of different armors. This gets even worse if fully repairing an item produces a different item of lower quality (for example, if you got an Worn X 100% upon repair, which would result in Worn X 90% down to 0%, then Old X 100%, etc). This is why I suggested armor decreasing in quality by 10s rather than 1s (which would be oh so very bad). And then, of course, there's the issue with the armor unequipping every time the defensive proc is activated. Furthermore, there's the problem with exploitability here, too, unless EVERY piece of armor is lore.
4. Evolving items are not in EQEmu yet, and then there's the issue of database once again, though it's less of an issue here than in #3.

Does anyone have other ideas, or could suggest which of these is the most viable (are the people working on evolving items mostly done?)

[ChaosSlayerZ]

#4 probably the most efficient work around for this.
But I am not sure if evolving Xp stored per item version or for entire item.
If its stored per version, then it won't be a problem
If its stored for all versions at once, then there will be an issue to "repair" the item - will need some additional perl scripting to reset the XP the item have gained.

[blackdragonsdg]

If item durability is implemented then it needs to be a rule so it can be turned on/off. Not everyone is going to be keen on the idea of having a their hard earned armor and weapons go from mint to s**t. How would you go about determining the rate of degradation? Time? Amount of abuse(hits taken)? Both? Would you account for procs, proc type, weapon type vs armor type and so forth?

I don't mind power sources as you are simply increasing the stats of the armor. If the power source dies then you are back to the original armor piece, no real loss their.

[ChaosSlayerZ]

err, you misunderstanding the approach a bit.
this whole thing will be handled via perl script, so no permanent changes to code.

specifically with using Evolving items approach - its already contains needed mechanics which determines how much item have been in use - usually determined by amount of time you been in combat - specially if you have been beaten on (for armor) and things you attacked (for weapons)

[LordRahl86]

I'm talking about this as a feature people can use for their custom servers. If you don't like it, don't play on the custom servers that would utilize this.

ChaosSlayerZ: It would be a fairly simple process for repairing: Let's say that the repairing is done by players. They put the item into their repairing kit (metal armor would be done off the blacksmithing skill, etc), hit repair. The item is "repaired" in much the same way that sheet metal and sectional molds are "combined" to form banded armor. The old item is destroyed, and a new item is created. It's the same for if you turn them into a NPC to be repaired. Essentially, it would be a quest (turn in the damaged item, get the repaired item in return, probably requiring the player to spend some coin on the repair).

Edit: Naturally, this might create a problem with augments, so if the custom server utilized augments (the second and third options would probably be unaugmentable), they'd have to be removed before the item is repaired.

Another option might be for an item to have a small chance of generating an augment that automatically attaches to an item, reducing its stats and armor every time. I'm not sure how viable automatically attaching augments would be, though.

[trevius]

I am moving this to the Quests Q&A section as this can all be handled via scripts fairly easily.

Evolving items is not yet implemented into EQEmu, but item scaling (such as seen on Charms) is. You could accomplish all of this via the item scaling system using perl by making charm scripts in your quests/items folder and adding the charmfile name to the item(s) in the items table.

You would then just want to use either QGlobals or some other method like an item count to keep track of the durability (scaling) level. Once your item scaling script is made, you can use whatever you want to cause the item to scale up or down.

[ChaosSlayerZ]

oh, so you can make scalable ANY item, not just a Charms?
This is great! =)
Now if we could just be able to "scale" effect bonuses on items
Then we can make SETs that benefit from "full set" effects

for item durability project - this will still require TONS and TONS of additional items and lots of work - if you want item to have 5 durability stages - this means you need to have *5 of any given item, and then tons of perl scripts, and tons of npc hand in or combine recipes to "repair" them...

[LordRahl86]

DoN cultural charms have set bonuses. For example, a High Elf Cleric equipping all their cultural armor will get the maximum bonus. As the Cleric replaces pieces, the power of the charm fades.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of set bonuses, at least as they generally exist. They seem to emphasize form over function.

Actually, evolving items would be superior. I can see the logic in making armor gain bonuses before losing them (for example, shoes start to get more comfortable before they're worn down, the same goes for clothes... and for armor).

But that's only for hyper-realism, and can easily be added in after evolving items are implemented.