Abilities: Salvage and Reforge

[Elystole]

Salvage is an ability of the Artisans of the Western Coalition.

A good artisan knows that "waste not, want not" and learns how to make the most out of even broken or otherwise unserviceable equipment.

This ability allows an artisan to break an item down into its component parts such as blades, hilts, and hafts.

Usage: salvage <item> while in a workroom with the appropriate tools like a vice

This ability leads to reforge by allowing artisans to separate components. A handaxe becomes a handaxe head and haft, a dagger becomes a dagger blade and hilt, etc. This way they can work on the separate components.

Reforge is an ability of the Artisans of the Western Coalition

Perfectionist and frugal by nature, a highly skilled Artisan learns to reforge an unsatisfactory or damaged piece rather than go through the inefficient and wasteful process of smelting it.

This ability enables Artisans to redo an already finished piece without any material loss.

Usage: reforge <item> while in an appropriate workroom with the item on an anvil

This ability comes out of the conundrum I am facing with Elystole's sunsteel handaxe that I'm certain other players with equipment made out of rare materials also face: If our equipment is damaged and suffers a quality degradation, we're screwed. It's not like we can get more sunsteel, celestium, or whatever else, so there's an incentive there to not use our equipment. I first thought it might be nice if we had a special NPC come around every so often to restore our equipment for an obscene amount of riln, but then I thought, "Why? Wouldn't it be better to get our artisans involved?"

So the idea is for an ability that sets artisans apart from other crafters, relieves some of the headache facing special materials and high-end forging in general, and keeps the economy player-focused. It directly addresses one of the odd quirks of forging on CLOK: If you smelt down a finished piece of equipment you get less metal than what is necessary to forge said equipment. I think I understand why such a system is in place as it keeps someone from forging the same tiny bar of copper for several hundred ranks, but it also has that unintended consequence of making rare materials just evaporate. That's why we can't just melt our old equipment down and redo it.

What's to keep someone from grinding skills by using reforge on the same dagger blade forever? Well, you could make it so that reforge just doesn't give skill increases. It isn't an ability you use while learning things; it is an ability you use while trying to make or re-make something for someone so that you can do it without ripping out your hair. Alternatively, you could make the prereqs high enough on reforge that by time an artisan gets it they've already put in their time forging a ton of nails so let's throw them a bone and not care if they grind that one dagger blade. I figured you'd need blacksmith mastery and salvage at a minimum, and at that point in an artisan's career it might make sense for them to focus more on making that one perfect blade than grinding out a barrel full of stock daggers. Isn't that why they are artisans and not your village blacksmith?

To recap: Reforge allows an artisan to remake an item, essentially redoing the quality rolls, without losing any material, but it doesn't allow them to change item type. It alleviates some of the stress of high-end forging (who didn't hear Ardor's running count of how many times he had to remake something to get that masterful suit of plate?) by allowing artisans to reuse materials, and it encourages players to use their awesome equipment without worrying that they're screwing themselves over. It keeps business flowing to the artisans since people will need to see them to have things reforged and the artisans can still make them pay out the nose for it. And since it still requires quite a lot of time and skill investment to qualify and use well (and may not grant skill increases), I don't think it unbalances the game at all. It just smooths out some of the rough edges to make things more fun.

[Rias]

This ability comes out of the conundrum I am facing with Elystole's sunsteel handaxe that I'm certain other players with equipment made out of rare materials also face: If our equipment is damaged and suffers a quality degradation, we're screwed.

Despite general grumbling at the concept, this is intentional. If we make it so that rare stuff is able to be maintained indefinitely, it won't be rare anymore as more is released (and never removed). So, if we added the ability to indefinitely reforge rare items, I'd be disinclined to release any more of them.

You might want to consider leaving those sunsteel and celestium weapons at home for the day-to-day dealings with nethrim, and save them for the times when things are particularly serious.

[Rias]

And as for crafting higher-quality items and with rarer materials, I've always wanted to re-do the way crafting works thusly:

"The Mistral Lake Guard put in an order for 20 broadswords, and they need them fast, so I'll just churn them all out as quick as possible."
Craft them as is now, get results as now.

"The Mistral Lake Guard Captain herself wants a particularly fine broadsword, made of sunsteel. I only have a few pieces of the rare material, so I can't screw this up." Spend considerably more time forging this single sword (hours? days?), getting a minimum quality rating boost based on your smithing skills, with significantly higher chances of increased quality (including chances toward masterful).

[Elystole]

If we make it so that rare stuff is able to be maintained indefinitely, it won't be rare anymore as more is released (and never removed). So, if we added the ability to indefinitely reforge rare items, I'd be disinclined to release any more of them.

If I understand you correctly, you're concerned that the ability to reforge items made of rare materials means that the supply of said materials will constantly expand until they are no longer rare. That's a valid concern, but I think you're overlooking a few factors.

The first factor is that releases of sunsteel and celestium are so exceedingly rare as to be virtually nonexistent. They're the stuff of myth and legends to newer players, and I consider Elystole having acquired a sunsteel handaxe to be something of a coup. You even sounded surprised that he had managed to acquire it. If I had a reasonable expectation of being able to acquire a replacement then I wouldn't be so concerned, but it's been well over a year since the last sunsteel release and I don't even know how long for celestium. I've never heard of anyone having nethrium though it is on the wiki.

The second factor is player attrition. Almost all of our rare materials are in the hands of players who don't play anymore or play infrequently at best. So regardless of how much material has been released into the game already, the actual supply is considerably smaller. Our pool of players who can work such materials is similarly limited. One reason I suggested the reforge ability is that I'd be much more willing to give our new artisans a shot if they could simply try again after a bad roll instead of being screwed. That might also encourage them to stick around instead of being dropped in favor of other alts like what usually happens. Instead, I had Elystole grind forging so that he could repair his own gear since, at the time, no artisans were around, much less Ardor. By the sound of things, I may need to have him grind it even more.

You might want to consider leaving those sunsteel and celestium weapons at home for the day-to-day dealings with nethrim, and save them for the times when things are particularly serious.

I have considered this and I actually tried it. I've been busy hunting wolves and bears on the forest trail just outside of Shadgard, so I thought I'd leave my sunsteel handaxe on the rack and take my steel one instead. After all, they're just animals and Shadgard is just a few leagues away. And then I ran into a Rook who needed to be a head shorter right there on the trail. There's no calling time-out in that sort of situation to go get your equipment, and the whole reason I got a sunsteel handaxe was to screw over nether-tainted individuals, shadow familiars, and animates.

So while we're taking our time to get our good stuff for something serious like a cultist invasion, people are dying. Elystole gets angry when people drag their heels responding to emergencies as is, such as that time the Infested hit Westbrook, so I can't see him waiting to grab his equipment. He always, always carries a combat load for that reason. Now, if horses had saddle bags or sheaths and he could leave his handaxe with his mount, that might work, but even then horses aren't quite where they need to be before I feel comfortable taking them into combat.

But I think the biggest issue with that approach is that it encourages hoarding and turning rare materials into museum pieces. I'm of the opinion that things like that are supposed to be used instead of sitting there "just in case" like the potions in an RPG that you never wind up using. Also, more established players have every incentive to control the supply of said materials to replace their own equipment, which is what we've seen with sunsteel, and never let newer players acquire some since instead of being happy with the equipment that they do have.

It also undermines the very idea of something like sunsteel: It's described as having the alchemical properties of iron but the durability of steel. If sunsteel is something that I'm supposed to use up and then throw away, I'd have been better off purchasing thirty iron handaxes for the price of the one sunsteel handaxe. This is probably why I hardly see anyone use cobalt: What's the point if it just needs to be replaced like anything else?

I think this stems from one of the oddities of CLOK: It is the only game I've ever played where you can suffer permanent item damage through normal wear and tear. Most games don't bother with item durability at all since it is usually just a needless hassle for players, but the ones that do don't have items degrade unless you wear them all the way down or otherwise abuse them. Whereas in CLOK even if I repair all of my items when they are no more than scuffed, I am still degrading them and handing an item over to an NPC for repair is pretty much a guarantee that you get a piece of junk back.

• So to recap why I still think the ability to reforge items is a good idea:
• There aren't any new releases of rare materials, so we need to conserve what we have.
• The current supply of rare materials is dwindling as the players who have them stop playing.
• It alleviates some of the headache of CLOK's item degradation system while still satisfying the goal of creating business for crafters.
• It creates an incentive to bring your business to artisans as otherwise you're probably better off repairing your own equipment.
• It encourages taking a chance with newer artisans because if they mess up they can try again.
• It simply makes sense. Considering the rarity of some materials, you'd never just throw them away nor would they evaporate into thin air.

Plus there's the RP of it. People usually get pretty attached to their favorite piece of equipment that has seen them through the worst fights of their lives or they have some sort of heirloom that has been in their family for generations, but in CLOK we're encouraged to just trash those things. Even Narsil was reforged.

[jilliana]

So as I'm reading Elystole's latest addition to this particular thread, I can't help but be sad.

It really does feel that the time for all those nice things will really become the stuff of myths and legends. It sort of feels like all the cool and interesting stuff happened in the good ol' days and the new players are stuck with the plain stuff that one can just get replaced after it gets heavily damaged. Those things they have don't really have much meaning.

It's perfectly understandable that one has to prove themselves to get the rare items, but even just reading through the old board posts a new player can see that the time has passed for a lot of things that made the Lost Lands how they know them now.
It doesn't even have to be rare items, but things like events where a character would benefit in some other form. Examples of this would include Evelyn's getting passed the Hyra safely, Rasui's relationship with the scarecrows, and Lacy's being friendly with the bowtruckles.
Just to clarify, I'm not complaining but just want to point out that one could read the boards and come to the conclusion that the time has come and gone for a lot of the players to get really get involved with game-changing events.

Back to the rare items though...with the example of Elystole's sunsteel weapon...people don't even know what it is and don't really seem to understand the value behind it. At least, not until they see him in action and see that although it's a really nice piece of kit, it has serious advantage in combat.

I'm really hoping a balance could be found to preserve the nice stuff and people like Alexander and Elystole can keep and use their rare items without feeling like they have to stash them in the vault at the bank.

[merin]

I don't quite agree. I think there is quite a chance that us newer players can see and bennafit from things, however, one thing to which I have brought up in a Skype call was sometimes it's a little tricky as to how. One of my characters is sort of seeing it, and on another I've come up with tons of ideas in order to make that happen.

As far as the sunsteel/celestium...let's be honest here. Who can work with it? It would be a shame to see it be given or an event with it come about to a bunch of aritsons that don't really play often or dedicated. More to the point, that aren't even good at it yet. I love my artisan more than any other character I think it's safe for me to say, however, I wouldn't even want it right now because I couldn't do crap with it. I wouldn't use it for a few months yet because I know that it's extremely, extremely, rare, and ruining it would be stupid and pointless. I suspect that some of the people who have the rarer materials are worthy of it. I know I'm not one of those people

I do also have to say, and being guilty of this myself, five alts really doesn't help things much, either. I've been doing my best to play one most often and play the others when I need a day or two break from that particular work.

I could focus more on combat, true, but that isn't in my character's plans right now. He's reluctant about it,a lthough he understands the necessity of it and hasn't quite worked himself up to devoting serious time to it.

He can swing an axe at a shade, a termite, and with some work a spider....but that's the extent of it, really.

[Elystole]

As far as the sunsteel/celestium...let's be honest here. Who can work with it? It would be a shame to see it be given or an event with it come about to a bunch of aritsons that don't really play often or dedicated. More to the point, that aren't even good at it yet. I love my artisan more than any other character I think it's safe for me to say, however, I wouldn't even want it right now because I couldn't do crap with it. I wouldn't use it for a few months yet because I know that it's extremely, extremely, rare, and ruining it would be stupid and pointless. I suspect that some of the people who have the rarer materials are worthy of it. I know I'm not one of those people.

This is one of the reasons I suggested the reforge ability. It lets us take a chance with the new artisans instead of always waiting for one of the few times that Ardor logs on. And the ability isn't limited to rare materials: If you're working on a special piece for customer, you could sit there and keep reforging it if your rolls aren't quite there. Sure, it'll take you a lot longer, but you'll get there eventually. In that way it is similar to Rias's suggestion to allow people to purposefully spend more time on a single piece to get higher quality, but with reforging you're playing the odds and with his idea you get a bonus for a single roll at the end of the time period.

Honestly, at this point I'm tempted to take a few days and just grind my forging up to something silly. It seems like the only way to make sure my equipment is properly maintained.

[baerden]

Yo Jilliana, I like you, empathize with your comments and Imma gonna let you finish, but I dont want you to be sad.

So I'll try to explain things in a common sense manner in which you can come to realize its not so bad. Also why things are the way they are because logic.

So as I'm reading Elystole's latest addition to this particular thread, I can't help but be sad.

It really does feel that the time for all those nice things will really become the stuff of myths and legends. It sort of feels like all the cool and interesting stuff happened in the good ol' days and the new players are stuck with the plain stuff that one can just get replaced after it gets heavily damaged. Those things they have don't really have much meaning.

Whether you're a new player or an old player is completely relative to the time you started and the current time :). I'm sure a few years from now you'll hear future players coveting all the awesome gear that the fabled Jilliana has, for example +50 Steel Nipples of Greater Bloodletting installed on your breast(hehe)plate.

So, when, not if, the GMs release more rare stuff into the wilds (I would expect they just keep a percentage of rare item out in the world to find or just existing in relation to active playerbase and when the percentage shifts due to breakage or new players come abord (and stay for a period of time) then if it were me I would adjust their levels automate its re-entry in some event that is properly rabndomized for all players to discover).... WHEW what a tangeant.. i'll address stuff happening in the good ol' days in the next statement block cause you mention it there too.,

It's perfectly understandable that one has to prove themselves to get the rare items, but even just reading through the old board posts a new player can see that the time has passed for a lot of things that made the Lost Lands how they know them now.
It doesn't even have to be rare items, but things like events where a character would benefit in some other form. Examples of this would include Evelyn's getting passed the Hyra safely, Rasui's relationship with the scarecrows, and Lacy's being friendly with the bowtruckles.
Just to clarify, I'm not complaining but just want to point out that one could read the boards and come to the conclusion that the time has come and gone for a lot of the players to get really get involved with game-changing events.

When MUDS are new, they have a relatively small playerbase also, there is less programming done to drive your 'game life' thusly, in the beginning of new muds in order to maintain that small playerbase and give them goals and activities, MUD administrators will have more time and be able to have 'events' like those that you mentioned to fill in a void until there is 'more to do'. Also they probably get a kick out of it, but its less likely to happen when systems grow more and more complex (hunting bugs), and more and more players join, and thus more requests and... you get the idea.

The biggest issue in my opinion when comparing old to new characters skill level gap. There's not much you can do about it, besides what no one wants done (skill wipe), and its easily explained by having to adjust skill gains due to player found 'tricks' or just rebalancing as time goes on.

Back to the rare items though...with the example of Elystole's sunsteel weapon...people don't even know what it is and don't really seem to understand the value behind it. At least, not until they see him in action and see that although it's a really nice piece of kit, it has serious advantage in combat.

I'm really hoping a balance could be found to preserve the nice stuff and people like Alexander and Elystole can keep and use their rare items without feeling like they have to stash them in the vault at the bank.

Personally, I think its silly to take out your ferrari to a demolition derby (regular skill gain hunting), but I also think its silly not to use the rare items regularly until they break because, if you arent driving your ferrarri, you're not going to get any hot babes, and if there is a mechanic to replenish those rare items (mentioned in a previous statement block, I have no idea how they do it now) and you are just as likely to find it as anyone else then your feeling of despair when your ItemOfDoom breaks should logically be less teary. Or something, people like car anologies apparently.

In addition, if everyone could repair their special weapons gained through whatever means, it would completely throw off the formula for rareity and those 'rare nice items' are now just as mundane and unimportant as my burlap sack that I finally found. That I cant wear. *angryfist*. But yeah, balance would be good, its pretty easy to do with breakage and mechanized logical mathematical rareThing re-entry sytem into the game world.

[Rias]

I think another thing that's an issue is that people see celestium and sunsteel as "rare", but nothing else seems to be seen as rare. Bloodglass is supposed to be rare (and its supply and working will become more limited soon - yay, get the torches and pitchforks and angry posts ready for that). Celestium is so highly prized and sought-after because of its extreme rarity. That's a big part of what makes it so special. If we start getting more and more of it, and none of it leaves the game, that's going to cheapen it in more ways than riln value.

Celestium (and by extension, sunsteel) were, from the start, intended to be extremely rare. Otherwise, they fall into the category I call "World of Warcraft Rare" where "rare" just means "a little more difficult to get than regular off-the-shelf items, but anyone can still get them". It always bugged me that in Gemstone (the MUD I used to play for years and years) there were all these "rare" materials, but they really weren't rare. They were described as rare, but they were essentially the baseline. EVERYone had weapons and armor made out of the "rare" material known as vultite - if you didn't, you were some goober who didn't know any better. Who uses iron or steel? Those materials are for losers. Heck, people used the materials decoratively. Dinnerware, doors, window frames ... the stuff was everwhere!

So, if we let these celestium and sunsteel items endure indefinitely, and we continue to release more of them, there's going to be a glut. It's not going to be "Wow, I wish I could get my hands on a celestium weapon", it would be "Wow, I can't wait until I get my celestium weapon." I don't like that mindset, when it comes to what I want to be ultra-rare.

So, they have a limited life. That requires you (general you) to make a decision. Does Elystole keep his sunsteel axe with him at all times, as well as a regular iron one, just so he can be ready but at the expense of extra weight encumbrance? Does he leave it at home and go grab it when he becomes aware of the location of one of his preferred targets? Does he hide it under his pillow and never use it, for fear it'll degrade and break someday? Does he use it until it becomes so battered and degraded that he decides to hang it on the wall at that point, preferring to keep it as an heirloom instead of using it till it breaks completely? That's up to him.

We're aware that some items disappear from the world when players leave, and we take that into account. We're generally aware of the unique items and how often they're used. I've also at least once had an item stolen from a player who received a very unique and useful item, then stashed it away and never used it a single time. I don't like hoarders who hoard for the sake of having and not using.

There are other rare items out there that people either don't know about because the owners don't shout about them, or because people for some reason don't consider them to be on the same level. Some are more subtle in their power, some are not. People tend to focus on weaponry, and sunsteel and celestium in particular.

I understand the conundrum of getting attached to equipment and not wanting to lose it. I've tried to think of ways to allow people to do something similar to your reforge idea, but it would require some material matching what the items is made of, so celestium and sunsteel would still be difficult to repair due to rarity. I'm partial to the idea of very rare NPCs showing up occasionally; legendary crafters (yes, more legendary than Coalition Artisans) who can restore and repair unique items. They wouldn't be around often enough to allow constant use of said items, though. It was mentioned that even Narsil (from Tolkien's world) was reforged, but how long did it take for that to happen? Would've been kind of cheap if any swordsmith could have reforged the legendary weapon so its bearer could constantly go out and practice with it in mundane activity.

Just to emphasise: this is something that even other GMs have debated with me. Celestium is intended to be super rare. Equipment made from it (or its alloys) is expected to have a shelf life so that there isn't a glut, and so that people consider when they should use it. For better or worse, due to my legendary stubbornness, this isn't going to change.

If it makes anyone feel better, there are other materials being prepared for release with extraordinary qualities. These will also be rare, but not as rare as celestium, which is likely going to be the rarest material ever found in-game. (Lore tidbit: It doesn't even occur naturally anywhere on the planet. It drops, very rarely, from space as part of meteorites.)

[Rias]

handing an item over to an NPC for repair is pretty much a guarantee that you get a piece of junk back.

Have you actually observed this, or is this just Word of Kent (whom I've heard bring this up quite frequently)? Because I just worked an off-the-shelf steel shortsword down to heavily damaged (it was almost broken), turned it in to the NPC to repair, and got it back with no quality loss whatsoever. The downside to NPC repairs is that you have to wait 24 hours to get your item back, not that it turns your item into a piece of junk. There should be a chance of degrade as there is with player repairs, but it's not a guarantee.

Edit: Tried the same, but with a masterful sword, and got the same result - no quality loss from NPC repair.

[Elystole]

I understand the conundrum of getting attached to equipment and not wanting to lose it. I've tried to think of ways to allow people to do something similar to your reforge idea, but it would require some material matching what the items is made of, so celestium and sunsteel would still be difficult to repair due to rarity. I'm partial to the idea of very rare NPCs showing up occasionally; legendary crafters (yes, more legendary than Coalition Artisans) who can restore and repair unique items. They wouldn't be around often enough to allow constant use of said items, though. It was mentioned that even Narsil (from Tolkien's world) was reforged, but how long did it take for that to happen? Would've been kind of cheap if any swordsmith could have reforged the legendary weapon so its bearer could constantly go out and practice with it in mundane activity.

I just think that having an option, any option, for repair is important and either of these would go a long way towards addressing my concerns. If it takes a bit of material matching to repair something that would still hopefully be less wasteful than smelting. And the idea of a very rare NPC doing repairs was actually the first idea I had, but I thought we were trying to make the economy more player-focused. Still, if that's the way you're leaning, I say go for it.

Not to derail the thread, but I thought I would point out that Narsil didn't break from regular use. It broke fighting Sauron. After it was reforged, it was the only sword Aragon carried and used: He didn't have a second B-rated sword he used for slaughtering all of those orcs at Helm's Deep. Most stories, games, whatever just don't bother with item breakage, but they don't have a player economy to balance. So I do get what you're trying to do, but I think that the balance is skewing too much towards "disposable" and that having a top-tier repair option, such as that legendary NPC, would go a long way towards addressing that.

It does raise another important question: Can PCs become legendary in their own right? What I mean is that if there is an NPC out there who can do something that no PC can do no matter how skilled they are at their craft then PCs will always be second-tier. I've told a few people that my long-term goal for Elystole is to reach GMPC levels so that he can go to Corvus and gank Shar. Will it ever happen? Probably not, but it is nice to think that it someday could. If Wyatt showed up during the fight and rocked it with some crazy shooting technique that I could never learn, I'd be a bit bummed.

Have you actually observed this, or is this just Word of Kent (whom I've heard bring this up quite frequently)? Because I just worked an off-the-shelf steel shortsword down to heavily damaged (it was almost broken), turned it in to the NPC to repair, and got it back with no quality loss whatsoever. The downside to NPC repairs is that you have to wait 24 hours to get your item back, not that it turns your item into a piece of junk. There should be a chance of degrade as there is with player repairs, but it's not a guarante

I have actually observed this. Have you tried it with armor? The first time I tried wearing metal armor I turned in a suit of copper mail to the Shadgard blacksmith for repairs and half of the pieces came back poor quality and since then I've never brought anything worth keeping to the NPC. I know Jilliana has also experienced regular quality degradation with her iron plate when she turns it in for repair. Since then I've been repairing my own armor and I can bring it back from damaged to fully repaired no problem. Except for leather armor: It seems that no one, NPC or player, can really repair leather armor. Almost every time I've tried or heard of someone trying it has needed to be replaced. It's one of the reasons I was inquiring about different pelts and durability.

[xavier]

the only topic i feel I need to add weight to in this thread is NPC repair. It does happen, it is not a guaranteed thing that it'll happen. I've had the same piece of armor repaired several times by the NPC and it never degraded, then again I've had a newly purchased sword get worn down in a day and put it in for repairs one time and it comes back poor quality. I've even repaired my own leather armor on Xavier and it didn't always come back lower quality. Most of the time, yes but not all. I think that incident with half your armor being degraded was just bad luck. It would however be nice if the roll for repair degradation were modified a bit to make things not come back from what is supposed to be a master craftsman poor as often as they do. I haven't actually sat down and taken input and done calculations but my suggestion is a 10% percent decrease from its current roll.

[jilliana]

I wonder if the condition in which it is being taken in for repairs counts.

Would a scuffed item be more likely to come out better in the end than say a more damaged one? Or is it pure luck that an item come out with no real noticeable difference in quality? I want to go for the common sense thought that scuffed items would be more likely to be repairable than a more damaged item, but these days I'm not so willing to go with what's common sense. :)

[Rias]

Aha, so here's why items appear to be "junked" by repairs so frequently:

Off-the-shelf stuff is "average" quality. That's a quality rating of 1. Any tiny amount below 1 would to bump it to the next-lower descriptor, "poor". So your armor could have been degraded from a quality of 1 to a quality of 0.99999999999, and it would examine as "poor" when really it's a negligible difference.

So, I've lowered the threshold a bit as to when an item is described as being "poor" instead of "average" quality. Hopefully that assuages some of the grief when people get their stuff back from being repaired. You give someone something "average" and get it back as "poor", I can see how you'd be upset. What was happening was you were giving them something that was quality 1.00 and you were getting it back at 0.99. Not something to really get upset about.

Also while picking through the code though, armor repairs were worse than weapon repairs, and have a significantly higher chance/rate of degrade. I'm working on leveling that out and adjusting some of the formulae.

Can PCs become legendary in their own right? What I mean is that if there is an NPC out there who can do something that no PC can do no matter how skilled they are at their craft then PCs will always be second-tier. I've told a few people that my long-term goal for Elystole is to reach GMPC levels so that he can go to Corvus and gank Shar. Will it ever happen? Probably not, but it is nice to think that it someday could. If Wyatt showed up during the fight and rocked it with some crazy shooting technique that I could never learn, I'd be a bit bummed.

There are PCs who can do things that their NPC contemporaries can't do. For instance, Acarin has abilities that Shar herself can't perform. Slaidh has abilities Bjorn doesn't. Lacie had an uncanny and unique ability to interact with bowtruckles when no other Udemi has been able to influence insects with their powers. Rasui came up with a sorcerous theory that was adopted by Rook Parlour - he didn't learn it from them; they learned it from him. Do any of those count?

Then of course we've got the PCs who are ridiculously powerful like Spearhead and Alexander. They don't have any super special unique powers, but you'll be hard-pressed to find anything outside exceptional NPCs like guildmasters and similarly "legendary" creatures, like drakolin, that will give them pause. They have to gimp themselves intentionally just to scrape out a little skillgain on the toughest creatures out there. I'd say they're legends in their own right.

That said, there will always be certain services and abilities that are reserved for NPCs only. Otherwise, we'd essentially have to make all PCs into GMs.

Sure, Elystole could gank Shar at some point. He could conceivably do it as he is now, though the chance are slim. With the right situation and the right luck, though, he could pull it off. Sceptus, the most OP NPC to have ever graced CLOK thus far, was killed by then-low-skill PCs while leading his own invasion.

Would a scuffed item be more likely to come out better in the end than say a more damaged one?

It's better to repair things before they get too damaged. The more damaged they are, the higher chance of degrade. So, regular maintenance is better than waiting till it's almost broken and then repairing it.

[Elystole]

Off-the-shelf stuff is "average" quality. That's a quality rating of 1. Any tiny amount below 1 would to bump it to the next-lower descriptor, "poor". So your armor could have been degraded from a quality of 1 to a quality of 0.99999999999, and it would examine as "poor" when really it's a negligible difference.

So, I've lowered the threshold a bit as to when an item is described as being "poor" instead of "average" quality. Hopefully that assuages some of the grief when people get their stuff back from being repaired. You give someone something "average" and get it back as "poor", I can see how you'd be upset. What was happening was you were giving them something that was quality 1.00 and you were getting it back at 0.99. Not something to really get upset about.

Also while picking through the code though, armor repairs were worse than weapon repairs, and have a significantly higher chance/rate of degrade. I'm working on leveling that out and adjusting some of the formulae.

Hm. That's really interesting and makes sense. So since I purchased another set of storebought armor with that "average" quality of 1 and have been repairing it without it dropping to poor, I've managed all of my repairs without quality loss? Since a single failure would have dropped it 0.99 and "poor," right? Because I've done a lot of repairs on that armor from various damage levels.

Did you take a look at leather armor versus metal armor too? Leather seems to fare far worse.

There are PCs who can do things that their NPC contemporaries can't do. For instance, Acarin has abilities that Shar herself can't perform. Slaidh has abilities Bjorn doesn't. Lacie had an uncanny and unique ability to interact with bowtruckles when no other Udemi has been able to influence insects with their powers. Rasui came up with a sorcerous theory that was adopted by Rook Parlour - he didn't learn it from them; they learned it from him. Do any of those count?

Yep. Those all count and are pretty cool. Though it also looks like us newer players are slacking.

[Rias]

I can think of 4 of the "newer" players off the top of my head that are similarly special, but I don't want to give them away.

Also, that newer guy Elystole helped conceptualize and release a new semi-exclusive guild. I think that counts for something!