making the case for no repair costs

[Rolodome]

I realize that the primary reason repair costs are a thing is because it's a solid credit sink. That said, I feel that if you take the credit sink out of the equation, it's a debilitating, rather than helpful, feature.

 

Here's why, in a nutshell: Becoming skilled at anything requires a lot of trial and error, aka: failure. When you mix that with repair costs, that means "becoming skilled" can be very costly. High cost deters people and deterring people from the trial and error process is not going to set them up to become better at the game... just the opposite.

 

Example: Eternal Championship. You can have as much as a 6k credit repair cost after one failed attempt. And the payout for looting a single boss is something like a third of that, IIRC, so it's not like you're making it all back easily. Unless you want to ultimately lose a bunch of credits, you don't want to die very much doing EC. This is the exact opposite of the environment you want for content like EC. You want people to be able to bang their heads a hundred times, without concern for things like repair costs. That's one of the strengths of single-player games, in fact, is that when you're faced with a challenging boss that you're struggling to take down, there is usually no cost for repeated attempts (aside from your sanity ).

 

I don't have any astounding credit sink alternative proposal. Least not at this time. But I do think you could think up something. It's not as if the economy is perfect and precise in this game anyway.

 

In summary: Repair costs are a tried and true way to take credits out of the game and are arguably a deterrent from dying for this reason, but people are going to die regardless and it's better that they see dying as part of a learning process, rather than an expense. Especially in group content, where one person's mistake can cost everyone.

 

I imagine it's a remnant of more authoritarian game systems (e.g. punishing people for mistakes). Some may like those systems, but they had their day and the industry has largely moved away from them. It seems the only thing that keeps this particular feature intact is the belief that it's a necessary credit sink, but there are always other ways to take credits out of the game. It's just a matter of getting creative.

[Nempo]

They actually need MORE credit sinks int his game, not less. The fact you can earn 2mil a week just doing heroics is the reason for so much inflation given that we don't have enough proper credit sinks in the game.

[Sithishe]

I never feel that repait cost hurted me in anyway. I never noticed them. Comparing to current repair costs in WoW after Legion was released, here its nothing

[Rolodome]

They actually need MORE credit sinks int his game, not less. The fact you can earn 2mil a week just doing heroics is the reason for so much inflation given that we don't have enough proper credit sinks in the game.

The economic problems in this game are more complicated than repair costs or heroics. Most of it boils down to there being more demand for rare items than there is supply. I doubt most people would run heroics over and over, if there wasn't such a need to have credits.

 

That said, removing the repair cost sink would have an impact. Who knows how much in pure numbers though. Also, I did recommend thinking up an alternative credit sink to replace it. If anyone has ideas for an alternative sink, they are welcome to post it here.

[josephxp]

The economic problems in this game are more complicated than repair costs or heroics. Most of it boils down to there being more demand for rare items than there is supply. I doubt most people would run heroics over and over, if there wasn't such a need to have credits.

 

That said, removing the repair cost sink would have an impact. Who knows how much in pure numbers though. Also, I did recommend thinking up an alternative credit sink to replace it. If anyone has ideas for an alternative sink, they are welcome to post it here.

 

There is never such a thing of having to many credits <_<

[dr_mike]

I never feel that repait cost hurted me in anyway. I never noticed them. Comparing to current repair costs in WoW after Legion was released, here its nothing

 

It's worse in DCUO if you;re a freebee player. With their credit limits, you can't even fully repair quite often.

[PetFish]

-1

/notsigned™

[-Holmes]

They removed ability training costs and respec costs because the credit sink was too much. Now you want it cut down even more.

 

If you're getting such repair bills that you cannot keep up, maybe you should talk to your guild about a repair fund.

[Fixingthegame]

Are you poor? Need to lower that SWTOR debt?

[Nempo]

It's worse in DCUO if you;re a freebee player. With their credit limits, you can't even fully repair quite often.

 

That is just one more reason to never try that game for me.

[Rolodome]

They removed ability training costs and respec costs because the credit sink was too much. Now you want it cut down even more.

 

If you're getting such repair bills that you cannot keep up, maybe you should talk to your guild about a repair fund.

Amusing, but no, I've not struggled with repair bills. In fact, I rarely die in this game. The principle of this is more about encouraging those who aren't already skilled to learn through trial and error, as opposed to being concerned about taking the loss. As few barriers as possible to learning is the ideal.

[Rolodome]

Are you poor? Need to lower that SWTOR debt?

For some reason, I thought of the LifeAlert ad.

 

...and now that I think about it more, it's actually more relevant than I thought. XD

[MichaelStuart]

I support this.

 

The third most common reason players have giving me for leaving group is the desire to avoid repair bills. I recognize with the first reason being that the player feels the group lacks the skill to complete the content, it would have negligible effect in stopping players from leaving.

 

As for the concern of removing a money sink I feel that this can be negated by either raising the gtn commission fee by 4% or lowering credits gains board by 6%. (I feel that removing credit drops from trash mobs have the same effect)

 

If your wondering what the second most common reason I've seen for people leaving, it's needing on gear.

Also I feel that the first reason is more due to lack of patience on the leaver's part then lack of skill from the group.

[Storm-Cutter]

As someone said, you can earn > 2M credits doing heroics every week.

If you fail at EC and it costs 6K to repair each time, you can fail it over 330 times to burn through your 2M.

 

and 330 tries at ~15 minutes each, is 11 hours a day, every single day .... to do it in a week.

If that's the case, credits are not your problem, learning your class is.

 

And If I had a spare 2M to spend on shiny things, then bet your shirt the price will go up by 2.5M.

 

This game needs more credit sinks, not fewer.

[Nempo]

As someone said, you can earn > 2M credits doing heroics every week.

If you fail at EC and it costs 6K to repair each time, you can fail it over 330 times to burn through your 2M.

 

and 330 tries at ~15 minutes each, is 11 hours a day, every single day .... to do it in a week.

If that's the case, credits are not your problem, learning your class is.

 

And If I had a spare 2M to spend on shiny things, then bet your shirt the price will go up by 2.5M.

 

This game needs more credit sinks, not fewer.

 

QFT...this game needs far larger credit sinks.

[TheRandomno]

If Expertise is being removed, are repairs bills also being removed? PvP gear has no repair costs at the moment.

[Sareeph]

If Expertise is being removed, are repairs bills also being removed? PvP gear has no repair costs at the moment.

 

If PvP and PvE are sharing the same gear, are they adding repair costs to PvP?

[Nempo]

You take no item damage inside of warzones. (though the flame traps in huttball can glitch and give you death penelties if someone pushes you into it rather than you just walking in and being rooted)