item repair and reforge

the cost of repairing epic and god like is becoming far to much as they lose durability to fast. i repaired 1 god like yesterday and will have to repair it again today. these are items we paid for and shouldn't be such a problem to keep up.
as to the reforge, i reforged my first item today and found out it cost's me a frag to do so. will it cost me a epic and god to repair the respective items ? if so is this really fair as to get these item's i have to pay.

i hope you understand where i am coming from with this ? if people are going to pay they expect things they pay for not to cost them a fortune to keep.

thanx pug

To answer your question, yeah you will need the required fragment to forge them. Higher tier gear also has higher durability so will last longer. It somewhat offsets the idea of buying power, since one can be new to the game and still obtain godlike and epic weapons with gems, the cost would wildly outpace your income in most cases. Each time you use them the ap of your army goes up, so you fight tougher enemies, get better rewards, where is this gold going ? Should evaluate the gold cost of using each item for one fight.

Also try doing only large scale fighters rather than several small ones. One godlike item should last hundreds of battles before needing a reforge, you could just wait until it needs reforged and salvage it for godlike fragments, perhaps to sell for gold to afford repairs ?

Khor wrote:

To answer your question, yeah you will need the required fragment to forge them. Higher tier gear also has higher durability so will last longer. It somewhat offsets the idea of buying power, since one can be new to the game and still obtain godlike and epic weapons with gems, the cost would wildly outpace your income in most cases. Each time you use them the ap of your army goes up, so you fight tougher enemies, get better rewards, where is this gold going ? Should evaluate the gold cost of using each item for one fight.

Also try doing only large scale fighters rather than several small ones. One godlike item should last hundreds of battles before needing a reforge, you could just wait until it needs reforged and salvage it for godlike fragments, perhaps to sell for gold to afford repairs ?

the prob i see here is getting to a reforge with godlike or epic. if at 40 dura it take only a day to go down then at 20 dura i will have to repair it twice in one day 4 time at 10 dura. the cost for this would be incredible.

i use 2 armies 5 and 5 until i can expand. i tried unequipping all items and found i received less rewards for putting in 8 unit's and could do less battles due to healing time's, which where long. hence due to the healing cost the gold reward was even less.

I believe the repairing cost of gold is according to the durability of the remaining items, so the cost of repairing an item of durability of 0/20 twice is quite the same as repairing an item with 0/40 durability. This rule is also apply to the repairing time.

It would be nice to have the frag requirement removed for the reforge...or the gold amount for repair on godlike items taken down a bit. Or increase the likelyhood of getting frags (not gear) in PVE/COOP/PVP. Any of these would balance the issue out, though admittedly, i'd personally prefer increased epic/godlike frag droprate

Once again, it takes many many battles to earn money, and if the gold you're getting goes soley into maintaining your gear, then where's the sense of accomplishment?

Maybe increase rewards you receive in PVE/COOP/PVP depending on your AP? That was a lovely change to the CP system, and im sure it wouldnt be unwelcome to those with good gear who want to try to maintain it fairly.

For me, the first thing I would look at -- Which players intended to use Godlikes all the time? Or even any at all? Once we know that, we can examine what limitations on use are needed.

To answer that primary question I would break it down a bit and consider a few things:

• Are the stats on Godlikes balanced around constant use? We do not have formulas, so we cant really analyze the stats thoroughly, so this could be a question for the devs to answer. That said, we can still explore it a bit by comparing item stats vs stats acquisition through XP progression.
  
• Player Motivation through Gear: How much does vertical item progression motivate players to participate in X content? How are we handling the risks of power creep? How much more content can we add to the game without adding more item progression?
  
• If certain unit types have constant access to Godlike stat gains, can they still be countered by the units they were designed to be countered by? Can they now counter units that they shouldnt be able to? This question can get messy to explore without a grasp of the game mechanics / formulas or the dev's design intentions for a unit.
• If players are using Godlikes, should those players be able to maintain the Godlike gear and have resources left over for other things too? If Godlikes are the pinnacle of item progression, should they be balanced to be maintained by endgame players? or newbies who are leveling up?

About Player Motivation / Endgame Motivation -- Why would it be bad for a player to reach the point that full godlike gear is always used?

• One, there is no more progression in itemization. There are now fewer reward options to motivate those players.
  
• If players hit the item progression ceiling, there is less choice in what items to wear for various situations - players just always wear the best gear. That removes a layer of endgame metagame.
  
• I think the more layers of metagame, the more interesting endgame content will be. The more interesting endgame content is, the less reliant the devs have to be on using item progression as a source of motivation. The game itself is intrinsically fun - not chasing items in a skinner box game.
  
• I would not want to see the typical and pointless MMO power creep cycle:
  

  Quote :

  "I'm a good player, I know I *deserve* the best geeeaaar. Now!"... .. ....
  .. "Oh, I know! Let's go do that PvE content stuff!"
  .... *snikt snikt* *SlashBangLoot* .... *flex*
  ... ... .. "Okay..I did that for the past 2months. Thats boring now." ...
  ..... ... ... "Devs! I want harder content!... oh and that content better give me better gear!"... ...
  ^^<<<Restart cycle.
  .... ... ... ..."Whaaa? You fail devs cant keep up with the voracious appetite of MMO gamers? wtf. Quitting this stupid game right after I flame the forums!

• Overall, a lot of MMO players have been trained to expect loot that never goes away and drives motivation to complete content. I think thats really bad design for sustainable fun.
  

So this is one reason why I dont think even endgame players should be able to maintain/use full godlikes all the time.

It is not possible anyways Hegorn with the APs restriction for the composition of an army.

Also, what you described as a cycle, it is mainly valid for PVE. As PvP is one of the main features of this game, even if you have extremely good gear, it is up to tactics, army composition and fast decision making ability that will determine the winner in the end.

Yep. From what I have talked with Yan using godlike means you cant field much units. He ussually only fields 4-5 when he goes fully geared.

Still it seems to be the better option. Less units better equiped seem to obliterate more units not that well equipped.

it really depends.... With the new additions in the Morale mechanics, getting flanked or reared can lead to devastation, even if you have Godlike gear on.

When your Melee is being reduced by 10 for every flank exposed and even worse for rear...then it is going to hurt..

RuneSlayer wrote:

it really depends.... With the new additions in the Morale mechanics, getting flanked or reared can lead to devastation, even if you have Godlike gear on.

When your Melee is being reduced by 10 for every flank exposed and even worse for rear...then it is going to hurt..

Thanks for that tidbit about the 10 melee. That helps put it in perspective.

(Disclaimer - Napkin math ahead)

Lets say someone wants to counter a single unit wielding a Godlike weapon by flanking with cheap units. My initial gut impression was that it will cost the flankers way more AP to field those 2 flanking units than for the Godlike single unit to wear his godlike weapon...

The math can work out though -- if we make some assumptions.
Cheap low ranking units cost about 50AP without gear or heroes. Thats about 100AP to remove 20melee from the godlike target.

10 melee seems to cost somewhere around 25AP - at least for rare/uncommon/common gear. It may actually be a good bit lower for Godlike gear. I took an admittedly brief look into the AP costs and found that items with higher stats have better AP scaling. +1 melee on rare items costed as little as 1.71, while +1melee on common gear costed over 3. I could be wrong and I'll look into it more, but there is a trend across common/uncommon/rare items for this.

In any case, if 10melee costs about 25AP, then the attackers need to cause a 40 melee spread to break even AP wise. That may be possible with the -20 to the target from 2 flanks and if the melee buff to the flankers is +10 each. That is an assumption, but it would make this scenario be roughly even - for 2 rounds at least.

So the melee numbers may work out. Not sure if the added morale losses from flanking and a possible shivers would be enough to counter the godlike strength stat on the weapon. Rearing being "more devastating" may swing this to favor of the low AP flankers.

Needs some player testing to see if this napkin math of mine makes sense in game.

RuneSlayer wrote:

Heh. no after the and the ?

I hope I'm not that far off!

Not too far.

Heh. Alright.

Chipping away slowly...

So all in all 'good' gear is relatively pointless given the expense and effort required, and I should just field a ton of poorly geared units to overwhelm someone with 'good' gear.

If my 'tactics' are superior and I use my numbers to encircle them (not that difficult, given the AP scaling) then I should win.

Given the alure to the PvP matchup was more gear/frags in the first place...

You were talking of vicious circles, Hegorn....what do you think this gear system currently is? Do you honestly believe you should receive gear, only to never use it due to the negative impacts it will have? AP level, repair cost, reforge cost? There are no endgame battles to save it for, and with the games focus being on PvP, you should be able to achieve some advantage through using the gear you have.

And given the system for equipping/switching gear and its bulkiness and lack of user-friendly capabilities, one could only assume that gear was 'meant' to be worn all the time. Otherwise there should be options for assigning gear sets (for those special battles that don't exist) so that a player can manage their gear without spending all day balancing stats to hit the appropriate caps for their units each and everytime they feel the need to switch it around (once again, only necessary because of the negative impacts of owning said gear).

I'm really starting to feel that gear is being made pointless by the game designers. Maybe if it had those 'special abilities' that ive heard of it would be worthwhile; but so far as i know that's not even in-game yet. Leaving anyone who uses gear subject to imbalanced AP scaling, exteme repair costs, and forcing them to save frags to reforge gear instead of craft gear due to a low drop-rate.

Quote :

So all in all 'good' gear is relatively pointless given the expense and effort required, and I should just field a ton of poorly geared units to overwhelm someone with 'good' gear.

Pointless? Not at all. A single +3 at Melee will significantly help a unit in battle. As for the expense and effort required, I will have to disagree. Each rarity has its drop rate, bonuses and cost... Godlike items are well..."Godlike"...so expect very big bonuses, big durabilities, but also a big difficulty to find/make and big maintenance costs. Why would a player equip his units with Godlike gear for his "everyday" activities? They are supposed to be used when the need arises for that extra advantage over the opponent. I don't even have Godlike items and save my rare items for PvPs or sometimes Nightmare.

Quote :

If my 'tactics' are superior and I use my numbers to encircle them (not that difficult, given the AP scaling) then I should win.

It depends. APs are there for a reason. Tactics will of course play a significant role in battle, but items will help as well.

Quote :

There are no endgame battles to save it for

There aren't? Have you attacked the capital?

Quote :

And given the system for equipping/switching gear and its bulkiness and lack of user-friendly capabilities, one could only assume that gear was 'meant' to be worn all the time. Otherwise there should be options for assigning gear sets (for those special battles that don't exist) so that a player can manage their gear without spending all day balancing stats to hit the appropriate caps for their units each and everytime they feel the need to switch it around (once again, only necessary because of the negative impacts of owning said gear).

What is the problem with the equipping/switching gear? Please elaborate.

Quote :

I'm really starting to feel that gear is being made pointless by the game designers. Maybe if it had those 'special abilities' that ive heard of it would be worthwhile; but so far as i know that's not even in-game yet. Leaving anyone who uses gear subject to imbalanced AP scaling, exteme repair costs, and forcing them to save frags to reforge gear instead of craft gear due to a low drop-rate.

Allow me to disagree. Gear is far from pointless. Imbalanced AP scaling? Again I will have to disagree. With the recent changes in APs, PVP matchmaking has become quite balanced. The repair cost has been reduced and the drop rate has been increased.Why do you think that the repair cost is too high? Unless of course you are referring to Epic or Godlike items, which of course will be expensive to repair due to their effectiveness.

Dobraine wrote:

So all in all 'good' gear is relatively pointless given the expense and effort required, and I should just field a ton of poorly geared units to overwhelm someone with 'good' gear.

If my 'tactics' are superior and I use my numbers to encircle them (not that difficult, given the AP scaling) then I should win.

I generally do think that tactics should trump gear. I also think that this game has a rather long grind and vertical progression - which is why many people will think, "what is the point of this grind if I dont become more powerful." Its not an easy thing for the devs to balance these two things, but I think theyre doing pretty well so far.

Quote :

Do you honestly believe you should receive gear, only to never use it due to the negative impacts it will have?

I do think that gear should not be something that players blindly work towards and never have to examine or change after they reach that gear goal. Thats kinda boring. I think it is more interesting if I have to choose if I want to heavily gear my HINF or if I should gear up my archers for different types of battles.

To that end, I do think the current UI for changing loadouts and maintaining gear has room for improvement. If gear is relegated to being a baked-in +X% power, then yes that model will feel very mundane. Players just wear it and pour gold into it and it doesnt really change the decision making process. It is purely a grind to extend the endgame. Thats not good in my eyes.

My hope is that with more unit types and perhaps with more battle types, choosing how you gear your units will matter more.

Quote :

with the games focus being on PvP, you should be able to achieve some advantage through using the gear you have.

I agree - it should give you more choices in how you want to build your armies more so than it gives you additional power. The gear might open options for different tactics and unit combos. What it should not do is give you guaranteed wins over those who are ungeared. AP to AP, armies should be pretty well balanced.

Quote :

Leaving anyone who uses gear subject to imbalanced AP scaling, exteme repair costs, and forcing them to save frags to reforge gear instead of craft gear due to a low drop-rate.

What do you mean by imbalanced AP scaling?

RuneSlayer

Quote :

Pointless? Not at all. A single +3 at Melee will significantly help a unit in battle. As for the expense and effort required, I will have to disagree. Each rarity has its drop rate, bonuses and cost... Godlike items are well..."Godlike"...so expect very big bonuses, big durabilities, but also a big difficulty to find/make and big maintenance costs. Why would a player equip his units with Godlike gear for his "everyday" activities? They are supposed to be used when the need arises for that extra advantage over the opponent. I don't even have Godlike items and save my rare items for PvPs or sometimes Nightmare.

RuneSlayer

Quote :

There aren't? Have you attacked the capital?

So I should save all of my best items in the hope that we reach the capital? What if we get pushed back to our capital? Is it recommended I leave them in my dusty gear trunk for the days when the light shines again?

And if you were a soldier going to battle...would you gauge the enemy as weak; just another average battle...and then put your sharpest sword and thickest armour away in favour of something you don't mind getting a dent on? I'm also assuming that 'godlike' means...well...''godlike', and that an item of such quality would not simply 'last longer' than other items, but would be 'immortal'...kinda like a god.

RuneSlayer

Quote :

It depends. APs are there for a reason. Tactics will of course play a significant role in battle, but items will help as well.

Hegorn

Quote :

I generally do think that tactics should trump gear. I also think that this game has a rather long grind and vertical progression - which is why many people will think, "what is the point of this grind if I dont become more powerful."

Yes, naturally items help. And I agree, tactics should trump gear. However, why should a player who takes his best gear to a PvP battle be so thoroughly denied the options that would come with taking poor quality gear, or none at all? An example being - Silly me gets all excited to test out some gear, and equips his units to be the best they can; only to find out that with a lvl 17 barracks I can only field 4 units (2Ar, 1HI, 1Ca) with rare to godlike gear on each and their respective heroes having common to godlike (balanced spread for all). When compared to an army in full commons with some complementary uncommons and naked heroes (3LI, 3Ar, 1HI, 1Ca, 1 Art {god forbid should i test naked and only base units}) this seems unbalanced.

If I choose to take my 'good' gear to ANY fight, no matter how important or unimportant it may be deemed, I will have (easily) less than half of the army than I could have should I simply ignore that same 'good' gear. This gives me the feeling of being penalized for having good gear, and seems to negate the point of wearing it, let alone bothering to maintain it.

I understand that you don't want players to get stomped out because of gear, and I agree with that sentiment. But at the same time having a system where your paying customers feel displaced and damned near frowned upon should not be seen as ideal either. You probably shouldn't have included the gear in the packages if it was not meant to be used, and would be near impossible to maintain...without paying more, of course.

Hence why I feel AP is imbalanced. Or perhaps the AP cap per barracks level needs to be raised so that players with 'good' gear (once again, referring from rare to godlike in equal balance) can field a more reasonable amount of units so that they too can use more intricate tactics for those 'important' battles when they deem it necessary...and in the case of PvP won't simply be outflanked because they're outnumbered by more than 2 to 1...if they can even find a battle, that is.

RuneSlayer

Quote :

What is the problem with the equipping/switching gear? Please elaborate.

It takes a rather large amount of time to switch gear around, especially when you start accumulating a collection of sorts. As I said, the ability to place gear into premade 'sets' which can be applied much faster would save much time, yet still require all the planning any general needs to be capable of. Naturally, this would lead to less time farting around in the army screen trying to switch your gear out for 'important' or 'non-important' fights, and would give players more time to actually fight.

As i'm sure you understand from your prior '14 hour day' comment in one of our earlier meetings, not everyone has an abundance of time to play the game; and when they do, im sure most would rather spend time fighting and making some progression as opposed to swapping gear around piece by piece, trying to make sure they have it set right (as i've seen multiple "OCD gamer" comments around, I know i'm not the only one who likes to take his army as best setup as can be).

Lets say that Dobraine wants to run some PvP, because his friends aren't on. He strips all his gear to start fresh, first of all (a button to do this for all units or unit by unit would be nice), and begins to equip gear for pvp. While only able to take 4 units to battle, he still wants to equip his whole army with gear so that me may simply swap heroes and continue on while the previous units heal. He gets his first unit set up. Then his second. Next comes third. Naturally, 4th after that....first army complete. Then the 5th. Goes to grab a beer, and comes back to look at the sixth. Realizing he gave the fifth unit a piece of gear intended for the sixth, he redoes the fifth's gear, then completes the sixth; and moves on to the seventh...yadda yadda...eleventh...

Was that both boring and annoying? Think of how the player feels when actually performing the actions instead of simply reading some text.

Finally able to queue confidently now that his units are equipped for this important PvP battle, he does do. Oh wait, his AP is too much and he cant get a battle even against 4 foes. Fortunately Yan is friendly enough to lower his AP to the same level and provide a match...because it wasn't happening otherwise. Dobraine gets his ass kicked. His buddy logs on. Now comes the time to repeat that exciting gear process for the 'unimportant' COOP matches!

Having that thrilling read out of the way, I will reiterate. The ability to build your own gear-sets would be a phenominal change. And something I didn't mention in my earlier post...a 'strip all' or 'strip unit' button would similarly speed things up...though not to the same extent.

RuneSlayer

Quote :

Why do you think that the repair cost is too high? Unless of course you are referring to Epic or Godlike items, which of course will be expensive to repair due to their effectiveness.

Because it seems a dusty trunk is the only reasonable place for my best gear to be.

Hegorn

Quote :

I do think that gear should not be something that players blindly work towards and never have to examine or change after they reach that gear goal. Thats kinda boring. I think it is more interesting if I have to choose if I want to heavily gear my HINF or if I should gear up my archers for different types of battles.

To that end, I do think the current UI for changing loadouts and maintaining gear has room for improvement. If gear is relegated to being a baked-in +X% power, then yes that model will feel very mundane. Players just wear it and pour gold into it and it doesnt really change the decision making process. It is purely a grind to extend the endgame. Thats not good in my eyes.

My hope is that with more unit types and perhaps with more battle types, choosing how you gear your units will matter more.

So yes, you do believe you should receive gear, only to never use it due to the negative impacts it will have?

The point is, I have some 'good' gear. Now, it would seem the only frags i've been getting from COOP go as high as rare. I'm not sure what the formula is, but clearly it doesn't like giving out epic/godlike frags...even with droprate increase as a stat on gear.

I could wear my 'good' gear to PvP, but once again it doesn't seem to be worth it, as...

RuneSlayer

Quote :

With the new additions in the Morale mechanics, getting flanked or reared can lead to devastation, even if you have Godlike gear on.

When your Melee is being reduced by 10 for every flank exposed and even worse for rear...then it is going to hurt..

So taking in several well-geared units to face off against (as my earlier experiment showed) over 2x as many poorly geared units gives you no real advantage. Why wear the gear at all is what i'm saying. It gives you no advantage (assuming you're fighting a capable enemy) and requires similarly 'godlike' or 'epic' quantities of resources to repair. Is the sole purpose of this gear for the capital battle? What if i'm on the losing side?



To sum it all up. Please, at the very least, if we pay for this gear and support your game, don't make it unmanageable for us to use it.

About item management - I suggested item profiles a while back as well. I agree items are a bit of a hassle to manage now.

Dobraine wrote:

Hegorn

Quote :

I do think that gear should not be something that players blindly work towards and never have to examine or change after they reach that gear goal. Thats kinda boring. I think it is more interesting if I have to choose if I want to heavily gear my HINF or if I should gear up my archers for different types of battles.

To that end, I do think the current UI for changing loadouts and maintaining gear has room for improvement. If gear is relegated to being a baked-in +X% power, then yes that model will feel very mundane. Players just wear it and pour gold into it and it doesnt really change the decision making process. It is purely a grind to extend the endgame. Thats not good in my eyes.

My hope is that with more unit types and perhaps with more battle types, choosing how you gear your units will matter more.

So yes, you do believe you should receive gear, only to never use it due to the negative impacts it will have?

You've misunderstood what I said if you think I dont want to use the best gear I have - sometimes. You have the choice to build a small army with excellent gear and you have the choice to build a significantly larger army that isnt well geared. Thats a trade off.

Players who do not have that gear have less choice. They have to build a large army to compete with your small, well-geared army - and even then its an iffy proposition for them. Godlike gear is very powerful.

If I were pvping with the smaller sized army, I would look for places on the map that take advantage of my fewer units (choke points, etc). That is interesting strategy gaming.

What you are suggesting would remove army size as a meaningful choice for players. There would be no reason to vary your army size to gain different types of advantages. You are just better off by always building as big an army as you can with the best items you can wear. Thats what I think is boring.

All that said, if youre arguing that the cost of maintaining 1AP of Godlike gear is way more expensive than the cost of maintaining 1AP of lesser gear, that would have more traction with me. Is this the case?

Another proposed solution would be to implement a loot scaling system based around the AP of the army you bring. That might be too simple, however. A player can always get their AP up with more units in common/uncommon.

Perhaps the loot system could 'count' the number of each rarity, and as the probability for crafting gear works, formulate an average for each type and roll on the frag/gear; without ever entirely negating the chance for higher rarity drops for players already without the gear.

For example: Dobraine brings 4 commons, 5 uncommons, 8 rares, 6 epics, and 5 godlikes.

The roll would look something like this: 14% common, 18% uncommon, 29% rare, 21% epic, 18% godlike.

His buddy Gizzle, however, brings 9 commons, 7 uncommons, 4 rares, 0 epics, and 0 godlikes.

His roll would look something like this: 43% common, 35% uncommon, 20% rare, 1% epic, and 1% godlike.


- I would apply a set base roll for the different rarities should no gear of said variety be present, with the chance getting smaller the higher the rarity; likely to be dependant on the average rarity of that players gear.

- If a player were to bring no gear at all, then you could always have a general 'no gear' base roll, i.e. 80% common, 16% uncommon, 2% rare, 1% epic, 1% godlike.

While it's nowhere near a presentable working formula, it is a start down a road that could keep all of your players happy. Implementing something such as this for the whole loot system, not just PvP, would bring a balance to the game that won't leave certain players feeling abandonned, left wondering what exactly it was that their investment achieved.



You beat me to the punch, sir. I'll show you my findings post post.

ha, terrible.

I found 2 similarly worn items, 1 godlike and 1 uncommon. Not that their percentage of durability SHOULD effect anything, but i'm not the guy who did the math for this game. One could easily find logic in saying it would cost more gold/AP to repair a more thoroughly beaten item, as the smith must work more (presumably).

The Godlike item had a durability of 24/53, at 45.28% durability. It would cost 2976g to repair it. It is valued at 60AP. This places it at 49.6g/AP to repair this item.

The uncommon item had a durability of 10/22, at 45.45% durability. It would cost 141g to repair it. It is valued at 10AP, costing 14.1g/AP to repair the uncommon.

So it is clearly more to maintain godlike gear. My main concern isn't ENTIRELY the costing, as you can tell from the rest of this post.

Though, come to think of it, gold received should be based on a similar roll, so as to balance out the maintenance of said gear.

And to be honest, if the smiths complain that's more difficult to repair a higher rarity of item, they should be beaten to death for not supporting their faction in the war

Yea. Thats just about 3.5 times the cost per AP. Its higher than I expected. I expected it to be higher due to the extra quality, but not by that much.

I wonder if the devs balanced that around the disproportionate income you can make with godlikes. PvE matches with Godlikes have little to no heal times/costs.

Hegorn wrote:

I wonder if the devs balanced that around the disproportionate income you can make with godlikes. PvE matches with Godlikes have little to no heal times/costs.

Aye, possibly; I look forward to their input on the matter. I just don't want to have that 'ripped off' feeling when considering my purchases. Simply being able to maintain the gear would be fine with me - I don't need a snowball effect so that I compile mass amounts of the best gear. Also, as you have said, they do a good job of balancing the game so that players who pay don't have severe advantages over those who don't. That is fantastic, and makes for a healthy environment. They have it well covered with the AP system balancing act - though I still feel it should be slightly altered so that you need not sacrifice over 50% of your army count when equipping your best gear. Given this, I'm not sure why it has been made to be so difficult to use the gear...since a system has been put in place already to make sure it doesn't give undue advantages. Yes, godlike should be more difficult to get and maintain...but once you have it, it should at least be scaled so that it is feasable to maintain it through regular gameplay.

Unfortunately, Hegorn, they seem to imply that godlikes are to be used for...well, i'm not too sure to be honest. A capital city attack, perhaps. While it is not said, it is implied that they aren't worth it in PvP...the games primary directive. And regular PVE must count as an 'everyday' battle situation, as with COOP, which it has been outright said the gear is not intended to be used for. (i'd find supporting quotes from Runeslayer, but im really starting to run out of fuel here...work comes early)

Why such gear would be provided, only to have it set to self-destruct pending inserted coin has a malicious feel. While i'm sure such are not the intentions of the company, it is the impression that it relays to me.

The negatives seem to outweigh the positives, and I ask that you fellas at Agincourt once again pull a balancing act to neutralize this situation.

And as I have said before, I do greatly appreciate the effort the team puts in at communicating with the community and adapting their game accordingly. No doubt about the effort, and likely stress involved; none of which I want to downplay.

I don't seek some immediate fix for this, as many other changes are underway. I do, however (quite clearly) feel that a change in necessary in this area, and but seek the beginning of communication and progression in the balance of this part of the game.

I apologize for any abruptness or rudeness/inconsideration in my first few posts on this thread as I was (admittedly) quite intoxicated. Though under clearer mind, I hope that I have argued my side of the coin reasonably and fairly, and do wish to see this game continue to thrive and want to take an active role in that (when not dealing with my own abundant work related stress/effort).

Once again, thank you for your consideration and I look forward to discussing this further.