MagicalMaster wrote...
Hang on.
So if player A makes a character to craft wands, he can sell the wands to everyone else. If player B makes a character to craft wands, he can sell the wands to everyone else. Players A and B can even trade wands (I'll give X character a wand of Y if you give N character a wand of M).
This is all perfectly fine according to you.
But if player A simply gives a character of his own a wand, it's suddenly unbalanced? Huh?
In short, this isn't an issue of muling, it's a issue of wide-spread wand/scroll trading and usage. I don't really see how muling factors into this.
RL can interfere with pleasantries, so have been hanging long. Sry, MM.
I never implied any action was fine or not, just seeking how the potential to exploit the use of UMD-users to unbalance an otherwise suitably-balanced environment was viewed by the creative efforts of the community. The examples were merely examples of what
can exploited, intentionally or not, if implented that way.
henesua was kind enough to furnish a perspective on whether this exploit was recognized by admins and addtionally, whether it was and how it was interpreted (wasn't interested in the details, just a general glimpse into how others may have addressed this). Apparently, this whole issue has been neither recognized nor deemed worth addressing by most other admins or would have gotten more replies. That actually reflects my own experience. In general, they
don't care. But exploitation by muling or other means DOES contribute to this whole relative balance issue.
On some servers, where XP is relatively easy to amass, it can become a method of farming on one character on an account, one that the player really gives no hoot about anyway except for the specialized function of crafter. (whether the wands can be sold or not for gaining gold is secondary as far as this issue is concerned because there are usually adequate means to gain gold.) Due to the way that XP is related to CR, a toon that remains at a relatively low level can always gain XP easily if they are continually in the cylce of draining it back down as they craft items and then rinse and repeat over and over. That is one way to implement an eternal crafting specialist.
The conflict, IMO, is providing the crafting material or not providing it. Sure, the environment can be designed to prevent drops or availability, but that in itself is detrimental to the game because it omits an interesting part of the default game, one that was fully intended to be implemented. I remember myself how disappointed I was when first playing the game and finding out that the OC was never designed to allow a player to experience that. It just makes the game more interesting giving some additonal relevance to casting abilites. Hang the unbalance from the potential exploitation. If it cannot be controlled in another fashion, I'll pass that environment.
So, if a world can prevent muling powerful, non-intrinsic wands (if itdecides that the action is indeed a class-specific exploitation that needs to be addressed) it will significantly alter the balance of those classes vs. others. If the muling itself is controlled that still leaves the account-to-account "buddy" system to deal with.
The only suggestion I can provide is to make the crafted wands (and scrolls and potions) non-class-specific. That would mean, even a fighter who got a hold of say, a crafted wand of magical missile, the fighter could use it. So could a cleric who bought it from him without any UMD class integrated. Every class could. That way, UMD would only become valuable for class-specific use only, as it was intended to be in the default game, and neutralize the potential for crafting-related exploitation. Muling would then cause less impact on the potential to amoss these sorts of items. I don't think the special crafting needs blueprints on the palette, at least for wands, because total charges can change If/how this could be scripted, dunno. I have seen TK's crafting system but I don't think it can produce non-clas-specific items, can it?.
Was mainly interested, per the original topic about identifying where the "magical" balance level might occur, if this potential to unbalance an environment was ever considered or addressed. It can be exploited at VERY low levels.
Related to where the discussion has been gradually trending...
I agree that class balance really isn't all that important because this is still inherently a party-based game. Multiclassing allows folks to balance their character's relative potential themselves without needing a designer's intervention to do that for them. Now, if they would like the default effectiveness of a
particular class changed enough that the need to multiclass becomes less necessary, THAT is a very subjective difference and goal.
Most of the imbalance complaints come about by virtue of PvP rather than the ability of one class to venture handily through a module while another struggles. I consider dueling a product of an easily-bored mind rather than as an intended dynamic that BioWare designed into their game. For designers that focus on placating the whims and suggestions of duelers, well... you have my sympathy. The game was never intended to provide that level of equality, now was it?
Modifié par HipMaestro, 30 novembre 2012 - 08:27 .
