Should all items have blueprints? (rant)


#1

Just a random thought that popped into my head, but I started thinking about how some items don’t get blueprints until later, like with the High Tech Terror and The Third Dimension UT’s. Those UT’s aren’t tradable, but are valuable in their own rights. The E.Y.E. from HTT in particular was very valuable specifically to people using Crystal Shield and maybe Seal of the Blasphemous Prayer. However, now that the E.Y.E. blueprint was released, it’s not as sought after as a drop. Compare this to the recently released Volcanic Sheath. It’s a tradable UT from the Abyss of Demons, but has no blueprint. As a result, it can be considered more valuable, especially since it already has its own merit. Seriously, one time a guy was buying a Volcanic Sheath for a Ring of Decades. A FREAKING DECA. That told me something. UT’s without blueprints are very valuable, but once it gains one, it instantly becomes less sought after. The only exceptions are blueprints that need marks, meaning you have to have actually done the dungeon. Because E.Y.E. is forgeable now, it loses a lot of value, especially since it doesn’t need a mark, and also making the HTT less played through. So back to the Volcanic Sheath, it doesn’t have a blueprint, but can be traded, making it much more valuable. If the Volcanic Sheath were to get a blueprint, I believe less people would trade for it or try to get it as a drop, losing its value. I feel like endgame items and their blueprints are a little more balanced due to all of them requiring marks, while dungeons without marks instantly lose a lot of their value since you don’t even have to do the dungeon at all to get the items. Lots of people talk about power creep outclassing other items and making them lose their value, but I feel like blueprints, especially mid game items, are overlooked as factors in the loss of value in an item. If all blueprints were removed from the game, all UT’s would regain a lot of value, but it would also gate out a lot of new players without the time to grind a dungeon for items. However, if every single item were to get a blueprint, you could get everything without barely having to play the game.

Anyways, whether you did read my big rant or not, I wanna know people’s thoughts on this. There are a lot of factors in this, and it was more of a rant, not really a well thought out idea. Still, I’m curious about people’s opinions as it isn’t really talked about. Even though people talk about endgame blueprints being broken, no one looks at the mid game content. I started this topic since it seemed criminally underlooked. So now what do you all think?

Should all items have blueprints?

  • yes
  • no

0 voters


#2

The reason blue prints exist was to reduce their rarity to make the game more fair. It doesn’t make sense, at least in my opinion to do partial blue prints unless you want to unfairly reduce the drop rate of a very specific white. Although I agree that the entire system should be reworked one way or another (such as the suggested only being able to use items from the same dungeon), I think that the existence of forge and blueprints are good for the game. After all, running the same dungeon hundreds of times only to get whites you don’t want never was and never is going to be fun.


#3

This ultimately stems from an inherent issue with rotmg that hasn’t been touched on much outside of sb UT discussions, and even then most people don’t seem to be self aware enough to spot it.

outside of rare equipment drops, there isn’t really anything rotmg can reward you with. Pots aren’t particularly meaningful as drops because they can be gotten anywhere as filler. How many people run LoD for the pots? No one, and it always has been no one. Nest is similar, as is nearly every other dungeon you can think of.

Blueprints and tradeables just make getting UTs easier. You can talk about how much more fair that is and probably be right, but it still makes people lose the incentive to grind for rewards much faster and eventually there’s no reason to engage with content anymore. It sounds like that’s what’s happened to HTT from your example, the incentive to play is gone so more and more people don’t see the point.

This is made worse by permadeath. If, say, you wanted 10 rathalos rubies in monster hunter for some reason even though you have no use for that many, you could grind that out to your heart’s content until you have more rare drops than you know what to do with. But in rotmg, there’s an unavoidable risk of dying and losing everything you’ve got. So there’s a powerful tendency among players to avoid playing unnecessary or inefficient content because it doesn’t offset the risk associated with playing. Why would you play LoD if you can get the pots faster and more safely in glands and don’t care for or need the UTs? Because it’s “fun”? That’s not how rotmg is played. That’s how you take unnecessary risks and lose months of progress.

There isn’t really a solution to any of this. That’s why deca’s handling of blueprints has been so inconsistent and half-assed. It’s a kind of desperate attempt to reach some ideal middle ground, but really all options are bad in their own way without fixing everything.


#4

That’s the kind of issue I’m trying to point out. It’s not solely about the items and access to them, it’s the lack of engagement with the game’s content. Not only are items becoming outclassed and unused, but so is the actual gameplay. It’s less about having fun and more about getting good items in the safest way possible, which takes away the point of adding the items in the first place. Items add incentive to playing a dungeon, but if you don’t even need to do the dungeon at all to get the item, there’s no point. It takes away the need for real gameplay and therefore takes away the fun.


#5

I really hope Ogmur doesn’t gets its blueprint. If it does, game balance will become abysmal to that point.


#6

Pogmur already has a BP, so armor break being rare and hard to get ended long ago. Both the item and the BP seem relatively common (or maybe I’ve just been lucky)


#7

The moment a Shield of Ogmur blueprint comes out I’m both coming and crying.


#8

One day RotMG is going to turn into one of those games that’ll have no incentive to grind for anything. Like you play it for a couple of days, get every item in the game within said days, then drop the game. Or the game dies before then.

Things like blueprints certainly make the game easier and more fair, but at the same time the achievement and value of getting a bp item greatly lessens.


#9

Should all items have blueprints? No.

First they were created to address a particular problem, the fairness/unfairness of random drops. People e.g. requested a pity timer, drop rates increasing for each player as they didn’t get the rare item, or tokens, 100 or 1000 for an item. Blueprints are I think much better as they let you convert your good luck getting one sort of item into bad luck getting others.

But that means they only make sense for items that normally drop. So not limited items such as the Easter Knight Set, or most seasonal items (the newish Xmas weapons are I think the only exception). So not all items have blueprints, and I don’t think they should be added UTs that don’t drop.

It does seem a bit of a cheat that you can use whites from an easier dungeon for a harder one, but the latest producer’s letter says they will do something about this.

The biggest improvement for me would be blueprints for STs. Many are rarer than most whites, and they are getting harder to collect as newer sets drop from often three or four different dungeons, including often one that’s especially hard and/or rare.

But not so you can forge the whole set from your vault of UTs, more to get the one last item that you’ve had no luck getting. So maybe you need to have 3 items before you can forge the 4th. Maybe you need one or more items from the set as ingredients. Or each has its own requirements, based on their drop location.


#10

I just hope it’s going to be 2:1 or 3:1 if you have to use the matching UT’s to forge the desired ones.

If it is 4:1 for SS whites still, it would be too punishing to even use Forge in the 1st place. Don’t get me wrong, its nerf is warranted.

Deca themselves emphasizes

We believe this change will improve the long-term replayability of the dungeons the items were designed for and reward players who become skilled at completing these dungeons.

Using 4:1 ratio to “reward players who become skilled at completing these dungeons” does not encourage (but rather discourage) Realmers in the long run.


#11

Something like I was thinking of for STs might work well: the cost is the same in raw materials and forgefire as now, but you need to sacrifice 1 or 2 from the same dungeon.

I.e. 1:1 or 2:1, so swapping one or two UT you don’t need from that dungeon for one you do. But you still need 2, 3 or however many Juggs/Conflicts/Stingers to make up the material cost. And the numbers need not be the same for everything, it could vary by dungeon or the rarity/value of each item.


#12

Wait, Ogmur can forge? How about Oreo?


#13

Pogmur not Ogmur.


#14

Pogmur, short for Poison Ogmur, also known as Crystalized Fang Venom

Technically this is Pogmur too


#15

So Ogmur, Oreo, cdrink, bloody cloak these 4 are the only items can’t be forge?


#16

If you limit consideration to valuable UT/white bags currently dropping, I think so yes.

Seasonal whites (not currently dropping), mistake whites, novelty whites such as from Battle for the Nexus also don’t have BPs. But I don’t think they need them; let them stay seasonal/novelty items, hard to impossible to get normally.


#17

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