Repair NPCs in Dungeons

[Jeibird]

beyond all the provided reasons, brusque replies and weird lore text walls. why not have a repair npc? the existing system works just fine. durability is a thing. NPCs can repair it. we already have DPS who "forget" to dodge aoes. tanks who don't tank and healers who holy spam. this is just one more way for people who have no business being carried to avoid even an ounce of personal responsibility. as someone who HAS forgotten to mend and had all my gear break all at once, here is what you do: either hope no one notices your sub par numbers or own up to your mistake, bite your penalty, say sorry,repair and try again in a half hour

[fantasticm]

we already have DPS who "forget" to dodge aoes. tanks who don't tank and healers who holy spam.

Good on them.

[Zantitrach]

beyond all the provided reasons, brusque replies and weird lore text walls. why not have a repair npc? the existing system works just fine. durability is a thing. NPCs can repair it. we already have DPS who "forget" to dodge aoes. tanks who don't tank and healers who holy spam. this is just one more way for people who have no business being carried to avoid even an ounce of personal responsibility. as someone who HAS forgotten to mend and had all my gear break all at once, here is what you do: either hope no one notices your sub par numbers or own up to your mistake, bite your penalty, say sorry,repair and try again in a half hour

This guy gets it.

[Noxifer]

And reformatting the window to properly be scaled to account for the fact that there is no longer that option, and changing the fact that the payment option is no longer in there, and making sure that it checks that you have hte PROPER GRADE of a DIFFERENT ITEM, and making sure that it checks your current Repair %'s and makes sure to add it on properly. Seriously, it is so much more work than having an NPC that works EXACLTY HOW THEY ALREADY WORK.

Like has been said, the system existed in 1.x, so it probably wouldn't be that tricky to implement the coding in itself. I admit I didn't play 1.x, so I don't know if that system used Dark Matter or not. As for UI, they could very well use the request meld window. And it's been mentioned (and if it hasn't, it should have been) that if they implemented this system, they'd probably implement it over-all instead of just inside of instances. So the 'tip' window wouldn't need to be removed, but it would have to be greyed out during instances due to the 'no trading' rules.
As for checking you have the proper grade, the melding system already checks to make sure you have the proper grade (or a higher one) of Carbonized Matter. So... that's nothing new either.

Yes, the coding would probably take up a bit of time, but once the system is there, it's there. No need to edit each dungeon because it'd be an over-all system based on the core programming.
With NPCs, the coding exists, yes. But they would still need to take the time to open up each dungeon map, decide on the proper place to put an NPC, edit the map to add that additional object/event... and probably come up with individual flavour text for each one of them. Sure, they could have mute Menders like in the cities, but... it'd avoid a lot of the "WTF is this guy doing here? D:" reactions if there was flavour text to explain it. That's also a lot of work.

And yes, theoretically those sentries outside might be able to repair things... But equally theoretically, the NPC Menders use tools of their trade. Did the sentries remember to bring their portable forge? ;p

Between player to player transactions (even if no gil or items change hands -- the payment for this service inside dungeons would simply be to make the person with broken equipment less useless), there's no need for flavour text. If players want that, they'll add it themselves through the chat and through emotes.

[Keyln]

3 thoughts:

1) Lore is never a reason to do something or not do something. Developers make up the lore to be whatever they want it to be to justify what they do.
2) Armchair developers who think that putting something in is easy make me laugh. It tells me that they've never worked in game development before.
3) There is a good game design argument against having repair NPCs at the entrance of the dungeons. Gear damage is both a gil sink and a punishment for poor game play. It's not a coincidence that dying causes gear damage greater than anything else in the game. It's meant to punish players for dying without being too onerous. Also, if someone forgets to check and repair their gear before a DF, that's on them, and the gear breaking is a punishment for not being prepared. Having a repair NPC at the dungeon entrance sorta removes the punishment.

[missybee]

snip

I feel like you are basically echoing the sentiment of the majority of those that disagree with OP, sans the comment about holy spamming, but that is a subject for another thread (and I'm sure a new healer DPS thread will show up in due time).

There are situations in which you are going to need to mend in an instance, and yeah, it can be kind of annoying. That said, I still don't want to see a mender in Midas Savage, for instance, even after having been swindled too many times.

I know that the OP was referring to dungeons specifically, but I guess that just seems superfluous to me. My hand is starting to get all clammy from being held so much.

If you have memory issues, do your best to train yourself. Make a visit to the mender a Pavlovian response to queuing for a dungeon, for instance. You have a veritable cornucopia of options to aid you, but it seems like you aren't receptive to anything but your own suggestion.

[BrianJ]

I just want to leave my opinion: Having to leave a party because your gear breaks, and then getting a 30m penalty because humans can forget things sometimes is in my eyes, a little retarded.

Things that could be as an alternative:

- Better UX/UI for gear durability, because currently it only shows 10% and then it's already too late. It could also be visualized better.
- Allow temporarily leaving a dungeon to repair.
- Allow others to repair your gear as long as you have the dark matter required.
- Make the crafting class required less random. Why does my bard weapon randomly require an alchemist instead of blacksmith out of nowhere?

[Fluffernuff]

I'd like to point something out to everyone here that isn't a crafter-
If you can't repair your own gear, YOUR GEAR IS DAMAGED AND CAN BE REPAIRED.

What do I mean by this? well NPC's don't "over" repair. they only top you off at 100%. after killing 1 thing, it's back down to 99%. So guess what you non crafters! Your gear needs repaired right now!

It bears repeating... the moment after the NPC repairs you back to 100%? you kill 1 ladybug and its at 99%. So you can fling the "I forget sometimes" argument all you want, but you have to go for a very, VERY long time without repairing before you hit those warnings.

Sorry, I simply can't sympathize with that argument. you can repair before every duty- if you do, you CAN forget once, twice even. 3 times! However, if the time you forgot was the time it broke, you forgot SEVERAL other times. Gear doesn't just break, even after a few wipes. You let it sit and rot. And now your gear is broke and you're dragging down everyone else. I think a 30m timeout is acceptable. At the very least it will leave a bitter taste and you'll more readily remember?


Crafters who CAN repair have the benefit of having gear repaired over 100% and it can't be repaired again until it's at 99% again. These are the folks who will likely forget to even check their durability levels. At which point it becomes which of us remembered to stock up on dark matters. I can be a LITTLE more lenient here, but how long can you go on with 14 dark matters before you decide to buy more?

[JunseiKei]

I really don't get what the issue is. Check your gear before you queue for anything. Dying and gaining any kind of EXP from kills reduces your gear's durability (and why places like Frontlines incurs no durability loss- no EXP gains). If you're expecting to die, or wipe, a lot, repair your gear if you think it will be too low to last before the duty is complete. If you can't be bothered to check up on it, that's on you.

You only need to get crafters up to level 50 to repair all i/lvl gear currently. It's easy to ask a friend who has higher level crafters to power-level you. Now you can repair without needing to invest in crafting gear or anything. I've even done this for a few people who don't like or want to craft, but the convenience of being able to repair your gear whenever is nice. Just bring the person mats. Keeping 1 stack of dark matter isn't much space to "waste" (*dramatic sarcasm* OMG! 1 slot is so much space!), considering 99 repairs your gear completely about 8 times (that's with me generally waiting until it pops up on screen saying the durability for certain items is now at 10%), I'd say it's probably the 1 slot well spent.

Even though I'm that lazy about checking gear durability on my main because I keep dark matters stocked (sits on my hotbar so I always see when I need to buy more), when I'm playing my ALT(S) with no such convenience, first thing I do is check their gear before I plan to queue into a dungeon. A safe haven is never too far away and neither are repair NPCs. >_> My husband even has no crafters and has never forgotten to repair since 2013; wonder why that is?

I can't sympathize with the argument either. Make it a habit to just check your gear before queuing for anything. If your gear breaks because you were too lazy to check for an extended period of time (100% -> 0% is a long road), you deserve that penalty. Even then, chances are you'll be kicked from a party, meaning you won't even get a penalty, just time loss from how long it took you to queue inside in the first place.

FFXIV is pretty lenient about repairing NPCs and repairing gear in general. Most games I played before this had either NPCs that could repair in only major cities or major outposts, no self repairing system, no NPCs in dungeons that could repair and even some where gear could be shattered (only repairable at 1 to 4 major cities) due to players actually breaking your gear "beyond normal repair."

EDIT; Debating points:
1) Safe havens with repair NPCs are on every map, none of which are too far away.
2) If you plan on running a dungeon, it's your responsibility as a player to check your own gear and ensure it will hold.
3) You don't need to be a player that plans to craft to get the perks of repairing your own gear; simply getting power-leveled to 50 on your crafters will suffice. Their gear or melds don't matter, only the level.
4) Chances are that if your gear breaks because you're an irresponsible player, you will probably be kicked by a party that is perceptive to the sudden loss of speed/DPS and where it is originating from, meaning you won't even incur the penalty. You will need to re-queue, though.
5) Worse comes to worst, repair immediately after a dungeon run. If you're doing anything decent, you will always have the gil to repair, even when done that frequently.
6) Habit. Make gear checking a habit. (Basically rehashing 2.)

[seida]

If this gets added, might as well just remove durability altogether. What would the point of having it even be??

As it is, people who've leveled crafters get the added convenience of being able to repair in dungeons. Seems fair to me. I don't really understand how people who don't have crafters leveled forget to repair... surely you have to do it all the time?

If all your stuff breaks at once then... lesson learned?