Idea for Disenchant of tattoos (in General)

I get upset when I see this auction:

http://www.carnageblender.com/gc/view-one.tcl?classified_ad_id=130053

It is a nice low level tattoo that likely nobody will use.

So how about DE at 16%, which store price, so the base tattoo can be put into use for tattoo conversions?

That way no additional money is into the communtiy or person selling the tattoo except the base cost, which may go down if more base tattoos are available.

Ideas?

I like it.

Some might point out that if you run an NCB, you can just disenchant it all the time for free money, but since you could already sell it.. it's almost the same thing.

I've been trying to find a way to adequately handle tattoo disenchantment for a while now, for just this reason. There seems to be a lot of tattoos in the 100k to 1.5m level range that people don't really know what to do with. Really, their only purpose is to sell to a new player, but then you also don't want to rip off a new player by charging an accurate value.

The main contention is the idea that disenchanting will add more money to the game, not because of the price differential between the store and disenchatning, but because people will take advantage of this (whereas selling low-medium level tattoos to the store is uncommon).

I do see a lot of medium to lower level tattoos being sold to the store. And a couple times 4+M level tattoos.

I hope this idea would not add more money to the game, other than what people could get from selling to the store.

At least it is being considered.

While we're on tattoos.. I really think it'd be good to allow inking to lesser tattoos back and forth. They grow at half the rate anyway, so there'd be no point keeping them lesser. It would just let people test for cheap.

Basically, if I had an FF, and wanted to try an SF. I'd Ink to a Lesser SF (20k), if I liked it, I'd ink the lesser up to a normal SF.

Also, currently if a new player starts with a lesser tattoo and levels it up, it's pointless. Under this new function however, they'd simply ink it to a normal tattoo once they could afford it. A lot more intuitive IMO.

You could just take lessers out completely and increase the rate which normals spawn.

Lesser tattoos seem to be only useful for T characters.

Any real character with the current NUB can easily afford any tattoo they can use in the first week.

"I do see a lot of medium to lower level tattoos being sold to the store."

Exactly. People don't bother taking advantage of that. The disenchater, they probably would. So the number of people disenchanting would most likely be greater than the number of people selling to the store.

Perhaps the point of this thread was not too clear.

Yes, there are lower level tattoos being sold to the store. But if you have a 4M SF and want to try a HF, you have to wait for a base HF or buy the one in auctions/store for a highly inflated price for what you need.

DEing would allow one to DE the tattoo to base, get the money for what the store would pay and have a base tattoo others could buy/use for their higher level tattoo.

Unless of course we want to make changing tattoos as hard as it is now for certain types. That is for you and Jon to determine.

Right now new players are getting a base tattoo, or finding one in the 1M range of the type they do not need. DEing would help them as well with more base tattoos to use in an attempt to try different ones before settling on a final strategy.

i still think that for any of these ideas that might add too much liquid cash into the game, blacksmith credits would work great!

actually for anything that we have now that gives back discounted net worth, give bs credits at a higher rate than cash.

this might even be something to add to the drop system? non-transferable of course!

To avoid the influx of cash my suggestion could work. Delete lesser Tattoos and increase the spawn rate of all the normal tattoos, with more base tattoos around one could re ink them for cheaper and not have as tough of a time finding what they need. Avoiding cash being injected to the game and less mid-small tattoos vanishing into black pit of store coffers.

deleting lesser tats would mean that tournament characters would be using up regulars and disposing of them.

I agree with Dude.

Unless all tourneys that allow tattoo give the characters a base tattoo with 1 free TA use.

Not to be equipped of course till you are allowed in the tourney.

But I think that is too much work to program and would be very low on the priority list.

I would not like to see lessers being able to be converted to full tattoos. We must not make it too easy to change tattoos. But in the same breath, we must not make it too hard. Esp for new players who have yet to find their strategy.

Conversion from Lesser to Normal would be like converting a Rapier into a Katana, then into an ELS, then into a Bone. Probably not the best idea.

Blacksmith credits might be nice. It wuold have an intersting effect, though. Think about the dynamics of it, considering that not all NW is created equal. You can pick up any random tattoo for 25 to 30% of its NW. You can then get a pile of BS credits and dump that NW into a weapon. How much did that really cost you?

I think the disenchantment rate would have to be pretty small. As in, less than 16%, which is small already.

"You can pick up any random tattoo for 25 to 30% of its NW."

i see that as self-correcting in the short term though. tat prices would likely rise to a balancing point where it wouldn't be that viable any longer.

Anything less than what the store pays would be useless. Unless you can add the base value of the tattoo to the DE amount to get more than 16%.

As per blacksmith credits, if the DE rate was 16%, why would it matter. Instead of getting money, one gets that money via the BS.

I would not be helpful to those that would forge their equipment however, which is a negative.

But this idea was not to get more money into the commmunity or the tattoo holders account, but to try to get more base tattoos out there using what I believed was a near zero-sum equation.

The only benefit for lower level tattoo holders would be you get 16% PLUS the price of a base tattoo. Which could be an extra 1M for the HF or RBF.

Most mid to higher level tattoos insta for well over 20% NW.

if tats are the main way that nw is unequal, we could always revisit the old idea of the tat artist merging tats as well and use blacksmith credits for other things. ; )

"Anything less than what the store pays would be useless"

What is it for disenchanted weapons? I thought the store paid 80%, and DE was 60.

Store pays 16% for most things. DE is 50%.

"I think the disenchantment rate would have to be pretty small. As in, less than 16%, which is small already. "

I was replying to that statement.

The store pays, as Nem stated, 16% for most things. Higher or lower for others.

But for tattoos it is a strict 16% of NW.

I would say allow DEing tattoos at that rate and NOT the 50% current weapon rate. Of course 50% would be foolish.

Just to keep the overall money the same for the person selling/DEing the tattoo and let more base tattoos enter the system.

The only negative would be players could DE a tattoo like the one in the auctions I quoted for 1.89M at 16% and then sell it for 1M at base.

There could be fixes for things like that, however, they would be patchwork and ill conceived for a long term game.