Changes I’ve discussed so far, including those related to the use of Metal items, aren’t going to be ready quite yet, so I thought it was worth at least stating a few things in an update topic so that people are aware that work is being done and what they need to expect from some of the changes.
Web UI
The frontend of the trading system, or the web user interface, has been a product of incremental changes over many years, this has resulted in making it annoying to properly fix some small issues.
To better address the changes I am making, I decided to update the UI without changing much about the layout (all the things you know are still in the same places and look mostly the same), since redesigning the actual layout would be more effort and it’s not yet worth it to do that.
In doing this update, it also allows me to introduce a new dark theme, which will be both the default and only theme. The colors used in this theme match those used on some of our other recent UI additions, such as the PVP manager, ban pages and login page. This is a comparison for what the inventory page looks like at the moment:
This is still a work in progress.
Economy
Part of the next update will also focus on changing DP gains to try to make higher purchase amounts possible, by changing the way the current drop in gains work. Rather than being based on your balance, it will be based around your income. There will be a target income per day and per week, and as you close in on that target and exceed it, the gain rate will drop. This means that you can store much more DP without it affecting your ability to gain more of it.
Metal Items
Metal Items were added to replace Time items, this is for two reasons. Firstly, repairing items will not work the same. To repair an item you will either need a copy of the same item or you will need to spend DP to repair it, the cost to repair items scales with rarity, the highest cost being R11 (custom items). Secondly, Metal items will be able to be sold to the shop for DP, which you can then use to repair your items, or alternatively, you can use that DP for other things. Other item types are intended to be sellable too, but their value will be much lower than that of Metal items. The shop itself will be added as a system bank, meaning it has a limited amount to give out, the same as other system banks. The value of Metal items will also be dynamic, meaning that their value is not fixed.
Durability will be replacing life times. Items won’t delete themselves when reaching 0% durability, instead their functionality will be disabled until repaired. Items don’t lose durability over time, they lose durability as a result of economic activity or at the instant that you unequip them. This means if you are not playing or you are doing things that don’t otherwise reward much or any DP, then you will not need to often repair items.
Rarities
How different rarities will be obtained is also changing. This is why we have already seen some changes to Loot Boxes and what items they give out. It won’t be as feasible to get all rarity of items from Loot Boxes, instead, it’s intended that you sell items you don’t need from Loot Boxes and save up DP to spend it on places like the shop.
