Been thinking about this a bit lately and in Vanguard your armor would get damaged 10% on a death and then when you are getting near broken you would just go and pay a small fine to get it repaired at a blacksmith or whatever it was.
I think that gear should get damaged much slower like 1% per death or something and that repairing should be a bigger deal than just giving a bit of coin to a vendor.
What if lower level simple armors could be repaired at different vendors but high end magic armors had to be repaired through trials or quests ?
This could create some mystery about how to repair or even recharge some items... Now I know in eq1 there were ways to regain charges on items like in the original Plane of Sky you would have to go up there every time you wanted to put some charges on your armor but I think this mechanic could be used with repairing also.
You get some planer gear that can only be restored at a forge in the plane by a highly skilled crafter or npc even.
Getting everyone's gear repaired could even be a reason for one of the weeks raid nights.
My question to you is ... would this be enjoyable or an annoyance ? I'm thinking it could be interesting.
Thanks again for reading,
Kiz~
P.S. Was also thinking, this would create more community in that if your tank or your healer is dying a lot they may ask for your help in going on a quest to repair their armors. This is a type of content that would be used steadily over time but broken up so as not to create a grind possibly.
If it's a mindless mechanic which is nothing more than a thinly disguised sink for coin, I'm not a big fan of gear damage systems. I would put any sort of NPC repair system in this category. You really can't make it a big quest to fix gear as then what you're really doing is inserting a form of "daily" quest that everyone is rinse/repeating until they're ready to scream, remove their sabatons and start counting their toes.
I also HATE the idea that if gear is not repaired it is eventually lost. It should become useless, but never destroyed from your inventory. Sometimes you're far from anywhere to get it repaired and you need whatever edge it might provide, no mattered how tattered or dented it may become.
I think a well thought out system where gear slowly degrades from battle could provide some social interaction in the form of questing together or even employing craftspeople such as armorers, weapon smiths, leather workers, etc... In my mind, crafting has been too incidental to core game elements. I've yet to see a game with crafting that didn't have a large number of players heavily engaged so making them integral to the game is a desirable thing.
Maybe a dungeon beats the heck out of your equipment in the process of getting your people 80% of the way in and you have to make a specific trip to the goblin forge, nestled deep in a side area, before you can proceed to your final raid target? You'll need some skilled crafts people with your company of adventurers to keep everyone's gear in top shape for the boss level encounter(s).
I'm all for any system which integrates crafting with adventuring, making them an essential part of a guild's raid team.
I'd also add that I'd like to see the top items in game not just be raid drops, but raid drops which are used by master craftspeople to create the ultimate armour, weapon, jewelry, etc...
Im with celandor in that I am not a fan of item repair systems (and also against permanent loss if something breaks, especially if things are going like I think they are in pantheon where valuable things are hard to get and take considerable investment to as well).
I can live with it though, if they feel like they must have one for a money sink. I would like it better (still not ideal but better) if it was decently long before having to repair and in addition to repairs from npcs that there were consumable items that can extend the life of items in the field and even having player crafters be able to repair gear.