Gear: honor finally spent

The finding

• At level 80 (2,083 characters of the temporary server):
• 9.4 gear slots filled out of 17 on average;
• neck, rings and trinkets empty in 82 to 100% of cases;
• items of level 30 on average, a third of them grey;
• 8% of worn pieces broken.
• The root cause: 96% of the experience came from battlegrounds, with gains multiplied by 10. With almost no loot or quests, gear fell behind from level 20 on.
• Nothing allowed catching up:
• no purchase could be paid with honor, and every character was stuck at the 75,000 point maximum;
• a money reserve blocked almost every expense;
• nothing looked for a piece to fill an empty slot.
• A spiral set in: a death breaks pieces, the purse is empty, the repair stays partial, and the next death comes sooner. The worst-equipped characters died two to three times more often.
• Pieces were lost: a broken piece was replaced with junk, then often sold before being repaired. 755 pieces were lost this way during the break.

The fixes

• Honor purchases:
• the autonomous players go to the PvP vendors, where 862 pieces cost honor only;
• they buy the piece that brings the most per honor point, starting with empty slots and never more than 15 levels below their own;
• a vendor on their own continent comes before a sea crossing;
• human players' honor is never spent.
• Item evaluation:
• random bonuses ("of the Bear", "of the Monkey"…) are counted; they were ignored, although 53% of green items carry one;
• rings and trinkets are compared over their two slots;
• a two-handed weapon is compared with the main hand and off hand together.
• Sales:
• a piece that would beat the worn one once repaired is no longer sold, nor is a piece wearable within three levels;
• useless shields and orbs under a two-handed weapon are sold, to make room.
• Money and repairs:
• the reserve kept for training follows the real cost of pending lessons: at level 80, 2.6 gold instead of 25.6 gold once training has caught up;
• repairs come before sales, and broken spare pieces are counted.
• Weapon masters: characters learn the weapons of their role, and the bow or gun when the ranged slot is empty.
• Routes: the Horde-only portal from Warsong Hold to Orgrimmar is no longer offered to Alliance characters.

Checked on the test server

Nine characters of level 58 to 80, from both factions, copied from production, then four more as controls:

• a level 80 warrior went to learn the bow, then bought a neck, a ring and bracers of level 80: from 9 to 11 filled slots, and an average item level from 29 to 90;
• a level 80 mage, still in starting gear: from 5 to 8 slots, item level from 9 to 97;
• a second level 80 warrior: from 9 to 11 slots, item level from 15 to 57;
• a level 76 shaman bought two rings and a neck of level 70: from 7 to 10 slots, item level from 15 to 54;
• a level 58 rogue, at the Warsong Gulch quartermaster: from 12 to 15 slots;
• a paladin in Outland made the round trip to Orgrimmar in two and a half minutes, through the portal on the way there and the hearthstone on the way back;
• all four level 80 controls bought a neck, a ring and bracers within a quarter of an hour.

No crash and no error.

One limit remains. The poorest characters in Northrend, with broken pieces and no gold, die on the way before reaching the vendor. They now aim for the one in Dalaran, the closest, but the trip is still too dangerous for them. This will be the subject of a later batch.

Deployment

The new module version is installed on the server. The autonomous players stay stopped: these fixes will be in place for the restart.