Maximum Foraging Capacity

[Synthesis]

Every room should have a maximum number of forageable items from each foraging subtype.  Once that number is reached, items from that foraging subtype will no longer be available in that room (until the next reboot).

Unique rooms could have larger maximums, but still...once the maximum is reached...tough shit.

[Desertman]

I don't see what it would add to the game other than people rushing out at every reboot to forage the "good spots" as quickly as possible in the first 24 hours and then for the next 6 days until the next reboot not foraging because they have "cleaned out the good spots".

[Synthesis]

Scarcity-induced conflict

Scarcity-induced search for new foraging locations

Scarcity-induced subguild choice reconsiderations

Scarcity-induced clan choice reconsiderations

There, that's 4 things it could add to the game, for starters.

[Alesan]

I don't see what it would add to the game other than people rushing out at every reboot to forage the "good spots" as quickly as possible in the first 24 hours and then for the next 6 days until the next reboot not foraging because they have "cleaned out the good spots".

I have never liked, in any game, a construct where things only reset when the game reboots. I can't make sense of it in shops, I'll never be able to make sense of it in a vast field of salt.

The dirty, sweat-stained salt grebber says in sirihish,
   "I can't salt anymore for the next six weeks. There's no more salt in the salt flats."

[Delirium]

Don't make it reboot-based and this has my axe. A gradual timer, sure.

But everything left on the ground or junked in that room should return to the forage-ables database.

Otherwise you run into silly problems where you're in a vast desert and there's no sandstone.

[Lizzie]

Scarcity-induced conflict

Scarcity-induced search for new foraging locations

Scarcity-induced subguild choice reconsiderations

Scarcity-induced clan choice reconsiderations

There, that's 4 things it could add to the game, for starters.

It wouldn't result in that though. The situation with the NPC merchants results in little more than OOC frustration and annoyance. You're just suggesting a new source of OOC frustration and annoyance. People only have "x" number of hours to play every week. Most of us don't want to spend most of the time trying to find the one spot among hundreds that hasn't been foraged yet - and then have to log out because our play-time is up for the day.

[Desertman]

Scarcity-induced conflict

Scarcity-induced search for new foraging locations

Scarcity-induced subguild choice reconsiderations

Scarcity-induced clan choice reconsiderations

There, that's 4 things it could add to the game, for starters.

I think it would just result in people picking all of the same things they always pick and just doing the 24 hour rush. But, it might work out exactly the way you envision. Who knows.

[Lizzie]

Don't make it reboot-based and this has my axe. A gradual timer, sure.

But everything left on the ground or junked in that room should return to the forage-ables database.

Otherwise you run into silly problems where you're in a vast desert and there's no sandstone.

The second sentence I agree with. After some period of time, things left on the ground should be absorbed back into oblivion by the code.

[Synthesis]

Don't make it reboot-based and this has my axe. A gradual timer, sure.

But everything left on the ground or junked in that room should return to the forage-ables database.

Otherwise you run into silly problems where you're in a vast desert and there's no sandstone.

Well, there's literally no way the playerbase could exhaust the "forage stone" option of the entire desert during a single uptime.

Might you have to move farther than 1 room from the gate? Yes.  That's kind of the point.

[Desertman]

The real question is, "Why is it magically reappearing in the area after every reboot?".

Is there a sandstone tree out there growing sandstone I don't know about?

"Hey, you want to go forage sandstone together?".

"Sorry man, it's been two weeks since....well...you know...so it's already all gone. Let's wait five more weeks.".

I have seen areas in game where the natural resources in question have been wiped out by staff and the descriptions have been changed to reflect that due to certain areas being harvested heavily.

It seems they have this well in hand.

[Synthesis]

I don't see what it would add to the game other than people rushing out at every reboot to forage the "good spots" as quickly as possible in the first 24 hours and then for the next 6 days until the next reboot not foraging because they have "cleaned out the good spots".

I have never liked, in any game, a construct where things only reset when the game reboots. I can't make sense of it in shops, I'll never be able to make sense of it in a vast field of salt.

The dirty, sweat-stained salt grebber says in sirihish,
   "I can't salt anymore for the next six weeks. There's no more salt in the salt flats."

Again, hyperbolic example.  There is no way the playerbase would exhaust the salt flats.

Y'all just don't want to go farther into the flats, because it's somewhat more dangerous.  Aaaand that's the point.

[Synthesis]

The anti-reboot argument is just a red herring.

The entire game is based around this reboot mechanic, so that's why I picked it...because it doesn't require any additional code.

If they want to code a slow-steady regen that persists across reboots, that's fine with me.

[Desertman]

Why not just make the squares where you get everything that is useful only in dangerous areas?

If the point is to make it dangerous to do stuff and make people go farther, then why even have the closer "safer spots".

Otherwise, you just result in the 24 hour rush to the "safe spots" and then everyone just doesn't do it for 6 days.

[Marauder Moe]

Meh.  It's not like the edge of the flats aren't dangerous.  Also, recent changes have already incentivized people to go deeper in.

[Synthesis]

Why not just make the squares where you get everything that is useful only in dangerous areas?

If the point is to make it dangerous to do stuff and make people go farther, then why even have the closer "safer spots".

Otherwise, you just result in the 24 hour rush to the "safe spots" and then everyone just doesn't do it for 6 days.

Because the point is to make it incrementally more dangerous as you get more desperate, not to be maximally dangerous from the outset.

[Synthesis]

Meh.  It's not like the edge of the flats aren't dangerous.  Also, recent changes have already incentivized people to go deeper in.

I didn't say they weren't.  I said they were less.

[valeria]

Given how vast a single outdoors room usually is, I don't really see it.

[Synthesis]

Scarcity-induced conflict

Scarcity-induced search for new foraging locations

Scarcity-induced subguild choice reconsiderations

Scarcity-induced clan choice reconsiderations

There, that's 4 things it could add to the game, for starters.

It wouldn't result in that though. The situation with the NPC merchants results in little more than OOC frustration and annoyance. You're just suggesting a new source of OOC frustration and annoyance. People only have "x" number of hours to play every week. Most of us don't want to spend most of the time trying to find the one spot among hundreds that hasn't been foraged yet - and then have to log out because our play-time is up for the day.

Then don't pick a class that requires a substantial amount of foraging for common items in order to survive, or go straight to the less-frequented spots so you don't have to deal with slogging through the barren areas.

[Synthesis]

Given how vast a single outdoors room usually is, I don't really see it.

The fact that a room is vast has no bearing on the amount of useful shit in the area.

Barren implies a distinctly low resource:area ratio.

[Desertman]

Yeah, staff has already reflected in several rooms where resources have run out, but it took a very long time due to the size of the rooms and reflecting that realism. They also have new tools in game as of just recently that let them adjust the forageable contents of rooms much more easily.

I have to go with, "It's fine. Working as intended and already covered.".

[Synthesis]

Yeah, staff has already reflected in several rooms where resources have run out, but it took a very long time due to the size of the rooms and reflecting that realism. They also have new tools in game as of just recently that let them adjust the forageable contents of rooms much more easily.

I have to go with, "It's fine. Working as intended and already covered.".

Intended doesn't necessarily equal optimal.

Hence the code idea forum.

[Kismetic]

I really like this idea if you change "until the next reboot" to "until never".  Of course, the numbers would have to be very large, but with the real possibility of running out, therefore leading to the desired result.  And once resources begin to deplete, I think we'd have something very interesting on our hands.

[Synthesis]

I really like this idea if you change "until the next reboot" to "until never".  Of course, the numbers would have to be very large, but with the real possibility of running out, therefore leading to the desired result.  And once resources begin to deplete, I think we'd have something very interesting on our hands.

"Never" might work for things like artifacts, stone, spice, and salt.  Not so much for food, wood, and kindling.

But yeah...maybe.  I feel like the reboot mechanism works better than absolute depletion, because the maximums would have to be so high under an absolute depletion mechanic that it wouldn't really have any noticeable effect on player behavior over the short term.  Even over the long term, I think the effect of absolute depletion might be detrimental to the way the game is enjoyed, because eventually GMHs and other clans would catch on and capture resource-rich points, leaving nothing for indies...

...which -could- be perceived as somewhat of a positive if you're very hardcore about power structures within the game, but I think the presumption has been for a very long time that indie PCs are okay and useful, and shouldn't be put-upon -too- much.

Also, absolute depletion doesn't account for the fact that there's a) no way to craft large objects of a material into smaller objects of a material (eg. turning an obsidian longsword into an obsidian shortsword); b) and objects within the game code disappear absolutely, so there's a constant "object leak."

[Narf]

I think this is a good idea to exercise with rarer items. Gemstones particularly.

Myself, I'd just set things like sandstone, salt and small rocks to infinity and assume there aren't enough people to make a dent.

[Synthesis]

I think this is a good idea to exercise with rarer items. Gemstones particularly.

Myself, I'd just set things like sandstone, salt and small rocks to infinity and assume there aren't enough people to make a dent.

Maybe, but that's a more complicated thing to code...you have to figure out what's rare and what's not, keep a running tally on how many of those particular objects have been found and kept, etc. etc.

Simpler just to say, well...turd gemstones are already set at 1% find rate, and there's a 100-stone foraging capacity in this room...so the expected turd gemstone get-rate is going to be 1 per reboot.