Maximum Foraging Capacity

[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.

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.

If they have an ability to set frequency of given objects manually, then I imagine the best way to code it would be an automated system that drops a given item's frequency to zero.

As for deciding what's rare, they already did that when the decided item's frequency. They'd just need to decide a cutoff rate (everything with a find rate less than 1% will henceforth be deemed rare!) and apply the code only to that.

[Narf]

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.

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...

Given the way the code works, it'd probably be desert elves that actually got all the good spots. Random run-by murderizing is just so much a more feasible means of holding territory in this game than actually stationing NPC guards.

[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.

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...

Given the way the code works, it'd probably be desert elves that actually got all the good spots. Random run-by murderizing is just so much a more feasible means of holding territory in this game than actually stationing NPC guards.

*shrug* That's all an aside deriving from an aside.

As to your other point...I wouldn't want to limit it to only "rare" items, because it would dramatically reduce the impact of the change.  I.e. not everyone is looking for rare items, so it would disproportionately affect those who rely on those more uncommon things.

[Kismetic]

re:  Synth

But if the goal is to create conflict, I think this idea is pretty rad.  Especially ...

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.

[X-D]

Let us assume that an outdoor room is 1 square mile.

So, that is 27,878,400 Square feet.....

So A football field is 57,000 square feet...

So, You are saying that you want the game to represent a few people hunting about, without heavy equipment to exhaust the resources of 489 football fields?

Assuming that a forage attempt covers a 20x20 area, That would mean you only need 69,900 forage attempts to cover one square mile....

[Synthesis]

Let us assume that an outdoor room is 1 square mile.

So, that is 27,878,400 Square feet.....

So A football field is 57,000 square feet...

So, You are saying that you want the game to represent a few people hunting about, without heavy equipment to exhaust the resources of 489 football fields?

489 football fields of sun-scorched, defiled, dying planet?

Or we can bring the VNPC population into this, which I don't think would work out well in the players' favor.

[X-D]

Go ahead, How many VNPCs are out foraging EACH and EVERY square mile?

Take the Nak population, Now, we know that most people stay inside the walls because the Highlord protects and outside the walls is evil. But, lets see, let us say 1% of the population are grebbers, Something like what, 3,000 of them then? 5,000?
Either way, Nak has like 20 rooms directly against the walls. Going just one room farther out makes it 44 rooms, at 70k forage attempts each, So, each and every one of the grebbers would have to do 880 forage attempts in Each and every room.  Call it 38k total. Now, the forage timer is  what, 10 seconds?  So, only 1,075 hours each...Real time. Changing over to Zalanthan time, that is only like 10 weeks.....

As to the "sun-scorched dying planet" Well, I would think it makes finding rocks a bit easier and less likely to run out since that is all there is.
Besides, Even if such a thing was put in, Then there would have to be an echo or something. And how silly would it be to type "forage rocks" And get the "picked clean of rocks echo"
Look
This is a rocky area, there are rocks, rocks and more rocks, Rocks as far as the eye can see, and when there are no rocks, there are rocks, Oh and sand.

[RogueGunslinger]

That entirely depends on the item you're foraging and the area you're in.

[Kismetic]

Let us assume that an outdoor room is 1 square mile.

So, that is 27,878,400 Square feet.....

So A football field is 57,000 square feet...

So, You are saying that you want the game to represent a few people hunting about, without heavy equipment to exhaust the resources of 489 football fields?

Assuming that a forage attempt covers a 20x20 area, That would mean you only need 69,900 forage attempts to cover one square mile....

Given that in the past, it's been said the Known is equivalent to Ohio in size (220x220 miles), I'd say this is a fairly accurate assessment of room size.  On a harsh world like Zalanthas, does it seem plausible that, over thousands of years, the populace has managed to exhaust its resources?  I think so, yes.  Because we're not talking about a few people, we're talking about city-states, and rival merchant houses, and independents, over a grand scale, for a very long period of time.  How long could a harsh desert world sustain that?

I think competing over resources is an amazing idea, and accounting for the scope and scale of it makes me believe it even more.

[Desertman]

I just don't see this creating conflict. It is going to create a rush to get to the good spots after every reboot, but you aren't going to have people killing other people for their bags of rocks/salt/food.

The people who would kill you for your bags of rocks are the same people who would kill you right now for the stuff that is in your backpack. They don't need this incentive, and this incentive wouldn't matter to them or make any difference to them. If they would attack you for your crappy foraged items, they are the same types would ALREADY be attacking you for your better stuff you have right now.

It won't have the desired affect.

Moving on from that, you absolutely are not going to see wide-scale conflict from the major powers come into play over this. As discussed in other threads, those powers are never going to fight each other over anything, because they don't have to and don't want to.

So who is this going to really make get involved in more conflict? Not a soul.

[Asanadas]

That's like saying the mining companies in West Virginia have exhausted all of the mountains away in their search for coal.

This idea is silly. From what I've read, there was already an attempt at scarcity around animals, and it fell through because Armageddon is a fantasy game. There's no need for this sort of arbitration, and I seriously doubt the current codebase can handle it.

[Synthesis]

I just don't see this creating conflict. It is going to create a rush to get to the good spots after every reboot, but you aren't going to have people killing other people for their bags of rocks/salt/food.

The people who would kill you for your bags of rocks are the same people who would kill you right now for the stuff that is in your backpack. They don't need this incentive, and this incentive wouldn't matter to them or make any difference to them.

It won't have the desired affect.

Moving on from that, you absolutely are not going to see wide-scale conflict from the major powers comes into play over this. As discussed in other threads, those powers are never going to fight each other over anything, because they don't have to and don't want to.

So who is this going to really make get involved in more conflict? Not a soul.

Conflict can be so much more than beating someone over the head with a stick for a bag of rocks.

[Desertman]

I just don't see this creating conflict. It is going to create a rush to get to the good spots after every reboot, but you aren't going to have people killing other people for their bags of rocks/salt/food.

The people who would kill you for your bags of rocks are the same people who would kill you right now for the stuff that is in your backpack. They don't need this incentive, and this incentive wouldn't matter to them or make any difference to them.

It won't have the desired affect.

Moving on from that, you absolutely are not going to see wide-scale conflict from the major powers comes into play over this. As discussed in other threads, those powers are never going to fight each other over anything, because they don't have to and don't want to.

So who is this going to really make get involved in more conflict? Not a soul.

Conflict can be so much more than beating someone over the head with a stick for a bag of rocks.

If they were going to get involved in meaningful political conflict with you over something, or economic warfare, they would be doing that already. They don't need less rocks to do that and it won't make a difference.

[Kismetic]

That's like saying the mining companies in West Virginia have exhausted all of the mountains away in their search for coal.

This idea is silly. From what I've read, there was already an attempt at scarcity around animals, and it fell through because Armageddon is a fantasy game. There's no need for this sort of arbitration, and I seriously doubt the current codebase can handle it.

I don't think West Virginia and Zalanthas are analogous in any useful sense, other than being roughly similar in size.  Back to the discussion, though, I was still rambling on about rooms with finite resources.  Derp

[X-D]

Kis, Last I checked, the actual state of ohio had between 16 MILLION and 18 MIllion people, Living in 4 major cities, Some of which are greater in population then all of zalanthus.

Eh, just sorta pointing out that...well, such a land area is simply massive. in every way.  People have been living in smaller areas for many thousands of years, Take Italy, And still, the rocks and other resources exist...shrug.

Point being, and others have made it, At least 3 of the things you can forage for, are essentially unlimited givin what the world is made of and the scope of the rooms. Rocks, Salt, Wood...Although, Staff have altered at least one of those types of rooms here and there to show that it was over harvested....and that took many many game years.

Now, as to the other 2 forage types, Artifacts and food...Food is a wide range and so...It can be placed with the other 3. Artifacts...Now that is one that it would not bother me to be limited in almost every room you can forage them in, And easy enough to explain. Artifact areas are small, easily picked over, Hey, you gotta wait till the wind unburies more of them.

Problem is, the number of people that even forage for them is so low as to make it rather pointless to the OP....shrug.

[Synthesis]

I just don't see this creating conflict. It is going to create a rush to get to the good spots after every reboot, but you aren't going to have people killing other people for their bags of rocks/salt/food.

The people who would kill you for your bags of rocks are the same people who would kill you right now for the stuff that is in your backpack. They don't need this incentive, and this incentive wouldn't matter to them or make any difference to them.

It won't have the desired affect.

Moving on from that, you absolutely are not going to see wide-scale conflict from the major powers comes into play over this. As discussed in other threads, those powers are never going to fight each other over anything, because they don't have to and don't want to.

So who is this going to really make get involved in more conflict? Not a soul.

Conflict can be so much more than beating someone over the head with a stick for a bag of rocks.

If they were going to get involved in meaningful political conflict with you over something, or economic warfare, they would be doing that already. They don't need less rocks to do that and it won't make a difference.

We could take that argument down the reductio ad absurdum path and wonder why there is any conflict in the game, at all.  Suffice it to say, I think there is some level of scarcity at which people will in fact be like, "Fuck this motherfucker taking -my- motherfucking rocks."

[Asanadas]

I'm sure they've run out of rocks in the cradle of civilization. I mean, there's been millions of people foraging there for thousands of years.

[Synthesis]

Kis, Last I checked, the actual state of ohio had between 16 MILLION and 18 MIllion people, Living in 4 major cities, Some of which are greater in population then all of zalanthus.

Eh, just sorta pointing out that...well, such a land area is simply massive. in every way.  People have been living in smaller areas for many thousands of years, Take Italy, And still, the rocks and other resources exist...shrug.

Let's just stop talking about rocks, because EVERYONE should be assuming that stones (particularly sandstone and granite, if we're limiting to subtypes) will be in relatively infinite supply.  More valuable stones, maybe not so much.

Usable salts? Maybe not so much.

Artifacts? Most definitely not.

Food? No.

Wood and kindling? Maybe not so much.

Spice? No.

Also, this "area size" argument conveniently ignores specialty rooms that most definitely are not huge, and most definitely should not have infinite supplies of whatever.

[Desertman]

I just don't see this creating conflict. It is going to create a rush to get to the good spots after every reboot, but you aren't going to have people killing other people for their bags of rocks/salt/food.

The people who would kill you for your bags of rocks are the same people who would kill you right now for the stuff that is in your backpack. They don't need this incentive, and this incentive wouldn't matter to them or make any difference to them.

It won't have the desired affect.

Moving on from that, you absolutely are not going to see wide-scale conflict from the major powers comes into play over this. As discussed in other threads, those powers are never going to fight each other over anything, because they don't have to and don't want to.

So who is this going to really make get involved in more conflict? Not a soul.

Conflict can be so much more than beating someone over the head with a stick for a bag of rocks.

If they were going to get involved in meaningful political conflict with you over something, or economic warfare, they would be doing that already. They don't need less rocks to do that and it won't make a difference.

We could take that argument down the reductio ad absurdum path and wonder why there is any conflict in the game, at all.  Suffice it to say, I think there is some level of scarcity at which people will in fact be like, "Fuck this motherfucker taking -my- motherfucking rocks."

I think there is too. I just also think the people who would do that, are the same ones who are already doing that regularly for other reasons that they already have.

I think they "would" kill people for the bags or rocks. I just don't think it will make them kill them any more. It will give those people a different reason to do what they would already do anyways.

I don't think that is a bad thing. I just think it's a not needed thing.

I also think it's a, "It doesn't hurt anything.", thing too. So, if some staffer wants to take time to do it, more power to them I suppose.

[Kismetic]

Eh, just sorta pointing out that...well, such a land area is simply massive. in every way.  People have been living in smaller areas for many thousands of years, Take Italy, And still, the rocks and other resources exist...shrug.

Yeah, in the end, it's a trivial thing.  If we're more focused on items that are rare, like gemstones, simply having them found at a lower percentage chance would seem to work (and likely already works this way).  In my mind, I'm thinking of something to the tune of merchant houses leaning on indies who forage ad infinitum because those resources don't "grow on trees", to borrow from Desertman, but ...  that's not really how the game works, and if it did, placing a trivial piece of code probably wouldn't make that happen.

As to Synth's idea, I like the spirit of it, but I genuinely hate these 'mad dashes at reboot' metagame tactics.

[X-D]

Well, I got to that in a post edit...but here.

Rocks, Right, not running out of rocks.

Usable salt...No, point on that is, unlike rocks, by desc, all the usable salts are tiny, So, the search area for each is also smaller, IE, more can fit in less area.

Food, Again No, areas that support food forage are just as large and the number of food types means you are not simply digging for roots....Even if I was to concede some sort of limit, it would be to high to matter.

Artifacts, Yes, limited and low, would not bother me as it makes sense as I explained in above post.

Spice, Meh, I do not care on that one at all.

Wood, Nah, see above post.

Now, I would not mind seeing forage timers changed dependant on forage type and even how many people foraging or have been foraging in a set amount of time...that would at least make some sense.

[Desertman]

I absolutely want to see "rare" gemstones become a lot more rare in game.

As it stands....diamonds aren't rare at all, or rubies, or emeralds. Seeing them is at best a shrug moment. (Which includes things made out of them.)

[Delirium]

I think that's more the fault of people who are willing to forage ad nauseam than the code itself.

[Desertman]

I think that's more the fault of people who are willing to forage ad nauseam than the code itself.

I've never seen anyone do it differently. Everyone pretty much seems to do it the same way unless I've just been missing those rare "better than me" foragers all of these years.

[Delirium]

There's a difference between foraging for an afternoon, and foraging for three in-game days (or 270 minutes, or 4.5 hours).

Or maybe you're playing someone with a very high forage skill.

I'm okay with higher frequency of valuable gems at those levels, but yeah, the solution to this is to just drop the frequency of "rare" gems.