Wouldn't it be awesome if this rotted on me... (decay idea thread)

[nauta]

I think opening up the NPC markets so you can sell more is needed since we've consolidated the PBase.  There's a variety of issues involved with this that need to be addressed, but it needs to happen.  The items that new PCs sell are nearly impossible to sell.  Shops are either full or perpetually out of coin.  If the price of things needs to be lowered to balance for being able to move more, let's do that.  But it's important for retention to make starting out less frustrating.

I think the bolded bit is one of the most important bits, and it comes up quite a lot in such discussions (in addition to making things less onerous for casuals and off-peak players).  But, just focusing on new players, where do you see things going off the rails and entering into the zone of frustration?  I think this would be an interesting discussion if we can get it focussed enough, with the right sort of input.

Perhaps the best spot to start is to figure out what the target is here -- who might be frustrated with the current way the economy works.  So here's a stab at starting that part of the conversation.  Kinds of new players:

1. Run-of-the-mill Clan Newbie.  Such a newbie should be shuffled off into the Byn/Kurac (or perhaps Salarr/Kadius as hunters/crafters).  I'd imagine most newbies are (and should) fall into this category.

2. Independent Hunter Newbie

3. Independent Merchant Newbie

Are there others?

If that's the categories, then here's an analysis of each (grains of salt, and open to criticism):

With the run-of-the-mill clan newbie the economy will largely be something they wouldn't notice, at least not until they are no longer a newbie (in my view).  Perhaps I am wrong here.

I can totally see how being an independent hunter or merchant newbie would be hard (on a variety of levels -- learning the code to craft, the ingredients, learning the dangers of the wilds, the code to hunt, etc.)  But is it the economy one of the things that is hard for them?  If it is, how can we improve that aspect of things?  Do we want to?

Now, it's a different conversation if the economy makes things onerous for -everyone-, newbie and oldie alike, for instance if it is frustrating for new characters, not just newbies.

Just some thoughts.  Probably'll this'll derail my own thread.

[Delirium]

I think I know where the desire for rotting skinned products comes from: the fact that people leave that shit all over the place in the outdoors.

I don't know why people get so upset about other people leaving skinned items on the ground (from an OOC perspective, anyway).

I usually leave the stuff I don't have the skill or time to mess with, because I know other PCs -do- have the skills and/or time, but I also don't have the time or inclination to seek those PCs out.  If I steamroll a mess of chaltons just for shits and giggles and leave the hides, it's not because I'm lazy or whatever...it's because I know there are a fuckton of newb merchants and crafters who need to blast through about 100 hides apiece to master tanning.  So, as a bit of a courtesy to the rest of the playerbase, I leave that half-dozen hides sitting there, so they have an easier time with their own stupid grind.

While this makes dubious sense from a coded standpoint it makes absolutely zero sense from an IC standpoint.

The goal, in my eyes, should be to get coded and IC reality matching as closely as possible without hampering playability.

[Delirium]

Yes, shops are just as much a PIA to oldbies as they are to newbies.

Maybe even more so because it's even EASIER to have a bunch of shit you just can't sell in this resource-scarce desert wasteland, where water is fought over but nobody wants that scrab meat.

[Delirium]

The goal, in my eyes, should be to get coded and IC reality matching as closely as possible without hampering playability.

In reality, a human of average intelligence would only have to tan like 2 or 3 hides before they could do it without completely fucking it up.

Totally agree with that, but we do need a skill system. The fix there is to have craft failures give you a damaged item instead of making it vanish into thin air.

You botch the process and end up with a poorly-tanned chalton hide.

instead of,

"Yeah, sorry, had this entire salt worm hide but I managed to vaporize it with this magic scraper here."

[hopeandsorrow]

I can totally see how being an independent hunter or merchant newbie would be hard (on a variety of levels -- learning the code to craft, the ingredients, learning the dangers of the wilds, the code to hunt, etc.)  But is it the economy one of the things that is hard for them?  If it is, how can we improve that aspect of things?  Do we want to?

We should improve the economy.  One very successful indie hunter I had, I earned most of my coin if not close to 85% of it, salt grebbing. I pretend the profits, virtually was from hunting.  Felt silly, but actual hunting wasn't very profitable, hell if I was buying water counted in stable fee's, I was hunting at a loss.

Why?  Because selling the valuable, 'virtually' rare, and 'virtually" dangerous hides and chitin of animals was an exercise in futility.  Hardly a pc merchant around who needed them or wanted them, selling to NPC's was rare due to (don't want that/not enough coin/to much of said item).  In practice stuff isn't rare or valuable especially considering the PC market.

We need a merchant who just buys hides or anything, all bet at a low price, but still enough that you can actually hunt and make a living.  Other wise you just wait to game crash/restart and spam run to the market to beat all the other aholes doing the same thing with their apartment full of scrab chitin and raptor hides.

[Refugee]

(Some very good points about new players)

New guy logs in with new hunter type PC.  It can take several days to find someone who can recruit him into a clan.  Heck, it might take him a bit to figure out he -needs- to be in a clan.  He spends most his starting coin getting what he thinks he needs to be a good hunter.  He tries to kill something, assuming he survives---he probably won't get much from it with lousy skinning.  Kills something else!  He's used up his starter water and has learned that water is -expensive-.  If he gets some meat from his kill he tries to cook it and burns it, so he's starting to get hungry.  He doesn't know it's best to sell the meat and buy food.  Finally he gets a hide and has something to sell.  Takes it to the bazaar and is told they have enough of that.  He doesn't know why he gets that message.  He keeps coming back and always gets the same message.  Maybe he finds a leaf...for this he gets the message about having no coins.  He's got to lug around what he has to sell or junk it, because he can't afford anywhere to store it.  Keeps trying...hunts more, gets more... he gets encumbered.  Salting barely breaks even if you're not that bright.  If nobody helps him, he'll probably find another game to play, because it seems like it's an impossible situation.

This is exactly what happened to me on one of my PCs, so don't think it's exaggerated.  Except I had had a couple of PCs already and had played other RPIs, so I understood more.  But I never had trouble selling stuff in Tuluk.  Nak markets are harsh, and this was before the consolidation.  Maybe because there was less of a variety of things for new PCs to hunt so everyone's trying to sell the same things?  I don't know.

I do think it's easier to find clan leadership now than it was then, so that has to help.

[Asmoth]

The bitch about it is that once you get either basic or great gear and get good enough at salting to make profit and keep yourself in food and water, if you're hired by a clan, the pay is either non-existent or so laughable that you don't really need it.

I know that I haven't had a clan job that I needed for years.  It seems clan jobs are for more city bound characters that don't want to/are to chicken to go learn to greb.

But all that boils down to even if they increased the pay of every clan job, you would still get to the point where you had everything you needed and can easily afford apartment rent in a few days of work.  So then what do you spend the money on?

So the economy is tough, because just throwing money at it won't change anything. It would need a complete revamp in what you spend money on.

[Delirium]

I think the thing that bothers me the most about the current economy is that it creates a false type of scarcity on the wrong side of the spectrum.

There have been a lot of changes to the Luir's Outpost market that helps immensely with this, but we are still limited by the 5-item issue.

I realize that is a code issue that may be almost insurmountable, so having VNPC purchases triple or even quadruple would help a lot in that respect. Perhaps the script could be weighted toward items that have been sold by PCs, especially those that have reached the 5-item limit, just to keep things moving.

The other issue that needs to be tackled, and this is the tricky part, is figuring out a solid but simplistic guideline for how much things should cost. Based on difficulty, rarity, and quality.

Right now there are a lot of strange variances - rare, exotic hides being dirt cheap, common hides being expensive, pieces of stone selling for 30+ coins, extremely rare gems selling for 10.

None of the above solves the lack of crafting recipes for several common objects, but it would at least patch the holes in the bucket...

If some enterprising staffer wanted to be my hero forever, a crafting recipe call for common items would be amazing. I have so many ideas but when I made a merchant to start implementing them and realized how incredibly slow it would be to have to spend a literal year of my life just to implement 12 recipes for simple items... ehhhh I'd rather be playing something more fun.

[Merdin]

I don't like using the world decay for armor and weapons. However, its the same idea. At some point they should need replacing, and it shouldn't be for another better weapon/armor, it should be because the weapon/gear has been used so much it cannot. Bones break, shell shatters, and leather tears after a while, if not that the thread/gunk that holds it together will break or give out eventually.

However, I understand a case can be made for armor/weapon to lasting forever, but this isn't an argument for realism. This is an idea to improve the economy and increase the value/demand of coins in the game.

Right now in the game you can calculate exactly how much a new character needs to buy an ideal set of armor/weapons for their guild/sub-guild. After they've reached that point, they need for coins goes down dramatically. How quickly people reach that point depends on their play style but its not very hard to manage. Sure there could be some money sinks such as food/water/apartment and stabling fees, but there are ways around these expenses. Unlike other expenses with armor/weapons a one time investment is all your need and you are set. This mean that after a certain point, risking your character for obsidian isn't really worth your time.  The only people that need coins are new character and there are safer and easier ways abiet boring to get it. You just need to put X amount of time, get your nice pieces of gear and never have to do it again.

There are so many pieces of armor and weapons in the game that are not high quality, but cheap and useful but never get used one because people can just save up for the best kurac/salarr sell instead. By making it so that you eventually need to replace armor and weapon we make it so gear works like apartments and food. Sure its great when you can afford the most expensive places or food, but there are much cheaper alternatives that might better suit your budget. You don't NEED to buy the very best gear the GMH have to offer, you can instead buy something cheaper which will last you just as long, and then if it gets ruined after a IC year or two, you will have enough coins to by another set. Perhaps you can buy some things a crafter makes, there is no reason their products should only be popular with new characters.

By increasing the demand of gear (weapons/armor) we also increase the need to go out and get those resources. Right now the only people that can make the very best gear are the merchant houses but this will create niches and more opportunity for independents and other crafters to offer valuable goods at more affordable prices. Again these items should only 'delay' when worn so encouraging people to wear normal clothing might be a nice boon to tailors and assassins trying to find ways through all that heavy armor.

Again it just comes down to the idea that there is so much gear in the game, and PCs don't always need to be wearing or using the very best gear. Some IC years you can afford it, some  IC years you just can't and you wear something not as good. Someone trying to pay for your services in a set of studded armors might be a damn good deal. And those bounties/reward might be worth doing because you will definitely need those coins in the future.

This game has needed more money sinks for a long time, and its getting them; apartments, armor repair, bank withdraws fees and now i feel food decay will help too. There is no reason why PC have to be decked out in the best gear outside custom gear, these things shouldn't be a one time purchase.  An increased desire for more coins will encourage more interaction and thus more plots. And it is a desire, not need, because you will always be able to afford adequate gear, apartment, and nutrition without much effort or work.

I second this.

[Bast]

Flowers I hate the current parading of certain flowers lime they wouldn't wilt in a week. There is a floristry skill for a reason. The one exception should maybe be the
Tea flowers or their craft item should be changed to a dried version of the tea plant

[nauta]

On weapons (and perhaps armor).

I don't know the code here.  Does anyone know if weapons and armor actually degrade on use (i.e. successful hits given or received)?  (I -have- seen a half-giant literally shatter a dwarf's leggings with an especially amazing hit in-game, but (i) that's not degrading that was shattering -- he literally knocked the pants off the dwarf and (ii) that probably is a rare (and cool) quirk of the code and not a general thing.)

If not, here's an idea for implementing it (at least with weapons).  My model here are arrows, because I love arrows.

1. Allow the Warrior Guild (or whatever it is called) access to very primitive access to the weapon making skill (much as Ranger has access to fletchery).

2. Make a lot of the bones that are lying around craftable into primitive bone weapons (if they aren't already).

3. Then have weapons degrade on successful hits, with flags: used, barely held-together, etc.  The flags are important so you can judge if you should risk going into battle with that barely held-together bone sword or pivot to making a new bone sword (or buying one).

Two potential objections.

1. This would hurt the merchants.  Reply: a lot of merchants are more interested in dealing with the upper class anyway, and in any case, just as with arrows, you can opt to purchase rather than make.

2. We have the subguild, use that.  I just think it'd be fun to play a Warrior and run around in the desert with a loincloth making up my own bone sword now and then -- bear in mind the quality of these swords would be shit compared to the ones that a merchant would make.

[Synthesis]

Giving everyone access to sword/spear/knife/club/axe/whatever-making would be a terrible idea, unless a whole lot of work went into making damn sure you couldn't overcome the value and failure problems of a low skill-cap by production or attempt volume.

[nauta]

Giving everyone access to sword/spear/knife/club/axe/whatever-making would be a terrible idea, unless a whole lot of work went into making damn sure you couldn't overcome the value and failure problems of a low skill-cap by production or attempt volume.

Yep, good point.  I had imagined the weapons that the Warrior class had access to would be set to a value of 1 sid or 2 -- or even unsellable tout court -- and would be (in terms of wearing out) on the low scale.

If you want to make money off weapons, pick the Subguild.  But if you just want to run around and grab a bone, whack at it with a stone, and have a functional (if shitty and value-less and worn down weapon): then you can do that!

[BadSkeelz]

If the weapon is worthless, no one is going to use one. If the weapons are good, then warriors won't need to talk to Salarr.

I've wondered if it would be fun to have weapons wear down over use, necessitating periodic maintenance. Sharpening, reaffixing of blades, that sort of things. This would be a Guild skill of warriors, and available to certain subguilds like Mercenary and Rebel/Outlaw, which are described as being able to take care of their own gear.

[John]

I don't know why people get so upset about other people leaving skinned items on the ground (from an OOC perspective, anyway).

The game is ostensibly about a harsh world where people are struggling to survive. Going out and finding a shit-ton of 'sid simply lying around is jarring to that.

If I steamroll a mess of chaltons just for shits and giggles

This is something i personally have an issue with and find jarring when I find people doing it. Leaving all that shit behind only makes it more obvious.

leave the hides, it's not because I'm lazy or whatever...it's because I know there are a fuckton of newb merchants and crafters who need to blast through about 100 hides apiece to master tanning.

Fuck those newb merchants and crafters. Merchants and crafters have it too easy in making 'sid anyway. If they want to be masters let them actually interact with other people (or do a shitload of boring foraging to buy the raw goods they need from NPCs) and organise for those chalton to be hunted down.

So, as a bit of a courtesy to the rest of the playerbase, I leave that half-dozen hides sitting there, so they have an easier time with their own stupid grind.

I'm just wondering if this entire post was trolling/sarcastic. On the off chance it's not, what the hell? Since when did the playerbase start catering to people grinding? Fuck those people. Make them work at it themselves. There aint no free lunches in zalanthas. Right? Because that's people are doing when they're leaving all those hides around. They're handing out free lunches. When did that become acceptable?

it's important for retention to make starting out less frustrating.

Can anyone who cares to earn enough 'sid to not starve or die of dehydration? Yup. Can anyone who is inclined get accomodation without having to sit around and pointlessly grind? Yup. Join a House.

Joining clans is great for (non-offpeakers) as it builds in a group of people to interact with (making the game less frustrating) and can get you involved in plots. If you're finding the early game of a character boring, go join a clan. Having enough people in a clan will cause stuff to happen even if no-one is putting any effort into it.

He's got to lug around what he has to sell or junk it, because he can't afford anywhere to store it.

Or he could stash it somewhere "safe" until such time as he can sell it. Sure it might get stolen (reboot or other PCs) but such is life.

Of course, feel free to ignore me. I've never had a PC who didn't have to worry about getting his next meal or rent money. So clearly my experiences aren't the norm for many here

[Synthesis]

I keep my dickness IC.  Anyway, chalton bits aren't free 'sid lying around, because the market is always at least 80% saturated within hours of a reboot.  So calm the fuck down, basically.

Incidentally, my phone tried to predict "dickness" as "dick nessalin@armageddon.org."

[Synthesis]

On-topic:

So far, the only effect has been to make it harder to hoard the finest meats and cheeses in order to sell them on reboots.  I can still do it, but I have to time it and keep the shit in my bag when I log out.

#whatever

[Miradus]

I have butchered a lot of game in the field in real life, and there is plenty of crap left over that I don't lug back to camp.

The problem of leftover items on the ground isn't poor roleplay. There are in-game vultures and other scavengers. Throw a script on them to gobble up meat and bones they find on the ground. The script already exists, I think. I've seen tembo eat corpses.

[Armaddict]

Some vultures already do this as well.  There are in game scavengers, but the code needs to spread to all of them, I think.

Edit:  They only do it to corpse objects.  So it might be helpful for guts, entrails, so on and so forth, to be flagged with a 'scavenger target' flag.

[BadSkeelz]

Some vultures already do this as well.  There are in game scavengers, but the code needs to spread to all of them, I think.

Edit:  They only do it to corpse objects.  So it might be helpful for guts, entrails, so on and so forth, to be flagged with a 'scavenger target' flag.

People also tend to kill them all the time.

[Armaddict]

Some zones seem to have it built in for scavengers to gravitate towards bodies, where around Allanak this is not the case.  Maybe that would help it.

I say 'seem to' on purpose, I've never seen it actually happening.

[Asmoth]

Some vultures already do this as well.  There are in game scavengers, but the code needs to spread to all of them, I think.

Edit:  They only do it to corpse objects.  So it might be helpful for guts, entrails, so on and so forth, to be flagged with a 'scavenger target' flag.

People also tend to kill them all the time.

Newbie independent combat trainers.

[Miradus]

People may kill them all the time, but I still see them. They aren't extinct.

Frankly though, the piles of dismembered chalton and gortok in the world don't bother me. It's not immersion breaking. The wilderness is full of carrion. If it bothers you that a player left it, then roleplay that some predator scattered refuse around after a kill and all those parts have been gnawed.

[John]

Frankly though, the piles of dismembered chalton and gortok in the world don't bother me. It's not immersion breaking. The wilderness is full of carrion. If it bothers you that a player left it, then roleplay that some predator scattered refuse around after a kill and all those parts have been gnawed.

What is the IC motivation for going into the desert, killing a mess of Chatlon (skinning them?) and then taking nothing? Not even the hunks of meat.

[RogueGunslinger]

Well, there could be a few different motivations, but none of them are very probable.

What if they're collecting blood for a defilers shrine?