Salt Flats/Custom Forage Seeder/SimDesert Object discussion

[WanderingOoze]

I think there can be a happy medium found between "little to no chance of real danger" and "nearly instantaneous death."

I think nearly every death in Armageddon is 'nearly instantaneous', at least in so far as it turning from handleable into death-driving; once I know death is going to happen, it doesn't matter whether it happens in two hits or from a slow-working poison.  It happening with a reel instead of drawn out hunt after you is not such a concern to me.  The danger of the salt flats -is- meks, aside from the classic new mistakes of not bringing water and running your mount to exhaustion.

If we just made everything more middling and removed that danger of death in such ways, the idea of promoting more danger for the reward is kind of a moot point, because we'd be countering it immediately by making it easier.

The 'compromise' I see is that these deposits are actually still surprisingly low risk for high reward.  I'd like to see a new creature that is anakore-like that burrows in salt deposits and works like an ant lion, occasionally grabbing at prey wandering too close, and varying in degree of difficulty wildly, from chalton-like difficulty to tembo-like difficulty.  Make them not visible with scan, but part of the deposit object in some way.  Not present in all of them, but in some of them. Make salting alone just as risky as hunting abroad alone, and salt operations more of a thing.

Meks should remain a very real and present danger at all times on the flats.  Not something that is just bad luck.  The edge is safe, but low reward.  That was the purpose of the entire thing, from what I read out of the post.

Kind of like those snakes that hide in certain plants ?  But stronger?

[BadSkeelz]

Or salt worms...

[Armaddict]

I think there can be a happy medium found between "little to no chance of real danger" and "nearly instantaneous death."

I think nearly every death in Armageddon is 'nearly instantaneous', at least in so far as it turning from handleable into death-driving; once I know death is going to happen, it doesn't matter whether it happens in two hits or from a slow-working poison.  It happening with a reel instead of drawn out hunt after you is not such a concern to me.  The danger of the salt flats -is- meks, aside from the classic new mistakes of not bringing water and running your mount to exhaustion.

If we just made everything more middling and removed that danger of death in such ways, the idea of promoting more danger for the reward is kind of a moot point, because we'd be countering it immediately by making it easier.

The 'compromise' I see is that these deposits are actually still surprisingly low risk for high reward.  I'd like to see a new creature that is anakore-like that burrows in salt deposits and works like an ant lion, occasionally grabbing at prey wandering too close, and varying in degree of difficulty wildly, from chalton-like difficulty to tembo-like difficulty.  Make them not visible with scan, but part of the deposit object in some way.  Not present in all of them, but in some of them. Make salting alone just as risky as hunting abroad alone, and salt operations more of a thing.

Meks should remain a very real and present danger at all times on the flats.  Not something that is just bad luck.  The edge is safe, but low reward.  That was the purpose of the entire thing, from what I read out of the post.

Kind of like those snakes that hide in certain plants ?  But stronger?

Very much like that is what I had in mind, but it's also a very top-of-the-head idea and there may be huge problems with such a thing.

Or salt worms...

Salt worms are pretty burly, I was thinking...smaller than that, and with a little more cunning, to increase some of the variety of fauna and types of danger.  I've heard rumors that salt worms can be aggressive, but I've never had that verified through any experience of my own.

Basically, if we're looking for more things of middling difficulty, I was saying we'd have to add something new because as is, the difficulty levels of things found in the flats are very polar.

[BadSkeelz]

Salt wormlets, looking for those vital protein intake to spur their growth to so-large-don't-give-a-fuck-eat-sand-all-day size. Make them more aggressive and numerous but not quite so dangerous.

[WanderingOoze]

Salt wormlets, looking for those vital protein intake to spur their growth to so-large-don't-give-a-fuck-eat-sand-all-day size. Make them more aggressive and numerous but not quite so dangerous.

And have a random chance to find Salt worm eggs in the patches too. A delicacy, but if kept in your inventory for too long, instead of spoiling. They Hatch!

[Jihelu]

Salt wormlets, looking for those vital protein intake to spur their growth to so-large-don't-give-a-fuck-eat-sand-all-day size. Make them more aggressive and numerous but not quite so dangerous.

And have a random chance to find Salt worm eggs in the patches too. A delicacy, but if kept in your inventory for too long, instead of spoiling. They Hatch!

They hatch into pets.
Sell them for even more!

[Yam]

Then you can start a Water of Life farm.

[BrokenRomance]

Then you can start a Water of Life farm.

Only to be raided by Kurac and have it taken from you.

[Norcal]

I think there can be a happy medium found between "little to no chance of real danger" and "nearly instantaneous death."

Yup.

I think there can be a happy medium found between "little to no chance of real danger" and "nearly instantaneous death."

I think nearly every death in Armageddon is 'nearly instantaneous',

Nope.

[Beethoven]

Just add coded Ivory-Salt sickness.

[Armaddict]

I think there can be a happy medium found between "little to no chance of real danger" and "nearly instantaneous death."

Yup.

I think there can be a happy medium found between "little to no chance of real danger" and "nearly instantaneous death."

I think nearly every death in Armageddon is 'nearly instantaneous',

Nope.

Quite the contribution there.  I like how you cut out everything after the comma that actually qualifies the statement.  Qualification of statements is kind of important, when taking quotes.

In lieu of what I suggested, I'd like to know your idea of the compromise that keeps the idea behind the whole 'more risk for more reward' intact.  Because you seem intent on saying 'sweet, more reward, let's now reduce the risk' with no input beyond that.

[Jingo]

Mekillots arn't fun and they add virtually nothing to the game. At best they're fodder for clans of massively skilled players and magickers.

Dying to a mekillot isn't fun and adds nothing to the game.

[Armaddict]

Sure they do.  They add danger to the game.  They add big baddies to the game.  They add reason to not wander aimlessly through the salt flats to the game.

If we removed everything from the game that was not fun to die to, then I don't think we'd have much of a permadeath game.

Edit:  I understand that you're saying you'd like things to not kill you quickly, but if this is the case we should also remove backstab, sap, bahamets, braxat, and pretty much anything capable of inflicting grievous wounds.

[Jingo]

You can do all those things better than having a mega mob fuck you diagonally.

[Armaddict]

Just out of curiosity, Jingo...is your official position that you should never die without consent?  That's kind of the stance you take on any discussion around death or risk.

The idea that no mobs should be able to jump you by surprise because of nw ne sw se is pretty much a pretty hefty request, there.

Edited to add:  Okay, so this may be coming off as hostile, but I'm genuinely curious.  I mean, it's right there in the post:

You may find that the typical means of salt foraging (barely going into the salt flats) are no longer as efficient as they used to be. This is on purpose. Higher risks will yield greater rewards.

And this topic somehow got turned into 'Well, there's that big baddy on the salt flats and you're making us go into its territory'.  I believe that's kind of the idea.  I've yet to see anyone else offer anything else in terms of a solution to what you're discussing without going against that point of increasing the risk for good yields of salting (despite it being pretty easy, right now).  So really, do we have to derail about this creature that has been the king of the salt flats for decades suddenly being bullshit because we made salting take you deeper in?  Or at least propose something new that maintains the concept of the above quote?

[Jingo]

Yeah that's my official position. With zero nuance.   

[Raptor_Dan]

I think Baby Meks are what we're looking for. A baby mek is defeatable, dangerous, but defeatable, and capable of being outrun, but if a Mek sees you attacking it, you're fucked. Then again, I barely care. My chars are mostly meat shields anyway.

[Riev]

Honestly, some sort of trigger that can send out a "rumbles" to adjacent rooms in the grid would be nice for any large creature nearby. Even a salt-worm tunneling under you, into the room nearby, should send out a bit of an echo.

That, or add a pre-delay to foraging. I'd be completely alright with that.

The post-delay on SOME skills makes sense, but so far as "digging and sifting through things"... I think the pre-delay would make more sense, and solve at least AN issue with this.



Also, is anyone else super excited that SimDesert is coming to a zone near me? More rats in Allanak, adjustable spawn rates in the wilderness, reasons to not 'kill every creature because it spawned'. An ACTUALLY useful thing when dropping a spider nest, because spawns can be reduced for <x> time?

[HavokBlue]

If you want a safe and easy way to make money, I submit that there are several other coded jobs that don't put you in close proximity to mekillots.

[bardlyone]

As awesome as this is....

The night the 3-4 am server time megalags I've been getting nightly since the 10th is about traced back to the time it was put in. I know the game had 1 other player in it a minute ago, and there were major disconnect issues now. So it might be something to double-check for unexpected effects.

It might be interacting unpredictably to cause it, or something else might be causing it, but the timing sure makes me think it was these changes.

[Delirium]

Goodness. I'm not suggesting we remove mekillots.

I'm suggesting we keep them rare, add in mid-level threats, and not gang people with overlong post-delay.

[Beethoven]

I think they were probably talking to Jingo, who did kind of sort of imply the game would be better without mekillots.

[nauta]

Re: meks and other insta-kill things (spider nests, etc.): I'd like to see more mobs that fall somewhere between: (a) killyounow and (b) turaal pile!  That is, gith-quality mobs: they will fuck you up down past the restore-hitpoints level on a good wallop (so you have to sleep or get back to a friend), but they aren't insta-kill.

[Lizzie]

Re: the risk vs. reward issue.

I think it's kind of a red herring. There are lots and lots of ways to get very well-rewarded (via lots of game coin) with little to no risk at all. Everyone starts out with seed money, and every crafter has access to start-up materials, and an NPC or two who is willing to buy finished goods. You don't have to leave the "safety" of your city/outpost to slowly amass a fortune, if that is truly your character's only goal in life and your only plan for your character to measure his "success" with (I would disagree that it's a measure of success but that's a philosophical issue, not a code issue).

If it's now incredibly dangerous for a grebber to greb, just to earn subsistance sids, then it should be monumentally dangerous for a clothworker to work cloth and earn thousands of sids in a relatively short period of time. It currently is not dangerous at all to get to that point. After that point it might become risky if you annoy the GMHs, but up until that point - no risk.

[nauta]

Idle thought re salt flats: You know what would be super cool?  I do!  There's some rooms in the desert -- certain dunes -- where you can 'see' things in all directions if you are standing on them.  I'm not sure what the code is there, but what if most of the rooms in the salt flats were made to be like this?