Coder Transparency - Cure/Poison Crafting

[Delirium]

So...is there a way to assess/sniff/taste a vial or tablet in order to tell what it actually does, or is the final product a mystery known only to the original crafter until you use it?

If there -is- a unique assess/sniff/taste message for each particular type of cure, then it's just a brief learning curve, then everything is back to normal (which makes the feature more or less pointless in the long run). 

Well, you could have a unique assess/sniff/taste message that only those with the brew skill can access.

So the following scenario could happen, where the woman has the brew skill and is selling to the man:

The man is given a yellow, red, and green tablet.

The woman says, "The yellow one cures FOOP, the red one cures BOOP, and the green cures SHOOP."

The man needs to
a) trust that she's telling her the truth,
b) have the brew skill to properly assess that she's telling the truth, and/or
c) remember that this is indeed the case, as someone else might have an entirely different style of "color coding". This could also lead to having preferred "cure" vendors, etc, etc.

And even then she could mix in one poisoned red tablet with the other three good ones, and wait...

[nessalin]

I like the idea of this - however I do still have one question.

If we can't go by color any longer, how do we know what cures what?

The above-mentioned idea of using assess/sniff/taste will have to be added to make this happen.  Maybe this weekend.

The original intent was for crafter to know and others to guess, leading to some con jobs, lies, and so on - but that would be out weighed by confusion that would go along with the system.

Especially PCs who have long-since mastered brewing and have been mixing IC lore with OOC constraints for quite a while and will need to retcon some of their knowledge? If someone's made a hundred bloodburn cures it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for them to be unable to figure out, through coded means, how to make another.

For existing PCs with high skills we respond via the request tool to help them convert their knowledge of current recipes over to new ones.

[Delirium]

Awesome. Thanks for clarifying.

[BadSkeelz]

This does sound like a pain in the ass. Can I buy just tablets from a NPC and be sure I'm not going to get killed by a lucky snake?

There was a post above mine that went missing but expressed concerns I agree with. I can't help but feel that this should have been a "Not broken don't fix" situation.

[BadSkeelz]

Correct me if I'm wrong (I probably am), but if Mash/Cure effect is determined by taste and not by color (or any other keyword), how are we going to quickly dig out cures to ingest while poisoned? Are we going to have to taste through a bunch of different, visually identical items that we can't pull out in any particular order?

[nessalin]

This does sound like a pain in the ass. Can I buy just tablets from a NPC and be sure I'm not going to get killed by a lucky snake?

There was a post above mine that went missing but expressed concerns I agree with. I can't help but feel that this should have been a "Not broken don't fix" situation.

This is actually a case of quite broken - trying to fix.

The old system was almost entirely a matter of ooc knowledge from one character to the next in the making and use of cures.  The intended manner of experimentation and learning through tastes and colors wasn't working due to some building errors.  The old system only 'made sense' largely through repeated exposure.

The new system is still being discussed, and updated, daily.  Giving up on it at such an early stage because it isn't an extension of the previous, ooc-knowledge-required, system seems...well, what kind of progress would the game ever make if that was the measurement for accepting changes?


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With regards to NPC tablet vendors, this is a good example of "just" being a four-lettered word.  The outdoors is a dangerous place - filled with...danger.  While a predictable system is to be striven towards, as is happening with these posts, as part of making it a manageable danger, there's little point in introducing one that makes it a negated danger.

We could "just" as easily give players a command that removes all poisonsto save players the trouble of going to the NPCs in the first place.

Ideally, once we move off of the old brew system, the cure crafting system will produce items intended by the crafter in terms of cure, poison, and within some ranges color.  How these cures are distributed (clan save rooms, pc-to-pc sales, clan vendors, mini-quests like the cleaning solution) and how they are verified is still in progress.

Straight up NPC sales seems to cut a lot of PC involvement out of the loop and shift the game more towards single-player in a multi-player environment.

[Delirium]

Change is scary, but the more I read about where this is going, the more I like it.

I think (and could be wrong) that we are more or less playtesting the change right now.

I'm ok with that because we still have the old brew system to fall back on until that's done.

[Reiloth]

Nessalin -- I like the change. But with how binary poisons are (Terradin is Terradin is Terradin, no matter where it comes from), do you think this might lead towards a more fluid imagining of poisons as well?

Hand in hand, I think it could be a very nuanced system. The nuance comes in with treating the symptoms, rather than treating the 'poison' or the 'effect'.

Certain plants, when turned into poison, cause X effect (Sweating and loss of stamina, loss of HP at the beginning but not as it progresses).

Talented Poisoners can combine multiple 'effects' for a toxic cocktail. But, they run the risk of cutting themselves and adding all the effects at once, receiving their toxic cocktail.

Herbalists will become less of Tablet Vendors and more of Symptom Treaters. What ails you, friend?

Certain poisons could cause a combination of skellebaine and light Terradin effects, or possibly Peraine-like paralysis at the beginning or end or throughout.

I think if we adjust or look at poisons in tandems with the cures to them, it might turn out to be very cool!

[nessalin]

Correct me if I'm wrong (I probably am), but if Mash/Cure effect is determined by taste and not by color (or any other keyword), how are we going to quickly dig out cures to ingest while poisoned? Are we going to have to taste through a bunch of different, visually identical items that we can't pull out in any particular order?

This is correct.  The combination of tastes determines the cure/poison.  The combination of colors determines the color of the mash (and by extension the tablet/vial).

How to manage them?  Likely the same way people do in real life.  The label goes on the container, not the medicine.  Different colors bags, boxes, jars, vials.

Vial objects have a liquid in them that is the color of the cure.  The color of the cure does not change the sdesc of the vial itself.

Crafters can use the craft-dying to change the color of vial objects, then craft-brew their cures into those various colored vials.  This is probably the most dependable way to deep them separate.

[BadSkeelz]

This does sound like a pain in the ass. Can I buy just tablets from a NPC and be sure I'm not going to get killed by a lucky snake?

There was a post above mine that went missing but expressed concerns I agree with. I can't help but feel that this should have been a "Not broken don't fix" situation.

This is actually a case of quite broken - trying to fix.

The old system was almost entirely a matter of ooc knowledge from one character to the next in the making and use of cures.  The intended manner of experimentation and learning through tastes and colors wasn't working due to some building errors.  The old system only 'made sense' largely through repeated exposure.

The new system is still being discussed, and updated, daily.  Giving up on it at such an early stage because it isn't an extension of the previous, ooc-knowledge-required, system seems...well, what kind of progress would the game ever make if that was the measurement for accepting changes?

Personally I don't see anything wrong with previous "broken" system. 'Tablets of various colors cure various ailments, and can be brewed following these rules of alchemy.' I've learned this in-character on multiple PCs. It made sense in the game world, and it made sense from a game design perspective. You could teach it and roleplay around it and that was good enough for me.

If you're trying to make the world more dynamic and combat "OOC knowledge," this change is only going to introduce uncertainty right up until everyone has filled in their Recipe spreadsheets again. Even con artist brewers will go away as we'll just keep PKing those PCs until players learn not to play them very much (like pickpockets).

Call it giving up on the change if you want, but this isn't a change I asked for and not one I'm  fond of at the moment. I see over-complication, not immersion. I would rather Staff be running plots than tinkering with the code. As creaky and head-banging-retarded as it is at times, I get a lot more satisfaction from the former than the latter. It's only when the game's stagnant that I start thinking "Man, this code is starting to grate on me."

With regards to NPC tablet vendors, this is a good example of "just" being a four-lettered word.  The outdoors is a dangerous place - filled with...danger.  While a predictable system is to be striven towards, as is happening with these posts, as part of making it a manageable danger, there's little point in introducing one that makes it a negated danger.

We could "just" as easily give players a command that removes all poisonsto save players the trouble of going to the NPCs in the first place.

Ideally, once we move off of the old brew system, the cure crafting system will produce items intended by the crafter in terms of cure, poison, and within some ranges color.  How these cures are distributed (clan save rooms, pc-to-pc sales, clan vendors, mini-quests like the cleaning solution) and how they are verified is still in progress.

Straight up NPC sales seems to cut a lot of PC involvement out of the loop and shift the game more towards single-player in a multi-player environment.

We had a predictable system, as I said. Now we don't, and it's players who are going to be on the hook for "playtesting" it. I know coding takes time, but if it goes sideways on you at least you can roll back and pickup where you left off. Players don't have the same luxury with our PCs. Unless you're going to be resurrecting every dead PC whose pocketful of legitimately acquired cures no longer worked?

[Riev]

That makes so much more sense now, Nessalin.

So, you might know Recipe #1 makes a red mash/vial/tablet, but for 'optimum' storage, you might put all your skellebain cures into a green-tinted vial. So even if all the liquids are red, you can separate them that way.

But vials will be the only way to do that?

[nessalin]

Call it giving up on the change if you want, but this isn't a change I asked for and not one I'm  fond of at the moment. I see over-complication, not immersion. I would rather Staff be running plots than tinkering with the code. As creaky and head-banging-retarded as it is at times, I get a lot more satisfaction from the former than the latter. It's only when the game's stagnant that I start thinking "Man, this code is starting to grate on me."

I am going to state this exactly once:  You do not get to decide how staff spend their time.  Staff are not your bitch.  When you state this or even imply it your entire post becomes something to ignore by myself and likely other staff members.

If your outsize sense of self-entitlement makes this seems like a valid argument to bring up I suggest you invest your time in other games and other communities.

[Riev]

At that rate, Nessalin (I like that I can say your name without being banned, at least for the moment!), was it just you and Nath working on this? I know sometimes these projects end up getting other builders, etc, in them, who may often never see the thank yous.

[BadSkeelz]

Call it giving up on the change if you want, but this isn't a change I asked for and not one I'm  fond of at the moment. I see over-complication, not immersion. I would rather Staff be running plots than tinkering with the code. As creaky and head-banging-retarded as it is at times, I get a lot more satisfaction from the former than the latter. It's only when the game's stagnant that I start thinking "Man, this code is starting to grate on me."

I am going to state this exactly once:  You do not get to decide how staff spend their time.  Staff are not your bitch.  When you state this or even imply it your entire post becomes something to ignore by myself and likely other staff members.

If your outsize sense of self-entitlement makes this seems like a valid argument to bring up I suggest you invest your time in other games and other communities.

Alrighty then.

Going back to the code, will tablets have a legitimate use anymore going forward? If Mash effectiveness is determined by their taste/smell, I'm assuming this carries forward to Cures being determined by the same. A bunch of visually-identical cures with varying effects who can only be determined by trial and error sound a lot less useful than a color-coded vial holding all of one's BOOP cures.

(I guess I'm assuming you cannot put a tablet in a vial because that sounds... weird, in my head.)

[bcw81]

Inv
You are carrying:
A leather pouch
A packet of red dye
a purple tablet that does x
a green tablet that also does x

Craft Pouch Dye
You could make...
1) A red leather pouch

put purple pouch
put green pouch

[Riev]

I keep forgetting about the dynamic crafting, and colors.

[BadSkeelz]

Yeah it's easy to forget about when you're wondering about potentially lethal code changes.

Be nice if pouches had less weight, as I might need 4 instead of the old one.

[Akariel]

Yeah it's easy to forget about when you're wondering about potentially lethal code changes.

Be nice if pouches had less weight, as I might need 4 instead of the old one.

If you noticed odd things like a two inch pouch of leather weighing 10 stones, bug it. I go through the bugs/typos/ideas every couple of days.

[nauta]

Yeah it's easy to forget about when you're wondering about potentially lethal code changes.

Be nice if pouches had less weight, as I might need 4 instead of the old one.

If you noticed odd things like a two inch pouch of leather weighing 10 stones, bug it. I go through the bugs/typos/ideas every couple of days.

It's true.  I'm going to toot Akariel's horn a bit here.  Check this out:

(from the 'updates' page, these are bug requests resolved:)

2016, week 50: Akariel (98)
2016, week 51: Akariel (106)
2016, week 52: Akariel (26)
2017, week 1: Akariel (80)
2017, week 2: Akariel (36)

Kudos to staff for implementing so many changes / fixes -- and changes / fixes based on suggestions / discussions I recognize from the gdb!

[Lizzie]

I'm old, and I'm dense. I don't get any of this at all. That's not a complaint, it's just a fact. I'm not comprehending. Here's what I want to know:

I want to make a bloodburn cure.

Previously, it involved combining a couple of red things. which I knew were red because assess -v resulted in a red tint.

Now, it doesn't? Okay - what does it involve now?

I want to TAKE a bloodburn cure.

Previously, it involved swallowing a red tablet.

Now, it doesn't? Okay - what does it involve now?

In Old-Lady Plain English please.

[Feco]

Things with certain properties have a certain taste (things that cure bloodburn taste a certain way).

Gotta find them things and mix'em.

[Molten Heart]

.

[bardlyone]

I wonder if whatever the new metric is for this, it's also going to be visible with 'view' when looking through store inventories.

I get that in the old system you COULD have a cure that's totally different than the color of the tablet made, but in every instance I've ever had brew, tint+tint=predictable cure for X poison. Which meant if you bought 2 red tinted things and mixed them... well, I've never had that NOT cure X poison. So if it's taste, do we see taste with view now, too, or do we have to go through and buy everything and trial and error? And if it's the second, what of the fact that you ought to be able to talk to the proprietor of the shop to find out more about what they're selling and what it cures but can't necessarily? (ie, the nakki herbalist, who will tell you what everything she comes stocked with on reboot supposedly does/cures, but doesn't have scripts built in for things sold to her).

[BadSkeelz]

Is it taste, or taste-and/or-smell? Because tasting would theoretically use up some of the material/cure and (at least in old crafting code) render it unusable for further refining. >Sniff at least leaves you with the same amount.

Sniffing would also help with bardlyone's point of getting shopkeepers to be more informative, otherwise we have the sight of folks running around licking all the merchandise.

[Delirium]

Actually if you use 'taste' on an herb you just do that - taste it, you don't take a bite like you do if tasting food.

This has been the case for a loooooooooooong time.