Poison cure decay

[Dresan]

With the introduction of poison decay, I want to suggest  we look into decay for cures/tablets

I am not sure if cures/tablet decay, i think they were meant to at one point, but they last for so long that I've never seen it.

If it doesn't exist, I think it should with a lengthy (spoiled) tag to show that its time to seek out new cures. If it does exist (and I have never actually noticed) maybe the delay timer should be shortened slightly.

I've seen people with 20 cures in their packs and who knows how many stored in their compound. You can already buy or have someone buy cures to general poison so having the cures decay isn't the end of the world.

I think this will increase the value of cures while at the same time making the use of general common poisons not feel so crappy. As of right now, a one time investment can make you immune to these types of poisons.

[mansa]

What we know:
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,49825.msg1038980.html#msg1038980

October 15, 2019 (Tuesday)

(Brokkr)
-Peraine poison objects will now decay over time.

I don't think any other poison objects decays over time.  This doesn't state that poisoned objects decay over time, just the poison object itself.

Is there anything documented that brewed tablets 'decay' in it's efficiency ?

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.

Or, more to the issue at hand, why those hundred bloodburn cures suddenly look like those six terradin cures.

Existing cures in the game will continue to work.  Any cures you've got on your character or in a save room will continue working.

This makes me think there is no cure decay.



..

Am I reading it right, and we want to have the cures also decay over time?  Like the expiry dates on Tylenol?

[Dresan]

Yes that correct.

The idea is that poison cures (tablet or otherwise) should  spoil, probably more akin to spice but with a spoiler warning similar to food .

Though a bit of derail, for poisons in general, my understanding is that items that can apply poison (to weapon for example) do decay. If a weapon is poisoned that does not decay (for now). Sorry if i was not clear.

[Cabooze]

i think that cures shouldn't decay, or if they do decay, make them decay at an extremely slow pace. Difficulty associated with obtaining cures is greater than that of obtaining the poisons.

[Dresan]

i think that cures shouldn't decay, or if they do decay, make them decay at an extremely slow pace. Difficulty associated with obtaining cures is greater than that of obtaining the poisons.

This is the response I was waiting for, thanks

At the moment, common poisons are kinda worthless and that is mostly attributed to the fact that people only need to invest in a set of cures once before being practically immune to them. I've seen people with 20 general poison cures in their packs. And if they didn't have cures for some odd reason, they could always run to their barracks where they could be stockpiles of them.  If that fails they could easily run in to a tavern where its very likely everyone has cures.

Being immune to common poison the way people currently are should take a bit more investment. While getting common poisons is easy enough, there are several stages of potential failure when applying it to someone including getting poisoned yourself. While if you get poisoned a simple macro, or your buddy next to you will often deal with the poison before it even kicks in.

I am not saying decay timer should be that short, but plenty of popular classes get brew, and you can buy the cure that is most likely to kill you for cheap. The only thing decay will do is keep people from hording it in barracks or buying more than a couple at a time.

[Miko]

i think that cures shouldn't decay, or if they do decay, make them decay at an extremely slow pace. Difficulty associated with obtaining cures is greater than that of obtaining the poisons.

just going to second this. There's already plenty of new ways for cure making to fail, and resources for cures have been changed around, there is definite scarcity in a good balance with what is available.

[cnemus]

Please no.

Cures take multiple items to make, fail, and when you're trying to get a full set of all the possible ones for groups of people... adding decay would make an already hard task nearly impossible.

[Dresan]

Not sure how scarce it is when you can get just get a local byner to go buy an unlimited supply of the one that most likely going to kill you (slowly)

[mansa]

Not sure how scarce it is when you can get just get a local byner to go buy an unlimited supply of the one that most likely going to kill you (slowly)

Currently:

• Creating a cure requires the Brew Skill.

            (Classes: Miscreant, Stalker, Pilferer, Adventurer, Fence, Dune Trader)
            (Subclasses: Physician, Apothecary)

• Identifying what sort of materials used in creating it requires the Brew Skill.
• Cures can be mixed up because the same sdesc of the item may be used for multiple types of cures.
• Knowledge of what combination of herbs used for what sort of cure requires trials and testing

So, there's a lot of hoops you need to hop through before you can use your cures regularly.  It's limited in scope what characters can even tell you what cures are what, so in my opinion it's pretty hard to successfully navigate the game to get to the point where you're maxxed out with 20 tablets of each cure on your person.

[LindseyBalboa]

I would really strongly vote against cures decaying. It's not fun, or realistic, and doesn't really seem to solve any problems.

[Dresan]

Even if you couldn't go to a shop and buy general poison cure I  would still disagree with you, Mansa.

There is learning to the new brew code, but once you learn it you have it, and the brew skill is built around the fact you can learn it in game through testing vs just OOC knowledge which is awesome.

However, the fact that cures do not decay and you can buy general poison cures from NPC means that all the effort and value of training brew is diminished.

It also diminishes the value of using these general poisons and further increases the value of poisons like peraine and heramide (both these poisons which in their current state often leads to the passing of OOC knowledge/cheating but that is for another thread)

[mansa]

Even if you couldn't go to a shop and buy general poison cure I  would still disagree with you, Mansa.

...

However, the fact that cures do not decay and you can buy general poison cures from NPC means that all the effort and value of training brew is diminished.

If you could buy most cures from NPCs, then I would say that would lesson the negative impact of decaying cures.  (I'm under the assumption that supply is still limited, and demand is still high.  If supply was high, demand would be limited, and at that point I would introduce some sort of additional aspect to these items to reduce supply, attempting to increase demand)

[Armaddict]

Eh.  Pretty good examples in here of why only peraine and heramide are actually useful, though.

[rinthrat]

Not sure how scarce it is when you can get just get a local byner to go buy an unlimited supply of the one that most likely going to kill you (slowly)

Why do you think Bynners have an unlimited supply of those? This absolutely wasn't the case when I last played there. If Allanak made any sense, these things would be available at the local herbalist, but they aren't. They're usually unavailable to my city-bound characters.

> But you should seek out PCs herbalists.

I would love to buy from PC herbalists, but outiside of peak and the most populated areas, those are unreliable to find, at best.

[rinthrat]

Eh.  Pretty good examples in here of why only peraine and heramide are actually useful, though.

That's simply not true and you know it.

[Riev]

I'd say give the cure economy some time, so far as "but I can buy general poison cures at any shop!" woes. Also, those are herbalist shops and if they DIDN'T sell general poison cures then what in the Known are they doing with their lives?

I think I remember a discussion about have "mashes" decay quickly, tablets decay slowly, and vial cures hardly decay at all.

So long as the NPC-version general poison cures have a chance to decay, I think its fine.

[9001]

Not sure how scarce it is when you can get just get a local byner to go buy an unlimited supply of the one that most likely going to kill you (slowly)

I think you are underestimating the difficulty of getting cures for a lot of characters, and just focusing on a few that are well-equipped to either buy them, make them, or acquire them through IC connections. If you don't live in the right place or don't have the right connections, even buying the cures that are sold suddenly becomes difficult to impossible. This would make things unduly difficult in ways you don't seem to be considering for a lot of PCs, and the focus on making the more mundane poisons that lots of even vNPCs are expected to be prepared for in certain lines of work more dangerous for everyone is going to make the already really nasty poisons even more painful to deal with in game.

And it's worth mentioning that a one time investment doesn't make anyone immune, and that having a cure to a poison doesn't negate the added danger of that poison.

[AdamBlue]

Getting cures is already a gigantic pain in the ass. Don't make it even harder, please.

[Barsook]

Getting cures is already a gigantic pain in the ass. Don't make it even harder, please.

[Is Friday]

Getting cures is already a gigantic pain in the ass. Don't make it even harder, please.

I think this is a playability issue if you make them decay.

[BadSkeelz]

Getting cures is already a gigantic pain in the ass. Don't make it even harder, please.

[Armaddict]

Eh.  Pretty good examples in here of why only peraine and heramide are actually useful, though.

That's simply not true and you know it.

'Not true' is a little too strong of a pushback on it.  It's most certainly true, mostly true, or partly true, and we'd just quibble about the extent.  But I do know you never, when -actually- planning a hit on a target in the game, settle for easily cured poisons, where as if it was a little more up in the air about how likely they were to have a cure on them, you might 'make do' in more scenarios where you feel time sensitivity.  There's no risk vs reward for it, it just ends up being a relatively small factor in what you will and won't attempt.

I could probably write a really long diatribe on how big of an impact that would actually have on any number of anecdotal and hypothetical scenarios, but I don't think anyone would read it.  But yeah, I didn't say it facetiously, I meant it.  Cures are prominent enough that the only curable things you let contribute are the things that prevent the use of a cure.

EDIT:  Also, keep in mind I'm somewhat outdated as far as how some things are going in reaction to changes that have already been made, so it can also be totally taken with a grain of salt instead of as a true assertion.

[Kyviantre]

Getting cures is already a gigantic pain in the ass. Don't make it even harder, please.

My city characters never buy cures off their own backs (some get given them, some get 'encouraged' to dabble).  Think this is the first time I've ever had more than two of the most common types (hello bloodburn and skellebain!) that my character actually sorted out...and they aren't a city dweller.

They are a massive pain in the rump to get already.  I'm already struggling with food (you need three ingredients?  Well 1 doesn't decay fast, but the other two do...can you get both in the same time frame to make the thing you want?  HA, no. *weeps in the corner*).

TL;dr ...kill me with poison, I invariably am not able to afford to get cures because they are already a massive faff 

[Erythil]

Making cures is a tremendous pain in the ass and I do not think this is necessary.