Should we have Decay on Tools and Clothing?

[TeckXKnight]

I can see my point was lost on you alloin. The point of my post wasn't to rail against grinding, the point was to say that upkeep isn't a meaningful mechanic that adds anything to the player experience. If anything, upkeep detracts from experiences that you do want to have. No one sits there attempting to light their first fire with a tinder drill thinking to themselves, "I'm so glad my last four tinder drills broke. This was an excellent use of my time." That sentiment surely isn't going to come about when you're on your tenth, one hundredth, or one thousandth fire either. There is built in mitigation for this very reason that reduces the failure of tinder drills as you improve your biles.

In addition, as you have stated, it creates a china cabinet for the best gear. You never take the good china out except for when the big, important guests are over. Except they'll never come over because they don't want to bring their best china. Is this something that benefits the game? Hurts it? Matters at all? It certainly is an effect. I don't know why you would or would not want this to happen, but it doesn't make sense to me to encourage this behavior when you can encourage behavior that creates a worthwhile experience for players to engage in. Work on and implement a system that isn't such a grasp in the dark, such as better stalls or whatever else you want to. There is no small list of things that could be improved or new systems that would benefit everyone a great deal.

As for the economy excuse, it creates a minor market for surplus tools to move hands occasionally. There will be a small blip on your transaction records every so often depending on the severity of item decay. This is not a profitable market. You're a trader, you should know that. Goods that move in bulk and that always have a use are the profitable goods and that create new markets. Food and inspirations are great markets. Metals and raw resources are excellent too. I'd kill to trade livestock and other such large goods. I'd never want a system in place to act as a bandaid though. That does nothing for the game beyond some profits tomorrow. I wouldn't even bother keeping most spare tools on hand and instead would craft them as requested the market would be so small. Trading clothes? Compared to your nails and iron bars what does that earn you?

[Feone]

I can see my point was lost on you alloin. The point of my post wasn't to rail against grinding, the point was to say that upkeep isn't a meaningful mechanic that adds anything to the player experience. If anything, upkeep detracts from experiences that you do want to have. No one sits there attempting to light their first fire with a tinder drill thinking to themselves, "I'm so glad my last four tinder drills broke. This was an excellent use of my time." That sentiment surely isn't going to come about when you're on your tenth, one hundredth, or one thousandth fire either. There is built in mitigation for this very reason that reduces the failure of tinder drills as you improve your biles.

In addition, as you have stated, it creates a china cabinet for the best gear. You never take the good china out except for when the big, important guests are over. Except they'll never come over because they don't want to bring their best china. Is this something that benefits the game? Hurts it? Matters at all? It certainly is an effect. I don't know why you would or would not want this to happen, but it doesn't make sense to me to encourage this behavior when you can encourage behavior that creates a worthwhile experience for players to engage in. Work on and implement a system that isn't such a grasp in the dark, such as better stalls or whatever else you want to. There is no small list of things that could be improved or new systems that would benefit everyone a great deal.

As for the economy excuse, it creates a minor market for surplus tools to move hands occasionally. There will be a small blip on your transaction records every so often depending on the severity of item decay. This is not a profitable market. You're a trader, you should know that. Goods that move in bulk and that always have a use are the profitable goods and that create new markets. Food and inspirations are great markets. Metals and raw resources are excellent too. I'd kill to trade livestock and other such large goods. I'd never want a system in place to act as a bandaid though. That does nothing for the game beyond some profits tomorrow. I wouldn't even bother keeping most spare tools on hand and instead would craft them as requested the market would be so small. Trading clothes? Compared to your nails and iron bars what does that earn you?

Agreed. Iron is not hard to get, I reckon most advanced settlements keep at least a box of it on hand for random usage. Hardly worth the hassle of trading, perhaps a newbie might trade a few more times if they really want iron tools before they have a mine & smelters. Other than that I highly doubt it'll do anything at all for the economy.

[nonsonogiucas]

China cabinet effect is not bad (nor it is good) in and of itself.
I remember when I played UO on a private RP server (full loot, even if not 100% free pvp). I had, like any other senior member of the guild, my own set of "china" armor (it was "dragon-steel" in a fantasy setting vaguely related to DragonLance). And of course we took it out only in special occasions. But I assure you, it was fun.

Why? Reasons...

...item decay must not (and maybe can not) be viewed as a "fun" mechanic per se (in itself, sorry for latin ). In context of my past UO experience was merely an excuse to favor social relationships between players. I won't go on describing how I think worked well in that there, I am merely suggesting that we shouldn't dismiss it as bad like no one can label a RL tool as either bad or good.

If we agree in considering item decay as an instrumental mechanic rather than a disconnected mini-game, we should then be discussing how to model other existing gameplay aspects on that mechanic in order to increase the fun of the resulting experience.

I sympathize with the fear some expressed of increase in "work" without increase in "play". I too would not like that. But that doesn't HAVE to occur.


Now another 2 cents for the discussion on "how to use item decay":
I was thinking back the UO experience and I remembered that nearly everyone had an alt dedicated to crafting. In that system however you had to specialize if you wanted to build high-end gear because UO is skill-point capped. My crafting alt had atteined the rank of "grand master" bowyer and fletcher and in thus was able to supply the guild with high end bows (we role-played elves so it was a matter of some pride on my part too). Others specialized in blacksmithing, alchemy, etc...
It was just so fun to be sought after by guild mates that wanted their bows repaired and special arrows made from freshly acquired ingredients.

To sum it up: more specialization + item decay + masterful repairs = fun (imho of course)

You want to be a hermit you say? Jack-of-all-trades? Well then, do not specialize and either 1) be content with low-end equipment or 2) fuel the economy by buying high-end equipment from others.

[nonsonogiucas]

As for the economy excuse, it creates a minor market for surplus tools to move hands occasionally. There will be a small blip on your transaction records every so often depending on the severity of item decay. This is not a profitable market. You're a trader, you should know that. Goods that move in bulk and that always have a use are the profitable goods and that create new markets. Food and inspirations are great markets. Metals and raw resources are excellent too. I'd kill to trade livestock and other such large goods. I'd never want a system in place to act as a bandaid though. That does nothing for the game beyond some profits tomorrow. I wouldn't even bother keeping most spare tools on hand and instead would craft them as requested the market would be so small. Trading clothes? Compared to your nails and iron bars what does that earn you?

True is the fact that right now bulk orders of precious materials is the main source of income for traders.

I would however argue that this situation is broken and due to the fact that all characters are basically jack-of-all-trades, short-circuiting the demand for relatively inexpensive goods.

If there was an incentive to specialization, a market for things like tools, meat, fish, clothing etc.. would probably follow up shortly.

Inb4 "ALTS!!!" ... logging in an out alts is not fun, it is merely convenient in the present situation, browsing market stalls for good prices or striking a favorable deal with a merchant on the other hand is.

[Feone]

As for the economy excuse, it creates a minor market for surplus tools to move hands occasionally. There will be a small blip on your transaction records every so often depending on the severity of item decay. This is not a profitable market. You're a trader, you should know that. Goods that move in bulk and that always have a use are the profitable goods and that create new markets. Food and inspirations are great markets. Metals and raw resources are excellent too. I'd kill to trade livestock and other such large goods. I'd never want a system in place to act as a bandaid though. That does nothing for the game beyond some profits tomorrow. I wouldn't even bother keeping most spare tools on hand and instead would craft them as requested the market would be so small. Trading clothes? Compared to your nails and iron bars what does that earn you?

True is the fact that right now bulk orders of precious materials is the main source of income for traders.

I would however argue that this situation is broken and due to the fact that all characters are basically jack-of-all-trades, short-circuiting the demand for relatively inexpensive goods.

If there was an incentive to specialization, a market for things like tools, meat, fish, clothing etc.. would probably follow up shortly.

Inb4 "ALTS!!!" ... logging in an out alts is not fun, it is merely convenient in the present situation, browsing market stalls for good prices or striking a favorable deal with a merchant on the other hand is.

Specialising characters doesn't create favorable trade.
Players active enough to be a significant boost to trade will simply make more characters. Those who don't won't generally be active enough to be much of a factor.

Specialising will happen when it's possible to do so AND when it's fun or rewarding to do so. Not an easy thing to add into a game.
Trading comes within inherent dangers and efford in Salem so anything designed to boost it will have to be worthwhile enough to take that risk.

Purity is a nice possibility in this regard, trading purity iron could be a valuable commodity. Except people only need 2 bars to instantly get up to the level you sold them so that's pretty much out. Perhaps a change in the dowsingrod mechanics would help there.

[TotalyMeow]

per se (in itself, sorry for latin )

Oh, very funny. Don't try to be mordant, foreign words and phrases commonly used in English like 'rodeo', 'bourgeois', 'per se' are English. Implying I'm illiterate isn't going to convince me to change the rules.

On a more related note, I think we have enough information to know how we should proceed with an item decay mechanic. One thing we've decided, is that we're going to put off implementing anything in the near future. We also don't want a 'china cabinet' situation; as I mentioned before, if we decide we will add decay, it will be balanced in such a way that your clothing will last a good long while, but it won't be something you do once and then never worry about again.

[Icon]

Regardless of personal preference on this one, the addition of a decay system to either tools or clothes would barely have an impact on the economy. Just because a new use for iron comes around, the price is still dictated by an x-y-z pattern of who is producing, who is buying, and how much overall demand there is at the time. The server could quadruple its population right now and that same ratio would flex itself back out in about a week.

[nonsonogiucas]

per se (in itself, sorry for latin )

Oh, very funny. Don't try to be mordant, foreign words and phrases commonly used in English like 'rodeo', 'bourgeois', 'per se' are English. Implying I'm illiterate isn't going to convince me to change the rules.

I'm sorry. I didn't intend to imply that anyone was illiterate and the joking " " face wasn't specifically directed at you or any other moderator in particular.

I am italian (as you can probably guess from my ip) and thus my unterstanding of how much literate one ought to be to understand a phrase derived from ancient latin is limited at best.
I do however remember reading a latin phrase on the forum that was considered foreign by a moderator (I don't remember who) when in my eyes had a very clear meaning (probably because of similarities with my language) and I didn't want to risk, but I also didn't want to sound too solemn in obliging the rules so I tried being funny in a way that I considered innocuous.

I've always strived to be as polite as possible and I regret that my clumsy attempt at joking upset you.

Also I don't want you to drop the rule on language used... If anything I would request you to add more rules like punishing unjustified indecency and personal offense for example... but that's not for me to decide.

My most sincere apologies,
Stefano.

[Cawalox]

So the option with least votes will be applied?

[colesie]

So the option with least votes will be applied?

As is tradition, yes