Control multiple 'negative' events

[Cindy]

The random mother nature events are a new element that was not in the prior version of the game I played. It is an interesting addition. Theoretically in RPG's random negative events occur to add a flavor of chance misfortune, which occurs in real life. The net positive result is to make to game experience more realistic.

 

Thats the intention anyway.

 

Here are some observations. I have seen the same player get 'hit' by sequential events (multiple occurences) within a 5 to 10 minute period. This is not a rare phenomenon.

 

The good events (random gold or harvesting experience) are out numbered by the negative events 3 or 4 to one, (and I might add I have never EVER seen multiple good events occur to the same person within 5 to 10 minutes).

 

My objections :

 

Random events are supposed to be a realism enhancing factor, by providing an appropriate inconvenience factor, not

a fatal encounter.

 

These events are primarily associated/triggered by harvesting activity. All characters harvest from the moment they are created. The implication is that a character with exceptionally low, "newbie" hit points can literally be injured close to death, and that I object to.

 

I find getting 3 teleports within 5 minutes is a bit much ; and potentially someone with as much as 50 hit points could die from 3 sequential 19 point damage events.

 

Its pretty stupid (in my opinion) to have 30-35 hit points and be down to 10 hit points from 2 sequential bee stings.

 

If this back-to-back negative event sequence is intended I would like to hear a justification. Being stung to death by bee's in real life only happens in case of severe allergies or science fiction such as "Attack of the Killer Bee's" (no pun intended). I find nothing realistic about high frequency negative event occurences with a ten to fifteen minute time span.

 

I have noticed multiple occurences of sequential events in area's heavily populated with harvesters where possibly multiple calls on the random function within a compact, densly populated area cause an unintended frequency incidence.

 

Events should be appropriately timed, not left up to the eccentricites of an erratic random number function.

 

My concept of 'appropriate' timing is as follows: new characters - who very likely do not have the pick points to get the "Regeneration" perk, cannot heal or recover their hit points quickly enough to suffer sequential 5 point losses to their hit points, (nor I might add, possibly 19 point losses).

 

I would suggest an event separation of at least 15 ticks for characters under level 15, and preferrably once per hour.

 

The implementation of event separation , or event control would require a "timer" function. Each character definition in the system would need a 2-4 byte field which would record the time of the last event.

 

When the random event function rolls an event for any character, "assertion" of the event has to pass a time check ; last event time (minus) current system time must equal xx units (of time) or more, before the new event can be allowed to occur.

 

I would suggest a poll, if possible with something like this range of choices:

(this set failed as a list of choices in the poll input, as written - so you figure it out)

 

Toss out random events , and the experience bonus event

 

Keep events; limit them to once per hour

 

Keep events; limit them to once per 15 ticks

 

Keep events as they are, get stung to death

[Learner]

I have also harvested 400 vegies at times without hitting a single event. That shows that they truly are random.

[Entris]

I've been hit by 2 walls and pissed of MN within like 5 minutes losing a total of 60 MPs.

 

But as Learner said i've also mined ores and harvested alot of fruit, flowers and veggies without getting any neg. events.

[LabRat]

Ok, if you make them time-based, I for one will figure out exactly how long before events occur, and log out a couple of seconds before, relog and continue ad-infinitum. Who wants to join me?

 

It is extremely rare these days that I get enough damage to kill me (I have 95 HP, and I would guess I am approximately average with that figure), it would take 3 or four wall collapses in quick succession to kill me, but I have had that happen only once in the entire time I played with this character.

 

I am used to teleport nexuses, and I respond almost instinctively now when I see 'LabRat has hit a teleport nexus', clicking back before I even finish reading the sentence.

 

I would appreciate a few more positive events - I rarely find a bag of gold, and only once have I found a Rostogol Stone in all the tens of thousands of ores I mine.

 

Keep things as they are, and maybe tweak them by 1% or so.

[Learner]

Ok, if you make them time-based, I for one will figure out exactly how long before events occur, and log out a couple of seconds before, relog and continue ad-infinitum.  Who wants to join me?

 

It is extremely rare these days that I get enough damage to kill me (I have 95 HP, and I would guess I am approximately average with that figure), it would take 3 or four wall collapses in quick succession to kill me, but I have had that happen only once in the entire time I played with this character.

 

I am used to teleport nexuses, and I respond almost instinctively now when I see 'LabRat has hit a teleport nexus', clicking back before I even finish reading the sentence.

 

I would appreciate a few more positive events - I rarely find a bag of gold, and only once have I found a Rostogol Stone in all the tens of thousands of ores I mine.

 

Keep things as they are, and maybe tweak them by 1% or so.

173703[/snapback]

You don't need more positive events ... there is one happening most of then time, but people wanted the mesage removed ('You harvested 1 vegetable').

[Tanyia]

The good events (random gold or harvesting experience) are out numbered by the negative events 3 or 4 to one, (and I might add I have never EVER seen multiple good events occur to the same person within 5 to 10 minutes).

173636[/snapback]

 

There have been several times where I've gotten over 1k in "bonus experience" from the Queen of Nature within my harvesting experience time. Once I harvested about 3k silver without a pickaxe breaking, and other time I went through almost 10 pickaxes in 15 minutes...

 

"Realisic"? This isn't real life, it's Seridia! We have lots of Seridian killer bees, and a high frequency simply means you're having a hard harvesting day.

 

I personally like the harvesting events-they add some interest to harvesting besides sitting and chatting, or just sitting. Also, they make it harder to harvest while AFK. I'm always amused when I have the F1 screen up and I realize that I've been chatting so much that I didn't notice I stopped harvesting 15 minutes ago. I also love (I know, I'm weird) saying "Whee!" whenever someone is teleported.

 

I would vote for leaving things the way they are If they're removed, harvesting won't amuse me so much and I might have to *gasp* do something else! Egads!

 

 

-T

[Arnieman]

Personally, I like it the way it is. Sure, it's frustrating to get bees and walls and ticked off Mother Nature several times in a row. And 3 broken pickaxes, one right after the other, really irritates me. And anymore, the coins are nice, but I really like it when I can get 2-3 harv exp bonuses in a row - which has and does happen.

• If there has to be a change, these are some suggestions I have:
  
• 1. Maybe at higher levels, exp. bonuses should be a little more? Maybe the same for coins, although I'd also like an option to just ignore if coins come up and continue harvesting.
  
• 2. Maybe the rare harvestables could happen a bit more often? I've harvested lots of iron and coal, and currently have about 40K titanium and 25K silver ores. I may be in the range of 100K ore harvests, and have harvested exactly 1 rostogal stone and 0 serpent stones. Subpoint: Maybe since serpent stones are needed for certain higher level manufactured items, there could be another way to obtain them?
  

If nothing's changed, I'd still be .... well, harvesting.

[trollson]

Arnieman: Ditto, there is not much wrong with harvesting at the moment.

 

However, I don't think that exp gain should increase with level -- this somewhat defeats the point of having an exponential experience level system.

 

It may be appropriate to have experience bonuses dependant on the material being harvested, but this would have to be countered by increased danger, bigger rock falls etc. Ultimately, a complete tunnel collapse would autokill and destroy any deathbag or sat-on bag... (I can't believe I am suggesting this...)

 

Having some rare ingredients arise rarely and randomly through harvesting is probably the only way to restrict the supply of dependant manufactured items. If people could, say, buy Serpent Stones, then the flood gates would be unleashed whatever the cost. In fact, maybe the very rare items should have a global limit on how often they are uncovered. For example; only find a Serpent Stone iff very lucky and no one else has found one in the last day.

 

There should be more high level items which don't require special ingredients -- just more time, materials, and specialised usage. Maybe requiring intermediate (otherwise useless) items in their construction. Maybe tied to quests -- completing an exotic item being required to complete the quest (link to guild quests here?).

[Entris]

I would appreciate a few more positive events - I rarely find a bag of gold, and only once have I found a Rostogol Stone in all the tens of thousands of ores I mine.

173703[/snapback]

 

At least u've found 1.

 

I´ve mined over 10k iron 10k coal some silver and other things and never got a rostogol stone, i've never seen 1 either

 

It might just be my bad luck but i think the rostogol stone should "fall on ur lap" more often while harvesting.

 

(Edit: added the last sentence)

Edited June 25, 2005 by Entris

[Kedan]

OK I like how the harvesting system works, it makes it a tny bit more exsiting(not much but oh well)

 

Few improvements though:

have the random events afftet you diffently depending on level and what your harvesting. so the high level item you are harvesting the better or worse stuff you get(well chances of getting rare stuff(like stones) increases slightly and the exp you get will increase deppending on the item, and the damage you take would be higher). Also it will change depending on your level, so if you are a high level you would get more, so more damage, more chance of getting a stone, and more exp.

 

This way newbies ouldn't get hurt as much, and high levels players would at least feel the damage just like newbies would. Plus the exp gain would affect new players and old player the same, it would be a lot for news players, but still a lot for old players.

[Hap_Loder]

There are a number of other options for random events when harvesting aside from the ones we have now.

 

For example:

 

1. You find a pickaxe that someone threw away because they thought it was broken

2. You are suffering from sunstroke and you lose 10-20 mana points

3. You are exhausted from all this work and lose 10-20 food points

4. You lose 10-20 units of the item you are harvesting (you dropped it somewhere...)

5. Looks like someone died here long ago. You find 1-5 bones.

6. Concentrated earth energy has produced 1 Earth Essence.

7. You hit the mother lode! Harvest rate is doubled for the next 20 seconds.

8. This vein has dried up... harvest rate halved for the next minute.

 

The one thing I would REALLY like to see, though, are gender-specific messages. If the computer can recognize that my character's name is Hap_Loder when issuing it's message, it should also be able to recognize that Hap_Loder is in fact male, so it doesn't need to use the stupid "s/he" messages anymore. This would be about ten minutes of coding, tops.

 

Hap_Loder

[ttlanhil]

There are a number of other options for random events when harvesting aside from the ones we have now.

 

For example:

 

1. You find a pickaxe that someone threw away because they thought it was broken

2. You are suffering from sunstroke and you lose 10-20 mana points

3. You are exhausted from all this work and lose 10-20 food points

4. You lose 10-20 units of the item you are harvesting (you dropped it somewhere...)

5. Looks like someone died here long ago.  You find 1-5 bones.

6. Concentrated earth energy has produced 1 Earth Essence.

7. You hit the mother lode!  Harvest rate is doubled for the next 20 seconds.

8. This vein has dried up... harvest rate halved for the next minute.

 

The one thing I would REALLY like to see, though, are gender-specific messages.  If the computer can recognize that my character's name is Hap_Loder when issuing it's message, it should also be able to recognize that Hap_Loder is in fact male, so it doesn't need to use the stupid "s/he" messages anymore.  This would be about ten minutes of coding, tops.

 

Hap_Loder

174949[/snapback]

brilliant ideas!

7&8 may take a bit of coding, but the rest shouldn't be too hard

(and the gender thing bugs me too, just never got around to pointing it out).

you should put this in for harvesting rep suggestions