Alternate Means To Resources

[swisstest]

I was reading the poll that was out earlier:

 

Radu's Poll on Harvesting

 

And it struck me that while the basis for the idea was sound, there were some small adjustments that would be necissary to appease the general public. (As is often the case with anything suggested, because it limits what can only be stereotyped as power gaming, it caused a panic among the unimaginative masses.)

 

Because of said OUTCRY... Radu has given up the idea as a lost cause, I however would like to see if it could perhaps be (for lack of a better term, and since it is election time ) Amended to a point where it would be accepted by the general public.

 

For starters, why not allow an alternative source for manufacturers and crafters to create their wares without relying on the heavy amounts of essencess that is currently necissary. Since Dan has gone through a mid-life crisis and no longer chooses to refine our bars for a price, perhaps a new NPC can fill his shoes, creating bars or cutting gems for a reasonable price (with a smaller, yet still possible, chance to fail [later it could tie in well with the Karma/Charm systems...]). This would allow Manufacturers and Crafters to be able to save their precious essencess for the creation of actual items rather than on bars or gems and then the items which they sell. The price of course would also serve to drain a wee bit more coinage out of the economy while still allowing players who are more miserly to create their items the old fashion way.

 

Another thought that occured to me is that harvesting foods and flowers really is a seperate entity than mining ores or gems, and should be treated as such. Seperating the skills as such would allow Radu to put the cap which he proposed on each individual skill (allowing for 400 total items gathered) and still allow players to gather a decent hourly amount of items. Since you gather food items and flowers (any item that does not require a pickaxe) it would fall under harvesting. Those items which require a pickaxe to gather would fall under mining. This would require some adjustments of the recommended level and players who are no longer "able" to mine items they previously gathered in great quantities would be upset, but it would eventually bring yet another balance to the game (perhaps spliting the harvesting exp currently held by a player and distributing it evenly between the two skills would placate some concerns).

 

Yet another thought was to have the Nexi on the particular item being gathered (inorganic for mining, organic for harvesting) play a part in how many items could be gathered in an hour. E.G.> 0 inorganic, 0 organic allowed for 50 of each item, 1=100, 2=150, 3=200, 4=250, 5=300 with 5 being the current limit. This limit would effect the amount of experience earned per hour as well as the amount of items which could be gathered per hour. (Thus players who want to be Harvesters, can simply pour pick points into that which they already claim to be their focus, while those who want to fight and don't really care are not effected by the change.)

 

And the final thought involved the idea of limited resources. A formula could be created to limit the number of a certain item a player is allowed to gather. It would of course be based on various factors and not released to the general public. For example, in the real world, farmers can only harvest crops once a year, they get x amount of food from their crops. Since the game can obviously not be played on a yearly time table, an abridged calander could be used, say an hourly respawn time. Flowers such as blue lupine take 1 hour to grow back, there are (however many blue lupine bushes there are in the game, call it I) I bushes with 200 blue lupines in each of them, so there are 200 x I blue lupines in the game, after that number of blue lupines is harvested in the hour, no more can be gathered and everyone must wait for the hour (or day or whatever) to restart before more blue lupines can be harvested. Each item has its set number of resources available, which would keep the number of items in game at a constant rate, or at least a calculatable rate. There is more to this, but that would go into programming so I will leave it at a general summary.

 

I r teh Allan Greenspan, ph33r m3!

-E.S.

[Quell]

I r teh Allan Greenspan (...)

well nope :lol: not really (yet? )

 

I actually did read everything here and:

*people should interact with eachother (make friends , guilds etc.), specialize and cooperate not rely on NPC - so NO to NPC part of the idea

*harvesting divided in 2 skills would bring nought but confusion -> they'd both have to be "cap'ed" so why to bother ?

*about nexuses first thought was that it's a bad idea but then again it could work IF nexus requirements were round 20-30 for best items - this way simple gain exp via macroing and then #reset (and get back the exp->PP on alchemy) would be more time consuming

*about the last idea

 

this is a great temporary solution but in the long run you will probably need a new way to gather resources...for example not using static map objects to harvest from but 'spawning' ore that can be harvested but has a set amount of given resource on it

 

May be you can limit the number of harvest on the same resource. For example, the ochard at WhiteStone map can't give all the food it does. I think that can encorage players to look for resources at other maps.

 

If this could be set during map creation, it would be easy to set unharvestable items just by setting them to 0. Simply following the rule the 'the longer walk player has from resource spot to storage/tavern/shop, the bigger resource is' could be a way to encourage people to compete over spots and force them to move lazy butts (no more 'worshiping' smth wheter it be bush(sic!) of blue lupine, cacti or fruits) around maps. The resources could 'respawn' every hour (or even every second-third hour so most of resources would have a chance to be depleted and guilds "working" on their 'projects' could have a go and try to get resources from pk maps)

oh...and I am aware that it would take a lot of work to track all the info for every single resource spot but hell, we'd get a RL limited resources <_<

[Derin]

I disagree, harvesting is fine the way it is. It's hard enough to actually make things from those harvested resources. With the fail-rate being failry high, you will loose a lot of resources.

 

And what is the fun in having to wait to get more things, which you will then fail (if your skills are low) like 40-50% of the time.

 

And, with a markup in the stores of like 1000% for flowers and stuff, who can afford to buy the items in the quantities you need.

 

If you seriously think that this is a good idea, start a new char to test it.

Put a limit yourself to harvesting (according to nexuses or a flat amount) and then try to find the fun part in playing.

 

/Derin

[Lyanna]

Thank you Swiss! I was planning to comment on the earlier thread, but found it locked before I could say anything...

 

In principle, I agree with Entropy's idea, but you're right that a lot of detailed working-out and modification would probably be needed before it could be generally accepted. Now, the main aims of his suggestions were:

(1) Make it harder to macro, by setting absolute limits on how many items could be harvested.

(2) Reduce the impact that unlimited resources is starting to have on the game's economy. (i.e. large supply of items -> prices drop)

(3) Make the game seem more realistic.

 

The main objections raised were:

(1) Manu'ers, crafters, alchemists and potion-makers would be severely crippled with the lack of resources - manu'ers and crafters especially, since they're at the top of the "craft chain", so to speak.

(2) Because of the NPC prices at the current moment, limiting the supply of resources would make manu'ers and crafters unable to make any sort of profit, as their costs of production would increase. (i.e. buying raw ingredients would cost more - likewise, failing and losing items becomes very dangerous with already limited resources.)

(3) With limits on harvest, what else are the non-violent people supposed to do after they finish? Also, fighters again would be the least affected by this, since monsters still drop whole and usable equipment.

 

 

Having said that, let's move on to your suggestions... I have to discuss them out of order to make sense.

 

- Quell has already talked about the workings of the respawning resources, so I won't go into that.

 

- Likewise, splitting the harvest skill into two separate skills is not going to work very well, I think. It is an unnecessary change, and there are better, more subtle ways to get the same effect. HOWEVER, I do like the idea that harvesting some things are not limited by the cap on other things.

 

- It seems to me that if limited resources were enabled, the effect would actually be to STRENGTHEN player interaction. Every little bit of resources count - from the red snapdragons that newbies harvest, to the titanium ore of advanced harvesters. Basically, I predict that the effect this will have - eventually - would be to make harvesters and alchemists start selling on the market channel, instead of to shops and NPCs. Since manu'ers and crafters cannot harvest everything themselves, they have to harvest selectively, and buy the rest of the ingredients from players on market. Likewise, potion-makers and alchemists.

 

Related to the above, the main problem then becomes - what happens when there are mismatches between demand and supply of items? NPCs are convenient to sell to or buy from, because they're always there, and have fixed prices. Players on market are not so easy to get hold of. I think, therefore, that having your suggested NPC would be a good idea. It allows for manu'ers and crafters to obtain gems and bars at a reasonable rate (although this has to be very carefully set - both the fail rate and the prices...need an expert on market prices to comment on this) But I'd bet after a week or so, the various bot-developers will begin trading in raw materials, as an alternative to NPC reliability, yet keeping the resources in circulation.

 

- What I like most is the idea about Nexi. Currently, it takes 5 Inorganic to harvest titanium ore, and nothing to harvest flowers/organic materials (the Vegetal Nexus is used for potions). If you can rig it so that Vegetal Nexus is required to harvest higher-level organic matter, that would be good. I'd suggest beginning Vegetal Nexus 1 required for Chrysanthemums onwards, with Vegetal 4 required for Vegetables. Likewise, sulphur and coal are free, but Inorganic 1 starts with Quartz onwards.

 

And, as per your suggestion, let each level of Nexus determine how many items you can harvest - but I think an exponential decrease is in order, to prevent abuse. Therefore, 100 items for Nexus 0, 180 items for Nexus 1, 240 items for Nexus 2, 280 items for Nexus 3, 300 items for Nexus 4, 310 items for Nexus 5, and nothing more after that. That way, there is still a flat limit of 310 items (x2 for Excavator) that can be harvested of each type (inorganic/vegetal) per player. And the pickpoint abuse that Quell pointed out becomes irrelevant. (They still need to spend pp's on Phys/Coord to actually CARRY the stuff...)

 

 

(I get the feeling I'm rambling here...so I'll just shut up now.)

 

-Lyn-

 

EDIT: Derin, the reason why having a test char will not work now is because the economy is geared to infinite resources. Once limited resources are implemented, people will start saving up everything they harvest to sell to other players, instead of NPCs.

Edited October 11, 2004 by Lyanna

[Derin]

Lyanna,

 

re:your comment

Maybe so, my point was to show how slow and hard the game would actually be if you limit resource harving. I am talking from a newbie perspective here, not from a char that already have 40+ in most skills. If you begin to play this game and these limits are in place you will spend countless hours doing nothing basically.

 

Compare this: you can only kill x number of monsters/animals per hour..... sounds fun? think not.

 

 

And given it all I still think the system as it is, is just fine

[Lyanna]

Ah yes, I understand your point. Then the main thing to overcome seems to be more variety in the things to do in the game (contests, events, quests, etc.) ...but that would require an even bigger change in the game's system than limiting resources...

 

Yes, the Nexus system doesn't account for this - but the regenerating resources would, as you would need to spend time travelling and exploring to find new resources. But that requires dynamic maps...which we don't have now.

 

-Lyn-

[jamesvm]

Well entropy problem was he was introduce idea too fast. (Example congress usa if try do major change to us at once bill fails but do it in small parts they can get it to pass) He should done in small part like first decrease cost raw material so that people will make profit by buying from raw material npc and then whem make bars you can sell them and make profit on it. Of course lot part need to come up with so get point where resource not infinity only infinity if buying from npc.

[Roja]

Compare this: you can only kill x number of monsters/animals per hour..... sounds fun? think not.

 

True..but monsters do move around so you have to go and find them which takes more work than just sitting on your ass and clicking all day at a flower bush.

Sure..you can bring up spawn points where you stand at the monster spawn..but hopefully someday we can have completely random spawn points so that would not work anymore

[Platyna]

In RL life we have one Captain Obvious...

If you have a diamond...you have ONE diamond, not TWO. So I suggest, if someone will want to make

some limit make limit per ore. So you have to move to other ore when you will harvest one.

Let's spread ores a little in one cave like IRL and not making stuff that in one place in the mines is only

Ti. ore and i other place only sulphur. Make every ore in every cave or most of one cave and othe other

part in any other cave like it is made in nature and set harvest limit per harvestable item...

Example:

One titanium ore between iron ones in CC - harvest limit 200 per hour

Titanium ores in Titanium mines - 500 harvest limit per hour, spread them more so you have to move

a bit to harvest another ore. It will not make macroing impossible but at least better detectable - since

you have to macro move, it will make game more interesting, more real and it will not kill alchemy and

crafting also make some flowers, diamond harvests limits and make them more rare to they will sell well?

 

Regards.

[duran]

hmm, i kinda recall an idea of makeing a pool of resources so that in the whole game there are only so much of each resource. every time you harvest one you take from that pool, every time you sell to a npc or use it in some way (or drop it in a bag that goes poof) it returns to the pool. the problem is that it allows someone to corner the market by in theory hanging on to x amount of some resource or other. funny thing is tho that he cant sell it or give it away as then he returns it to the pool.

 

the other thing is that stuff in this game should not be static, we should not be able to say that exactly on the hour we can start to harvest again. there should be a bit of randomness over it so that we cant just script it but have to check now and again to see if we can harvest or not. randomness is the best way to kill scripting.

 

there isnt an easy fix as every time entropy comes up with something that messes with the way people are used to they will cry and moan and threaten to quit (for the last ones i say go ahead, its their loss). people are power gamers at heart sadly

[Quell]

(...)we should not be able to say that exactly on the hour we can start to harvest again. there should be a bit of randomness over it so that we cant just script it but have to check now and again to see if we can harvest or not. randomness is the best way to kill scripting.

(...)

randomness would be achieved by simply not being able to tell which spot has been already depleted and/or how many units of resource are left (if there were 4 persons harvesting same spot you can't really tell how many units you'd get from spot even if you knew the exact unit pool of the spot and when it 'respawns').

 

Example:

food spots in portland. each apple, pumpkin etc. on stall outside tavern have 20 units, same the fruits and vegetables on stall near western gate and on cart near blacksmith. Each veggie that grows on patch next to flower shop and on another near cart have 50 units. Only successful harvest attempt extracts the unit from object's unit pool. Every hour or every second hour spots are refilled to their max(20//50).

It would be a bit like in RL you picked all cabages from one line so you move to another If even more randomness is needed there could be an increasing chance of spot being refilled every hour - like 30% after 1st hour if failure 60% after 2nd and then 90% after 3rd and 100% after 4th. So the resource would be refilled after

hour chance

1 0.3

2 0.7*0.6=0.42

3 0.7*0.4*0.9=0.252

4 0.028 so most likely after 2 hours

 

beside all my blabbery, 2 things:

* i'm with duran that

randomness is the best way to kill scripting

and also that there should be no 'final item' monster drops

 

*to derin: i do not have a single 40+ skill yet

[Derin]

First question one should ask is:

 

Is this going to be fun?

 

Second question:

 

Is this a game or a mirror of the real world?

 

My answer to these questions are (which you may have guessed):

 

1. No - fun shouldn't be an endless race for resources, and yes, I think there should be more monster spawns too.

 

2. It's a game - you don't need to make it like RL, why should we?

 

To Roja:

 

 

which takes more work than just sitting on your ass and clicking all day at a flower bush. 

 

Well, what's the fun in that? But if it's your idea of fun, why shouldn't you be able to do it?

 

 

/Derin

[Roja]

randomness would be achieved by simply not being able to tell which spot has been already depleted and/or how many units of resource are left

Thing is..think of how frustrating this would be. you need 10 more veggies to make some potions..you go to click on one tomatoe..used up, theone besides it..used up too, etc etc...that would piss me off and i'm sure the same goes for others.

I think it would be only doable if the item actually dissapears.

 

 

which takes more work than just sitting on your ass and clicking all day at a flower bush. 

 

Well, what's the fun in that?  But if it's your idea of fun, why shouldn't you be able to do it?

 

I find it more fun to go "hunting" for monsters than constantly clicking in one spot(which easily leads to macroing)

[Derin]

I find it more fun to go "hunting" for monsters than constantly clicking in one spot

 

My point exactly, but that's you and me, but there might be others who sees gathering resources as their way of fun.

 

 

/Derin

[Quell]

I aknowledge that such changes would be frustrating to both of YOu :lol:

(...)might be others who sees gathering resources as their way of fun.

The only problem I see, is that macroers also do adore harvesting as easy and rewarding as possible Derin ... <_< (kill'em ?)

And why I wanna be it RL like? -well for EL economy's sake (read other threads on forum if You don't understand why/how).

(...) you need 10 more veggies to make some potions..you go to click on one tomatoe..used up, theone besides it..used up too, etc

So You'd hire someone to get (or buy) these ingredients for potion Roja, someone who is skilled enough and willing to find that 'bloody' tomatoe for You and not getting frustrated.

But I do see Your point , such change would need to be discussed widely to see if there is enough people willing to 'play a "harvester" role' and enjoy the change; otherwise it is pointless.AGREED

[stasia]

it's a stupid idea.

 

i gather resources as i need them, if i want to make a certain type of essence so i can go fighting and train my magic casting spells with the essences i just made, i will go get all the ingredients i need en masse to make a reasonable quantity of the essences all at once.

 

then i go fighting

 

later i'll go on a stint of gathering coal all at once, then go gather iron ore all at once, then go gather gold ore all at once, then i know i have the items i need ready in storage to make the things i need just so i can bloody go fighting and not worry about replacing damaged items after i finish my combat training.

 

why should i be forced into buying raw ingredients off other players when all i want is to be able to make the things i use (or give to my friends) myself, whenever i want?

 

that means i need to be able to gather resources as i feel i need to - and my style as i said is to concentrate on the one task at a time in order to achieve the next plan.

[duran]

the problem is that jack of all trade characters (the ones that can do everything from harvesting the raw material to fight high power monsters) makes the game not a multiplayer rpg but a singelplayer "rpg" with ashared world.

 

limited resources is the basic for most types of economy, now someone can undercut any prize as they get the food, the raw materials and every thing esle that they need themselfs and dont have to pay for any of it. basicly i can make fire essences all day and give it away to newbies at isla prima. i wonder what kind of impact that would have on the general economy. why do we have npc's trying to sell flowers, coal or any other raw material?

 

right now the economy is a virtual printingpress for money. alltho the income is slower then before the reset, the effect is over time the same.

 

one problem of tracking every bush and so on is the increase in memory needed...

 

stuff can be real life and fun at the same time. full on real life is when a rabbits bite gives you rabies and you die 2 hours after the fight. or one hit from a dagger puncture your heart and kill you no matter the number of hitpoints.

 

i cant understnad what fun people see in the current system as after you can harvest and make all there is then the game becomes a gigantic yawn unless you train so that you can go postal on the pk maps...

[stasia]

the problem is that jack of all trade characters (the ones that can do everything from harvesting the raw material to fight high power monsters) makes the game not a multiplayer rpg but a singelplayer "rpg" with ashared world...i cant understnad what fun people see in the current system as after you can harvest and make all there is then the game becomes a gigantic yawn unless you train so that you can go postal on the pk maps...

not so.

 

there is interaction with people here, which makes it different every day.

 

that is fun for me also.

 

you can't force people to become a specialist, even if that's the only way you could understand how to play the game.

 

and this limit would effectively force specialisation upon people.

[Curor]

Lets face it though, specialist economies are so much easier to control.

[stasia]

so your answer is to control the economy at the expense of the wellbeing of the people?

 

hmm, just like rl

 

well ya see the problem with that draconian approach is that the people here, unlike in those in real life, aren't trapped on the land where these laws are being passed, and can leave freely simply by shutting the window down.

[swisstest]

Making changes to harvesting would require dramatic shifts in everyones game play, but much like the change from the 50 to 120 cap, movement of certain blue lupines, price changes, etc. the adjustments would be made, and given time, people would begin to forget that they were once able to make 5,000 essencess an hour.

 

I meant the suggestions listed herein to be mutually exclusive, not as 1 big overhaul of the harvesting system, but ideas on which more ideas could be founded upon.

 

Untill a skill which will provide you the resources you need without the need of harvesting is created, we must design for ourselves a way to limit the amount of items which are available in the game. (don't want to beat the dead horse yet again, but apparently I must to get the point across) Not doing so will result in more of the same for our game, this teetering balance that currently exists will be shattered as more players reach those higher levels...

 

What pains me most is that I have on the tip of my tongue and in the back of my brain the answer, but not the words to describe it...... The longer I stare at this screen and the more I ponder on these thoughts, the further from my grasp it flees. So with that, I will return to my only true sanctuary, that of the game itself.

 

-E.S.

[stasia]

the answer lies not in capping the harvest per hour, but is found in the creation of npc's who can buy excess items from the players thus removing all the extra crap currently flooding the market, and also setting the minimum price for these items.

 

the market will not flood any more than the lowest price this npc will buy for - if more items are made than there are people to buy them - a seller will go to the npc rather than sell for an ever-more ridiculous price.

 

further, having iron items as the present peak of manufacture gives scope for the creation of ever higher level items (ie. harder to make) to be implemented in the future; better jewellery, potions, spells and animals similarly can and should be created later as people reach higher levels - there is much potential to expand these areas.

[jamesvm]

Here idea make actual item actually take time time to be created instead it be made in less then seconded.

[xavier1]

I think the ecomomy is just fine to tell you the truth. There are players in the game that are well off gold wise and still do not have the best armor. And EFE are so hard to come by that people pay top dollar for them. The way I see it is that with a harv. cap, people that were not macroing before will be tempted to just so that they could make things. I think Ent is on the right track with logging storage and such. There are better ways to get the macro's with out hurting the economy and the honest players. Such as at random intervals move everyone one step. All of the macro's would soon be found. I'm aware that this might not be possiable, but it was a thought. ..... Or how about this. Put a Harv. cap in affect and send a GM# every hour with a radom word or code. In order for people to harv. again they need to PM a bot with that word or code.... Alot of programming for that.. I'm just throwing out ideas.

[Placid]

Or how about this. Put a Harv. cap in affect and send a GM# every hour with a radom word or code. In order for people to harv. again they need to PM a bot with that word or code.... Alot of programming for that.. I'm just throwing out ideas.

lol, the macro'ers could pick that up easily, with a modified client.