Agrik wrote:It isn't Sisyphus work until you expect the hill to be endless. Until you expect to be able to endlessly increase damage of stone axes, durability of plain leather armor, and so on. It isn't much real thing, so I think it mostly comes from existing H&H experience. Like, negative opinion about decay isn't universal, just more or less typical for "racing" players here. And I hope to overcome it by making it obvious that the hillside becomes impossibly steep sooner or later, thus there is no urge to roll the boulder until you have a reason.pppp wrote:The problem is perception of decay. Losing something while doing nothing (note: "while" but not "because of") is bad because it forces people to keep playing to avoid losing stuff HAHAHA, like the current system does not force at all. It feels like Sisyphus work which was considered a cruel punishment from gods.
I want to point that the decay of quality does not destroy items. All the base, all the equipment, all the household would only become less durable, less sharp, less nutritional, etc.
In response to what I've highlighted. This can, and is better achieved through effective power curve/ceiling. This is just my opinion, but it's based off of one of the more common game designs, and it can be applied in many varied ways in different situations and systems. Same can be said about progressive decay, but at it's core, it's much more uncommon to see this be applied, and applied effectively in other games. Based on that alone, I would bet on the merit of power curve over decay.
In response to the part in green. This is an MMORP survival game, the threat is always looming in both PVE as a challenge standing in the way of progression, or other players driving you out, so there is almost always a reason to try and push the boulder, to best of your ability, to progress up the ladder. We all understand the intention behind this suggestion, that is, the cliff is too steep for players who are behind once all the topdogs have monopolized control over top quality. But the matter of how we can tilt the steepness so that it would be more managable for casuals, while maintaining competitiveness for hardcore players, then an effective power curve would achieve this way better imo. You can adjust the curve to make even early mid-game players become more competitive if you wish - early game players should NEVER have the capability to compete with the topdogs, it's stupid - but once the early game players has established themselves as mid-game players, then an effective power curve would allow them to compete. Pretty straight forward really, since the curve is easy to adjust over time and be experimented with according to the developer's goals, while still not stunting players as hard as decay will (from a psychological and gameplay perspective).
Agrik wrote:You don't lose much until you're at the top. And if you're not at the top nor aspiring to be (or what do you expect then, trying to reach the top heights by going on holidays?) quality does not matter that much. Again I want to point a thing written in the text: "new" quality is not an analogue to existing one. You don't have to grind it, you don't have to be much afraid of losing it, because you can start catching up at any moment you prefer. I suppose many of those who dislike the idea, do so because they imagine decay in the current situation when Qs and stats are to be heavily grinded day by day to reach hundreds and thousands. With progressive decay there won't be Qs of many hundreds at all.pppp wrote:IMHO it is easier to accept a cruel RNG which acts only while playing than an inevitable turning stuff into shit while being on holidays.
So lets say someone who came back from vacation want to start being competitive again, and increase their quality and stats up to the optimal point of the decay ceiling within a few days or weeks or w/e. Cool.
Now lets say that there were people who were actively playing the game while that other person was on vacation, their stuff has reached the highest level within the optimal point of the decay ceiling. What's next? There is actually no point going further or pushing themselves, because it has reached a point where going further would mean getting pushed down faster, and it would be considered a CHORE to keep going further and then putting the effort to RACE against decay. Funny, because if people nolife to maintain a meta quality, casuals would still have to race against that if they want to be competitive, but now everyone is racing against a common enemy, decay.
That's not really fun or engaging at all; you might as well put a cap on everything, and power is determined by skill and cooperation/organization, at least that's less of a chore...
This would also kill trades. There would be no point to have a really really nice item if that item just decay faster than you can use it or mitigate it.
Agrik wrote:I think even soloing a bear in a hand-to-hand combat is not a right thing. We have too many animals made irrelevant, that's a gameplay ditched, because of overpowered characters. There are many different animals created, but for a top char they are roughly equally insignificant encounters.pppp wrote:think soloing trolls as an example. It should not be possible.
As unrealistic as an overpowered player is, that we can all agree on to be mitigated, so does universal progressive decay on stat and quality. To quite simply put it. If you want to apply decay in a realistic way, you would have to do into details in term of gameplay and game mechanics, where the application would be considered sensible and realistic.
Agrik wrote:Can't agree, if you used "entertainment" here as a synonym for happiness. Games offer a playing field, game objects, which are designed to represent some aspect(s) of reality. It may be not education in direct sense, yet it's a reflection of reality, so it supposes intention to educate or self-educate about that aspect of reality. E.g. chess is a simplified way to get ideas of what can happen and what may work in a battle from strategist's point of view. Then there are games representing social interactions or laws of physics in a simplified manner. Education is often mixed with entertainment, yes, but I think mostly because it happens naturally.pppp wrote:I completely disagree here. The ultimate purpose of a computer game is to provide entertainment, with exception of educational games and some niches where entertainment acts as a pill sweetener.
Then, the course of a game supposes that there can be desirable and undesirable outcomes, successes and fails, even if there are no outlined winners and losers. That's why games can't be total happiness. That's why an enterprise focused on creating unconditional happiness to everybody can't be a game.The fact of entertainment may be different for different people. So yes, unhappy players may leave the game, but this does not invalidate the game as long as there is stable base of people who are entertained.pppp wrote:If a game fails to provide entertainment in mid-term (and preferably in short-term too) then such a game is abandoned in favor of a better performing one. That being said, losing a balanced match can be an entertainment too, but being a victim of slaughter certainly is not (for most people at least). Playing a game which provides only frustration is dumb.
This is a subjective topic, everyone have their own view and opinion.
But yes, to put it simply, a game provide challenge/s to overcome, and to overcome it AND using the means to overcome it, is "happiness" and "entertainment", whatever you want to call it.
To mitigate against that, would create frustration and/or boredom. Which is why I have been skeptical of the idea of decay from the start. This game does not provide much challenges outside of the quality and stat race/climb, and customizing your home/base/farm/item collections. With pretty much an effective quality/stat cap through progressive decay, what else is there to do once you reach the "meta" cap in this game? The only thing else is to LARP I guess...
Until more varied challenges can emerge, even having the best quality and stat become pointless unless you're competing with someone you know that may have something better than you, and could potentially threaten you. It's like an endless application of the Deterrence theory until world wipe. But again, because there are lack of other challenges, the "race" is the only sensible goal in game play due to potential threats from other "racers".
I think with the addition of added challenges and interesting PVE threats, and with PVP threats more mitigated through an effective power curve, this game would be much more fun to play for most active players, and even casual hermits from my perspective. PVE treats based on the power curve, and the power curve mitigating titans from becoming obscenely overpowered with little chance of catching up/competing with them.