Critique: Too strong decay!

[Zirikana]

Lol, yeah, THAT would pretty much suck. I didn't really mean one persitant, continuous decay for all objects, just that the "hits" would still be random, but a lot more of them and a lot weaker, so "decay" would still seem random but just not as dramatically abrupt.

... i'm just imagining sitting in a chair, at an empty symbel tabel, crying and watching my entire plot sloooowly turn red before my eyes.....

[loftar]

The decay probably is wrong in one way or another, but I'm not sure just what way. While it's probably purely wrong on some objects (Timber houses? Palisades? I'm not sure.), it is for the most part adapted so that certain things will disappear after a given time -- mostly around RL 8 weeks for most things, but it certainly differs. The basic intent with decay is that things left unused will disappear, not clogging the map (which is, admittedly, a far smaller problem now than it was back in world 1, but nevertheless), and to a smaller extent, to provide a sink for resources. The latter ensures that there is a kind of natural limit for how large installations are maintainable by a single player soloing the game, which I think is a good thing.

It's mainly a problem with palisades and other walls due to the sheer number of objects that can be damaged. I think it might be reasonable to do something like this with walls:
1. As was actually my original intention with walls, when a wall segment is destroyed, neighboring segments (but probably not cornerposts) should be severely damaged -- taking 90% or so of their total health in damage, plus/minus some random factor.
2. As long as a wall segment (apart from a cornerpost) is directly surrounded by two other segments, it doesn't take decay damage at all below 80-90% or so (at which point it won't even show up as damaged).
That would mean that, as long as a wall is standing and maintained, only the corner posts would need repair, but when they fall, large portions of the wall will fall with them. That would make maintenance much easier, but the wall would still fall as quickly when left truly unmaintained.

It is, however, probably as Jackard says; that the main problem is how tedious repairs are. It would probably be made far better if the character could, at least, be put into "auto-repair mode", fixing up the closest thing that is damaged and continuing until he's out of material (or no more damaged objects can be found).

[Uriel]

I think that auto reparing will be hard to do, do the problems with pathfinding. As for reparing only cornerposts it's a great idea.

[sabinati]

It is, however, probably as Jackard says; that the main problem is how tedious repairs are. It would probably be made far better if the character could, at least, be put into "auto-repair mode", fixing up the closest thing that is damaged and continuing until he's out of material (or no more damaged objects can be found).

domovoi?

[DatOneGuy]

I'd also like to point out that repairing simply takes too LONG.

Just like eating, I wouldn't mind sitting there repairing the whole wall if it was just load up 30 and BAM repaired when I click, but having to wait over a minute to repair each piece? Huge pain in the rear end.

[BWithey]

This is another one of those examples of game play that demonstrates the importance of a collected community. Many hands make light work.

Admittedly, all comments on communities aside, over a minute a square for palisades does seem a little excessive, perhaps better if it repaired a several square long 'section'. Is time necessary to repair not based on how decayed a section is?

[Potjeh]

Community doesn't help, because more people means more walls.

Anyway, the main problem with repairs is that it's so many goddamn clicks. I get cramps when I fix my palisade.

[BWithey]

Sounds like a useful solution to this would be to make the entire contiguous wall considered one unit when doing repairs. But then that means you could have a huge amount of people fixing the 'entire' wall while you were under attack, preventing them from breaching a single section and that is maybe not so good.

So perhaps:

Count the entire wall as one unit, (or the space between corners at least) with repairs being able to be affected at any point along that wall, that will affect the entire wall.

Unless you're under attack, at which point a wall that is under attack could not be repaired until the attack ceased. Alternately, and perhaps more difficult to code, it will repair all parts of the wall that are *NOT* under attack.

[Jotun]

A simple solution to such a grand issue:
Global decay decrease by 50% on forest ground, 50% on grass and 75% on tiled ground. If you find the ration of 50% too much, go for 30% on ground and 50% on tiles. 'nuff said.

[Jackard]

Current decay wouldnt be as bad with one-click repairs.