Hidden Quality

[Squatthrust]

My idea is that quality should be at first completely hidden to those that do not have the skill that corresponds with the type of item (for instance seeing the quality of seeds would require the farming skill). However, even after you have the skill, there's no telling that the quality shown will be accurate. In order to raise the accuracy of the quality displayed, the player would have to increase the incremental skill that accompanies a particular item (so a player with a high farming skill will be able to see a quality of a seed closer to the actual value). This would increase the need for specialization and the value of grouping together, as hermits with low skill values in certain areas wouldn't be able to accurately assess quality of items that they trade for or find.

Any feedback (particularly from Jorb or Loftar) would be appreciated.

[cobaltjones]

Horrible idea.

[Potjeh]

You used to need perception to see quality, and everybody hated it, so it was axed.

[ImpalerWrG]

Yea that would basically destroy trading due to information asymmetry. While it's an interesting idea that would certainly add importance to certain skills the damage it dose to another important aspect of the games not worth it.

P.S. This reminds me a bit of the Dunning–Kruger effect ware incompetent people are unable to recognize either their own incompetence or the competence of others, only by educating them could they see their earlier work as inferior. Under this principle I guess the player would see any item above their Skill level as equal to that skill level, only items below them could be accurately assessed.

[Jackard]

You used to need perception to see quality, and everybody hated it, so it was axed.

[Squatthrust]

Yea that would basically destroy trading due to information asymmetry. While it's an interesting idea that would certainly add importance to certain skills the damage it dose to another important aspect of the games not worth it.

I don't mean the application of this idea to be something like "You need 200 of a particular skill to see the quality of an item" Even an amateur smith can still ballpark the quality of metal goods, and the same goes for every profession. I don't think it would destroy trade, because there is still a means for the quality to be measured, and something that is relatively good quality would still be seen as good quality to someone with decent level of the skill (it just wouldn't be exact), it would simply not be as easy to quantify. The purpose of the concept is to encourage people to specialize, and while some hermits may be ripped off, hermits can also be raided and killed, and neither of those possibilities destroy the quality of the game, they enrich the experience.

To use an example of how this skill would work. If I had 35 farming skill, and I was looking at seeds with a true quality of 45, I might see the quality as 38, or perhaps 52. Both of which are relatively similar to the true quality. It will work in a similar way to the soil softcap of crops (to stick with farming), increasing the skill would reduce the range of qualities that I could see the item's quality as (So at 10, the range for the q45 seed could be anywhere from between 30-60 or +-15, but with a farming skill of 40 the range might be reduced to 38-52 or +-7) Granted this can be tweaked for balancing purposes.

I think the system would make the trade system richer by allowing more of a barter aspect to trade, rather than simply having a set of accepted values (to use a random and untrue example a q45 brick would be equal to a q45 straw). What this system would mean is that people aren't trading based on a set of numbers, but based on intuition and trust (or in the case of villages they would have specialists that could assess the quality of an item).

[Krantzesque]

This idea is bad and you should feel bad.

[Serpensio]

This idea is bad and you should feel bad.

I think the idea is great. Those who think otherwise just want to have everything handed to them without having to work for it.

USER WAS WARNED FOR THIS POST

[Squatthrust]

This idea is bad and you should feel bad.

I think the idea is great. Those who think otherwise just want to have everything handed to them without having to work for it.

USER WAS WARNED FOR THIS POST

Thank you for your support. To Jackard, if you don't mind me askin, what was he warned for?

[Jackard]

He was quite literally trolling. Check his post history: search.php?author_id=26683&sr=posts

His post is a sarcastic retort to something said in another thread.