Should all items decay?

[Gauteamus]

I visited the campsite of some new friends today, and admired their large-scale leatherworks.
Sadly, largescale leatherworking is pretty much useless, as the demand in the market for new leather goods saturate very quickly after each addition of a new class of items (hello hardened leather goods) - after this point, it is only raising of quality that counts, and in many cases quality does not count.

I think the game should have some sort of (rather slow) decay mechanism on ALL items, something akin to the degradation of Symbel items.
I'll not present any hard suggestions for actual mechanics here, but IMO both a (slow) quality decay based on time as well as a per-use decay would be fine (for items that have a well defined concept of "use", like straw hats).
Different items would have different chances of being hit by decay, so that e.g. a sausage decays slower in storage than the fresh meats.

A quality decay mechanism would give some bonus to quality also for items that does not increase capacity, damage or potential with quality such as seedbags, making sturdier items last longer.

I stand ready to be hanged, drawn and quartered by the anti-tedium crowd, but the main counter-argument I can see to item decay is a possible large increased server load (Loftar?)

disguss!

[Potjeh]

Yeah, I think tools should decay with use. Kinda hard to define use for clothes and the like though. But I don't think stuff should just up and disappear - it should simply become unusable until mended.

Here's how I think it could work with metal tools for example:
- You craft a scythe. It has hitpoints equal to base hp * sqrt(q), where base is some acceptably large number so you don't have to fix it after every harvest).
- When using the scythe it loses one hp for every tile you harvest.
- When hp runs out, the scythe no longer works.
- The hp can be restored by mending it with hard metal nuggets at an anvil.
- If anvil or the smith's sqrt(smithing * strength) are lower than scythe quality, it's quality is reduced.
- Each nugget restores a certain percentage of total hp, full industry restores double and full nature half.

The idea is to give some use to full industry smiths, to make smiths useful even in mineless villages, and to provide a metal sink because the metal market gets saturated fairly quickly right now.

[OvShit]

Yeah, I think tools should decay with use. Kinda hard to define use for clothes and the like though. But I don't think stuff should just up and disappear - it should simply become unusable until mended.

Here's how I think it could work with metal tools for example:
- You craft a scythe. It has hitpoints equal to base hp * sqrt(q), where base is some acceptably large number so you don't have to fix it after every harvest).
- When using the scythe it loses one hp for every tile you harvest.
- When hp runs out, the scythe no longer works.
- The hp can be restored by mending it with hard metal nuggets at an anvil.
- If anvil or the smith's sqrt(smithing * strength) are lower than scythe quality, it's quality is reduced.
- Each nugget restores a certain percentage of total hp, full industry restores double and full nature half.

The idea is to give some use to full industry smiths, to make smiths useful even in mineless villages, and to provide a metal sink because the metal market gets saturated fairly quickly right now.

May we have a repairable armor then?

[joojoo1975]

Yeah, I think tools should decay with use. Kinda hard to define use for clothes and the like though. But I don't think stuff should just up and disappear - it should simply become unusable until mended.

Here's how I think it could work with metal tools for example:
- You craft a scythe. It has hitpoints equal to base hp * sqrt(q), where base is some acceptably large number so you don't have to fix it after every harvest).
- When using the scythe it loses one hp for every tile you harvest.
- When hp runs out, the scythe no longer works.
- The hp can be restored by mending it with hard metal nuggets at an anvil.
- If anvil or the smith's sqrt(smithing * strength) are lower than scythe quality, it's quality is reduced.
- Each nugget restores a certain percentage of total hp, full industry restores double and full nature half.

The idea is to give some use to full industry smiths, to make smiths useful even in mineless villages, and to provide a metal sink because the metal market gets saturated fairly quickly right now.

nice idea.



i wish that they did personal claims just like they do village claims(it wasnt my idea, but a friend's) or something that makes it if your like offline for 2+ weeks straight your claim degrades and dissappears.

[Coriander]

I like this suggestion.
The decay concept, applied to nearly all items, is a good one. And, items should decay at different rates. Decay should be linked to use and how durable an item is to begin with. I suggest that items like jewelry decay very little, while straw and even leather go "poof" rather rapidly.
And, yes, some items should be repairable!
That said, implementation could be rather difficult, but I am certain Loftar is up to the task .

[sabinati]

armor decays, which i think is fine, however there is no repair for it.

i think there are enough resource sinks curently.

[sabinati]

Yeah, I think tools should decay with use. Kinda hard to define use for clothes and the like though. But I don't think stuff should just up and disappear - it should simply become unusable until mended.

Here's how I think it could work with metal tools for example:
- You craft a scythe. It has hitpoints equal to base hp * sqrt(q), where base is some acceptably large number so you don't have to fix it after every harvest).
- When using the scythe it loses one hp for every tile you harvest.
- When hp runs out, the scythe no longer works.
- The hp can be restored by mending it with hard metal nuggets at an anvil.
- If anvil or the smith's sqrt(smithing * strength) are lower than scythe quality, it's quality is reduced.
- Each nugget restores a certain percentage of total hp, full industry restores double and full nature half.

The idea is to give some use to full industry smiths, to make smiths useful even in mineless villages, and to provide a metal sink because the metal market gets saturated fairly quickly right now.

let me ask you this, do you have some tools that you use around your house fairly often? let's say a saw, or an axe, or whatever. have you ever had to add metal to it to repair it? at most it might require some sharpening once in a while, imo.

[Potjeh]

Invoking realism is like invoking Hitler. It's OK if you don't like the decay (I'm not sure whether I'd like it myself if it wasn't purely theoretical), there's no need to use silly arguments.

[sabinati]

well it's just something to think about. i'm not saying everything needs to be realistic. i suppose there isn't a real problem with things getting some wear and tear, but do we really need more resource sinks?

[Potjeh]

Well we still have a fair influx of new players, so there's no need for a metal sink right now. But by the end of previous world, nobody was buying metal because everybody had all the metal items they needed. Same with the world before that one. I think the current world is pretty close to metal demand peak, and after that it's all downhill. Crap q metal is in an especially bad position, which means that people who have highest q stuff got the market cornered and newer people with metal in 40s don't have much cake left for them.

Of course, the best solution would be something that transmutes metal into gains of some kind, like what we have with food and stats. I can't think of anything that'd fit that role, though.