RFC: Metal spiraling

[pppp]

Catching up is only part of the problem. The other part is disturbing game balance which has to be designed within some q range. The wider q range assumed while designing the harder is to balance it correctly.
Allowing unbound growth will sooner or later result with balance problems, sure it probably can be designed that the time for these problems to surface is couple years but it will still have to be reset some day.
Poison is not intended to be liked.

Edit: Actually trading hubs like CF greatly help catching up to near-top zone. Experienced it as a hermit myself. That part is (or: can be) already covered by players.

[LostJustice]

Catching up is only part of the problem. The other part is disturbing game balance which has to be designed within some q range. The wider q range assumed while designing the harder is to balance it correctly.
Allowing unbound growth will sooner or later result with balance problems, sure it probably can be designed that the time for these problems to surface is couple years but it will still have to be reset some day.
Poison is not intended to be liked.

Edit: Actually trading hubs like CF greatly help catching up to near-top zone. Experienced it as a hermit myself. That part is (or: can be) already covered by players.

Yes CF does allow people to catch up in a sense and trade is just much as an important point here I guess. And I do agree with you that there needs to be some way to bound the growth if the world is to remain in a state as Loftar and Jorb desire with no resets but like you said, balancing it is tricky and I do feel that players who spend the time should have some advantage for it. Otherwise I am not sure the point in playing besides joining to buy something or grind a day or two and quitting.

[MagicManICT]

if we will compare carrot and metall, then we must compare carrot fep and tools/curiosies, as finish products. Carrot 10 and 100 ql up in 3 times how is up tools/curiosies ? I guess far less, bcs. for example, tools мost of them depend on the tree, same curios. That is why I believe that quality of carrot should not be equal metall. And if we will nerf metall then there will be a reverse situation. Pull the quality of carrots. More ql of trees bcs of bin and etc. But it will not be a race. Everyone will plant trees and wait for them to grow in the chat. It is not good for the game.

In hight quality metal I see only one problem. After a certain quality, about 4000. It is almost impossible for a newcomer to come into the game to catch up with the industry. Because it was necessary to pump a separate character with 2k smithing and 10r str, for example. For soft cap 4k. It's problem. If fix alt characters specially for smithing without skills then it's not so big problem.

IMHO.

Given a long enough world, everything is going to be over 9000. It's just a given. So far we haven't seen a world that long, though this one could have been 10k with the metal qualities if people were really focused on doing so. Part of the problem is that metal quality touches literally every other aspect of the game with one exception. The ONLY thing it doesn't touch is farming as you can't force your crops to grow quality any faster than the system allows. This is why I chose the comparison. Carrots are literally the fastest at going up in quality, and at best it would be around 2 points a day. It would take about 3 years just to see q1000 out of crops. (Note: I'm not factoring in any realm buffs here or the absolutely fastest speed nodes, so that might speed up the time table a little bit.)

And the only way to provide any sort of "catch up" is to enforce some artificial caps. I'm neither for nor against them personally. it's just another part of the game, something I'm comfortable playing with either way, and not the discussion of this thread. And even with the caps, newcomers aren't going to catch up. This isn't a theme park MMO where you all run the content of the game and cap out at lvl 100 and beat all the raid bosses. This is a sandbox. you make your castles and play your way. you compete and find ways to compete with those who have been around longer or you make peace with them until you get a chance to knock them down. You can't play a game like this in a "catch up" mindset.

[Scilly_guy]

It would take about 3 years just to see q1000 out of crops. (Note: I'm not factoring in any realm buffs here or the absolutely fastest speed nodes, so that might speed up the time table a little bit.)

I bought q1100 Wheat and Flax from CF about a month ago, so they must speed it up quite a bit.

If I had a little more time on my hands I would create a "Quality Tree" showing what effects the quality of what else. I mean I know that metal effects most things, I can only think of crops and meat (oh no that new metal brasier removed that), that isn't touched by metal. To the person who claims if you remove metal spiralling something else will replace it; I don't think anyone wants to remove it completely, and also metal Q is the most significant factor in clay spiralling.

[MagicManICT]

I bought q1100 Wheat and Flax from CF about a month ago, so they must speed it up quite a bit.

I couldn't remember what potentially sped up crops and by how much. I was simply basing it on base time to raise carrots and harvesting as soon as you could get a carrot or seed with a quality increase.

It is worth noting that wheat and barley can be cheated with an herbalist table if you happen to have a high quality one by sprouting the seeds. Given a metal saw and such, you could make an impressive herbalist table and use it to greatly increase the quality of those two crops in a matter of days if they were lagging far enough behind. That said, my prior statement about farming being the only thing not affected by metal spiraling wasn't entirely accurate.

[LostJustice]

I bought q1100 Wheat and Flax from CF about a month ago, so they must speed it up quite a bit.

I couldn't remember what potentially sped up crops and by how much. I was simply basing it on base time to raise carrots and harvesting as soon as you could get a carrot or seed with a quality increase.

It is worth noting that wheat and barley can be cheated with an herbalist table if you happen to have a high quality one by sprouting the seeds. Given a metal saw and such, you could make an impressive herbalist table and use it to greatly increase the quality of those two crops in a matter of days if they were lagging far enough behind. That said, my prior statement about farming being the only thing not affected by metal spiraling wasn't entirely accurate.

Farming trees are affected and actually this isn't entirely true. You can boost crops with herb tables. Certain ones at least.

But things like carrots and catch up, I agree.

[Granger]

First part, you do realize part of it turns to slag so it already lost at that stage. So no, it wouldn't be endless.

The endless was a bit of an exaggeration to make the point, but given the qualities we see currently in world 10 it dosn't seem to be that far off.

Metal amount would dictate how long you could do it

q.e.d.

Second part, yeah lets soft cap everything then remove the concept of spiraling entirely. Then we can twiddle our thumbs while the majority of people who played hafen for crafting can quit

Only in case they wouldn't have a reason to craft stuff anymore.

In A Plea for Decay (Character) I argued for a mechanic that limits characters abilites to be within a manageable range, with a ceiling that can be negotiated with as jorb put it, leading to the world staying meaningful in regards to PvE, foraging, etc. That would allow a dedicated group to be better than an other goup that is more lazy. But it also would allow the other group, through upping up their dedication beyond that of others, to reach or even outclass the former group in abilities. And all that would happen within a reasonable limit for numbers that can't be ground beyond, as the ceiling will get more relentless the harder you push it.

So it would effectively be the same grind as now to stay on top, with the difference that dedicated enough latecomers could actually (from scratch, without buying stuff in markets) compete with ones that started at the beginning. And the world could stay meaningful (quality wise).

But then everything that can be created (this includes trees and crops) would be capped at around the level the characters can archieve in their negotiations with the ceiling. That's certainly not compatible with the existing economic model as current items (once created) stay exactly as they sprung into existance - even when dropped in water and later being dug out of a beach pile - leading to the need to be able to create better stuff than what currently exists as just making more of the same quickly ends in saturation of consumer demand. Which wouldn't be possible anymore as endless growth would be gone.

Thus Items staying as-is would need to go, they have to vanish (in whatever way: decay, use, act of god... pick one that works) to make demand for new ones. Would serve the same purpose as with the current system (that requires to make a new qx thingy as x is higher today as it was yesterday), just without the side-effect of turning natural stuff that can be found in the world into being utterly irrelevant.

The primary issue people have with that is not liking the idea of numbers no longer growing (or even reducing) in their character sheet.

There is multiple ways to slow down the speed of progression here without killing it.

Progression has to be killed at some point, else the next worlds will go downhill (as all the last ones that didn't die to data corruption).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like the implied argument is that the strongest players will stop playing actively and therefore decay, allowing others to catch up.

If that is so, wouldn't the others be able to catch up anyway, given that the strongest players aren't playing actively?

When reading that topic a bit further you'll notice that loftar got the idea:

In a way, I guess you can look at it as a level-cap, but a "soft" kind of one; one that can be negotiated with, as Jorb likes to put it. I don't necessarily hate the idea of a level-cap that doesn't necessarily mean that you're "done" with a character just because you've reached it. But it's still a level cap.
...
I wonder if there isn't some way to just turn the math around, so that it doesn't feel so egregious. I'm sure you're all aware of the WoW tired vs. well-rested debacle, and that how just turning the values around made it all so much more subjectively palatable. I feel like it should be possible to do something similar to stat decay, but I can't really think of what.

Bottom line is: what's missing is something to make this 'subjectively palatable' - or the devs taking a leap of faith and shoving it down our throats in the quest for the answer to the question of how long we have to eat it to start liking the taste...

[LostJustice]

First part, you do realize part of it turns to slag so it already lost at that stage. So no, it wouldn't be endless.

The endless was a bit of an exaggeration to make the point, but given the qualities we see currently in world 10 it dosn't seem to be that far off.

Metal amount would dictate how long you could do it

q.e.d.

Second part, yeah lets soft cap everything then remove the concept of spiraling entirely. Then we can twiddle our thumbs while the majority of people who played hafen for crafting can quit

Only in case they wouldn't have a reason to craft stuff anymore.

In A Plea for Decay (Character) I argued for a mechanic that limits characters abilites to be within a manageable range, with a ceiling that can be negotiated with as jorb put it, leading to the world staying meaningful in regards to PvE, foraging, etc. That would allow a dedicated group to be better than an other goup that is more lazy. But it also would allow the other group, through upping up their dedication beyond that of others, to reach or even outclass the former group in abilities. And all that would happen within a reasonable limit for numbers that can't be ground beyond, as the ceiling will get more relentless the harder you push it.

So it would effectively be the same grind as now to stay on top, with the difference that dedicated enough latecomers could actually (from scratch, without buying stuff in markets) compete with ones that started at the beginning. And the world could stay meaningful (quality wise).

But then everything that can be created (this includes trees and crops) would be capped at around the level the characters can archieve in their negotiations with the ceiling. That's certainly not compatible with the existing economic model as current items (once created) stay exactly as they sprung into existance - even when dropped in water and later being dug out of a beach pile - leading to the need to be able to create better stuff than what currently exists as just making more of the same quickly ends in saturation of consumer demand. Which wouldn't be possible anymore as endless growth would be gone.

Thus Items staying as-is would need to go, they have to vanish (in whatever way: decay, use, act of god... pick one that works) to make demand for new ones. Would serve the same purpose as with the current system (that requires to make a new qx thingy as x is higher today as it was yesterday), just without the side-effect of turning natural stuff that can be found in the world into being utterly irrelevant.

The primary issue people have with that is not liking the idea of numbers no longer growing (or even reducing) in their character sheet.

There is multiple ways to slow down the speed of progression here without killing it.

Progression has to be killed at some point, else the next worlds will go downhill (as all the last ones that didn't die to data corruption).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like the implied argument is that the strongest players will stop playing actively and therefore decay, allowing others to catch up.

If that is so, wouldn't the others be able to catch up anyway, given that the strongest players aren't playing actively?

When reading that topic a bit further you'll notice that loftar got the idea:

In a way, I guess you can look at it as a level-cap, but a "soft" kind of one; one that can be negotiated with, as Jorb likes to put it. I don't necessarily hate the idea of a level-cap that doesn't necessarily mean that you're "done" with a character just because you've reached it. But it's still a level cap.
...
I wonder if there isn't some way to just turn the math around, so that it doesn't feel so egregious. I'm sure you're all aware of the WoW tired vs. well-rested debacle, and that how just turning the values around made it all so much more subjectively palatable. I feel like it should be possible to do something similar to stat decay, but I can't really think of what.

Bottom line is: what's missing is something to make this 'subjectively palatable' - or the devs taking a leap of faith and shoving it down our throats in the quest for the answer to the question of how long we have to eat it to start liking the taste...

Lets repeat the stat cap just like we did on characters. People got bored because nothing much to do. You grinded your character. Grind another to same level as a back up. Then what? Not much to do. And I read your idea, it seemed to enforce a hard cap dictated by a rate of decay to where some point it would be a cap and would defeat the point and which the devs and many players seem against. Your decay idea as designed is nothing but a stat quality cap. It isn't a fix it just a cap which will hurt more people who wish to play the game for being able to see their efforts raising quality of items.

[MagicManICT]

Farming trees are affected and actually this isn't entirely true. You can boost crops with herb tables. Certain ones at least.

Trees aren't the same as food crops. Food crops you have to stick in the ground and just wait. Trees are affected by clay, saws, string, soil... it's a list of things that boost tree quality. And other than grains, what other way is there to boost quality of your crops beyond the average "+2"? If it's later in the world and you can get a high quality herbalist table, you can dry WWW for a chance at better seeds, but then you're as likely to be able to buy or scavenge better seeds than what you could dry.

[Granger]

[needless fullquote]
Lets repeat the stat cap just like we did on characters.

With the difference that this wouldn't be a cap where all end up the same: you could still decide to be better than others, they could still disagree. Wouldn't be a one-size-fits-all but a you-decide one.

People got bored because nothing much to do.

People also get bored without statcaps. What again was your argument?

You grinded your character. Grind another to same level as a back up.

Then the first would be back at the start when you're done with the other, so you could grind them in turn

The whole point of the suggestion is that it makes sense to put the amount of dedication that you see fit into your character and then use it to interact with the world in a meaningful manner (which may include PvP in a more meaningful manner than a redshirt), regardless how old the world might be. And should you lose it you could restart (even from scratch), instead of having to wait for the next world as currently from there being no point in grinding for some years to reach the 5 digit numbers the others have.

Then what?
Not much to do.
...
people who wish to play the game for being able to see their efforts raising quality of items.

You just argued the the whole point of Haven is raising numbers and that the game is, apart from that, completely boring.
Maybe http://progressquest.com/ is a better game for you?

I postulate that there are plenty that could find fun in actual competition (be it PvP, who grows the best quality pumpkin or whatever), but as of the current system just don't see a point in trying as they, on average, have a life and because of that have lost before they even started. But with the ceiling thingy one could play normally and while doing that prepare for the holidays (or a long weekend with some days off) to then feast up into the competitive range to play with the big boys at eye level for a little while, to then return back to quieter life (that is more compatible with having a RL one) till the opportunity to party comes up again.

So no, I don't share your view. Quite the opposit, I see plenty (more than now) opportunity for fun in the numbers stalling around a reasonable height.
Especially when done in a way that denies mass-production of alts, by removing the ability to hibernate them for an indefinite amount of time.