#fuckfate

[Grable]

Nah what we need is more active foraging, a mini game of sorts or whatever that isn't just "walk and stumble upon a curiosity" and of course properly rewarded after. pls notice my suggestion senpai

[lachlaan]

Oh lord.

Bots aren't the root of the problem.

Well then what is the issue with having a RNG governed distribution of these things? It just means that effort put in (presuming legitimate 1 person : 1 character) foraging is rewarded equally for all. Even if uber rare for all, it's still fair for all and doesn't lead to situations where people that forage habitually find nothing at all while others get stuffed.

The premise of the whole fate system presented to us was that it would stop forager bots, so I fail to see how bots aren't the problem, unless you mean that you'd rather somehow convince people that they need not min-max an important stat in a competitive game.

If the possibility to spam them is the issue via automation, then some form of magically complex minigames would probably be the only solution, or giving some moderators/volunteers magical clients like the dev client Salem was supposed to have. Invisible person bumps into forager, demands identification or triggers a message on the player's client for authenticity. The whole thing would be recorded on the dev client side in case of people contesting it, and people would get temp bans for not replying, with 3 strikes total wiggle room perhaps.

If you instead want to dissuade people from even bothering to forage these, then .. well. No luck there I think. As long as their LP/(weight*time) or LP/(size*weight*time) for higher INT chars is still more optimal than craftable options, people will want them. The quality grind, the PvP competitiveness and the general utility of having more LP will be things that encourage maximization of possible gain, so unless you put an artificial cap on the usefulness of LP I doubt you can dissuade people from wanting good stuff without making the stuff .. well, bad. Which defeats the purpose of it.

[Lunarius_Haberdash]

Oh lord.

Bots aren't the root of the problem.

But I thought you yourself indicated the problem was vacuum bots?

I don't care if these things are able to be reliably found, but a huge Core-sized meteor needs to be taken to anyone found using bots. It should be a nukable bannable offense for the entire community involved, period.

[lachlaan]

Oh lord.

Bots aren't the root of the problem.

But I thought you yourself indicated the problem was vacuum bots?

I don't care if these things are able to be reliably found, but a huge Core-sized meteor needs to be taken to anyone found using bots. It should be a nukable bannable offense for the entire community involved, period.

That would then create a new PvP tactic. Infiltrate enemy community, bot shamelessly, report yourself from other account, watch them all burn.

[jorb]

Yes, but the problem that needs to be tackled is the incentive structure.

If I as a developer choose to present the player with a situation where a large section of land needs to be scanned by foot every so often for a massive reward, then what am I really expecting? There are no decision points involved, no prioritization of relative values required, &c&c, and just generally nothing that really requires a human being's input, and if you want to do this foraging operation on a large scale, well, eventually it may get boring (as there are no decision points involved, no challenge, &c&c). I have created a situation that screams for a bot, and I have myself to blame for that.

Foraging is in that case the problem. Not the bot that solves it.

[jorb]

Attacking botting itself -- and we really have been over this a million times now -- is a losing proposition and nothing but a potentially infinite drain on development resources.

[burgingham]

Foraging is fine (can use improvement, but it isn't bad or useless or anything). I still believe the complaints come from a place of historically grown entitlement so to speak. It seems to be hard for people to get used to something being there less than before as it feels like they lost something. They just have to accept that it is different now and that everything is completely normal the way it is. Guess it just takes some time to change mindsets.

[Sevenless]

I've toyed with suggesting the idea of a tracking minigame for hunting down nicer forageables.

Where "finding the nice item" involves finding a clue to the items location, and perhaps a small randomized/unique one time recipe of common forageables.

For example: Find some "signs of rare herbs" on the mountains. Will need a nettle wrapped blueberry/lingonberry infusion (recipe item created in inventory on find?) to pick it safely.

It's not impossible to bot, but it's more engaging than vaccuum foraging perhaps?

[burgingham]

That seems to go into the same direction as visual clues for nice resources that has been brougth up in the past, seven. I like that.

The whole sparkly water with fish jumping extra high. A ring of Dandelions on a glade. Those kinds of things.

[lachlaan]

Yes, but the problem that needs to be tackled is the incentive structure.

If I as a developer choose to present the player with a situation where a large section of land needs to be scanned by foot every so often for a massive reward, then what am I really expecting? There are no decision points involved, no prioritization of relative values required, &c&c, and just generally nothing that really requires a human being's input, and if you want to do this foraging operation on a large scale, well, eventually it may get boring (as there are no decision points involved, no challenge, &c&c). I have created a situation that screams for a bot, and I have myself to blame for that.

Foraging is in that case the problem. Not the bot that solves it.

Well the basic solution for that would be to make both crafting life and foraging life be equally rewarding in that sense. Alternatively one could be better for studying, one for feasting, but that's up to you to decide. If you want both crafting/self sufficient-ish inner-city curios, as well as foraged curios to be viable, then you guys would have to more or less tweak the crap out of it for a week or three so that there are good options on both sides, options that are just as easily obtainable, options that are just as easily improved on. So far I've been told that later on in the game I'll spend a lot less time foraging because industry gets better, and that in itself sounds like a similar problem when compared to fate forageables, you guys should address the gameplay meta as a whole if you want to go down this path.

a) give equally viable equally easy to obtain equally easy to improve on/quality grind curios to crafters and foragers
b) make curios interact with one another in ways that are determined by random weekly/biweekly/daily/whatever rulesets. Means one day perhaps a dandelion+ladybug+strawdoll+deer antlers gives boosted LP making it somehow worth it because on that day/week you've realized that "Nature is raaaaad, maaaaaan". Or some nonsense like that.
c) disincentivize progress in general as the need for progress is what drives optimization, but then is also what drives gameplay in general, so more of a non-option.

Would be nice to have this thread actually become a constructive discussion on the direction of the studying system and other grinds.