2 week limit on potions, components and herbs

[Amorana]

I think we have already determined that there doesn't really _need_ to be a limit on number of components at all.

We are also far off the point of there being a 2 week limit (not logging in) before you lose your stuff. Sometimes things happen and it is hard to find time to login. OR you are travelling for 2 weeks and don't have a computer or don't bother to login to genesis. I think that there should not be a limit on this stuff before it vanishes from your inventory. There is no need for it.

Having been through it before, it is annoying and a deterrent from playing to know that you'll have to spend your first day recovering components.

Windemere

Agreed. I'm just confused why the opinion is there HAS to be a limit on herbs / potions / etc. If I want to spend a month straight collecting 10,000 mana herbs so that I don't have to collect again for 30 days, why is that a bad thing? Why are we dictating how people play the game (by saying only 3,000 stay on you, go collect every few days?)

[gorboth]

Why are we dictating how people play the game (by saying only 3,000 stay on you, go collect every few days?)

We aren't.

G.

[Amorana]

Why are we dictating how people play the game (by saying only 3,000 stay on you, go collect every few days?)

We aren't.

G.

Fair. I'm just asking why the question was being asked. You're right, we aren't currently.

[Cherek]

Why are we dictating how people play the game (by saying only 3,000 stay on you, go collect every few days?)

We aren't.

G.

Fair. I'm just asking why the question was being asked. You're right, we aren't currently.

No Amorana, nobody is dictating anything. I asked for your general opinions, IF there was to be a limit, what would it be? If it sounded like it was decided there was gonna be a limit, it's not. Nothing is decided at all about anything in this thread. I simply wanted to know if the rest of you felt the same as I regarding the two week limit, and now I am curious to hear what you think about a limit of any kind.

I am not saying there should be a limit. I am trying to think of both positive and negative arguments for a limit, or no limit and it's interesting to hear opinions from those of you who use the most herbs and components.

I think from a "realism" perspective it would make sense to have some sort of limit. Since we limit how you can carry etc, it would feel a bit illogical to be able to have 300.000 herbs? Or a million?

I would also imagine if there was a limit maybe it would slightly promote actually going out in the world and using your herbs/potions etc now and then, instead of just letting your herb scripts run all days to create an endless stock of herbs? Maybe?

Also, should there be some type of issue or crash or anything that makes someone lose all their herbs and potions, and it's not possible to recover it, it would be devastating to lose several years of work and hundreds of thousands of items. A limit would also limit any risk of that type involved. It would be tough to lose say 10.000 items, but maybe it would not make you quit the game completely at least.

Those are the things I can think of are positive with a limit.

Negative? Well, maybe some people who like collecting would be annoyed and stop collecting, and thus stop playing, when they reach the limit?

And like Amorana said, we take away a new collection-style typ of gameplay where people could enjoy collecting immense amounts of things. Just like some enjoy collecting gems and money etc.

One could also argue that changes promoting solo play and scripting isnt perhaps not in the game's best interest? And herb collecting is perhaps the biggest solo and scripting activity we have, and by letting players collect hundreds of thousands of herbs maybe we're promoting a style of play that isnt the best for the game as a whole? Because large quantities of herbs will mainly be collected by alone players on scripts, and also unattended bots for sure. On the other hand, if some people wanna spend their time here getting the biggest collecting of herbs, and it makes them play, no matter if they do most of their playing alone and on scripts, it's still another player who enjoy being here, so maybe it's all good?

Opinions?

[Amorana]

No Amorana, nobody is dictating anything.

Never said anyone was. At least not in this thread.

I asked for your general opinions, IF there was to be a limit, what would it be? If it sounded like it was decided there was gonna be a limit, it's not. Nothing is decided at all about anything in this thread. I simply wanted to know if the rest of you felt the same as I regarding the two week limit, and now I am curious to hear what you think about a limit of any kind.

I am not saying there should be a limit. I am trying to think of both positive and negative arguments for a limit, or no limit and it's interesting to hear opinions from those of you who use the most herbs and components.

Well, here you kind of did:

I dont know, but think it would be logical to have SOME type of limit on how much you can carry. Sure you can carry way much more items and coins than what's realistic, but even if it's a high limit we still have a limit on how much you can carry. Even potions will make you pretty burdened after awhile. I think it would be only logical to also have a limit on how much herbs you could realistically have in your pockets, and I dont think the weight factor is enough when it comes to herbs?

So that's why I was asking why the question was being asked, why you felt there was a need to limit them. You've gotten to the heart of that here below:

I think from a "realism" perspective it would make sense to have some sort of limit. Since we limit how you can carry etc, it would feel a bit illogical to be able to have 300.000 herbs? Or a million?

I would also imagine if there was a limit maybe it would slightly promote actually going out in the world and using your herbs/potions etc now and then, instead of just letting your herb scripts run all days to create an endless stock of herbs? Maybe?

Also, should there be some type of issue or crash or anything that makes someone lose all their herbs and potions, and it's not possible to recover it, it would be devastating to lose several years of work and hundreds of thousands of items. A limit would also limit any risk of that type involved. It would be tough to lose say 10.000 items, but maybe it would not make you quit the game completely at least.

Those are the things I can think of are positive with a limit.

Negative? Well, maybe some people who like collecting would be annoyed and stop collecting, and thus stop playing, when they reach the limit?

And like Amorana said, we take away a new collection-style typ of gameplay where people could enjoy collecting immense amounts of things. Just like some enjoy collecting gems and money etc.

One could also argue that changes promoting solo play and scripting isnt perhaps not in the game's best interest? And herb collecting is perhaps the biggest solo and scripting activity we have, and by letting players collect hundreds of thousands of herbs maybe we're promoting a style of play that isnt the best for the game as a whole? Because large quantities of herbs will mainly be collected by alone players on scripts, and also unattended bots for sure. On the other hand, if some people wanna spend their time here getting the biggest collecting of herbs, and it makes them play, no matter if they do most of their playing alone and on scripts, it's still another player who enjoy being here, so maybe it's all good?

Opinions?

I've never been a huge fan of the realism argument to Genesis. Note: That isn't to say I've never used it. Sometimes it makes sense. Example of good realism that doesn't exist: It should be difficult to concentrate (read: cast) while getting hit in the head with a mace. However, by and large I don't buy into realism arguments, in what is a game that celebrates what is impossible. Weight is one of those issues, and specifically weights for herbs, gems, coins, and components. Anything that is basically required for you to play the game (i.e. for you class to function, or for you to move about the game) I don't think should have weight. Armours and weapons it makes sense - it is a sliding scale of making good items heavier and thereby less able to be used by newbies for power-level. However herbs, potions, components are a necessary part of the game (for melee and spellcasters alike, if you are a well prepared player!) I just can't see the point in making a newbie run back and forth to and from the bank with his thousands of coppers in order to train.

Going out and using herbs is fine and dandy. I can guarantee you that everyone who collects them does. But on days I can't devote the time/effort into gearing, travelling, dealing with veiled death threats from Celephias for giving him the ring he wanted or Diri for killing in Neraka, I simply herb and gather other spell components. If I don't have herbing to do, that won't suddenly make me leave the shores of Calia. I'll just stand about with my idle trigger like I do while I'm waiting for herbs to respawn.

Sure, it would be devastating to lose 10k herbs. However, given that it ought to be good practice to save before you quit, there shouldn't be a big risk of losing that much work. Even if the server dies while I'm logged in, I might lose - at most - a day's worth of progress? I don't believe I recall losing everything I owned in terms of money, herbs, potions in a server crash before, but maybe I'm mistaken.

Genesis, at current, is in a situation where sometimes solo play is required. I understand that you may not be from an area where you log in and there are only 5 people logged into the entire game. I can tell you that most nights when I log in now, that is exactly what I find:

There are 7 players in the game, of which 2 fit your selection.
Amorana Syrk

Players in the realms who are not known to you:
Anshar Celephias+

Removing any sort of solo play definitely hurts those of us not living in happy-fun-times Europe where (at least in terms of peak hours) it appears that a lot of the current playerbase resides.

[petros]

There are two types of objects in the game that a player can have - those that auto-load, and those that recover. Autoloading objects automatically show up on your person when you log in. Examples of autoloading objects are your food and coins. Recoverable items are those that slowly load when you log in. These include herbs, potions, armours and weapons. Within recoverable items there are two subtypes - those that glow/not glow, and those that always recover.

So why the two-week limit? I've personally always hated the rule. The reason is a practical/technical game reason rather than any gameplay reason. If a player logs in, collects an item, and doesn't log in for 2 years, what happens when they log in next? Well, that item will recover, right? Assuming that no changes have happened to the object (file was moved, file was copied elsewhere and a new version released to the game) then no harm no foul. But if that object has been taken out of the game, it suddenly re-appears! In other words, the 2 week limit was put into place simply to ensure that objects would not remain in the game past two weeks if a wizard "obsoleted" something or wanted it removed.

This was probably most relevant when lots of things were changing in the game. Items moving from one domain to the next, etc. These days, however, things are pretty stable. We can certainly work around this limit. I think what's more interesting is how to engage players who haven't logged in regularly. Social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn do a bunch of things to drive up engagement. Things like endorsing skills (LinkedIn) or being tagged (Facebook) make people who don't use it regularly to get constant reminders that there are things going on.

[Cherek]

There are two types of objects in the game that a player can have - those that auto-load, and those that recover. Autoloading objects automatically show up on your person when you log in. Examples of autoloading objects are your food and coins. Recoverable items are those that slowly load when you log in. These include herbs, potions, armours and weapons. Within recoverable items there are two subtypes - those that glow/not glow, and those that always recover.

So why the two-week limit? I've personally always hated the rule. The reason is a practical/technical game reason rather than any gameplay reason. If a player logs in, collects an item, and doesn't log in for 2 years, what happens when they log in next? Well, that item will recover, right? Assuming that no changes have happened to the object (file was moved, file was copied elsewhere and a new version released to the game) then no harm no foul. But if that object has been taken out of the game, it suddenly re-appears! In other words, the 2 week limit was put into place simply to ensure that objects would not remain in the game past two weeks if a wizard "obsoleted" something or wanted it removed.

This was probably most relevant when lots of things were changing in the game. Items moving from one domain to the next, etc. These days, however, things are pretty stable. We can certainly work around this limit. I think what's more interesting is how to engage players who haven't logged in regularly. Social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn do a bunch of things to drive up engagement. Things like endorsing skills (LinkedIn) or being tagged (Facebook) make people who don't use it regularly to get constant reminders that there are things going on.

Interesting. As I remember the "official" reason for implementing the rule though was to give players a reason to log in more often. Or at least one of the reasons?

As for keeping players interested, I think a good first step would be to add optional (default off) e-mail reminders about repeatable things in the game, like wednesday quest, and then maybe try to add something more, like a monthly lottery or something. We could also use it to send reminders about more rare happenings, like events. We have collected a whole bunch of mail addresses that we could put to use.

[Cherek]

Amorana: I think we simply misunderstood each other. I though you meant I was saying there IS going to be a limit. But you probably were not, you were referring to my personal opinion. And yes, my initial personal opinion was that a limit of some kind would be logical.

As for the state of the game during European sleeping hours, I am sadly very much aware of how few plays. It can be pretty sad during European mornings / days too, which is why I decided to give this promotional work a serious shot. And yes, I do agree that there has to be things to do when you're alone, as you often are alone. So yes, I do agree that it's important to have solo things to do as well.

I suppose my main remaining arguments are still the realism thing, and the safety issue. I personally kind of like that even coins have a weight etc. But I suppose it's mainly one of those things you get used to. Had they been weightless form the start I would probably have gotten used to that system and been fine with that too. But that's a personal thing and I totally get you feel the opposite.

About safety, I'd feel safer if we could store our herbs in a vault though, instead of having to rely on recovering say 500.000 herbs every login... but maybe thats just as safe? I know as little as any mortal about the technical process of saving/recovering items, and how "safe" it is and if it would come with a risk carrying that much herbs. Just figured it was worth to mention it as a possible issue at least.

[Chanele]

I think we've mistakenly started down this path of things saving...
Time to decide if we want items to save or not.

Some items save sometimes is not a good policy.

I agree with Cotillion, the reason people get dishearten (and stop playing) if they don't log in within two weeks and loose all herbs and components is because THEY save in the first place. Packs, achemy items, herbs, food, drinks what are next on the save list? This is a problem we created when trying to solve something else.

Personally I would like herbs to work just as other items, they glow if picked close to Arma and "old" herbs will be removed from the game, just like all other items.

What happens if the game crashes or someone returns from a break? All items are wiped from the game/inventory and all player/s has to start from scratch. Did I say all players?
No, all casters will have an huge advantage when they always start with full offensive power since the components save. Not fair imo, a melee character will have to spend several hours in X days before they are lucky enough to actually get a good weapon of their choice.

Now,
before Mages, Psuchae followers and other casters starts crying what a nerf this would be I will agree there has to be changes how components work. There are several solutions out there already, components that are only consumed based a % chance, components that can be multiplied by being smashed/grinded etc.

All casters, myself included, are spoiled and I see several in this thread that wants more..more...more. It is called greed.

[Amorana]

I think we've mistakenly started down this path of things saving...
Time to decide if we want items to save or not.

Some items save sometimes is not a good policy.

I agree with Cotillion, the reason people get dishearten (and stop playing) if they don't log in within two weeks and loose all herbs and components is because THEY save in the first place. Packs, achemy items, herbs, food, drinks what are next on the save list? This is a problem we created when trying to solve something else.

Personally I would like herbs to work just as other items, they glow if picked close to Arma and "old" herbs will be removed from the game, just like all other items.

What happens if the game crashes or someone returns from a break? All items are wiped from the game/inventory and all player/s has to start from scratch. Did I say all players?
No, all casters will have an huge advantage when they always start with full offensive power since the components save. Not fair imo, a melee character will have to spend several hours in X days before they are lucky enough to actually get a good weapon of their choice.

Now,
before Mages, Psuchae followers and other casters starts crying what a nerf this would be I will agree there has to be changes how components work. There are several solutions out there already, components that are only consumed based a % chance, components that can be multiplied by being smashed/grinded etc.

All casters, myself included, are spoiled and I see several in this thread that wants more..more...more. It is called greed.

There's literally one item in the game that gives mana back at a decent rate. There's quite a few more that give health back. That's my problem with the argument of "spell casters would have it so easy." There's a lot of options for melee to gain health back at a decent rate. Weapons, imbuements that heal, held items... Most melee can just go out and buy booze and get an increased health regen rate. For casters, it's herbs and that one item. You can say we're spoiled all you want, but in terms of base I-need-this-resource-to-survive melee has it better off, in my opinion.