Changes to Herbalism

Xenthos

With the modifications to herb stacks so that they will now decay, herbalism and alchemy will be functioning differently.  It has been a very common tactic for large herb stockpiles to be built up for the bulk alchemical providers so that they can always just make what they need, when they need it.  This is no longer very feasible.

This means that there will be more pressure for "on demand" herbalism, which leads to more potential for shortfalls due to a mechanic which is of tremendous tedium to herbalists: Hibernation.

Hibernation is a mechanic where, every in-game month, at least one herb pile will "die out".  No matter how many of that herb is in the room, it is possible for the whole stock to just fade away into death.  Once the month ends, a handful of rooms might have survived the threshing.  The month after hibernation, an herb will randomly grow in a small number of those rooms as well (a low % chance), and these can be used for replanting with.

To replant, you need to pick the herbs, take them to the new room, and plant them.  If the herb you pick is out of the ground too long (or goes in your rift), it gets too "old" and thus cannot be planted- only a freshly picked herb may be transported.  With Faeling balance bonuses I tend to do about 6 herbs at a time, but it's just long and tedious.

The only 'reward' for this is that now the herbs will be growing in all of those rooms.  However, any other herbalist can take the full benefit of that work; if the room grows 10 herbs, and someone comes through and harvests them, I get nothing.  I can but sigh at the screen and dejectedly slump at the keyboard.

So, there are a couple of ways to go here:
1) Adjust the shops to allow for herb stockpiles again, or
2) Adjust herbalism to make it less of a tedious and frustrating experience.

To adjust shops, the following idea could be implemented:
  i) Shop rifts can now hold up to 5k of any herb at a base level.  Every shop expansion adds another 1k herbs to the capacity.

To adjust herbs, there are a few potential possibilities:
 i) Just rework hibernation.  Instead of completely decaying, herbs could have their stockpile reduced, so that most rooms in the area will be reduced to 1 in the room by the end of the month.  The month after hibernation, they could grow more slowly.  However, what this would do is make it so that replanting is only necessary if someone actually strips the rooms (for which we have active counters, like Nature Guard).
 ii) Make harvesting easier.  Ragniliff suggested the following: If a room is at 60 herbs, the first harvest might get 20 in one go.  If the room is at 40, the harvest might get 15.  If the room is at 15 or less, you'd just get 1 herb per pick.  Basically this would make it more time efficient to only pick rooms with a large number of herbs, and picking the lower ones is hurting you and wasting your time.  It actively discourages stripharvesting.

There are likely a number of other thoughts or ideas out there, so have at it!

Majanishi

As an herbalist, I think that our answer lies in a combination of these answers. I do believe that stockpiles in shops should stay at 2000 max until upgraded. However I think there are so few herbalists these days that stopping rooms from hibernating to nothing would be a fantastic way to take some of the tedium out. Now I understand that trade skills shouldn't be a piece of cake. If we get too soft about harvesting, then forgers are going to ask to make their forging time less. I think the time investment is important, so the other suggestion I have is to tone down what Xenthos/Ragniliff said about group harvest. Perhaps if it is at 60 or above you can harvest a variable number of herbs up to 20 and then once you're at 40 or something it goes down to 1-5. I realize this will change the standard for scripting autoharvesters, but that can be fixed by specifically displaying how many herbs you managed to grab with each harvest.

Thanks for the suggestion Xenthos!

Ssaliss

Personally, I'd love to see hibernation gone the way of the dodo. I couldn't even begin to guess how many herbs I've replanted over the years, even if I can do ten at a time it's extremely annoying. Heck, even if it was changed to "reduce herbs to 1" that'd still be miles better than what we have today, which is, as Xenthos pointed out, pure tedium. It generally ends up with a handful of people replanting for everyone else.

Fluer

I like the "Harvest multiple herbs at a time" option combined with the "don't die as much" option. Harvesting a room of 60 herbs is frustrating, especially one at a time. I suggest that harvesting be done from 1-15 herbs at a time- Like lessons.  That way we're not going around grabbing 50 and 60 herbs at a time, but at the same time, I'm not able to go to work, come back, and still be picking herbs V_V Also, the 'not dying out completely' would be more convenient for people like me who can't tell if a plant is out of season or strip-harvested, and start panicking over city channel.

The bigger shop cache idea is good too. I really didn't like the fact that you took away floor anti-decays. It put a HUGE vice on the "herb-economy". I can see prices going up and supply going down as we speak. It'll be a stock-market crash. Maybe heighten the number of herbs that can grow in a room to make up for it? Like instead of 60 herbs in a room, we get 75 or 100?

Kagato

Fluer said:

I like the "Harvest multiple herbs at a time" option combined with the "don't die as much" option. Harvesting a room of 60 herbs is frustrating, especially one at a time. I suggest that harvesting be done from 1-15 herbs at a time- Like lessons.  That way we're not going around grabbing 50 and 60 herbs at a time, but at the same time, I'm not able to go to work, come back, and still be picking herbs V_V

Incidentally, to be perfectly honest you should not be doing that sort of thing in the first place, it is considered a violation of IRE's HELP AFK scrolls, while they have taken a much lighter stance on simply going mindless and staying logged in, automating things like harvesting herbs is grounds for being zapped or shrubbed, removal of lessons, even deletion of your account in severe cases. Not that I'm saying you are, but just a reminder of the fact.

Fluer said:

Also, the 'not dying out completely' would be more convenient for people like me who can't tell if a plant is out of season or strip-harvested, and start panicking over city channel.

The bigger shop cache idea is good too. I really didn't like the fact that you took away floor anti-decays. It put a HUGE vice on the "herb-economy". I can see prices going up and supply going down as we speak. It'll be a stock-market crash. Maybe heighten the number of herbs that can grow in a room to make up for it? Like instead of 60 herbs in a room, we get 75 or 100?

As an interim measure, depending on what MUD client you use, systems exist that let you know which herb is hibernating, which it is time to replant and which is flourishing (I think Demonic 2.0 for Mudlet does it)

Xenthos

Majanishi said:

As an herbalist, I think that our answer lies in a combination of these answers. I do believe that stockpiles in shops should stay at 2000 max until upgraded. However I think there are so few herbalists these days that stopping rooms from hibernating to nothing would be a fantastic way to take some of the tedium out. Now I understand that trade skills shouldn't be a piece of cake. If we get too soft about harvesting, then forgers are going to ask to make their forging time less. I think the time investment is important, so the other suggestion I have is to tone down what Xenthos/Ragniliff said about group harvest. Perhaps if it is at 60 or above you can harvest a variable number of herbs up to 20 and then once you're at 40 or something it goes down to 1-5. I realize this will change the standard for scripting autoharvesters, but that can be fixed by specifically displaying how many herbs you managed to grab with each harvest.

Thanks for the suggestion Xenthos!

I feel as if I must note that forgers already have had their forging time made less... by 90% (or even more!).

Kaimanahi

Xenthos said:

Majanishi said:

If we get too soft about harvesting, then forgers are going to ask to make their forging time less.

I feel as if I must note that forgers already have had their forging time made less... by 90% (or even more!).

^more

I agree on the hibernation points; replanting is the worst and most frustrating part of herbalism. To the other points, harvesting multiple herbs at a time devalues the artifact (halves balance time on harvesting), so I'm not a big fan. Also I'm not really sure the shoprift change is necessary, considering that, between your personal rift and the shop rift, you should be able to stockpile 4k herbs at a time. That is more than enough to fill alchemy needs. The herb market will just be more dynamic to maintain rift stocks.

Barendur

Why not just make it to wear harvesting each time nets between 1-5 herbs at a time, the artifact boosts that to 1-10 with the balance plus. That way its not too much at once and there is still a time commitment. And that adds to the artifact gloves instead of taking anything away from them. Also, if you do too much, like getting 15+ herbs at a time and people do start complaining because their tradeskills werent boosted, you wouldnt be able to tone down the 15+ without the herbalists complaining about nerfing it. 1-5 is a good common ground, and if you think that wouldnt be a big boost, then you probably have never harvested to begin with.

Also, as a note, if something like this were to happen, a new command would need to be added so that you can only harvest one herb at a time to avoid walking into a room with 7 herbs and accidently picking all 7.

And you could make it to where you pick more herbs the higher your skill in herbalism is. like one a time in the beggining. and 5 at fabled and 1-10 at trans or something like that.. I am also against increasing shop rifts at the moment, 4k possible herbs open to shop owners,  like Kelly said is enough to keep up with demand for most.

Xenthos

You could also make it where harvesting nets you 1-5, and the gloves doubles that (so you get 2, 4, 6, 8, or 10 instead).

Morshoth

Put this in the Changelog thread, but I think it would be a neat idea, and will expand on it here.

Allow for herbs (freshly picked or not) to be turned into seeds, as a new herbs skill, like this:

AB HERBS SEEDS

SEED <herb>

PLANT <herb> SEED

Using one of the herb of your choosing, you may pick out the seeds from the plant, which may then be planted as you would an herb.  Each herb will produce one seed.

Ssaliss

Morshoth said:

Put this in the Changelog thread, but I think it would be a neat idea, and will expand on it here.

Allow for herbs (freshly picked or not) to be turned into seeds, as a new herbs skill, like this:

AB HERBS SEEDS

SEED <herb>

PLANT <herb> SEED

Using one of the herb of your choosing, you may pick out the seeds from the plant, which may then be planted as you would an herb.  Each herb will produce one seed.

I've actually had the exact same thought myself some time back, but the problem with this is that it would massively devalue the pots.

Morshoth

Ssaliss said:

Morshoth said:

Put this in the Changelog thread, but I think it would be a neat idea, and will expand on it here.

Allow for herbs (freshly picked or not) to be turned into seeds, as a new herbs skill, like this:

AB HERBS SEEDS

SEED <herb>

PLANT <herb> SEED

Using one of the herb of your choosing, you may pick out the seeds from the plant, which may then be planted as you would an herb.  Each herb will produce one seed.

I've actually had the exact same thought myself some time back, but the problem with this is that it would massively devalue the pots.

Change pots to grow up to 6 amount of an herb when seeds are planted in it.  Keep the growth rate the same as current herbs, and hibernation kicks in too.