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Changelog 300

SsalissSsaliss
edited March 2013 in Common Grounds
Just curious here... What was the rationale behind this change? It seems to me that herbalists (and, to a lesser degree, alchemists) have been hit rather hard lately. First pocketbelts were removed, and now you can't even use stockroom floors to keep herbs safe. Keeping a semi-decent buffer is getting increasingly hard with only 2000 of each herb being able to be safely stored unless you have a shop or buy rift extensions (at 125 credits for 1000 extra up to 8000 in total). As a comparison, a single keg of health takes 800 galingale, so 2000 galingale is spent pretty quickly.
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Comments

  • EventruEventru
    edited March 2013
    There are more than 8,000 stacks of herbs in the game, not counting commodities. (Comparatively, the most hamsters ever in a given hunt is 1,000. Replica bloat can be a big problem - it's why we use and encourage rifts wherever possible. Cutting out some 15-20k replicas is a huge cut, when you consider your average bashing area has maybe 80-140 replicas, tops)

    Beyond that, it was never really intended for people to buy a manse room with a steel door and maintain stacks of hundreds of thousands of herbs, comms, etc - nor for rifts to be circumvented. Why but a shop rift expansion when you can just keep massive stacks of them, limitless in quantity, on the floor?

    Overall, it was just fixing a long-standing bug, though (non-decaying herbs and commodities).
  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    edited March 2013
    Honestly, I feel like shops should have a higher base rift value.  Then allow them to be extended even further with the artifact.

    Edit: This is primarily for herbs, not commodities, though.  I don't really care if the commodity base stays the same, but the herb base increases- that would work quite nicely as well!
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  • KarlachKarlach God of Kittens.
    Changelog 300 passing without a Sparta reference.

    I'm not sure if I'm proud or disappointed.

    The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."

    You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!


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  • EventruEventru
    Although as a purely personal afterthought on the - if any - economic impact, isn't there an argument to be made that it would likely increase the cost of herbs and alchemical goods in an economy that already suffers from severely undervalued product? Reduction in supply and ability to store in mass quantities will eventually drive up price, moving things more towards a new equilibrium that will likely be a bit more reflective of the volume of gold in the economy.
  • SsalissSsaliss
    The question is, though, if this actually reduces that amount and by how much. Personally, it meant moving my one stack of each herb and distributing it between four shop rifts. Granted, I don't know how rifts are stored, but I guess that in my case it meant quadrupling the replicas.
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  • EventruEventru
    edited March 2013
    Ssaliss said:

    The question is, though, if this actually reduces that amount and by how much. Personally, it meant moving my one stack of each herb and distributing it between four shop rifts. Granted, I don't know how rifts are stored, but I guess that in my case it meant quadrupling the replicas.

    It doesn't. It meant your one stack (a replica) was completely remove from the replica database. We will very likely kill upwards of 15k replicas in the coming couple weeks, as they start to decay/get shifted to rifts, etc.
  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    Eventru said:
    Although as a purely personal afterthought on the - if any - economic impact, isn't there an argument to be made that it would likely increase the cost of herbs and alchemical goods in an economy that already suffers from severely undervalued product? Reduction in supply and ability to store in mass quantities will eventually drive up price, moving things more towards a new equilibrium that will likely be a bit more reflective of the volume of gold in the economy.
    Unlikely.  It suffers from low prices because new people start harvesting and selling in bulk; they aren't really the ones who are keeping large stockpiles behind the scenes, and they price low because "oh wow, harvesting is so easy!"  Not considering that at the pricing level they're using, they'd get a whole lot more gold for the same time spent doing something else.

    On top of that, they tend to not be the ones who spend the time replanting, which is where the serious headache in the whole process is.  Replanting is painful.
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  • SsalissSsaliss
    Eventru said:
    Although as a purely personal afterthought on the - if any - economic impact, isn't there an argument to be made that it would likely increase the cost of herbs and alchemical goods in an economy that already suffers from severely undervalued product? Reduction in supply and ability to store in mass quantities will eventually drive up price, moving things more towards a new equilibrium that will likely be a bit more reflective of the volume of gold in the economy.
    I somewhat doubt it will change much, really. The people affected by it the most are young people; I'm basically not affected at all, nor do I think the other major players will be. It just means more hassle.
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  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    Also, there's a key point you're missing here:

    Supply and demand does not exist or work in Lusternia (for anything except credits & dingbats, which are related to OOC currency).  Trying to make such a correlation has no bearing in how the actual player economy works.
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  • KarlachKarlach God of Kittens.
    With skillflexing being as easy as it is, it's entirely possible to be self serving.

    The hardest thing to get hold of is poisons, herbs and potions are so easily mass produced there's simply not the demand to compete with the mass availability of goods.

    The divine voice of Avechna, the Avenger reverberates powerfully, "Congratulations, Morkarion, you are the Bringer of Death indeed."

    You see Estarra the Eternal shout, "Morkarion is no more! Mourn the mortal! But welcome True Ascendant Karlach, of the Realm of Death!


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  • AkyaevinAkyaevin
    edited March 2013
    I'm not sure I understand the purpose of them decaying in stockrooms on the justification of database bloat - wouldn't any other item in a stockroom take up the same amount of space in the database? Isn't this why we have stockroom limits?

    Enabling decay elsewhere, yes, but the stockroom change is going to hurt.

    I foresee myself being chained to the alembic for the next few days.

    EDIT: if anything, this'll worsen it (at least in the short term) in respect to shop piles, because those neat piles of thousands of herbs are going to turn into dozens of kegs, each with their own entry.
  • RilunaRiluna
    If there is much less of the supply already available, does that not simply create the demand? If you are invested enough in your character, it's fine that you can supply your own demand. Many can't, though. If there are any significant economic changes, I can see why they'd be a disadvantage to the shopkeeper who maintains a stockpile like that. But I can see advantages for that newer player just picking up herbalism. 

    As a shopkeeper, I may be more inclined to simply expand my net of herbalists, to more actively supply the same stockpile I have access to now. More opportunities to sell your own herbs, for example. Which can increase interest in the herbalist actually taking a vested interest in maintaining their supply, rather than their stockpile.

    I actually really like this change, and quite a few they've done lately. I only wonder if shuffling your herbs around, in and out of the rift quickly, will simply reset their age.

    Mayor Steingrim, the Grand Schema says to you, "Well, as I recall you kinda leave a mark whereever you go."
  • SsalissSsaliss
    There's also the fact that people can't sell herbs in large quantities from shops anymore, since rifts are limited to 2000 each (without credits, which isn't even an option for org-shops). So yeah, disabling the decay in stockrooms would go at least some way towards fixing things. Although it wouldn't make it easier for people just coming into harvesting.
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  • RilunaRiluna
    Wouldn't spending org credits (or owner-donated, specifically for the project), especially on something like buying artifacts for a long-established org shop, be something your patron can do? You can outfit org ships with credits.

    Mayor Steingrim, the Grand Schema says to you, "Well, as I recall you kinda leave a mark whereever you go."
  • SsalissSsaliss
    edited March 2013
    Personally, as a chancellor, I would never suggest an org-shop (except those controlled by guilds/orders/the org itself) get a rift expansion unless they pay the credits themselves. And I would never recommend someone to put 125 credits on an org shop, since they aren't in complete control over them.
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  • EnyalidaEnyalida Nasty Woman, Sockpuppeteer to the Gods
    I agree.  Serenwilde (for reasons still beyond me) dropped something like 25 million gold total to upgrade every single shop. I think only one has actually made use of the expanded space so far.
  • SsalissSsaliss
    Enyalida said:
    I agree.  Serenwilde (for reasons still beyond me) dropped something like 25 million gold total to upgrade every single shop. I think only one has actually made use of the expanded space so far.
    There were a few thoughts towards doing that in Glom as well when it was made possible. Although the only argument for it was "Well, we've got lots of gold and nothing else to spend it on", so it didn't happen in the end.
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  • ZyphoraZyphora :: the sun in her splendour ::
    edited March 2013
    Will herbs still be preserved if they are being sent via mail? Such as in the case of letter-delivery herb orders and alchemy orders.

  • EventruEventru
    edited March 2013
    Zyphora said:

    Will herbs still be preserved if they are being sent via mail? Such as in the case of letter-delivery herb orders and alchemy orders.

    I don't believe so - they have the same decay time as raw tea herbs always have, though, for parity. Six months, give or take.

    Should be plenty of time for someone to retrieve them.

    Re increasing shop rifts, I don't really have an opinion. Certainly, it should be a minimum that's viable but I imagine it should still be restrictive enough to encourage buying rift expansions. Nothing really to do with me, though! I imagine if someone made a well-thought out envoy report or forum thread on the topic with some thoughts re minimum capacity and values for increase that would be both reasonable and appealing to purchase, Est would at least look it over and consider it (If it's a forum thread, I'll make sure it's pointed out to her).
  • LeradLerad
    Yeah, putting aside the fact that this change will do nothing to change herb prices, and simply decimate the amount of herbs available for sale (while increasing the headache herbalists have to deal with) it should be noted also that there is no reason to RAISE herb prices, even if it were somehow possible through this change. Herbs in the game are a hugely important resource, and Lusternia's bashing tends to have MORE afflictions than the other IREs. Newbies no longer use up herbs, which is great, but anyone from the 30-80 range can easily find their bashing become way harder if prices go up.

    Lusternia has the highest cost of sparkleberry amongst the IREs, making more intensive bashing for the lower levels already an option few could afford. Coltsfoot does help, but nature throne is not always up, and it's not uncommon to see coltsfoot bought out entirely in the aetherplex even before this change, due to the way it is used and thus bought, in huge bulks. Certain herbs highly important from combat have also always suffered from bloated prices simply due to the hassle in getting them. The only people who don't get thrown around the mountains of madness without an artifact are mages, who can't take herbs.

    Making a change to delete replicas and improve game performance is a great move. There is no such thing as too little lag. But I don't see why an envoy report needs to be used to address a problem that crops up from such a move. Even if this problem cropping up was not forseeable, it should definitely be addressed without needing to take up one of a limited number of slots in a system used for game balance, and which is slow to be deliberated and implemented anyway. It'll definitely be a good idea to get the herbalists who are hardest hit by this change to chime in with ideas though, that much is true. Hopefully someone comes up with a good idea to help alleviate the herbalists' long suffering problems.

  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    I think he also said a forum-thread could work as an alternative to an envoy report.

    I'm just not feeling up to starting (yet another) thread right now, so I've been waiting for someone else to!
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  • RagniliffRagniliff
    There's a couple of solutions.

    1. Consider changing how herb picking works. If there are more herbs in the room, you will automatically pick more at once, since it is easier to find one that is suitable (or whatever argument you want to make). 5 herbs per pick until you hit 30, then 2 per until 20, then 1 per once you hit ten. This will also encourage people to pick in more rooms over greater areas instead of picking down several rooms while leaving loads of rooms around them at full capacity. It would effectively make you punish yourself for being lazy by reducing your output per unit of time. This will also mean harvesting can be done much more quickly, so going to pick what you need as needed may be less of an issue if people actually tend plants properly.

    2. If 1 isn't attainable, reduce the number of herbs needed per keg, or spread them out over a greater variety of herbs. ESPECIALLY THE MOST COMMONLY USED POTIONS. There won't be piles and piles of galingale if a keg of healing doesn't require 800 out of the 1200 herbs needed for it to be galingale. Seriously, I never understood this.

    3. If neither 1 nor 2 are acceptable, just remove hibernation. Completely. It adds quite a lot of tedium to the whole process and if picking herbs is just going to be a huge time sink, we can be spared the need to replant every year for every herb in existence.
  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    Yeah.  Removing hibernation or making replanting easier would be so very nice.  Replanting is, like I said, the worst headache of herbalism.  It's tedium, it impacts one person, and whomever does it is basically just benefiting all the leeches (which, admittedly, I have become recently now that I harvest only for myself) and wasting their own time.
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  • RagniliffRagniliff
    Basically, the reason there are huge piles of herbs out there is because potion stock changes out pretty rapidly for the most common potions and they are used to help make restocking much easier. Anything that can be done to make it easier to just get herbs as you need them instead of favouring the massive stockpile method would go a long ways.
  • NihtaNihta
    At the very least you could increase the amount of time you can hold onto a herb before replanting to a real life hour to make replanting an easier task.
  • SsalissSsaliss
    Changing which herbs are needed for which kegs would be awesome. Right now, some herbs are far more limited than others; most notably merbloom. It's used in three potions, but it only grows in a total of 24 rooms, which... well, sucks.
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  • EritheylEritheyl ** Trigger Warning **
    I agree that keg herb requirements should warrant a second look with this change. Honestly, I don't see why they can't just be cut in half from the get-go.
    Crumkane, Lord of Epicurean Delights says, "WAS IT INDEED ON FIRE, ERITHEYL."

    -

    With a deep reverb, Contemptible Sutekh says, "CEASE YOUR INFERNAL ENERGY, ERITHEYL."
  • MorshothMorshoth
    I think it would be cool if herbalists could make seeds from herbs, and use those to replant them.  Maybe 1 herb makes 1 (or more) seed(s), which you can then plant just as you would a freshly picked herb.
  • MorshothMorshoth
    Well, that's fixed now!  
  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    >---------------------------[ Changelog Entry #302 ]--------------------------<
       Entered by: The Norns, Administrators of Fate   Date: 2013-03-31 22:07:36

       o Stacks of commodities and herbs will no longer decay in stockrooms.
    >-----------------------------------------------------------------------------<

    Hmm... to believe or not to believe...
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