[Development-Rules] Bulk (Stack) Crafting

[Tuathanach]

We in the Rules Department of the Devs. Have been discussing a way forward for Wrong experience calculation with stacked crafting bug. We have decided that as this will have a significant impact on crafting, we want you to help us decide on how best to solve this issue.

Currently Practice Points = time (s). So the longer something takes the more practice you get. We also factor in skill so the better you are the quicker you can do something.

With bulk crafting we currently use the formula

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time (s) = singleTransformTime + singleTransformTime * (StackCount -1) * 0.1;This means a full stack gives 7.4 * practice.
Two possible options are

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time (s) = singleTransformTime + singleTransformTime * (StackCount -1) * 0.25;and

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time (s) = singleTransformTime + singleTransformTime * (StackCount -1);but capped at 300.

What do you think of these suggestions and do you have any alternatives? We want to hear your opinions. I hope this will be the first of many dev decisions I can take to you to get your opinions.

[bilbous]

so if I am reading this right currently the stacking modifier is 1/10 of full stack practice points and the options you are asking us to opine upon are either 1/4 or no modification. Is that correct? not quite, I guess. Let x=single transform time, let y=stack size, so we are looking at options of x+xy/4 or x+xy. Is that better?

I like the 1/4 time option but would suggest that the resulting quality could be an added bonus at a rate of Q modulus 50, which would make it x + xy/4 + (q/50 round down)
You could then dispense with the additional computation and award for the quality.

It appears that practice points are calculated separately from experience / progression points.

[kiaerulf]

I'd like to suggest a different approach to this type of problem: (I hope I didn't misunderstand  it)

To me it seems like the current approach is: "lets try to make something and see what we end up with and if it is acceptable."
In this case: Lets create a formula and see what crafting time it gives us and then we will decide if it is acceptable.

How about turning the question upside down and first decide for a goal (ie. what crafting time is acceptable at a given level). Then you can figure what parameters you can use in your formula and from that finally construct a formula that fulfill that goal.

Actually I think the above question is a part of a long chain of questions needed to be asked. First:
How long should it take to reach a certain level if you do it the most optimal way without interruptions?

I know it is a difficult question to answer because it may be an unpopular decision to make. But I think you kinda already do make that decision by testing what you have made and decide if it is acceptable. It is just a matter of the order in which you make the decision.

You may already have done all this. But then i think you need to give us some more information about the goal to work with before we try to give our opinion about a solution.

So, to sum it up:

• Set a goal.
• Figure what parameters can be used and/or tweaked to achieve that goal.
• Create the solution (here the formula).
• Test and see if the goal is achieved otherwise return to 2
• Profit

- Kia

[TheAuthor]

The scientific method. Nice!

[Bonifarzia]

so if I am reading this right ...

Let us figure out what the proposal means.
First of all, scaling practice with time spent crafting makes sense. A stack of 65 takes 7.4 times longer compared to a single item. Suggestions are to either increase that factor to 17 (64/4+1), or to make it proportional to the stack size (65) while keeping a limit of 300 seconds. Understandable, if we don't want to encourage afk-crafting or induce boredom. Yet, 300s is still pretty long, unless it is explicitly allowed to work on several transformation steps in parallel. That point is still a bit unclear, because some actions (/use) block other activity, while automatic transformations allow massively parallel crafting for quick and easy practice.

[Eonwind]

I'd like to suggest a different approach to this type of problem: (I hope I didn't misunderstand  it)
You may already have done all this. But then i think you need to give us some more information about the goal to work with before we try to give our opinion about a solution.

So, to sum it up:

• Set a goal.
• Figure what parameters can be used and/or tweaked to achieve that goal.
• Create the solution (here the formula).
• Test and see if the goal is achieved otherwise return to 2
• Profit

- Kia

Hi kiaerulf, the goal the parameter and the solution have already been set by us (the rules team) and the rule currently used are already in production from a long time.
Now just make things clearer our doubt is:

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is it better to be handled more practice point but then it means bulk crafting doesn't save you any time at all (aka time to craft 10 items = 10 x time to craft a single item) or you value the fact you can craft more stuff in less time by bulk crafting? (at the expense of less practice points of course)
As a final not i would only like to point out why we are talking about time and practice: as of now every second you spend in game performing a game action (combat, any crafting, music, spellcasting, in future lockpicking, ...) awards you with 1 practice point (for some skill this value is not always exact but may slightly vary depending on other factors but the overall approach is still valid). Even the time it takes to rise a level is independent from this system, in fact it's managed by varying the amount of practice a skill requires not by the amount of practice points handed out for time unit.

[Eonwind]

First of all, scaling practice with time spent crafting makes sense. A stack of 65 takes 7.4 times longer compared to a single item. Suggestions are to either increase that factor to 17 (64/4+1), or to make it proportional to the stack size (65) while keeping a limit of 300 seconds. Understandable, if we don't want to encourage afk-crafting or induce boredom. Yet, 300s is still pretty long, unless it is explicitly allowed to work on several transformation steps in parallel. That point is still a bit unclear, because some actions (/use) block other activity, while automatic transformations allow massively parallel crafting for quick and easy practice.

Nothing has changed regarding transformations, meaning that auto-transformation will stay that way and transformations requiring /use will still block other actions until completed or interrupted. In the future we'll work to allow even more bulk crafting but that's another topic. The value of 300 was just the first benchmark we thought of but could be lowered a bit.

[Tuathanach]

To simplify this. Here are the questions.

• Each additional item will increase time by a set factor. Eg. For a 30s transform a factor of 0.1 will add 3s per extra item in stack so a stack of 11 would take 60s. What should this factor be?
• • Do you think there should be a limit to maximum time?
  • If so what should this limit be?