PlaneShift
Support => Complaint Department => Topic started by: mkarr on October 11, 2010, 04:52:30 pm
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I have spent 300+hours trying to raise my swordmaking level to the point that I can make enough tria to pay for training. With the last update superheating and dunking blades no longer has any effect on the quality of the blade (so not true to life) which effectively puts me back to square one. It just cost me almost 10000 tria to pay for level 50 blacksmith. With the recent update I am gonna have to work 5-6 hours a day,every day, just to pay for training to get to the next level. I know you're gonna say this is true to life and that this should be an accepted fact if I want to play the game, but do you really believe people are gonna want to invest 800+ hours in this game just to master a crafting skill?? And how is this true to life? Doctor's may have to spend this much time in advancing their skill but when was the last time you seen a doctor in line at the soup kitchen?????
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actually PS time is faster, i believe. So you would be working about 18 hours or soemthing a day IG :devil: .
But yeah blAcksmithing is just BS.
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They made two changes that I've noticed so far:
1) Heating and quenching no longer changes quality. I can't even estimate how much extra time this will cost players who are trying to get high quality components. As I mentioned on the bug tracker I spend 4.5-5 hours yesterday trying to get 300q steel cheekplates. Even with a armor making skill of 69 and a blacksmithing skill of 100, I only managed to get 9 after all that time. Prior to that update, I could have turned all of the ingots I was working on into 300q cheekplates in no more than 30 minutes. As a conservative estimate, I'd say that getting 300q parts will now take at least 20 times longer.
2) Hammeringi heated spangen no longer grants practice points in armor making. This has the effect of literally doubling the amount of time it takes to raise armor making, as the next fastest activity takes precisely twice as long. Given that smithing skills already take longer than any other skill in the game to raise, is doubling the amount of time it takes to raise one really a good idea?
These two changes have managed to drive me away from smithing altogether. Why mess with smithing this badly? Metallurgy is and probably always will be the greatest moneymaker in the game, so it can't be to make it harder to make money in smithing. I really wonder if any of the people who make these decisions actually play the game as regular players, because I can't see any player thinking either of these changes are a good idea. Especially now, when the number of players online sometimes drops to under 15 on the RP server. The game has lost enough players already without making popular skills intolerable.
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They made two changes that I've noticed so far:
1) Heating and quenching no longer changes quality. I can't even estimate how much extra time this will cost players who are trying to get high quality components. As I mentioned on the bug tracker I spend 4.5-5 hours yesterday trying to get 300q steel cheekplates. Even with a armor making skill of 69 and a blacksmithing skill of 100, I only managed to get 9 after all that time. Prior to that update, I could have turned all of the ingots I was working on into 300q cheekplates in no more than 30 minutes. As a conservative estimate, I'd say that getting 300q parts will now take at least 20 times longer.
2) Hammeringi heated spangen no longer grants practice points in armor making. This has the effect of literally doubling the amount of time it takes to raise armor making, as the next fastest activity takes precisely twice as long. Given that smithing skills already take longer than any other skill in the game to raise, is doubling the amount of time it takes to raise one really a good idea?
These two changes have managed to drive me away from smithing altogether. Why mess with smithing this badly? Metallurgy is and probably always will be the greatest moneymaker in the game, so it can't be to make it harder to make money in smithing. I really wonder if any of the people who make these decisions actually play the game as regular players, because I can't see any player thinking either of these changes are a good idea. Especially now, when the number of players online sometimes drops to under 15 on the RP server. The game has lost enough players already without making popular skills intolerable.
Uhm, there is armor making?
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Making helms falls under the armor making skill.
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The idea behind training obstacles like this is: "If it was easy to train then everyone would master it, thus everyone would be a master in everything."
Rather than putting some limits on what or how many things you can or cannot master, the planeshift way to deal with this problem is to make it so painfully boring to master a skill that no sane person would ever do it. This however, does not work because it just pisses people off. They either don't realize this or don't care. I suspect the latter. Don't bother filling out a bug report or venting it here. The ps team has made up their minds about how things are to be done. Players need not comment.
Will crafters leave the game? Of course, but they are just players. New players will flock in and fill the voids left behind. There was a time when over a hundred players online was not unusual, prior to my time that number was around 250 from what I hear. Whats it down to now? 15 to 30 players or so? I guess the voids are still being filled in.
Enjoy ! \o/
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An effort has been made, by me, to check out different times of play on PS. My experience indicates that the most active times are during reasonable playing times in the North American time zones. Very early morning in that time zone has the low numbers indicated by the earlier poster; yet prime time in NA can have numbers approaching 100; particularly on weekends.
My character has never held a pick axe in her hand. My decision came early on to specialize in one thing and not become an expert in everything. This was for two reasons. One was that there was a feeling of long term play here. If one is thinking of playing a character for a number of years, than what is the rush?
The other thing was that the interaction with other characters for those skills; which my character did not have; made the game more enjoyable from a role playing perspective. It made more sense to me to have a good cook prepare fish that my character got from cutthroats; splitting the cooked fish with the cook; rather than being a cook and cutthroat eliminator myself.
My choice would be to make things harder to achieve while adding more realism in the process. If the heating and cooling aspects have been removed like mentioned above then that would be seen by me as removing some of that realism; yet to make the process a more long term goal would be seen as a plus.
Just my 2 tria's worth...
- Nova
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Everybody seems to still think realism matters in this game. Yes, it does to some extent but the game can't really match out physical world, I mean, you're in a friggin stalagmite. I do think that when it comes to how long it takes to train those things, it should take less of a players time, because honestly, players aren't paying for something that isn't entertaining and wastes their time of wasting time, which is something to consider if this game is going to be made pay to play. Also, if they're going to drive this to the failboat of mechanics that don't support RP, then things like crafting should be made to attract the mind of a child and not have them repeat the same pattern over and over again until they get bored and quit.
Anyways, to answer your question: No, I hope it isn't designed to be realistic.
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The problem is that they don't seem to care if they drive people away from the game. I've retired from smithing over this, and after a dev basically said "live with it" on my bug post regarding this, I think I'm done with the game completely. When the player base is decreasing, only an idiot would knowingly drive more people from the game.
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^-----pay attention devs.
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To be fair, Shatterkiss, this is a developmental software. It has aspects which are open source; yet it is not an Open Source Project in the traditional sense of the word. It is not so easy to branch off on an alternate version due to many aspects of the graphics not being Open Source as well as things like the combat system handled through copyright holding Database functions. Easily is the operative word. Particularly with those that do not have a strong desire to use game mechanics. This development team is offering a world to call their own. One good programmer and graphic artist should do the job. Perhaps that is a slight understatement; yet you get my point.
If they offer that, free to the world, then why should they not be allowed to develop a piece of software that they wish in whatever direction they wish to take it? My feeling is not that development happens nilly-willy; but instead is a well thought through and stuck to developmental plan.
We, as players, at any time along that development can moan and groan about it. We are seeing that at the moment with those that oppose any mechanics let alone those that exist being made more time intensive.
Perhaps by making it time intensive; after a wipe; the grinding in all skills and stats will become less important to game play and become only something one does on the road to RP. Perhaps character skills and stat development will happen at that natural, and gradual, game rate which is pleasing to those which now bemoan many of the game mechanic developments. Maybe the dev team has a better idea where game play is heading than we the players.
Not that it will be the same group of players that there are here today; nor in the past. Yet there may well be a style of game play that naturally attracts those players more interested in role playing their characters and letting development in skills and stats be RP driven rather than player obsession. Perhaps that is a method to their madness?
Whatever the reason, we are at best test players at the moment. Expect nothing but the privilege to play.
- Nova
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At the rate the game is going, they're going to run out of test players. They absolutely have the right to make the game however they want, but if players don't like the game they'll go elsewhere. The fact that they don't seem to care if that happens makes me think the project is destined to fail.
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One thing there is no shortage of on the internet is players. My guess is that there are more than enough guinea pigs, at the moment, for the limited staff to monitor. Policing game play is likely a draining on the time resources of the developmental team. A project like this can be re-branded and re-released, once out of Beta, and attract in a fresh slate of players. Let's have fun at this stage and not put too much importance on ourselves. Instead be grateful for the entertainment it supplies. If it does not then there are lots of games out there.
- Nova
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No matter how realistic and balanced a game may be ... after all, it is a game. And games are supposed to make fun. If not, they are not played.
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No matter how realistic and balanced a game may be ... after all, it is a game. And games are supposed to make fun. If not, they are not played.
Good luck convincing the devs of that. They know they're driving people away yet they refuse to even consider undoing their changes when that happens.
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Well ... sometimes they might prefer a "Hey, something is wrong, please check it again." over "ZOMGZ! It is teh suckz! I will quit!". After all, they are doing an unpaid job. And they are humans only. And receiving nothing but blames is not really an incentive.
On the other hand ... it is usually not the optimum to have the developers who implemented the feature test it as well, because they know the optimal strategy, they know how to avoid mistakes - better than every average user. Those who do not work at the optimum, don't understand the concept completely, or even sometimes do mistakes, are much better in testing things which shall work reliably for a variety of users. (A.K.A. "Facility Manager test")
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In case of smithing related skills, yes it is realistic, but as pointed out this is a game, and if players are not happy with the way things work and there voice is not Heard they will leave.
But this game is meant to be as realistic as possible.
General Information on the Setting
Our objective is to create a persistent world in a fantasy setting, in which every player will create a character and will be able to live, explore, and interact with maximum realism.
Now that said and out way, let us be realistic. You have no time limit to play, no bill to play it, AND unless I am mistaken it is a RP game, so until you have the skill to match your character fake it :) After all is that not half the fun of RP.
OR
Just because you want it now, others might not want it now and build there character up as there skills go up. In my opinion far better way to evolve your character as you progress, rather than bang I am the best right from start :)
Just my pennies worth.
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Well ... sometimes they might prefer a "Hey, something is wrong, please check it again." over "ZOMGZ! It is teh suckz! I will quit!". After all, they are doing an unpaid job. And they are humans only. And receiving nothing but blames is not really an incentive.
I tried posting a bug report, and was told that there was "no chance" of getting the heating/quenching mistake fixed. If the developers refuse to reconsider changes that players hate they can't complain if the hate then gets transferred to them.
On the other hand ... it is usually not the optimum to have the developers who implemented the feature test it as well, because they know the optimal strategy, they know how to avoid mistakes - better than every average user. Those who do not work at the optimum, don't understand the concept completely, or even sometimes do mistakes, are much better in testing things which shall work reliably for a variety of users. (A.K.A. "Facility Manager test")
I'm not sure if the developers really test these things out, honestly. In the bug report a developer responded with information that ranged from accurate but somewhat misleading to blatantly false.
Oh, and I rechecked and they didn't double the training time for armor making, but they did increase it by a little over 50%. Probably about 55-60%, I'd estimate.
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On the other hand ... it is usually not the optimum to have the developers who implemented the feature test it as well, because they know the optimal strategy, they know how to avoid mistakes - better than every average user. Those who do not work at the optimum, don't understand the concept completely, or even sometimes do mistakes, are much better in testing things which shall work reliably for a variety of users. (A.K.A. "Facility Manager test")
I'm not sure if the developers really test these things out, honestly. In the bug report a developer responded with information that ranged from accurate but somewhat misleading to blatantly false.
we do. however atm (especially for rules parts like crafting) the person who designed something is long gone, so you don't know 100% of the system or how it was designed. also fixing bugs in such things usually tends to show design issues (see also AoE spell angles)
such things have 1) to be fixed somehow, but that takes a lot longer than fixing a bug as it usually requires a lot more work 2) to be found. we don't have any active tester apart form LigH atm which is mostly unavailable for testing as he has another big task as most are MIA/AWOL.
hence we *do* have to rely on testing things ourselves which leads to the problems already mentioned (e.g. no time to extensively test progression, already knowing the perfect strategy, only smaller tests how it works on certain levels that seem to be significant, ...)
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But when players report problems with updates, they're sometimes given inaccurate information about how things work or are simply told that there is (and I quote) "no chance" that things will be fixed.
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it's understanable that the full formulas/data won't be posted to just anyone, isn't it?
and I think you may misunderstood the comment.
I suppose you're referring to this one?
2) The problem was that this allowed people with zero skill to make max quality helms. So there no chance of redoing this fix.
it means: the bug that everyone can craft everything right from the beginning won't be re-introduced for convenience
it doesn't mean that the data related to practice, exp or in general progression won't be reviewed
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How does that quote refer to the skill level at which people can make items? That isn't what it's saying at all. It was in response to the heating/quenching problem, and "making max quality helms" refers to quality, not the type of helms people can make.
Even if that is what the person was talking about, it still makes no sense. If people shouldn't be able to make items with 0 skill, set a skill requirement for those items. Changing the heating and quenching quality change has nothing to do with what you can make, only the quality of those items.
Also, the words "no chance of redoing this fix" make it seem like they won't change it.
The only way I can interpret that is that they made the heating/quenching change to prevent people from heating and quenching spangens, spangenhelms, and the steel full spangenhelm to 300q. Now, I get wanting to stop that. Granted, the helms have no defense values listed and may not actually function as helms, but no other finished products can be heated/quenched after they're completed. The problem is that they fixed a creaking floorboard by ripping up the entire floor. A much better (and probably simpler) solution would have been to make those items unable to be heated. And give them defensive stats. They didn't do this. They could have made those specific items not change quality when heated or quenched, like ingots or stocks. They didn't do this. They changed that property for everything, and refused to reconsider it when players complained about it. If they had done one of the other fixes I wouldn't be posting right now. I'd be playing, and either enjoying my planned IC vacation or making items to give away for an event I was going to do.
If they were worried about the ease of making helms (since they specifically mentioned helms) I should point out that I did a test a while back with making helms. I worked for a couple days to get 120 or 130 helm kits of 300q, and then completed the helms. Not one came out as a 300q helm. At that time I had 35 armor making and 70 or 80 something blacksmithing. Making helms has never been easy, and getting a 300q kit certainly doesn't meat you'll be getting a 300q finished product with 0 skill. In fact, I'd say it's as impossible as it should be.
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Actually you could use the heat/quench trick to make sharpened sword blades and handles to 300Q before putting the blade and handle together thus greatly increasing your chances of making a high Q completed sword. I can see the heat/quench trick improving the Q of an item some but it shouldn't be used to turn a 100Q sharpened sword blade into a 300Q sharpened sword blade. Simple heating and quenching should not improve the Q of an item that much.
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It is possible to do that. It's also highly useful to be able to do that, as even with 300q ingots or stocks the quality of the item you're making is rarely 300q. Perhaps that's what they should fix.
I should also point out that people can still use metallurgy or metallurgy+blacksmithing to make 300q stocks, which have the same value/quality table as finished products like swords and helms. A stack of 12 300q steel ingots sells for the same amount as a 300q sabre made out of 12 ingots, and metallurgy is much faster to train. If you have to use those ingots to get even a chance of 300q components, you're much better off just selling the metal to an NPC. It's cheesy to hammer a stock to a higher quality (NPCs pay a premium for perfect rectangles?), but a large number of players do it.
If they want to make it harder to get 300q parts by heating and quenching that's fine. It's kind of hard on newer smiths, as I remember doing multiple batches to get 1 300q part when my skills were in the 20's and 30's, but it's tolerable. Instead, they remove the ability entirely. Some items can be heated and hammered, but that's a very slow process (typically 1 minute per attempt per item) and it isn't even possible with most helm components.
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on a note: I don't know where you got the "they" from, but there's exactly one person taking care of almost everything rules related atm
that put aside:
1) quenching/heating never should've given a quality change at all. it's never been like that and slipped in due to mysterious reasons.
2) making q300 hasn't been easy at any time either and you don't need a q300 helm at all... those aren't just *extraordinary*, they're *perfect*- unless you're a master, you shouldn't expect to get much of those...
3) you don't need q300 parts to make a q300 final product, after all it has a lot less influence than you may think (i.e. depending on your level, it may not make a difference at all)
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Like in cooking and baking.
"Perfect" quality is rather impossible there, as the quality of the produced food is only marginally dependent on the skills you have. A jam-layered bread with Q200 would already be a miracle.
Related to this fact, cooking and baking will always stay a hobby as long as this doesn't change. I know that developers made the cooking formulas even partially illogical (e.g. a bread being sliced into only 5 slices) to avoid cooks and bakers getting rich ... hah. Already the quality limits make cooking and baking not worth the efforts for a living.
So I have been told as well by many much more advanced cooks than myself -- Minks, Elady, Bonifarzia...
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on a note: I don't know where you got the "they" from, but there's exactly one person taking care of almost everything rules related atm
that put aside:
1) quenching/heating never should've given a quality change at all. it's never been like that and slipped in due to mysterious reasons.
2) making q300 hasn't been easy at any time either and you don't need a q300 helm at all... those aren't just *extraordinary*, they're *perfect*- unless you're a master, you shouldn't expect to get much of those...
3) you don't need q300 parts to make a q300 final product, after all it has a lot less influence than you may think (i.e. depending on your level, it may not make a difference at all)
So let me get this straight. The one attribute of the crafting system in this game that made it all somewhat worthwhile and semi-rewarding actually snuck in by accident?? And before you type out you're sarcastic reply, what is the point to a realistic game if all you get out of it is a colossal waste of time? Are you planning to pay people a salary to play your game or what?
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Mkarr,
You see, the folks who made plainshift believe that its fun to click on things millions of times and get nowhere. Therefore, adding more tedious action and less benefit makes the game more fun. See how it works now?
If you always look at things from a sane perspective, you wont understand the machinations of the insane.
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So let me get this straight. The one attribute of the crafting system in this game that made it all somewhat worthwhile and semi-rewarding actually snuck in by accident?? And before you type out you're sarcastic reply, what is the point to a realistic game if all you get out of it is a colossal waste of time? Are you planning to pay people a salary to play your game or what?
If one plays PS for a longer term; with the main goal being RP; then character development should be a secondary thing on the road to RPing. The changes (although surely not etched in stone during this period of beta testing) seems like a sound one to me. It would be nice to see a fully maxed out character, making 300q anything or topped out in any weapon, a rare species. Just to get 300q anything should be a long term game goal and not a matter of dropping round Hern's on any evening.
That is my opinion, anyway, from one who values the RP over the PLing. That is not to mean that my character is not developed; yet should what she is developing in be toned down it is fine by me. Such changes will make more sense, and be easier to swallow after a wipe, putting all characters back at the same starting block.
Even the fact that there will likely be a wipe (http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/smf/index.php?topic=36199.0) should put the PLers on notice anyway. Can't wait to hear that outcry. ::)
- Nova
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It wasn't that long ago that making any weapon of 300Q was extremely rare and weapons of such quality costs 100,000s of trias. I have seen a player character be able to make 300Q weapons with Black smith and sword making in the 30's range ( although this was very rare to get a 300Q item in this range).
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If character development/advancement is such a wicked thing why not just get rid of the crafting system all together? Why not just make Yliakum one huge 3d chatroom. That way you wouldn't have to wipe out the PLers, you would get rid of them all in one update.
If they do wipe my character out it wouldn't bother me. Skill level is just a number, right?
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If character development/advancement is such a wicked thing why not just get rid of the crafting system all together? Why not just make Yliakum one huge 3d chatroom.
That should be very easy to do with the parts of PS which are truly Open Source. Hopefully some RP Mechanics Hater (used as a noun and not to mean that all RPers hate game mechanics) will set up a site (http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/smf/index.php?topic=23915.0) soon so that this community can start to loose some of its divisiveness.
- Nova
[Edit - Link added ]
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It wasn't that long ago that making any weapon of 300Q was extremely rare and weapons of such quality costs 100,000s of trias. I have seen a player character be able to make 300Q weapons with Black smith and sword making in the 30's range ( although this was very rare to get a 300Q item in this range).
Then it got "usual" by mistake. People got used to the perfection.
Now that the mistake gets fixed, people just need to get used to the imperfection again.
Oh, if it was just as simple as it sounds...
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If character development/advancement is such a wicked thing why not just get rid of the crafting system all together? Why not just make Yliakum one huge 3d chatroom.
Then they couldn't call it a "Role-Playing Game", which leads to another double standard with their "Power-Leveling" argument. Also, it wouldn't be a "huge" 3d chat room, since they barely have any players left (30-50 people online, including GMs, at peak times).
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This whole debate started off with, whether the changes to the crafting system make sense or not, and developed in the usual RPer vs. PLer debate, not to forget the everlasting threat about the WIPE.
So, as long as there is a way to progress in skills (be it via gifts from the xmas tree or via months of grinding), some people will grind, and some people will buy the products the grinders produce.
There are people that are happily playing the game (at least that was the definition last time I checked) by using the given features of building skills.
And what would be the benefit of all of that hard work (of those PLers) if they wouldn't engage with others in selling their wares, trading (at least some kind of RP), perhaps fighting if one likes (yet more PLing). One can't always talk about the weather ... (at least I can't).
Looking down on them as PLers is just arrogant and ignorant (like my previous statement about the weather).
Oh, I forgot the alternative, we all stop leveling and RP the mining, and then RP the smiting with the RPed ores, and then RP the fights with the RPed weapons ...
The wipe will perhaps resolve the xmas tree issue, but not the rest.
So let's assume the whole crafting and fighting system will survive the whole PL vs RP argument and the eminent WIPE. Then just imagine the PL rush after the wipe. :o
At first, everyone (except the hardcore RPers) will try to get his hand on a decent weapon, to make some bucks, to make some form of progress, e.g. getting a mount.
Then you will have the few (fortunate?) ones that have all day to play and are back up and running in a few days and others might take a couple of months (if they come back).
But otherwise ... nothing changed. ;D
As long as the goals are shifted higher and higher, and it is becoming more and more difficult to reach them, some people will try to reach them. And the whole RP vs PL debate won't change it. And as long as there is no technical limit preventing it, some will reach it. People have soooo much time and endurance, it's scary ... ;D
Now what about this:
Limit the amount of overall skills people can reach, therefore make it easier to achieve the maximum in a specific area.
If someone wants to be perfect in one area, he can't be in all others. Perhaps introduce a way to give up some skills to progress in others.
This will eliminate all the PLing. Once the top is reached, that's it. And then people will have time to spend on RP, rather than standing 100s of hours at an anvil. Except they want to produce for a market ...
Then in my eyes the whole WIPE debate makes sense and you will encourage interaction, thus RP. Not by making everything but RP unbearable.
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Now what about this:
Limit the amount of overall skills people can reach, therefore make it easier to achieve the maximum in a specific area.
If someone wants to be perfect in one area, he can't be in all others. Perhaps introduce a way to give up some skills to progress in others.
This may be achieved by introducing a real Game Time (http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/smf/index.php?topic=37905.0) with all the drawbacks of aging; slowly lowering skill stats and the eventual inevitable death via ageing? It may not be enough to halt a character from maxing out; yet their day of glory would eventually pass. With that knowledge perhaps a player may be more reluctant to make that the main aspect of their game play.
It may be a more realistic approach than just capping them.
- Nova
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This may be achieved by introducing a real Game Time (http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/smf/index.php?topic=37905.0) with all the drawbacks of aging; slowly lowering skill stats and the eventual inevitable death via ageing? It may not be enough to halt a character from maxing out; yet their day of glory would eventually pass. With that knowledge perhaps a player may be more reluctant to make that the main aspect of their game play.
It may be a more realistic approach than just capping them.
- Nova
The problem I see with that is that as characters lose their abilities, the players might lose interest in the game. This probably wouldn't be as bad for people who only RP or who tend to use many different alts, but people who have spent many months trying to get to the point where their character can do the things they want to do might just give up. The number of active players is dropping already, so adding another reason to leave the game might not be a good idea.