Feedback regarding decay

[B0B Auer]

I do like the idea with the sealed container and the boundles very much, because we can't trade with our crops because they will rot too fast away

[Miggy]

I'd rather have a timer, so items like logs and shards dont get damage for 1-2 days, but them will rot quickly (especially if not put in and out of inventory)

As long as there is a way for me to preserve my items! I've been highly enjoying the fact that I can now store logs that I cut for future use, similar to how smiths do with lump, or leatherworkers do with leather, and I'm pretty sure masons enjoy the rock shards not decaying.

These items are a problem in masses, but there need to be some way to store them without them decaying. Previous to the update, my logs would damage a few hours, sometimes a day or two, from when I dropped them from my inventory. It was very bothering, seeing as I always had to cut down a new tree even if I just had to make a low quality spindle.

[ayesha]

Ok read thru the whole thread, as a relatively new player I was reluctant to chime in but as server is getting maintenance - 
A few good suggestions I saw that did not get 'picked up'
1.  keys orig and copy - should be destroyable by sacrificing
2.  if a gate w/ lock is destroyed the associated  keys should vanish.
3.  the un-impable  newbie tools if not in inventory  should vanish of have exponential decay after a very short time
4.  trash can item, or or allow any item to be sacrificed and if there is no chance of the item granting any favor make it like 1 sec to do this - or allow vyn to sacrifice at fo alter with understanding that its just trash disposal.  To go further 'pay' players
to clean up items - say 1 iron for every 100 items - but you need container for this.  This could be adjusted up or down - 1 per 500 etc

   
 
 

[Huck. L. Barry]

1.  keys orig and copy - should be destroyable by sacrificing

Sacrifice the lock.

[Serpardum]

Alright, enough already.  I read in news that there are still too many items (item count is going back up) and that they will start decaying even faster.  Look. as fast as you decay them people will have to crate them faster and it will be a never ending cycle!  Don't you get it, that is NOT the solution!

Decaying items faster can only be a short term solution at best, and as you see with item counts going up that doesn't even work.

You need to fix the DB.  The exact fix depends on what the actual problem is.  I don't know where the lag is coming from but there are a number of solutions depending on the problem.

1. You may just need to profile the data base calls and create appropriate indexes.
2. You may need to normalize the data more to reduce size.
3. You may need to consolodate items in inventory.
4. You may need to buy a bigger HD.

Consider 3.  In my inventory I may have a stack of 10 items, with 4 being one ql, 6 being antoher.  Which, AFAIK, is taking up 10 items in the databae.  Why not just make it take up 2 entries?  Add a field "Count" and make one count 4 ql whatever, count 6 ql whatever.  Save in DB that way.  When you send to client you expand back out.

You may already be doing this, I don't know.  Like I said, I don't know what the exact issue is.  But deleting the items we are making is NOT the solution.  The more people join the game the more items they are going to make.  So what, you going to start deleting faster?

The current solution is not working and is just making people mad, like me.  I'm paying for the game which you are scrwing up by deleting everything.  That is not the game I'm paying for.  Please fix the problem, not the symptoms.

[silverhammers]

I really like the feedback.

I'll start decaying these types of things outside houses off deed including ovens/forges more dramatically then. Pray that it helps so that we don't have to touch your legitimate stockpiles:)

I would like you to consider items held in all player made containers, and in personal inventory as normal decay rate. I think that only items that should have the increased decay rate should be ones left on road, work sites debris etc. These are the waste items that IMO create all this lag. Many items dropped on ground are there because someone doesn't have room in inventory and has no way to dispose of said items. I do not have a religion in game so I can't sacrifice them. So what am I going to do with these items that I can't use, or do not have a need for?
Wood products have a disposal method. But items like leather pieces have no purpose in game. I am not gonna use up my inventory with them.

I have seen the idea of a disposal/trash bin. Possibly this bin could be created by a player. This bin would just be a large barrel, with an additional choice of donating barrel to a "recyle" purpose. Once barrel is created for this purpose, it does not belong to creator or anyone but the king. The items deposited in it have a time limit to hold its quality and damage. After maybe a rl day these items are destroyed. However, in the event someone comes along, opens container and sees item in the barrel that is needed, the player may take item.

[Gaeron]

Another suggestion (some stolen from UO as usual )

When the token has its full 30+ days of upkeep then buildings, fencing and any item which cannot be picked up, ie looms, forges, altars etc are guaranteed safe from decay. How it almost is now but guaranteed.

The villagers (role based) can tag items, perhaps to a 5000 items or 2000kg (which ever comes first) as safe. These items specifically will not decay while on the deed. An option might be to allow more items on larger deeds. Actual numbers can be worked out. Any other item on deed will decay but following the known decay rules. The items should show they are tagged, both by some sort of marker in the inventory window and by having it mentioned in the description.

With this you gain certainty, you know your best bowstrings, or lumps or whatever are safe from decay. With the cap rather than add to them when your skill goes up, you'll replace them. You won't need to keep x thousands of items so the random decay is spread and some of your materials/items will remain safe. It would also allow you to make the overall decay a little more aggressive.

You can still keep more items than this if you want or need to but you won't have to continually keep refreshing your stock by necessity.

[Steffe]

Consider 3.  In my inventory I may have a stack of 10 items, with 4 being one ql, 6 being antoher.  Which, AFAIK, is taking up 10 items in the databae.  Why not just make it take up 2 entries?  Add a field "Count" and make one count 4 ql whatever, count 6 ql whatever.  Save in DB that way.  When you send to client you expand back out.

Doubt that would work as well, I'm pretty sure there are no 2 identical items in terms of damage/ql, apart from maybe christmas gifts. Plus each item (well lots anyway) has a signature attached to the item.

[beowulf]

I would like to preface this by stating I have no idea how this DB is stuctured , queried etc...and am proposing my idea under the assumption that it tries to keep track of all items simultaneously.

What follows is how I believe it works.

Each item has its own unique id# (assigned  chronologically perhaps?) , the DB then  creates an entry with a multitude of factors. The item type has an individual factor vs. decay , the item ql another factor , contained or uncontained = factor , deeded or not = factor , mine or not = factor etc...   
 After this unique item algorithm is created it is set against the decay timer. Once the item's timer expires, the algorithm is adjusted, the entries re-entered into the DB and the timer reset.

Since all items creation times are unique then so would the decay timers calculations. Inevitably arriving at a a point in time where the processor, hard driver or whatever simply can not keep up with the multitude of demands. In fact, the better the machine the more quickly it would arrive at its critical mass of trying to read , write, re-write, and calculate several million items simultaneously.

My idea is to make the DB manage the items tile by tile instead of simultaneously. Check each tile for item id# then check only those items until the tile is done, move to next tile. The order of tiles could be randomized if it were necessary also. I believe this would result in far less lag(latency?) than what I had described above. I do realize there are 16,777,216 ( or 4,096x4,096) tiles / server. And they each could theoretically contain thousands of items. Seeds in jars in satchels in small barrels in carts or some crazy thing like that . However it could then ( the DB) be instructed to count loose items first , then go through each container on each tile. And there are ALOT of empty tiles.

Please remember this is a mere suggestion based on hypothetical scenarios coming from a position of ignorance. 

It seems logical though.

[Rolf]

Increasing decay is not something I like to do. I want items to lie around and you to be able to stockpile them as I know it can be fun stockpiling and gives a good feeling inside. For now you will have to stockpile higher level items though and use up the quick decay items faster.

Grain and seeds are probably most annoying to increase decay on. And lumps.

I still want ql to have bearing on decay rates. Maybe it could be a flat rate plus ql hours.

Decay rates needs more serious work. It is becoming a patchwork. I agree with the predictability.

The reason that I do this is because I see lag on the servers and it will increase a lot if the servers are to handle 500 simultaneous players. I think it is better that new players learn to live with high decay rates for certain items now than later like you do.

I hope I gave sufficient warning in the news and that you listened to it.

Have a nice weekend!

Rolf

PS. Thanks for the tips about optimising the database. Wonder why I didn't think about that? Wonder if I can optimise it to handle ten million items and rising when the server has 500 players. DS

[Lau]

I don't believe this is the way to go. With many items gone by next week players will only seek to replenish their old stock.
Leaving only a small percentage of items left that the decay has actually taken away for good.
Also, if 500 players join the server simultaniously, none of them will be able to have a house with this policy because it would simply mean to many items.

Bigger server, reasonable decay. Instead of this.
I understand that for this to work, you would need more money. But new players are not attracted by instability in a game, i believe.

[Danypos]

What about don't let stuff in a house decay since you only drop important stuff in your house, not dirt and scraps etc.

[Fooligun]

What about don't let stuff in a house decay since you only drop important stuff in your house, not dirt and scraps etc.

i could live with that, stuff on deed and in houses dont decay? after all theres surely a limit to how much a house can store eventually

[nondescript]

There are ways around such rampant decay.  Help us help you.

Diminish the ambiguity of decay and containers by letting us know, in some fashion, which containers are the best for slowing decay.  This could be done either by releasing a list, or tacking on a short phrase to the containers' description.

Let the wave of decay destroy unnecessarily large seed banks, then work on combinable, multi-use seeds before dropping their decay to more reasonable rates.

Introduce some way to mine and still gain skill/make progress without producing rock shards--or rework the slowed mine decay so that these thousands of rock shards don't stick around for weeks on end.

I currently keep all my good lumps as separate pieces because I don't want to risk wrecking the whole stock from a single, large lump getting hit by a lot of decay, or because it's annoying if all the good stuff cools down.  Make combined materials more resistant to decay and slower to cool; base it off their weight in relation to the default size.

Change butchering so that we can either pick and choose what to take off the body after a butchering attempt, or at least put the things we don't want back on it, and let those things vanish with the corpse.

[Fooligun]

Id agree, mine decay was alright before now the dirt which has decayed is being replaced by twice as many rock shards from miners. I know of a tunneling project which went around 100 tiles in a day, thats 5000 shards ish from 1 day, yet alone every where else. I think you should give villages a trash barrel or something, where villagers can put unwanted items in and then everyday the items are removed from the game? Just like a coffin or something with unlimited space perhaps, or 1000 litres volume so that anything can be removed from the game people dont want instead of just leaving it to slowly decay perhaps? Just an idea is all but could be effective if used correctly, maybe the major has to accept at the end of each day the items being removed incase anyone abuses the system?