Remove catchup decay on deed

[Samool 2,004]

We agree that this is a bad situation, forgive Retrograde's confusing wording.

We'll be working to address this, as it doesn't make any sense for decay to work this way. Thanks for the suggestions on possible fixes too @Oblivionnreaver, we'll definitely have to take the effect it'll have on lag into account, as there is a ton of on-deed items on the servers.

[Muse 2,216]

I've known about catch up decay on bulk items in containers for a long time, it happens when sending crates of items via wagoner - some of the contents can be lost due to decay, but thanks to Oblivionnreaver for highlighting that it can affect other items too, even high value possessions such as vehicles.  These would be the priority items for the dev team to fix, from my point of view, and it might be possible for such items to have their decay timers 'reset' to 0 on leaving a deed. In any case, thanks Samool for looking into the situation.

 

In the meantime, as a temporary measure, bulk items are simpler for players to fix ourselves - just take one item out of each bulk container and return it to the same container to 'refresh' the contents before removing the container from the deed - this can save you a lot of decay loss when transporting containers of bulk items, including sending your crates via wagoner.

 

 

[Darwin 58]

As a programmer of non-mmo things, I dont see why it would be harder to code something to forget decay ticks than to remember them. Is there really no server/database load from remembering the decay tick on the 100,000 billionteen items that have been placed into the scam "paused decay bins"? I dont mess with java though, you kids always say its a great language, why cant it drop variables?

We've been lied to about paused decay bins for a decade and nobody on staff cares at all other than to say "oh right, we were not paying attention to the game, but now that you have brought it to our attention, we will look at it ."

 

Reminds me of that 90 year old man who just bought the 10,000 dollar ad in the wall street journal in order to get AT&T to listen to him.

[sarahbee 66]

@darwin my read on the implementation is that a variable keeps track of when each item last received a decay tick, then decay is scaled based on the elapsed time. This would allow all items to decay at a constant rate regardless of the tick interval or how long the server takes to process each "pass" over the items calculating decay. Still a weird and bad way for decay on deed to work, but slightly harder to avoid than it might seem.

[Zuelatak 235]

I don't know what to say here besides it sounds like the devs need to communicate more about what is intended and what isn't. Just because it's written the way it is in the code does not mean all problems were thought of and the decision was still made. And if ever something is truly intended it would be wonderful for you guys to explain to us your intention and why it is the way it is.

[Jimmy_Norman 5]

Recently experienced this with my cart. I examined it and it had 0 damage, the moment I went off deed and got off it then tried to get back on I got the  "too bad to command" message. Upon examining my cart, I saw that it took a large amount of damage in a short amount of time.

[Ohana 907]

I can remember when catch up decay was introduced. It was some time after Pristine opened, but before Xanadu. It was introduced to speed up off dead decay of stuff/items.

I'll see if I can't find the patch notes on it. I have hated it always. I'm very happy to see it being looked at. 

Samool, I think I might love you!

[Jaz 2,663]

On 2/15/2021 at 2:50 PM, sarahbee said:

lol yeah, love it when i take my lumps out of the magic chest, put them in a forge, and they almost instantly take 30 damage

Happened to me a few days ago, absolutely on deed and 60% of the lumps got damage in a few seconds after got removed from the magic chest.

[Wurmhole 3,650]

So what happened to my items that had been stored on 11 merchants for years: merchants quit after 3 months, sent items into mail storage, then I checked mail and the catch up tick happened either moving from merch to mail or mail to my spirit castle?  Can this be tracked down as well in the process to make sure someone else doesn't get messed up the same way? Make exiting merchants and exiting mail limbo clear the decay backlog too?

[jaquari 17]

I think that it just enters the decay function, when on deed or in magical chest it just exits the function without updating the last decay tick date in item - common programming method, simple as that. Just update the last decay tick date before exit and it would be ok.

As for faster decay of items off deed - I'm not a fan of destroying items. Normal decay should be enough. Just think about adding a decay to locks - if a off-deed locked container decays to less than 10 QL or 70 dmg - when the secure protection fails then also the locks could fail - this way old carts, abandoned containers, old bee hives could be reused by other, not littering many places till they decay completely as this sometimes takes forever.

[Nirav 571]

Hi, has anything been done about this?  It is a serious issue. I don't think anyone is in favor of it.

[TeeeBOMB 668]

This 'intended' mechanic ate 300 kg of pizza I was transporting.

 

 

For the love of the god, please fix this.. it has been years.

 

Thanks for your time.

Edited August 12, 2022 by TeeeBOMB
re word

[elentari 2,660]

Suddenly scared to take some things off deed now considering quite a few tools haven't been taken off deed for years. Might get the rare ones to poof that way. 

[Sheffie 1,120]

Here's what I imagine the current code looks like.

if(!Item.IsProtectedFromDecay)
{
	Item.Damage(CurrentTime - Item.LastDecayTime);
	Item.LastDecayTime = CurrentTime;
}

Here's how to fix it.

if(!Item.IsProtectedFromDecay)
{
	Item.Damage(CurrentTime - Item.LastDecayTime);
}
Item.LastDecayTime = CurrentTime;

 

[TeeeBOMB 668]

2 hours ago, Sheffie said:

Here's how to fix it.

 

lol - well since u already did all the hard work, got the code sorted out... maybe we can get some bored developer one day to change that bit of code maybe within the next few years.

 

I'm sort of miffed this has not been addressed since 2018 *shrugs* (my original post), maybe longer of course.

[DaletheGood 1,073]

Yeah, that's messed up that that happens. C'mon devs FIX THIS!

[Ohana 907]

This might be the update, where Rolf fixed "Decay" and added catch up damage.

It caused quite a lot of lag, and a lot of heavy damage on items. (I cried)

https://www.wurmpedia.com/index.php/Wurm_Server_Release_Notes_2013#130829_Item_decay_catching_up

[Katrat 2,296]

Sounds to me like the catch up decay might be adding to the lag issues. I'd be quite ecstatic if we got rid of both.

[Etherdrifter 2,512]

Time to repair this!

[Lovelie 419]

Weird “feature” that’s pretty illogical too… I know we have some “wogic” but this is not just silly but also punishing. Would love to see it changed/removed!

[DannyUK 212]

I didn't even know this was a thing where if you took things off deed that has been there a long time it will take considerable damage. I'm surprised this is not fixed since this is an older thread. The example of the ship in original post is a good one, if you have a low quality ship on deed for a long time then sail it off deed it could just vanish, crazy. Please fix this, I don't want to worry about things vanishing when taking them off deed.

[gorgian 174]

The decay system is a bit funny, I’m sure a lot of you know of items off deed that are waiting for a decay tick to come after have a decade or more. I think things should get a decay tick every time server reboots. This way things don’t last what seem like for ever on thing that should be decaying naturally.

[Lisimba 779]

14 hours ago, gorgian said:

I think things should get a decay tick every time server reboots.

 

That would mean extra decay when there are server software or hardware issues. If you want guaranteed ticks, just put them on a time schedule, like once a real life week.

[Ramilan 103]

+1 for removing catchup decay.

[Docterchese 1,570]

Someone in alliance just got a 60 damage tick when removing a rare tin ore from a large magic chest. 60 damage! And almost instantly! What's the point of spending so much silver/marks on magic chests if your items are just gonna go poof as soon as you remove them from the container?

 

Really doesn't make sense and I'd love to see this fixed.