Creature count fix [Freedom]

[EliasTheCrimson 348]

Then just make it scale quadratically or something; number of animals you can keep = floor(sqrt(skill)*3). You get the point (...right?)

[Eyesgood 2,121]

*edited for Mystecore's eye sensitivity...

In a game like Wurm, one cannot expect that people will not hoard domesticated animals.  The problem is the linking of aggro creature counts with non-aggro.  That should have never been done.  BOTH are needed in quantity for the game to function.  That said, with all the power of the new server, I think Rolf should separate the two creature counts and establish new caps for them both with no relationship between the two.  

The problem with aggro animals on Freedom is the cliff aggro that cannot be easily hunted.

The problem with dom animals on Freedom is the hoarding and (sometimes abandonment) of animals.

Enter a Solution:

Epidemics!!!  When aggro cap is reached:  "A strange blight sweeps over the land.  Sounds of screaming beasts echo from mountain cliffs everywhere."  Perhaps the event could be evidenced by a uber-thick GREEN fog that gets triggered for an hour.  When the fog lifts, all the cliff-dwelling creatures are dead (regardless of age), opening up more aggro pop.

Once the server reaches the domesticated cap: "A strange blight sweeps over the land, affecting the oldest domesticated creatures."  Perhaps the event could be evidenced by a uber-thick YELLOW fog that gets triggered for an hour.  When the fog lifts, all the venerable domesticated creatures are dead.

The aggro solution is self-policing...  Nothing needs to be done about ages...  However, in order for this to work properly and to be fair to those of us who breed for traits, Rolf MUST reduce the time window for Venerable status on domesticated animals, perhaps down to 2-3 months real life time.  Animals would still live the same amount of total time, but the Venerable window would be smaller and the aged and old would last longer.  This would allow for MORE time to utilize specially-bred animals..  VENERABLE would actually start to mean VULNERABLE, as everyone will know they are subject to the epidemic event at any time.

Abandoned hoarded Venerables would vanish, opening up more creature pop.  If the time window is reduced for Vunerable status, the effect on active breeders would be less but the hit to abandoned or hoarded would be intense.

problem solved.  

[Pashka 707]

I like Eyesgood solution.  It would fix more than one problem and hopefully would make breeders and hunters alike happy.

[Mystecore 0]

I'd read it but the yellow blinded me.

[Ecrir 887]

Right now I do not believe we can really say if Eyesgood suggestion for the domestic side will work but I'd assume it wont. The reason for that is that we cannot tell how many animals are really venerable on the domestic side. With the auto killing of venerable animals I don't find it all that hard to imagine that eventually there'd just be no venerable animals left and the cap would still be hit, then breeding is pretty much dead/broken unless the system starts killing off old animals. Then the same thing repeats and we start killing off aged animals, and so on. Shifting their lifespan so the pre-venerable period is increased and the venerable period is decreased just makes it worse.

So for the aggressives this would certainly fix things (breeding on that side is minor too, so not much of an issue), but I really have my doubts that the domestic side of this idea would work in the long run. It most likely needs a little bit more, I'd guess combined with one or more other suggestions that have been made it could do the trick. (barns come to mind, especially for chickens, and maybe ownership limits on how many animals you can control, or some other stuff)

[Othob Rithol 700]

Can't emphasize how bad an idea targeting animals by age is. Population density, starvation, lack of grooming all hit bad behavior, while age just punishes non-breeders as well.

So restrict breeding to branded animals, put a cap on the number of animals a player can own through brand, make the cap affected by AH skill? Sounds at a glance like a very good idea, though I would throw taming in there too as Protunia said (just make the highest of the two decide for each player). This would be a breeding limitation system that works on an individual player basis, which would make estimations on the server performance very easy too.

Make them both stack instead so the dedicated animal handlers (two rather hard to raise skills) can keep large populations (subject still to disease etc), a character with only 10 or so in each can keep a few personal animals, and even a freebie with 20+20 can keep a small farm (10 or so animals?).

(Taming + Animal Husbandry) / 5 maybe? Or even make certain animals cost certain points. Eg Horses cost 4 skill, dogs 3, wolves 7, unicorns 10 etc.

Animals will only breed if the animal is "on the list" of the person holding the rope.

See http://wurmonline.com/forum/index.php?topic=51032.0 for some notes on implementation.

[Eyesgood 2,121]

Ok, how about a totally different suggestion than my previous one for DOMESTICS only.  I still think the aggro solution is excellent, imho.

Enter, Deed Husbandry Ratings.  Every deed may have up to x number of free animals where x= sqrt (# deed tiles rounded down).  If you want more animals you can (a) expand the deed, or ( purchase deed husbandry points.  Just like guards can be purchased for a deed, a Husbandry rating can also be purchased by the mayor to increase the head count above the value of x at a cost of 1s per head initial plus 5c per month maintenance.  Here are some numbers:

Default head count for various deeds sqrt (# deed tiles rounded down):

11x11 deed = 11 head

15x20 deed = 17 head

30x50 deed = 38 head

61x71 deed = 65 head

Mechanics:  

- When the head count on deed reaches max, nobody can stop leading an animal while on deed.  "You are not allowed to stop leading here."  Problem will be on the issue of wall sticking.... have to fix that anyway, right?  Dismounting may be an issue as well.  dunno...

- Animals will not give birth past max deed husbandry rating.

Allow a grace period of a month or so, then enforce the rule.  Deeds with lots of critters either have to register the excess for the deed or randomly lose down to the deed rating, including default.

thoughts?

[EliasTheCrimson 348]

Not a completely bad idea to be honest. However enforcing the number of creatures that can stand on a deed sounds sketchy. Should creatures that are forcefully left on a deed due to death/logging off be zapped? Teleported? And what would happen when several players live on the same deed, each taking care of their own set of animals?

Marking up creature counts by individual players would give each player better control over his herd through his/her skill and the fact that there won't be intra-village competition over creature counts. However, your idea has the big advantage that off-deed breeding won't be possible (if I understood this right), thus the global domestics count will be on a tight leash regulated closely by the deed cash flow (which is good, as money may translate into database performance whereas player skill does not).

I'd still like to mix AH/taming skill in there somewhere in order to allow for at least a tiny bit of non-deed related livestock. Perhaps players could be permitted a very limited number of brand-ownership animals (outside of what a deed will permit) 'y' where y = sqrt((AH+AT)/2) or something.

3 animals at 10AH + 10AT

4 animals at 20AH + 20AT

7 animals at 50AT + 50AT

[Pashka 707]

Can't brand off deed.  So branding takes free players completely out of any type of breeding permissions.

[Kadore 926]

Not a completely bad idea to be honest. However enforcing the number of creatures that can stand on a deed sounds sketchy. Should creatures that are forcefully left on a deed due to death/logging off be zapped? Teleported? And what would happen when several players live on the same deed, each taking care of their own set of animals?

Marking up creature counts by individual players would give each player better control over his herd through his/her skill and the fact that there won't be intra-village competition over creature counts. However, your idea has the big advantage that off-deed breeding won't be possible (if I understood this right), thus the global domestics count will be on a tight leash regulated closely by the deed cash flow (which is good, as money may translate into database performance whereas player skill does not).

I'd still like to mix AH/taming skill in there somewhere in order to allow for at least a tiny bit of non-deed related livestock. Perhaps players could be permitted a very limited number of brand-ownership animals (outside of what a deed will permit) 'y' where y = sqrt((AH+AT)/2) or something.

3 animals at 10AH + 10AT

4 animals at 20AH + 20AT

7 animals at 50AT + 50AT

I think the limit here is too small, most blame the 500 animal herds, with your formula our deed would have 28 animals on 1800 tiles we have deeded if we took all our characters and grinded AH and Taming.

[SamWinters 0]

The suggestion has come up a couple times, but keeps getting ignored, so let's try it again:

REQUIRE PLAYER INTERACTION WITH EACH ANIMAL

People who wish to 'hoard' animals still have the option, but will have to work for it. Constantly. This seems to fit perfectly in the spirit of Wurm to mee.

[Wulfgar 1,127]

People who wish to 'hoard' animals still have the option, but will have to work for it. Constantly. This seems to fit perfectly in the spirit of Wurm to mee.

It is already a PITA enough to hoard animals, why do hunters not need do do anything but walk 5 tiles out of the roads and complain there are no animals to kill because everyone hoards animals?

This only requires a few tweaks, increase the disease effect slightly, make non-aggro animals die slightly faster of hunger, make enchanted grass ungrazable, and even barns and the like for people

who keeps animals only for the easy access to meat and leather and doesn't care about the aesthical effect of having hundreds of animals walking around. It doesn't need wholesale changes that will only harm a part of the playerbase that wants to play the game differently than you.

Also I haven't seen anyone touch down on another part of the problem, the penning of aggros. We can't let them die of hunger, since that would make finding anything except young aggros in the wild impossible. I heard of someones lava fiend actually doing some damage to the fence, how about tweaking that so all aggros do a lot of damage if they are not fed daily. As it is now people can keep aggros penned up forever without doing anything at all to take care of them.

To be honest, I really can't understand why Rolf hasn't changed the animal cap on Freedom already. We had a stable server for a while, and it is obvious that we need a higher animal cap than wild, with 10 times the population of players.

[joedobo 1,187]

Why do some have lots of animals?

1. I need butcher resources. Answer: Either increase the butcher resources or implement barn structures.

2. The more horses I got, the faster I'll get one of them all positive trait race horses. Answer: reduce the breeding time frame.

3. I like the look of 100's animals walking around my deed. I don't have an solution to this one.

All the above buff answers are balance with an aggressive disease change.

Assuming we get compensated with buffs, I like the idea of scaling how aggressive disease affects an animal type based on its population. Othob had a sujestion about it somewhere, im being lazy, sorry.

I just don't want to see aggressive domestic animal nerfs that force us to make due with less just because there are more players about.

Elias tried to say to me, the server doesn't get bigger just be cause we want it too. Well I'm not asking for more creatures, I want more materials. And those materials end up in bsb causing little problems. I feel very strongly that we can still receive the same benefits with less animals.

Also, don't target older animals. It hurts players that have half a dozen good venerable horses. It encourages breeders to get even more animals to compensate for restrictions. If players are so dedicated to targeting an age, then do young. At least then the responsible players with 4 or so good venerable horses won't get penalized.

[SamWinters 0]

...make non-aggro animals die slightly faster of hunger, make enchanted grass ungrazable...

This right here would probably make a fair difference in a lot of cases. Seeing some 50+ animals (including some dozen penned champions) staying fat on a single square of enchanted grass is just... ugh. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for varied playstyles. But just raising the animal cap won't solve the issue long-term. Short-term fixes are only useful if backed up by something better (see: two new spawn points discussion).

why do hunters not need do do anything but walk 5 tiles out of the roads and complain there are no animals to kill because everyone hoards animals?

Last time we went out, we climbed up to the top of a bloody mountain, way out in the middle of nowhere, explored miles of spawn area, two hours of wandering... and found all of one deer. That's it. Oh, and a horse that had gotten out of some decayed homestead. Just unlucky? Don't know what other peoples experiences have been here.

The aggro animal issue is one I don't know how to approach. Don't want to kill lighthouses everywhere to fix the problem...

[Othob Rithol 700]

No reason to make enchanted grass useless. It takes a lot of skill to get and is slow to make (one tile a day). Nerfing meditation abilities isn't a good idea when there are other options. It's just the best out of the options and isn't commonplace so it gets singled out. Grazing needs in general need to be adjusted.

I'd rather see a system where the grass->crops->enchanted grass continuum is fleshed out more to fix some annoyances but also increase the difficulty of keeping animals. People like enchanted grass mostly because it doesn't get packed. So why not make all grazing land have that feature (carrot) but seriously reduce how many animals a tile can support (stick).

Instead of making:

[o]Grass: graze->graze->graze->packed

[o]Crops: graze->graze->..........->packed

[o]Enchanted : graze->graze->graze->............

Make it:

[o]Grass: Graze->"depleted"->wait an hour-> Graze-able

[o]Crops: Graze->"depleted"->wait 50 minutes (no growth during)-> Graze-able

[o]Enchanted: Graze->"depleted"->wait 40 minutes-> Graze-able

Replace the tedium of spreading grass and the infinite feeding that is crops/enchanted with a timer!

[Meridius 80]

It doesn't matter what new breeding and caring for systems you put in place, the fact is that people will breed and hoard and the creature count will get capped, again..

If we raise the creature count, that is a band aid on the situation. Once new graphics/animations are in place and maybe a new combat system that isn't boring as hell, we'll see a new flood of players. That new creature count will be hit fast by all the new hoarders of animals.

Making breeding faster is a horrible idea, it should take longer.

Simple fact: breeding created hoarding. Breeding killed the hunting and creature count.

Breeding must end to see an end to this problem and discussion.

[SamWinters 0]

[o]Grass: Graze->"depleted"->wait an hour-> Graze-able

[o]Crops: Graze->"depleted"->wait 50 minutes (no growth during)-> Graze-able

[o]Enchanted: Graze->"depleted"->wait 40 minutes-> Graze-able

Nice. Some system that limits the use without removing it sounds like it could work well. Numbers could be tweaked as time went on, without making sweeping changes.

[wolfersmcwolf 39]

Open freedom to PVP and fence bashing.. and let wild players transfer with no skill decrease... no one will blame you rolf.. /me looks the other way. ~no one will blame you...

[Eyesgood 2,121]

It doesn't matter what new breeding and caring for systems you put in place, the fact is that people will breed and hoard and the creature count will get capped, again..

If we raise the creature count, that is a band aid on the situation. Once new graphics/animations are in place and maybe a new combat system that isn't boring as hell, we'll see a new flood of players. That new creature count will be hit fast by all the new hoarders of animals.

Making breeding faster is a horrible idea, it should take longer.

Simple fact: breeding created hoarding. Breeding killed the hunting and creature count.

Breeding must end to see an end to this problem and discussion.

You don't eliminate a game component just because it creates issues unless the issues are not fixable.  There have been several great suggestions in this line (mine included) which can, in and of themselves, completely fix the problems.  Rolf should sift, select, and implement something when he has time.  But the solution is NOT the elimination of breeding, imho.

[Urman 1]

Players hoarded animals on JKH even before breeding.  A lot of champ collections, and some obsessives with 200 deer.

Breeding is a good game within the game.  I think it needs to put demands on the player, or be capped per player or by deed area (so limited thru game mechanics, or limited thru caps).  Echoing Eyesgood, we need a better breeding system, but Rolf can finish Epic first.  We'll survive, or the situation will become critical and Rolf will relook his priorities.

[Werwolf 6]

A mass disease killing will end up hurting a lot of players who have put months into breading ideal trait animals.

YOU BETTER GIVE A WARNING! Give specific instruction how we can be good little players avoid our prized animals getting insta-diseased killed.

---

One simple answer is my favorite subject, barns.  If someone wants 50 pigs in a pig-pen pumping out hides, meat, and other resources, who cares. As its been pointed out before, once an animal is put in a barn it can be removed from the creature count limit. I would love to see pig pens, cow barns and chicken coops.

Good idea... I like this

[Mishia 74]

Last time we went out, we climbed up to the top of a bloody mountain, way out in the middle of nowhere, explored miles of spawn area, two hours of wandering... and found all of one deer. That's it. Oh, and a horse that had gotten out of some decayed homestead. Just unlucky? Don't know what other peoples experiences have been here.

Sat, went for a walk around Grand Steppe, 3 deer, 2 pigs, 7 wolves, 3 spiders, 2 scorpions, 3 horses, 2 unicorns, lava fiend.

Sun, went for a walk around Grand Steppe, found a calf near some steppe.

Mon, took a sail around Valley of the cursed souls, found a pack of around 10 wolves, 1 lion that was venerable and a slow mature troll.

Tues, took a sail around Valley of the cursed souls, found another pack of wolves - 8, scorpions clinging to the cliffs, 2 cave bugs in the mines there.

Wed, went for a horseride around Fort Arcadia, found yet another pack of wolves - 6, a deer and a lava spider lurking in the treeline.

Thurs, went for a horseride around El'rancho, found 4 pigs, 1 female, 4 male, 2 deers and a scorpion.

Friday, went for a horseride around Valley of the gods, found 2 deer, 3 wolves, and an aged scorpion. Went to the Grand Steppe, saw a raging unicorn, a horse, a venerable crocodile.

Sat, Venerable scorpion near Death Valley, sailed around to Freedom market, numerous spiders, trolls, lions clung to the sides of mountains. Found a hen.

Sun, Champion Troll across the shoreline at juju, not been for a wander yet.

This is my experience over the last week or so, so I'm not personally seeing a problem with spawns and this is an average week for me.

Edit: Oh yeh, saw some brown bears somewhere near samling the other day too, 2 trolls, some lions, a black bear, etc etc etc.

[maluraq 0]

Last time we went out, we climbed up to the top of a bloody mountain, way out in the middle of nowhere, explored miles of spawn area, two hours of wandering... and found all of one deer. That's it. Oh, and a horse that had gotten out of some decayed homestead. Just unlucky? Don't know what other peoples experiences have been here.

Sat, went for a walk around Grand Steppe, 3 deer, 2 pigs, 7 wolves, 3 spiders, 2 scorpions, 3 horses, 2 unicorns, lava fiend.

Sun, went for a walk around Grand Steppe, found a calf near some steppe.

Mon, took a sail around Valley of the cursed souls, found a pack of around 10 wolves, 1 lion that was venerable and a slow mature troll.

Tues, took a sail around Valley of the cursed souls, found another pack of wolves - 8, scorpions clinging to the cliffs, 2 cave bugs in the mines there.

Wed, went for a horseride around Fort Arcadia, found yet another pack of wolves - 6, a deer and a lava spider lurking in the treeline.

Thurs, went for a horseride around El'rancho, found 4 pigs, 1 female, 4 male, 2 deers and a scorpion.

Friday, went for a horseride around Valley of the gods, found 2 deer, 3 wolves, and an aged scorpion. Went to the Grand Steppe, saw a raging unicorn, a horse, a venerable crocodile.

Sat, Venerable scorpion near Death Valley, sailed around to Freedom market, numerous spiders, trolls, lions clung to the sides of mountains. Found a hen.

Sun, Champion Troll across the shoreline at juju, not been for a wander yet.

This is my experience over the last week or so, so I'm not personally seeing a problem with spawns and this is an average week for me.

Edit: Oh yeh, saw some brown bears somewhere near samling the other day too, 2 trolls, some lions, a black bear, etc etc etc.

Same answer as "no space left on Freedom"?  Gotta go look harder?

[Ecrir 887]

Last time we went out, we climbed up to the top of a bloody mountain, way out in the middle of nowhere, explored miles of spawn area, two hours of wandering... and found all of one deer. That's it. Oh, and a horse that had gotten out of some decayed homestead. Just unlucky? Don't know what other peoples experiences have been here.

Sat, went for a walk around Grand Steppe, 3 deer, 2 pigs, 7 wolves, 3 spiders, 2 scorpions, 3 horses, 2 unicorns, lava fiend.

Sun, went for a walk around Grand Steppe, found a calf near some steppe.

Mon, took a sail around Valley of the cursed souls, found a pack of around 10 wolves, 1 lion that was venerable and a slow mature troll.

Tues, took a sail around Valley of the cursed souls, found another pack of wolves - 8, scorpions clinging to the cliffs, 2 cave bugs in the mines there.

Wed, went for a horseride around Fort Arcadia, found yet another pack of wolves - 6, a deer and a lava spider lurking in the treeline.

Thurs, went for a horseride around El'rancho, found 4 pigs, 1 female, 4 male, 2 deers and a scorpion.

Friday, went for a horseride around Valley of the gods, found 2 deer, 3 wolves, and an aged scorpion. Went to the Grand Steppe, saw a raging unicorn, a horse, a venerable crocodile.

Sat, Venerable scorpion near Death Valley, sailed around to Freedom market, numerous spiders, trolls, lions clung to the sides of mountains. Found a hen.

Sun, Champion Troll across the shoreline at juju, not been for a wander yet.

This is my experience over the last week or so, so I'm not personally seeing a problem with spawns and this is an average week for me.

Edit: Oh yeh, saw some brown bears somewhere near samling the other day too, 2 trolls, some lions, a black bear, etc etc etc.

and how many hours is that on each of those days that you spent on hunting? 1-2 every day? 10+?

But really, that doesn't look like all that many creatures. Around a year ago people could run into that much on one hunting trip, easily on JKH too, especially before breeding.

[ZarmaZarma 192]

I see the problem. For people who don't see the broader scope of things, please notice how the non-aggro creature number remains the same, but the aggro creatures are quickly dropping off. Most likely, all of the non-aggro creatures are ones being held within fences, which are unavailable to the larger population to kill for fight skill.

Last year: 15k

This year: 8k

Next year: 1k

And now we have a problem on our hands. The numbers won't be so linear, primarily because as the aggro population dies out, there will be less creatures being killed as the ones still alive will exist primarily on top of mountains or in inaccessible places. Still, the effect is the same. If nothing is changed, Freedom will find it self sparse on hunting soon enough.