Feedback regarding decay

[Rolf 3,563]

We need to get rid of items in the databases. If we do we will notice a lot less lag.

This is from the jenn home database:

| 10433 |knifecarving

| 10862 |cottonseed *

| 10967 |whetstone *

| 11004 |pegwood *

| 11793 | log *

| 12199 |charcoal *

| 12534 |garlic *

| 12774 |tenon *

| 12788 |rope *

| 13299 |bowlpottery *

| 15184 |meat *

| 15265 |wemp fibre *

| 15943 |onion *

| 16040 |key

| 16652 |clothstring *

| 17053 |scrap wood *

| 18121 |rock *

| 18344 |arrowshaft *

| 22084 |woundcover *

| 23290 |iron lump *

| 23435 |potato *

| 23534 |shaft *

| 23643 |cotton *

| 26737 |corn *

| 29371 |planks *

| 31148 |rags *

| 31243 |bowstring *

| 32411 |inventory

| 34670 |stonebrick *

| 45587 |wempseed *

| 88000 |dirtpile *

I have marked certain items with * that I want to start decaying more aggressively.

I have an idea that after ql*3 hours i add 1 damage to these types of items. If an item still has 1 damage after another ql*3 hours they are destroyed. So if that one damage is repaired in that time the counter is reset.

The database contains a bit more than one million items, so if these numbers could be put at reasonable levels we would notice a real difference.

It seems to me that a lot of these items are the results of grinding. Most of these items were never intended for long term storage since I knew it would make the game go slower. I figure that if they are active items you should be able to repair them.

Thoughts?

[Top 0]

dirt lasts for years so that need wacking

[Red 81]

Being someone with out these things laying around, I think this is a great idea.

the ql*3hours gives plenty of time for  people with less playing time enough of a chance to save important(High ql) things.

I like it.

+1

[Tosti 1]

dirt lasts for years so that need wacking

Counts double for bricks.

[Guest Steffe]

wow, boats haven't been in that long, and already 13k tenons decaying away o.O

Then again, I suspect there is fewer items on wild, where lag definately is more crucial (pvp), yet it lags a good bit when there are major battles (to the point people are disconnected due to it), then again there was a good while since there was any major battles >_>

[Gavin 971]

Alot of those items cannot be repaired (Without casting mend). So i dont think that will work so good.

Im not sure what 'Iron bar' means. But i think you should also look at decaying ore/shards and felled trees alot faster. Especially felled trees (I think felled trees should not last more than 2 hours irl) Afterall if you felled a tree you would chop it into logs, Not leave it as a tree if you wanted it.

If you mined ore you would melt it if you wanted it.. Shards should have alot lower decay rate however as those can be used for imping walls and stuff which might take a while to do so

[nickersonm 20]

Most of those things can't be repaired.  I really wouldn't like my brick reserves to start dissapearing after a week or two, and the same goes for other things that are often stored, like corn, wemp seeds, planks, cotton, etc.  I think the old (fast) decay rate on dirt was fine, though.  It would also be somewhat confusing if items started dissapearing before they reached 100 damage.

[Revelation 288]

Don't like the idea for healing covers, I always like to keep a few dozen around the house so I don't have to spend half a day making them when I fancy hunting.

[Dannyiron 6]

What about some items you can't repair (eg meat)?

[Ecrir 887]

eh, how would one repair things like whetstones, which is an important smithing tool? (I know mend works on it, but not everybody has a vynora priest that they can use to cast a mend every ql*3-ql*6 hours). Another thing about the whetstone, if you go on a 3 week vacation then you are going to lose it with this, unless it's ql 84 (it would last 21 days then, so maybe even ql 88). If it's the only tool that could be destroyed that fast then that's a bit unfair. It's true that it's way easier to make then other high ql tools since you only need a good miner and a good mason, but the enchanted version (with good enchants) can still be hard to make. I noticed the carving knife was included (I assume that's the case because it's a tool), so why not exclude the whetstone too?

And exclude the pottery bowl too, it's very important for new players, their ql 1-5 bowl would be gone in no time, especially if they aren't aware of this system.

Just wondering, what is the Iron bar? Is it an iron lump?

I must say I'd prefer an increase in general decay rate for the items on that list (excluding whetstones) over the idea of the 3*ql thing. It sounds a bit to general, would containers and houses still work to slow it down by increasing the 3 into a higher number, or would they have no effect now?

Or how about this, to get the number of items down:

Have it so that you can combine things like, for example, potatos. If you combine 50 potatos you get one item called "potato x50", which is pretty much 50 potatos, but it is only one item. Then the extract option should also be added, as in extract 1, and extract 10. if you extract 1 from the "potato x50" you end up with a "potato x49" and a normal potato, the latter you can then use to make a meal.

And maybe this too: When you harvest potatos from a field and you'd normally get 4 potatos, you now get "potato x4", which instantly reduces the amount of items that are entered into the game by farming.

Wouldn't this work well in reducing the amount of items?

[Guest Shweet]

Change rags so you only used the amount you need then we could combine them, that would be better than holding 100+ items for healing.

If keys were changed so that they could be sacrificed with the lock then that would reduce keys.

Will these decay rates occur for items in peoples inventory?

[Guest pto]

my ideas are below per item reason why there are many of the items and what can be done.

But to make it work i first like to suggest a change in the damage system, if your open for that.

at the moment damage is very hard to predict on many items when the decay is fast. for instance if you have a bunch of rags, you will eventualy have many that are 50 or 80 damage and alot with 0 damage (highly unpredictable so hard to controle) when increasing some of the items decay rate, hey might get that same situation, which is not a good one.

An other suggestion is to put more effect in the weight of items, decrease decay with higher weight alot and increase it for lower weight. (only for items of which the weight is adaptable; cotton, strings, lumps, etc etc. to avoid problems with light weight items)

this will stimulate people to combine items more, and this should help alot to decrease the item number.

| 10433 |knifecarving

| 10862 |cottonseed *

seeds are stored "because we can". all seeds can have a higher decay rate, there isnt that big of a deal with higher damage on seeds, so seeds decaying faster shouldnt matter.

| 10967 |whetstone *

increase the decay on low quality whetstones by alot, as a newbie, you will often upgrade your whetstone every time you reach a higher mining level, which will leave many to rot. with the slow decay it takes a long time for them to go away. whenever a whetstone gets damage and is easy replacable, they will be replaced anyway, that wont change with faster decay, so no real problem there.

increasing he decay on high quality whetstones will only increase the amount of them though, because people will make new ones to replace the damaged ones, while those take still a long time to decay.

| 11004 |pegwood *

if this is a ship part, you can increase the decay alot. damage doesnt really matter on these parts because they should be attached to ships anyway, anything you dont use you dont need, so might aswell increase the decay. people will either attach them to half finished ships, or not build more then they need.

| 11793 | log *

i see no real need to increase decay, people simply cut alot of logs, they already decay fast. more stability on the log decay would be good though (the suggestion at start of the reply)

| 12199 |charcoal *

why there are so many charcoals in the game i dont understand. i have no suggestion for this.

| 12534 |garlic *

i think these are stored to fight off the vampires you promised us, i think you should make it clear to everyone that we wont get vampires in wurm and this number will go down fast enough.

but seriously, farming isnt hard, rather then a huge storage of garlic for food i asume, i dont think people would mind having a smaller storage of these so increasing the decay (with the stability suggestion) shouldnt be a problem.

| 12774 |tenon *

if this is a ship part, you can increase the decay alot. damage doesnt really matter on these parts because they should be attached to ships anyway, anything you dont use you dont need, so might aswell increase the decay. people will either attach them to half finished ships, or not build more then they need.

| 12788 |rope *

the high quality ropes are stored for sacrificing incase of an event where that is needed. the lower quality ropes are stored simply because they might be in handy someday and "because we can" increasing the low quality rope decay shouldnt be a problem at all. (short time solution)

| 13299 |bowlpottery *

increase the decay on empty pottery, many bowls and jars are used for storage, but while they hold items, is very annoying if they decay. so the suggestion for this i have is to increase the decay on empty bowls by ALOT while keeping the decay on the not empty bowls the same.

| 15184 |meat *

increase decay on all meat not in storages (barrels bowls etc) so the meat in the wild will decrease.

| 15265 |wemp fibre *

use it or lose it.... alot higher decay rate.. to lazy to make it into ropes, then you dont need it.

| 15943 |onion *

see garlic

| 16040 |key

needs a solution in the future. perhaps find something to motivate people to sacrifice keys

| 16652 |clothstring *

used mainly for healing, i can imagine there are big storages of this (for raids or just so you can go hunting someday with them). increasing the decay of this would motivate people to string their cloth more when they need it, and not before time. people will store batches of 1, 5 or 10kg of cottons.

| 17053 |scrap wood *

sabilise and increase the decay rate

| 18121 |rock *

stabilise and increase the decay rate

| 18344 |arrowshaft *

stabilise and increase the decay rate

| 22084 |woundcover *

increase the decay for low power covers by alot but keep the good powers the same.

| 23290 |iron bar *

increase the decay of low Weight lumps, but keep the decay on heavy weight low, this will motivate people to combine them, and save the load.

| 23435 |potato *

see garlic

| 23534 |shaft *

there is no reason at all to put these in storage, so just increase the decay by alot overall. it shouldnt be a problem with the stabilised decay suggestion.

| 23643 |cotton *

yeah well uhm... i know i mentioned motivating people to keep cotton rather then string... but oke..

the wurm players like having big stockpiles of things, so they dont have to worry about that. cotton is a fine example for this. you could motivate higher weight bundles for cotton by having higher weight have a bigger impact on slowing the decay rate.

| 26737 |corn *

see garlic

| 29371 |planks *

see shafts. except that planks do have a purpose.... repairing walls, so i wouldnt go to crazy on the decay for planks.

| 31148 |rags *

stabilise and increase the decay rate. i've always hated the rag decay being inpredictable and so fast, but i would have been able to live with faster decay if it wasnt so hard to predict when they decay (to use them before that)

| 31243 |bowstring *

to many in storage for training.. completely not needed to have such gigantic suplies. suggestion: decrease the rate of the strings snapping when you shoot them but increase the decay by alot. people wont need high stockpiles if the didnt snap so fast.

| 32411 |inventory

| 34670 |stonebrick *

again by stabilising this, it wouldnt be a problem to increase the decay.

| 45587 |wempseed *

see coton seeds... FFS why do people need so many wempseeds? they dont.. dont use it, lose it.

| 88000 |dirtpile *

no comment, i never dug for the last 2 years.

Thoughts?

[Huck. L. Barry 1]

Ropes can't be repaired, and lower the decay on mortar, please, nobody makes excess mortar anyway.

Also, introduce trash cans that can fit (and delete) any item, regardless of size.

[Rolf 3,563]

Using an item such as a bowl, rope or whetstone could also reset the counter. Using only the correct amount of rags from when they are combined should be implemented.

Combining to 50 potatos and extracting etc.. hmm yes maybe.

Yes iron lumps were called bars there.

[Angelsilver 3]

Using an item such as a bowl, rope or whetstone could also reset the counter. Using only the correct amount of rags from when they are combined should be implemented.

Combining to 50 potatos and extracting etc.. hmm yes maybe.

Yes iron lumps were called bars there.

[Guest Shweet]

Corpses decay fast but if you butcher them the items last much longer.  Why not leave the decay times for butcher items, but instead when you butcher the items will stay on the corpse and you must take what you want.  When the corpse decays the items left behind disappear with the corpse, however non-butchered items (like arrows) will turn into a pile of items and not be removed.

[Mith 318]

If there was a way of securing/storing items so they did not decay as much, I would love to have a fast decay on all those messy things people drops all over. Also on ovens and forges out in the open. BUT I would be very sad if I where to go on a 1 week vacation, come home and see all my ql 20 items where gone.

way back I think there where some talk about that, things in a container in a cointainer in a cointainer in a house on a deed did decay much slower than stuff left out in the middle of a forest. If I where able to store my ql 20 items in a load of containers in a house on deed, while I go on vacation, I would be happy with an agressive decay.

[drago 6]

im just gonna comment on the ones i think are important.

logs - alot of people like to grind the skill by clearcutting large area's then not touching the logs/felled tree's after, so id agree to upping its decay.

carving knife - oh good god..i think i still have a noob carving knife from when i first started playing at my old house...they just dont decay o.0

charcoal - noooooooooooo! please no ;_; i like my charcoal...its helped me alot with my money worries...i already find that the lower ql charcoals decay too fast for my likings..

crop goods - well..everyone likes to stock pile on crops, especially cotton. i guess a bit of an increase in decay wouldnt hurt but dont go mad

shafts - oh for the love of god please up the decay rate. honestly, i had a shaft on my road for MONTHS! there annoying and clutter the database...people use shafts only when they need them so high decay rate should be fine >.> (perhaps the same as logs?)

planks - see shafts, but i have known the odd person to make all the planks required for a house before building it...

stonebricks - they have a rather low decay rate...i once found a huge mine and every single tile was covered with bricks..obviously had been there for quite some time o.0

dirt - i dont like the dirt decay as it is...id rather not see it upped but people do leave alot of it about. perhaps have it just drop after so long?

well, those are the ones that i have an opinion on....nuke the rest for all i care >

(wonder if i'll end up regretting saying that...)

OH! PS - put the player body decay back to 24 hours damnit!(no offense intended, just love the word ) its around 6-7 hours atm which can get annoying >.<

[Dannyiron 6]

Some things I think need an increase would be:

Items:

-Grindstones. (Come on, nobody uses them except for grinding masonry and they decay REALLY slowly.)

Containers:

-Stone Forge. (Not fast enough for you to go on vacation and find it gone; but in say 3 months I would hope a 50 quality forge had decayed away. This would help remove all of the abandoned forges and ovens from previous houses that have decayed away or been destroyed. Either that or previous suggestions of team lifting, etc.

-Stone Oven. (See Stone Forge)

[Gaeron 551]

Some things are stockpiled for a reason, bricks and planks for example are kept by in the event of a raid so hopefully someone is on who can repair the damage as its done by the catapults. With some stuff, cotton and strings especially, these are the base for some bigger processes and the farmer supplying them may not be the tailor processing them. Stockpiling will occur especially if you want to make things like sails.

If seeds could be used as seasoning to either improve meal ql or possibly bulk it up then I think there wouldn't be quite so many but having a new use for wemp seeds would be great, surprised there are not more of the damned things.

Given the nature of Wurm, the only neat solution I see is an official trashcan feature as already mentioned, perhaps similar to UO's one where once an item has been in it for X minutes, then it gets destroyed. The delay so that there is no complaining that the bin ate my 99 woa/99 coc 90ql  hammer or whatever.....

Notice that everything on the list is not an improvable item? Except carving knives and I think thats down to spamming the making of them with high ql ore to get a few good ones. People don't need too many improvable items as they can keep cycling them round to get their skill gain fix. To get farming skill you have to spam seeds, to get mining skill you need to spam rock/ores......

I agree with the non-takable items (forges/ovens etc) decaying a lot faster when not in a complete building

[Gurubear 18]

Thinking out loud here (and therefore probably getting it wrong):

Is this a case of changing the way the data is collated?

If a pile of 50 tennons is stored as an array, then surely that array is, as far as a database call is concerned, 1 item.

Time and other factors that effect things like decay are then applied to the array as a whole and can converted by the client into numbers for the individual items in the array rather than changing each individual item on the server continuously.

This is a sort of Schroedinger's cat idea. If nobody looks at an item, or array of items, we do not know whether it is decayed or not. It is only if it comes into someone's field of view that we need to know the answer. At that point the decay can be applied to the array. If nothing is left, the array is simply not rendered into a group of items by the client and is deleted from the server. If however some of the items in the array are still in existence, then the array is "visualised" and enumerated by the client. The new array is at that point stored on the server.

As you can see, I am not a computer programmer - but I fancied looking at the problem laterally.

[Cunk 45]

Thinking out loud here (and therefore probably getting it wrong):

Is this a case of changing the way the data is collated?

If a pile of 50 tennons is stored as an array, then surely that array is, as far as a database call is concerned, 1 item.

Time and other factors that effect things like decay are then applied to the array as a whole and can converted by the client into numbers for the individual items in the array rather than changing each individual item on the server continuously.

This is a sort of Schroedinger's cat idea. If nobody looks at an item, or array of items, we do not know whether it is decayed or not. It is only if it comes into someone's field of view that we need to know the answer. At that point the decay can be applied to the array. If nothing is left, the array is simply not rendered into a group of items by the client and is deleted from the server. If however some of the items in the array are still in existence, then the array is "visualised" and enumerated by the client. The new array is at that point stored on the server.

As you can see, I am not a computer programmer - but I fancied looking at the problem laterally.

A pile would not be stored as an array.  Likely there is a single item table that contains every single item in the game, possibly including containers.  Then a separate table ties container IDs to the item IDs of their contents.

Regarding decay:

- Can you apply a exponential or geometric decay rate so that items don't get too damaged too fast?

- Would limiting the increased decay rates to off-deed items make an impact?  I suppose it would for things like ship parts, shards, logs, and discarded foraged items.

[Ivan Simconia 82]

IMO stuff that is intended for further manufacturing...logs,planks,rocks,bricks.. should be given a fair time, maybe 72 hours, then deteriorate rapidly if not on deed.  Same with veggies and meat not properly stored.

If stored properly,  meat and veggies in containers, logs etc inside a building, deterioration rate should be slow like a tool or weapon.

Also think it would help some if items currently non-destroyable could be destroyed if off deed or once they reach a certain dmg. rate, or at any time by their maker.  ( This would also stop the GM "poof" calls).

[jonathanlaramee 0]

Just a small idea Rolf, why are we unable to destroy everything in the game ? LIke forge, oven, barrel, statue, etc. Everything should be destroyable, like the walls, you could set the damage as it is now (deed bonus and non-deeded are more hard to destroy), cause there is a lot of useless forge out there that could go out the database. Just a small thought and keep up the good work. best regard

[Guest Poonager]

My thoughts

| 10433 |knifecarving

Ya, tools shouldnt decay much, as it's not easy to get high ql and high enchant tools

wouldnt want to go on vacation and have to get new ones

| 10862 |cottonseed *

All seeds on the ground should, as that means there not gonna be planted. However, seeds in containers shouldnt, if someone is grinding taming

| 10967 |whetstone *

nope, its a tool

| 11004 |pegwood *

yeahh, pegs are relatively easy to make

| 11793 | log *

hmm... i understand the need to get rid of random 1 ql logs lying around, but what about 90ql logs or so that carpenters use? dont have a suggestion tho...

| 12788 |rope *

yes, as they're easy to make, and ql doesnt matter bout them either

| 13299 |bowlpottery *

noobs are gonna get starved, so nope

| 15184 |meat *

i think on the ground, they should decay VERY fast, but in containers, same as right now

| 16040 |key

Keys shouldnt decay. irl, keys last for a longgggggg time

| 16652 |clothstring *

i think someone else may have said this, but how about when bandaging wounds, let it only use the amount needed, that way we're not stockpiling up rags and strings

| 18121 |rock *

Nope, Rock doesnt really decay fast. besides, high ql is needed for imping and stuff

| 22084 |woundcover *

nooooooooooo.... covers take so long to make, and these NEEd to be stockpiled

| 23290 |iron lump *

No again. What happens to high ql lump exported from wild, and then decays in a few days or so? wouldnt make many people happy

| 29371 |planks *

This is a definately. planks are either used almost immediately or they're never used.

| 34670 |stonebrick *

not, because sometimes they need to be stockpiles for repairing (faster to mine everything, make bricks, and then repair/imp, rather than mine, make bricks, repair, go back to mine)

I left out a few because I didnt really have an opinion, or because it was similar to something else mentioned.