We have all had discussions on item degredation (until we all either saw red, or were blue in the face). However, nobody is talking about the following:
Idea: Any consumable item in the game that is classed as a "perishable" item, should be, well... perishable.
Examples:
This accomplishes a few things:
Give the player the option to have expired items either "poof", or keep them. Some expired items could be partially reused in other crafting recipes. (Bottles, etc)
Note: I am not saying that all consumables should expire in the same time frame as real life. This is a fantasy game after all...
While, in theory, I'm not against this, I do find that, in practice, it is rather annoying to have all my carefully crafted or purchased stat food and drink go bad.
"Drama is life with the dull bits cut out." ~ Alfred Hitchcock
I think this applies in this case.
Please see the following threads:
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/4869/a-new-kind-of-food-buff/view/post_id/80629
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2873/fishing/view/page/1
Lot's of good, related discussion. Evoras touches on similar points on the 4'th page of the second link. Here is a quote:
"While I am not a fan of BDO's AFK fishing, it did add something I thought was 'new' for fishing.
The fish had a 'use by' date (well, time really). It seems to me that you could avoid having the market flooded with fish as more and more players just 'dabbled' in fishing by having fish go 'off' unless sold, smokes, salted or pickled within a certain time! Some fish might take longer than others to go off....
Of course, bad fish might have their uses too! (help you sneak into Dark Myr territory perhaps?) Perhaps as reagents for some spells, or possibly as 'lures' for hunting bigger fish! Perhaps even as a 'chumming agent' for hunting VERY big fish indeed!
In addition, fishing should lend itself to providing:
1. raw materials for cooking
2. crafting components (eg bones, scales, squid ink)
3. Alchemy components (eg fish lungs for making water breathing potion)
ofc If we take Brad at his word, we can probably divide fishing into :
Fresh water fishing,
Sea Fishing (bigger, badder!)
Raid Fishing (Nessie off the Starboard bow!)"
As long as finished products last a good long while, so that I can safely purchase or craft food and not have to check my inventory every few days to make sure my food is still good, I don't mind a time limit on raw materials. We are playing a game that one could log out and for variuos real life reasons, not log back in for days and to have all one's good go bad would not be fun in my opinion.
But I don't mind some of the ideas presented by above as a sink on AFK harvesting, etc.
Seems a bit too taxing. It would be a serious blow to players of the alchemist or provisioner professions, one that other professions wouldn't have to deal with.
I'd be surprised if in a world where people can be brought back from the dead with a spell or cured of any ailments there wouldn't also exist an anti-microbial spell to protect foods from spoiling.
We all have to save up for a gnome tinkered portable mini fridge ASAP!!
Casting a 'preserve item' spell could be a crafter skill, but it should cost something hefty like a special magical ingredient. Or we could can everything...canned unicorn meat could be a real thing!
As someone who likes to collect and keep well stocked of things, I’m not in favor of things “degrading”, especially when not in use. I understand the analogy of food spoiling, but I don't think it adds anymore to the market or gameplay than it takes away. Knowing items are going to expire means sales will be lost to anyone who likes to stock up, because what would be the point, if I don't need it right now I just wont buy it until I need it, and only the amount I need.
The same goes for production, theres no need to keep a bulk amount of stock for sales since they will degrade. Also I really don't like the idea of increased pressure from Sellers to get it while its hot, since they have to sell it while its still good.
I was thinking, like corpses, in game time, not out of game time.
Corpse rots after 7 days and you lose all your stuff of in-game time on a Real time clock. You log out, go to bahamas for 2 weeks, come back in- game time passed is 2 minutes.
Play 8 hours a day for 7 days and dont get a rez- corpse poofs and you lose your stuff.
Play 10 hours one day, then 2 hours the third day. have 5+ days left on corpse- in game ( plenty off time to get a rez etc)
Why not same with perishables? makes sense to me. Let them rot. If you are alive and waking you will know your raid foos is perishing and will get more, because you are there.
Maybe have some generate maggots? for other needs (minor healing?- spread maggots over the wound to remove dead skin) at the risk of perhaps losing cha. Like the skunk scent gland where if you held it in general inventory and not in bag, you would begin to stink and your cha would go down, to the point where your own city merchants would not sell to you!
Really don't think time limited rations and such is worth doing. But if it is done, the times need to be long. But if you are going to make the time limits long enough to not be an issue, why even do it? If it were a survival game, I'd be down with it. But it just seems to be something that only adds micro-management to things that don't need it in an RPG.
DragonFist said:Really don't think time limited rations and such is worth doing. But if it is done, the times need to be long. But if you are going to make the time limits long enough to not be an issue, why even do it? If it were a survival game, I'd be down with it. But it just seems to be something that only adds micro-management to things that don't need it in an RPG.
I, personally, can see both sides of this. I'm not going to be heartbroken either way. Which is why I put "not quickly perishible".
Zeem said:xp potions should get weaker the longer they sit
plex(krono) items should lose time the longer they are in game
Zeem, go read the Wiki before you post any more nonsense in the forums.
Else stop deliberately trolling. No one is biting. You'll just end up getting banned for disruptive behaviour.
We'd far rather hear your legitimate on-topic opinion as a valued member of the community.
I'm not at all in favour of food/drnk decay. It definitely becomes micro inventory management and I don't see any real up side. I've seen it in other games and it's not adding any realism at all. If you have 5 items in a stack that are near expiry and you add 10 fresh ones, they do funky averaging of the values so your old stuff effectively contanimates the new. So then you end up with partial stacks, need to make sure the old stack is first in inventory so it gets consumed, etc...
I have enough trouble organizing my refrigerator IRL, I don't want to have to start labeling all my game food too.
I do like your idea about regional food items but I don't think you have to rot the food supply to create demand. The type of inflation you were talking about was because it was too easy to make mass quantities of those crafted goods. Make it harder to acquire the materials or tougher to successfully create them and you'll ensure demand stays high.
I can see both sides of it but at the same time, I remember food being really valuable and highly sought after in FFXI and this mechanic did not exist. The reason the implementation of food worked so well in that game are for the exact reasons that Celandor outlined above. I think I have more interest in food materials having a decay mechanism than the actual finished food product itself, and even then, I think it would be ideal if it was used sparingly.
Food/drink doesn't need to be perishable because, as it was pointed out above, the server would need to track each and every perishable item. That is a waste of effort. Instead, just modify the speed at which characters consume food/drink based upon activity level, environment, etc. You achieve the same end result, that of food/drink leaving the world faster, without an needlessly complex mechanic.