Blight server vaults

[McD-Blight]

Posting in this forum because i'm not 100% sure if any devs other than Illyist reads the Blight forums, and I believe this is out of his area of making decisions.

IE, this one's for you Smeglor. [:D]

I'd like to request that Blight be allowed to keep the expanded vaults until the 16th, the same as live shards.

We've already had our vaults shrunk, so the process is known to work. We fulfilled our test responsibility. [;)]

Between the major hardware problems for Blight a few weeks ago and the fact that we got plots after live shards, we've actually had quite a bit less time to work on our plots.

So, any chance of throwing us a bone? Please?

Would it help if I begged? I'm not proud.

-McD

[Firein]

i agree with MCD on this one
cant test much if we spend the next 3 weeks unpacking vaults

[Colin Stonetooth]

I also agree with McD on this ,and Im sure that most if not all of the Blight regular players would also . Its my opinion that we have been getting the short end of the stick lately . As McDstated we got our plots much later than the live shards only to have our vaults shrunk with no warning at all , we also got the fall harvest event a day and a half later than the live shards . i understand we are the test shard but this seems a bit unfair to me .

[Smeglor]

In general, things should go to Blight before they go to live. The "standard" process of things is to release it to Blight during maintenance, then release it to Chaos/Order one week later.

However, this hasn't always happened for things like auctions.

We have to get back to the normal schedule of things, so vaults are going to have to be put back to pre-merge levels tomorrow on Blight.

[McD-Blight]

I liked your pre-edit response much better :(

I don't really understand the necessity of doing this just to keep "on schedule."

We didn't get our plots a week early.

Shrinking vaults back down has already happened once on Blight. As far as I know, there were no problems associated with it, so we already know it works.


Why the change of mind since your original post a couple hours ago?

[McD-Blight]

After this I'm done posting about this issue. I always said I'd never post a "change this or I quit" post, but.... I'd appreciate you (devs) reading it anyway and to see a reply.

Right now the only thing that holds any interest for me in the game is construction.

With the larger vaults I could gather xxxx resources, port once to make the construction units, and port once to apply them all (assuming a vault had been built nearby)

With vaults being shrunk, it will now take me somewhere between 22-25 round trips to do the same. With the new portalling system, it can sometimes take 3 hops to move from A to B. That would be 66-75 individual ports and 22-25 recalls.

Combine that with numberous CTDs still happening, the memory leak from porting that causes many of us to have to relog after X number of ports, and I estimate, in all seriousness, that in order to continue doing construction I will end up spending between 20-30% of the time I'm trying to PLAY A GAME staring at the loading screen instead.

So, I'm done.

I owe some resources to friends, an although it'll be a huge PITA now, I'm going to make good on that. So in order to keep my word I have no choice but to contiue "playing" for another couple of days.

It's kind of ironic though. I guarantee that people on live servers will be just as upset, if not moreso, than I am about this issue, and they're losing they're vaults the same day EQ 2 is scheduled to be released.

[McD-Blight]

Meant to mention, that 22-25 ports is for a simple T2 silo. Other structures would of course be much worse.

[Smeglor]

Isn't this how construction was before the merge?

[Firein]

i hate to see u go MCD but who can blame u
i find it interesting that the devs are not listening to what the players want , across the boards the players have stated they want the bigger vaults certainly a compramise would be beneficial in this case , is there a reason to piss off all the players? does it help HZ survive? im sad to see the player base continue to fade and we havent even seen wow or eq2 release yet, the most commen topic on chaos is what game they all moving to, wake up devs and take a closer look at what is happining to this game, while many of us plan to contiue playing i have seen a HUGE drop in players , my friends have all left and its very sad for the game
when long time players like McD have to resort to these kind of posts ....
how sad
[:(]

[McD-Blight]

I don't know Smeglor, I didn't do construction previously. I had started a couple old style silos, but had given up on them long before completion because of those issues.

As I mentioned, construction is now the only thing that holds any interest for me.

I don't like just complaining about something though without offering some ideas for improvement, I prefer to be at least somewhat constructive in my criticism. So, here a few ideas.

Expand vaults, and I don't mean another 1-2k 10 stacks with additional quests. A serious upgrade is needed. Pre-merger there were many less items to be held onto. (Less tech comps per tier, and less tiers. Additionally there were no trophies)

Some type of resource voucher system (see my post is suggestions forum)

Reduced bulk of constructionresources

Allow creation of Novian resources--to balance, require them to require a number of appropriate tier essence orbs equal to the number of base resource, increased skill for optimal, and no xp for applying.

Allow application of construction resources at 1:1 at optimal

Allow substitution of higher tiered construction units for lower tiered ones. For example my plot is close to mithril, why not allow me to make mithril sheeting to replace the steel and cobalt sheeting?

[Smeglor]

Regarding your last suggestion above, I can certainly see a reverse transmutation formula, allowing you to convert mithril into cobalt.

As to the rest, it sounds like you don't like "real" construction (as opposed to the simplified construction provided by the enlarged vaults). It is by design that the primary challenge in construction is the transportation of resources to the construction site. Using the vault to "teleport" them there was never the intent, and in fact when we decided to enlarge the vault during the auction process, I didn't know that vaults were going to be constructable on plots - I expected players would need to transport their resources to the new plots by other means. Construction is supposed to be a long-term project that requires some level of dedication and coordination. I know this is more difficult on Blight due to the low population. Being able to dump all your construction resources into your vault as you make them, then teleporting to the construction site to apply them all at once trivializes the construction process.

Vaults are a magical "safety deposit box". They aren't meant to store large amounts of goods, they're an extension of your inventory that follow you around the world yet can only be reached by certain access points. We will likely be adding the ability to upgrade vaults for even more capacity, but they're not likely to reach the kinds of values you're looking for.

Cargo disks are meant for transportation of resources, and silos and other structures are meant for storage of resources.

[McD-Blight]

I guess I should've said this will be my last thread about it, not the above being my last post. [;)]

I have a serious problem with transportation being the major obstacle for construction.
1) Transportation is not fun.

2) Transportation relies on ports, causing memory leaks and CTDs. Thismoves the time sink required for construction to be based less on gameplay and lore than onmy computer specs.

3) I would think that the major obstacle for anything should be skill. So as a level 70 mason, I should have the exact same problems as a level 10 mason when doing sandstone construction?


I wouldn't say that easing transportation trivializes construction. I'm in the process, or was, of building T4 silos. I have spent god only knows how much time levelling 3 construction schools to the point now where I can do T4 stone construction somewhat close to optimal, metal at about 1/2 optimal, and can't even touch wood yet. The skills required to do construction should be the roadblock IMO.



Another suggestion that I forgot to mention would be the ability to port/recall with disk attached.

[Korial]

Isn't this how construction was before the merge?

And probably explains why, at least on Wind pre-merge, at most 25% of plots had more than just a "Scaffolding Through The Ages" museum.

[Martal Bau]

And probably explains why, at least on Wind pre-merge, at most 25% of plots had more than just a "Scaffolding Through The Ages" museum.

Yup, anyone who thinks pre-merge construction was a great design is a gluten for tedium. It's one thing to make it hard, it's another to make it so hard that it's not enjoyable to overwhelming majority of the players.

Spending minutes walking a disc a couple hundred meters adds nothing to the game. Forcing me to recall/port 20-30 times since you can't port with a disc and because you only get a single bind adds nothing to the game. Making it so at most you can add 10-15 units because the construction sub-units weigh so ******** much adds nothing to the game.

As with so many things, construction is a system with great potential but poor implementation. We need to get past the idea that only dedicated crafters should be able to be builders.

[Galem]

Too bad work in progress buildings can't store the items needed to finish the work. Then my friends could put things on buildings and I come after and apply them.

Become a group effort and easy for them since they could leave stuff for me for later.

Store up to the 5 per unit measure.

Probably not possible, but would be nice.

[Tzael]

I have a serious problem with transportation being the major obstacle for construction.
1) Transportation is not fun.

2) Transportation relies on ports, causing memory leaks and CTDs. Thismoves the time sink required for construction to be based less on gameplay and lore than onmy computer specs.

3) I would think that the major obstacle for anything should be skill. So as a level 70 mason, I should have the exact same problems as a level 10 mason when doing sandstone construction?


I wouldn't say that easing transportation trivializes construction. I'm in the process, or was, of building T4 silos. I have spent god only knows how much time levelling 3 construction schools to the point now where I can do T4 stone construction somewhat close to optimal, metal at about 1/2 optimal, and can't even touch wood yet. The skills required to do construction should be the roadblock IMO.

I know this isn't really applicable since you are on Blight with fewer players, but I wanted to share some insight in to how construction of buildings was made very quick and simple back on Ice before the merge.

Basically the guild I was in would pick a type of building block, for example sandstone keystones. Everyone in the guild who had quarrying skill would be out in the sandstone fields, gathering disk loads of sandstone. Those with stoneworking skill would then turn the slabs into bricks. Those with masonry skills would then turn the bricks into keystones. Then everyone as a team would haul their disks full of keystones to the building sites.

This reduced the amount of transportation required entirely through teamwork, and within the course of a single run, we could do pretty much the entire amount of sandstone keystones on a building. We made exceptional progress in very limited spaces of time thanks to the cooperation, and by working together we removed the tedium of the transportation element of construction.

The same principles have been applied to Ice on community structures in the past too, as I am sure they have been adhered to on all the other shards prior to the mergers. Again I emphasise that I appreciate this is not as plausible on Blight due to the lower player population, but hopefully it gives some insight as to why the regular vault size should not be an obstacle when it comes to the construction of buildings [:)]

There is room to use the lower population on Blight as an argument as to why you should have larger vaults there, but since Blight is the test shard, we need to know that the shard is a relatively accurate portrayal of how things will work on the live shards when changes are rolled out. Therefore it is my firm belief that there can be no exceptions to the rule for Blight unless it involves detailed and involved testing where a developer is directly participating, by this comment I am not just referring to vaults, but to any elements of testing that would require activity not seen on the live shards, ie handing out of new equipment for testing, larger vault sizes, assignment of levels / abilities, etc.

If construction's your thing McD (I keep thinking of someone I know called McDanish, we call him McD too) then I encourage you to consider taking up residence on the live shards and participating in community building events, and being able to reap the benefits of large teams working on plots - I know you'll appreciate it [;)]

[Smeglor]

I want to start by saying I'm speaking as an individual, and as a member of the programming team who was not directly involved in the design, but more of an observer.

1) I don't want to get deep into MMO design philosophy, but basically things need to take time or they are not rewarding and you risk overly rapid progression. Some games do that by having it take time to apply resources (i.e. to craft an item), which generally involves watching a bar fill up on the interface. We chose not to do that, and in the case of construction, decided that our "bar" would be travel.

2) Obviously CTDs are not intentional, and need to be fixed. This is continually being worked on.

3) Skill is the measure of progression for which structures you can contribute to. Until you are optimal, it also affects the amount of resources you need, and therefore the amount of bulk you need to transport. So by that measure, a level 70 mason does have it easier than a level 10 mason.

If you think it's too hard to construct things without the huge vault, I'd suggest discussing that (probably the Suggestions forum is best). But don't justfocus on "make the vault bigger"; consider other means by which construction can be made more appealing. If you want to question the point I'm making above, that's valid as well, though I'm not the one to enter into a debate about that, as I'm just stating my understanding of the intent, it isn't my design to defend.

Edit: I just wanted to point out something like Galem's suggestion is exactly what I'm talking about, in terms of ways to improve the system without trying to change its fundamental concept. And honestly, that's something we had considered during the design phase, and really it wasn't so much that we decided not to do it, it just never got worked on.

I'd also like to mention that Tzael described very well what I meant by construction being intended to be a cooperative, community effort (which, as I previously admitted, puts Blight players at a disadvantage).

[Korial]

Skill is the measure of progression for which structures you can contribute to. Until you are optimal, it also affects the amount of resources you need, and therefore the amount of bulk you need to transport. So by that measure, a level 70 mason does have it easier than a level 10 mason.

Yet, a Level 70 mason can never apply sandstone blocks at a ratio better than 2:1... that's by far one of the most annoying sources of utter tedium in construction - you're just as good as a L20 mason, but you get bugger all xp.

[McD-Blight]

3) Skill is the measure of progression for which structures you can contribute to. Until you are optimal, it also affects the amount of resources you need, and therefore the amount of bulk you need to transport. So by that measure, a level 70 mason does have it easier than a level 10 mason.



Which is the reason I specifically said sandstone construction. A level 10 mason (assuming some stats from other schools, etc...if not, at most a lvl 20 mason) can do sandstone construction blocks just as well as a level 70 mason can, and can apply them at the same 2:1 rate.


As for time sinks, yes, I understand that. I would think that would be taken care of by the amount of time required to gather a resource. You do realize that a T4 silo requires 24,500 processed resources if optimal at everything, right? Of course, many of us aren't optimal when we start construction, so can easily add another 30-75% of that figure depending on how impatient someone is when they start.

Twenty four thousand processed resources. If optimal, that requires mining/gathering 48,000 ore/slabs/logs.

That's a hell of a time sink right there. Additional time sink isn't really necessary IMO.

[Martal Bau]

1) I don't want to get deep into MMO design philosophy, but basically things need to take time or they are not rewarding and you risk overly rapid progression. Some games do that by having it take time to apply resources (i.e. to craft an item), which generally involves watching a bar fill up on the interface. We chose not to do that, and in the case of construction, decided that our "bar" would be travel..

I'll comment on this point, as I agree with the other 2.

IMO yall should be using the things that are unique to HZ to implement timesinks, not the same ole timesinks everyone uses. And by that I mean take advantage of things like the school system. If there were special construction units that required multiple schools to create then units that only require one school could be toned down in difficulty to produce and move around. This would help with the tedium, which would encourage more people to try it out, it would still give the dedicated crafters advantages, it would still require novice to seek help from others, and would still take a lot of effort. However, personally I'd have a series structures with more rewards/benefits that use these multi-school resources rather than putting a lot of them on the current structures.