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Author Topic: Herbalism Changes  (Read 4870 times)

Dante101

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Herbalism Changes
« on: December 31, 2018, 05:33:43 PM »
As suggested in the rather heated Discord chat earlier today, I'm looking to move the discussion on the recent updates to herbalism to the forums, here -- where people can write out their thoughts on the changes.

I'll start out coming in a little hot.  This felt (and I know, "it's a feeling", but it's my take on it) like something that was hastily changed with very limited community feedback and testing prior to such.  From what little I've gathered since the change went effective today, it appears the team wanted to bring herbalism in line with other crafts (to where max DC is 70), based on some calculation between spell caster level and spell level.  Here's why I say that's bad:

For starters, former master herbalists now have become completely inept regarding crafting certain high level DC potions (such as Heal, or Ethereal Visage).  They are literally uncraftable day 1 of the change because the DC's shifted by over 20 on each of these potions (one was shifted by 35!).  And it appears that there are very limited number of other potions that can be made to bridge the experience and crafting level gaps to gain access to these top tier DC potions.

Next, those who have crafted all those high DC potions previously now find themselves sitting on a stockpile (potentially) of very, very valuable potions that the market no longer has access to.  At least until some soul has managed to bridge the aforementioned crafting level gap.  At which point, that lucky player will have ownership of the market for a little while.

Finally... This craft isn't the same as something like Smithing or Woodworking.  Moving to a DC 70 seems excessive and unnecessary, just so someone can say "hey, we standardized the DC ranges!"  The system seemed to work just fine as is, and seems to me like a completely unneeded change.

Edward

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Re: Herbalism Changes
« Reply #1 on: December 31, 2018, 05:36:16 PM »
I think the DC for Ghostly Visage should be lowered a tad.

Destinysdesire

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Re: Herbalism Changes
« Reply #2 on: December 31, 2018, 05:41:08 PM »
I personally find the crafting system a bit too over zealous. When you cater to the 1% then you set a standard that players that can devote hours and hours to the server at any one time are better then all other players. Meaning that 1% is going to gain far more benefit from the server then any other player. My personal opinion stands that the value of the 1% of players should never overvalue that of the 99% of players that cannot devote that high amount of time into a game. Oh and by the way, this is coming from the 1%.

BattleCupcake

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Re: Herbalism Changes
« Reply #3 on: December 31, 2018, 05:41:26 PM »
I think the DC for Ghostly Visage should be lowered a tad.

Aside from anything else, given this potion is useless past the level 3~6 range, I agree. It should be accessible to lowbies.

I don't have many other complaints with these changes as of now.

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Re: Herbalism Changes
« Reply #4 on: December 31, 2018, 05:54:06 PM »
It took me two minutes at a cauldron to work out what to do to level up, it's fine.

Edit: And one small run for herbs to confirm it all.
« Last Edit: January 02, 2019, 12:31:02 AM by zDark Shadowz »

Salty Tears

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Re: Herbalism Changes
« Reply #5 on: December 31, 2018, 05:57:05 PM »
Herbalism needed a change, but this was not the change it needed.

Why did this change happen?

People were grinding BAGS and BAGS full of heal potions for pvp/pve. ONLY PROBLEM IS that this is only like 5 or 6 players who play 10+ hours a day doing this who have the time whilst everyone else is working or in college or school- having you know, an actual life. They upped the dcs to discourage mass production of herbs by upping the dc to flipping 70 something. Problem is, no normal players with normal lives can EVER match that dc because we do not have the time to grind that much because the xp gain is so slow- where as players who play for 10+ hours a day can literally just grind out those dcs and ultimately continue to mass produce before anyone else does.

Mind you, getting to that dc will literally take years with the current amount of xp you gain from potion making past level 34-35 herbalism. It's the slowest freaking grind ever. My character will be level 20 before I reach that high a dc of herbalism.

Essentially, they are punishing the playerbase - and specific builds like fighters- for a small group of people doing dumb things.


This is why we can't have nice things.


Why is it bad?

People with real life jobs/school are hurt significantly. It rewards players who were the reason for this change. It will HURT the economy ig badly because it will cause HUGE inflation prices on these kinds of potions. It's unreasonable for anyone with limited time during their day to play. It's unrealistic. It does not make the server harder or scarier, it makes the server more annoying and unfun to actually play. It's fun to get scared. It's not fun to get a headache.


What can we do instead of this terrible change?


Well, since we're already taking inspiration from Arelith devs
-we can put a time limit between heal potion uses. That is, if you use it before the time limit is up- the potion/spell will not work. Arelith does this same exact thing with time stop, and I know the code exists.

-We could also nerf the heal tonic by a little bit. Enough to not make them insane, but not too much to make them useless.

-Or, my favorite, literally just make one of the ingredients a new flower from sithicus. Because then there will be an actual reason to go to the hardest dungeon on the server or actually have some risk involved to make this potion. That way you don't have people with no job or schooling just grinding these potions out in mass. Because they'll be too scared to actually go to Sithicus and grab some herbs.

IN CONCLUSION,
This is literally just trying to put a bandaid on an open, gapping wound and ripping it off. It does not help. It does not work. And it punishes players with reasonable lives because of maybe a small handful of players who do this.

Please change this.

Destinysdesire

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Re: Herbalism Changes
« Reply #6 on: December 31, 2018, 06:03:20 PM »
Herbalism needed a change, but this was not the change it needed.

Why did this change happen?

People were grinding BAGS and BAGS full of heal potions for pvp/pve. ONLY PROBLEM IS that this is only like 5 or 6 players who play 10+ hours a day doing this who have the time whilst everyone else is working or in college or school- having you know, an actual life. They upped the dcs to discourage mass production of herbs by upping the dc to flipping 70 something. Problem is, no normal players with normal lives can EVER match that dc because we do not have the time to grind that much because the xp gain is so slow- where as players who play for 10+ hours a day can literally just grind out those dcs and ultimately continue to mass produce before anyone else does.

Mind you, getting to that dc will literally take years with the current amount of xp you gain from potion making past level 34-35 herbalism. It's the slowest freaking grind ever. My character will be level 20 before I reach that high a dc of herbalism.

Essentially, they are punishing the playerbase - and specific builds like fighters- for a small group of people doing dumb things.


This is why we can't have nice things.


Why is it bad?

People with real life jobs/school are hurt significantly. It rewards players who were the reason for this change. It will HURT the economy ig badly because it will cause HUGE inflation prices on these kinds of potions. It's unreasonable for anyone with limited time during their day to play. It's unrealistic. It does not make the server harder or scarier, it makes the server more annoying and unfun to actually play. It's fun to get scared. It's not fun to get a headache.


What can we do instead of this terrible change?


Well, since we're already taking inspiration from Arelith devs
-we can put a time limit between heal potion uses. That is, if you use it before the time limit is up- the potion/spell will not work. Arelith does this same exact thing with time stop, and I know the code exists.

-We could also nerf the heal tonic by a little bit. Enough to not make them insane, but not too much to make them useless.

-Or, my favorite, literally just make one of the ingredients a new flower from sithicus. Because then there will be an actual reason to go to the hardest dungeon on the server or actually have some risk involved to make this potion. That way you don't have people with no job or schooling just grinding these potions out in mass. Because they'll be too scared to actually go to Sithicus and grab some herbs.

IN CONCLUSION,
This is literally just trying to put a bandaid on an open, gapping wound and ripping it off. It does not help. It does not work. And it punishes players with reasonable lives because of maybe a small handful of players who do this.

Please change this.

Literally wish there was a like button, this is exactly my argument but much better worded. Again playing to the 1% of the server is a bad thing.

BattleCupcake

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Re: Herbalism Changes
« Reply #7 on: December 31, 2018, 06:07:15 PM »
-Or, my favorite, literally just make one of the ingredients a new flower from sithicus. Because then there will be an actual reason to go to the hardest dungeon on the server or actually have some risk involved to make this potion. That way you don't have people with no job or schooling just grinding these potions out in mass. Because they'll be too scared to actually go to Sithicus and grab some herbs.

Not willing to assert why this change was made in the first place, as I'm not on the Dev team. But from your post, this is a decent suggestion. +1




APorg

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Re: Herbalism Changes
« Reply #8 on: December 31, 2018, 06:09:46 PM »
Not played through these changes yet, but I'll observe that one effect of this change (on top of requiring more work to grind potions) will be to "spread out" the grind path of recipes. This will mean that your Ability modifiers will be more important to get you through the DC jumps between craft recipes.
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Hedgewife

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Re: Herbalism Changes
« Reply #9 on: December 31, 2018, 06:10:48 PM »
ICly how do we explain this?
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H

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Re: Herbalism Changes
« Reply #10 on: December 31, 2018, 06:12:45 PM »
In regards to the Economics of this, the factors required to actually acquire these potions have been greatly expanded as well since the chances of successful crafting are lower. This inflates the prices of herbs, which in turn inflates the prices of potions. As such, players will need to find other ways to make significant volumes of gold just to keep up with where they previously were.

As a result, the needs of other materials will be taking a hit too. Casual players cannot keep up with these changes, and will not be able to achieve mid-tier herbalism, let alone mastery. This is limitations upon roleplay opportunities for players as well. If someone comes in wanting to play a potion maker, even a half-decent one, they will be forced to spend at an absurd amount of time for that to fit, regardless of the character's class level.

The difficulty of basic potions for lower level players is now out of reach, and stratifies the mid/high and low-level players which already has a big enough divide.

Destinysdesire

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Re: Herbalism Changes
« Reply #11 on: December 31, 2018, 06:22:56 PM »
The other problem is...buying healing on this server is hard as hell already if your not an Ezrite and can buy your own scrolls of healing and use them. They are rarely sold, getting knuckles can be a bloody nightmare, and crafting them is hell as it was. If the goal is to drive away players...it might work. Arelith is making this mistake too, Lets make everything harder to cater to the 1% of players who have unlimited time on their hands, and weather or not Arelith wants to admit it, they ARE infact bleeding player numbers. I know of at least 20 players who have quit Arelith in the past month. Because they are doing things like this.

Mereyn

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Herbalism Changes
« Reply #12 on: December 31, 2018, 06:26:54 PM »
Although I've not been in the loop of this whole playing warehouse with consumable items minigame that PotM prominently features;
having had access to the Church of Ezra clerical scroll inventory in the past, I never felt the urge to spend gold on scrolls, let alone the healing ones.
Given this recent change it might be cheaper however, so it might be true in the future. (As a late note, it has always been considered an abuse of exploits to buy the ridiculously cheap healing scrolls from said inventory in the past. They cost quite a bit now, too.)
« Last Edit: December 31, 2018, 06:28:47 PM by Mereyn »

APorg

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Re: Herbalism Changes
« Reply #13 on: December 31, 2018, 06:28:47 PM »
Holee carp. *oggles some of the DCs*

I'll say this much, the days of the herbalist pocket mage are probably over... :D
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MAB77

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Re: Herbalism Changes
« Reply #14 on: December 31, 2018, 06:30:20 PM »
A lot of the comments here are the result of emotions, which I totally understand. Feedback is important and we hope you'll keep forwarding them. Though I urge you to take a step back and try the system as it is now for a while before claiming this is the worse change ever. You are likely to discover there is still a lot you can accomplish and that it is even easier now for newcomers to the craft to get into it.

There will be a more thoughtful reply from the Dev team soon as to why we felt the change was important.

Best Regards!
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APorg

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Re: Herbalism Changes
« Reply #15 on: December 31, 2018, 06:34:49 PM »
I gotta say, I do find the logic behind some of these DCs to be unclear.

Ghostly Visages are now about where the Heal potions were before; but that's a level 2 spell. Meanwhile, a lot of the old regular buffing spells were raised a mere couple of DC points -- despite also being level 2 spells. That's a massive DC gap for level 2 spells.

I fully support any spell of level 4+ being incredibly high DC -- those shouldn't even be produced as potions in DnD. But high DCs on level 1 - 3 spells are probably too much.
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Dante101

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Re: Herbalism Changes
« Reply #16 on: December 31, 2018, 06:35:16 PM »
A lot of the comments here are the result of emotions, which I totally understand. Feedback is important and we hope you'll keep forwarding them. Though I urge you to take a step back and try the system as it is now for a while before claiming this is the worse change ever. You are likely to discover there is still a lot you can accomplish and that it is even easier now for newcomers to the craft to get into it.

There will be a more thoughtful reply from the Dev team soon as to why we felt the change was important.

We're outlining things that we have concerns with. Naturally, we will try it - but we want you to hear us.

Destinysdesire

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Re: Herbalism Changes
« Reply #17 on: December 31, 2018, 06:39:00 PM »
A lot of the comments here are the result of emotions, which I totally understand. Feedback is important and we hope you'll keep forwarding them. Though I urge you to take a step back and try the system as it is now for a while before claiming this is the worse change ever. You are likely to discover there is still a lot you can accomplish and that it is even easier now for newcomers to the craft to get into it.

There will be a more thoughtful reply from the Dev team soon as to why we felt the change was important.

Mine isn't emotional based, I had no strong investment in the Herbalisim mainly because I feel the crafting system is already entirely broken, the server crafting system prides itself on a crafting system that can take 2 years plus to actually be anything decent, but the average char survival rate is generally closer to six months give or take. Secondly using the stat system is just totally broken to begin with. Having wisdom and con should not make you better at a craft then someone with Str and Int. Im sorry that's just broken as heck and caters to specific builds to minmax crafting.

The problem is the server loves to cater to players who like me have no life outside the game. Can sit here all day and max out crap, but if your in school, work, have a full time job, well your basically screwed for being comparable to anyone that doesn't have to do all those for then next 3-5 years, and by then, that char is likely gone. It doesn't make the server scary, it doesn't make it fun, it doesn't add to the atmosphere. When EVERY single aspect of the server is a grind...it takes AWAY from the server, bogs it down, and makes it frustrating and boring to the point people would rather go back to work then spend the next 18 months trying to get to the same point the player that's spent the last month just got to.


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Re: Herbalism Changes
« Reply #18 on: December 31, 2018, 06:40:38 PM »
With the way XP DCs scale it should theoretically take the same amount of effort getting to 65ish as it took to get from 1 to 34, dw too much, just buy more herbs from newbs who know what to look for.

APorg

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Re: Herbalism Changes
« Reply #19 on: December 31, 2018, 06:55:38 PM »
Nah, it will take more effort. The optimal "grind path" is more diluted, meaning it will be harder to combine higher DC recipes to grind that XP. But I expect that it requiring more effort is the intent.
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Knight of Rhodes

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Re: Herbalism Changes
« Reply #20 on: December 31, 2018, 08:36:59 PM »
I'm afraid that this feels semi knee jerk over reaction. A change was needed, but not this one.

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Mereyn

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Herbalism Changes
« Reply #21 on: January 01, 2019, 01:48:17 AM »
Look on the bright side, low level characters who slave away collecting herbs will now be making more money since the prices will be adjusted.

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Re: Herbalism Changes
« Reply #22 on: January 01, 2019, 02:13:05 AM »
As some of you know I spend some periods on characters and I have two almost max level multicrafters. So, let's say, I speak with some insight on this matter.

Since its implementation ten years ago, herbalism has been a great pivot for many things. For instance economy: selling herbs or potions for the first levels can be extremely useful and quite fast as a way to gather money for equipment or else. It has led also to some RP stories, with rivalties, friendships and else born by a cauldron or while picking herbs. It has also allowed, in time and with some longer time-span, the acquisition for some characters of  some spell-like abilities which has allowed either to replace a caster in a party or to wholly solo some dungeons. This is why, for instance, apart my two multicrafters all the characters I've played (all but one) have reached some 20-30 levels in herbalism, and it was not really because I purposedly tried to do that, but because unlike other crafts the materials for herbalism is something you find while travelling here and there. Furthermore herbalism deals with a consumable type of equipment, thus there will always be demand and use of it, whereas once a character has bought a specific sword, bow or armour won't buy a new one in a long time unless some accident happens.

Yet, other crafts have DCs going up to 70 while herbalism used to have 40 as a peak, just in terms of overall balancing I reckon this change was long due. I'm pretty sure that if some DCs result not well balanced our developers will tweak things (it has happened several times in the past, I don't see why should there be a problem it wouldn't be fixed now). On the IC aspect of the matter, one can interpret it as they wish, considering the most "knowing" characters are aware that which happens in the Mists can change suddenly (I mean whole nations vanish or move, let alone if some material can change its behaviour).

I understand those who thought having arrived to a point where failure couldn't happen now are upset. That will happen also to my characters, call me mad, but I'm glad for it because it means there is a new challenge to face. Last thing: crafting, in general, can be time consuming and requires dedication, but when well thought is a different source for RP. I'm confident in time this change will be appreciated by most.
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buyonegetonefree

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Re: Herbalism Changes
« Reply #23 on: January 01, 2019, 03:03:00 AM »
-Or, my favorite, literally just make one of the ingredients a new flower from sithicus. Because then there will be an actual reason to go to the hardest dungeon on the server or actually have some risk involved to make this potion. That way you don't have people with no job or schooling just grinding these potions out in mass. Because they'll be too scared to actually go to Sithicus and grab some herbs.

Not willing to assert why this change was made in the first place, as I'm not on the Dev team. But from your post, this is a decent suggestion. +1

It's already there,  such herb was added in the update where plenty of new potions were added.

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Re: Herbalism Changes
« Reply #24 on: January 01, 2019, 04:01:33 AM »
Resetting the -5 to recipes would be horrendously unfair to the people who have already dedicated time to learning them.  New players simply need to go through the same process everyone else did.

That being said, large gaps between DCs should probably be filled somehow.  It is also a bit strange how something like Ghostly Visage got changed so drastically.