Are all the changes good?

[west]

Back on topic, I'm not sure how much thought goes into all these weapons and tools mods--I've seen so many instances of, "You want a new tool/vehicle/weapon in the game? Sure; I'll make one."

I wonder how much of this is really talked over with the GAC or anything.

The best weapons continue to get harder and harder to make, almost to the point of ridiculousness now; it just means that it's ever-harder for young people to be as well equipped as older ones were at their age. I have a char almost in his 40s; he got a sabre at age 22 or something. He needed 100g steel, an anvil, and a hammer. Before that, my last batch of characters you didn't even need an anvil. Now, it's a near-impossible task. This at least has been talked about before, I know, although I don't really know what came of that discussion

Other things, too, I feel aren't really discussed enough as far as maintaining the balance of the game when they're implemented. Some of the new vehicles, for example.

I'd like to hear what y'all think.

[colonel]

Isn't that true in real life too though? I mean, it is a lot harder for younger generations to get jobs and so on now a days then it used to be. I don't know, being a new player I just think it makes us work harder at making friends with the older players and learn more. I guess what I am saying is; times change and hey why not in Cantr too?

[The Industriallist]

Um...because IRL times change because of the society (and usually in a positive direction). It isn't physically (much) harder to make a sabre from scratch than it was 10, 20, or 1000 years ago (well, assuming you can find raw materials that aren't mined out...but there's no depletion in cantr). In cantr, times change because the almighty administrators get around to implementing a more reallistic and tortuous system of production. Which iI like, as a rule. But because of the mechanics that they don't have...Let's just say I know a group of five characters who have control of more armaments than any any army in the history of the game has used, and other goods to match. And that means that they essentially will never have any sort of economic forces on them again, unless things change in a big way.

Now, with degredation, no matter how much wealth you have you'd need some sort of support force to operate a vehicle-using force of shielded crossbow wielders, because they simply couldn't keep it all working on their own.

Also, since this is a game and it is trying to attract players, making the primary skill required to obtain good stuff be sucking up probably isn't going to go over so well. In many places a sabre costs years of labor and travel, even ignoring all those pesky tools and machines. So you don't make sabres, you extract them from the people who made them when iron came out of the ground, or earlier. Not for equal value, as a rule...you just weasel your way into their favor. Which is a sort of simulated society, I guess. But not one spawned by the existing means of production...it's the bizarre offspring of the huge OOC decrease in productivity.

Of course, I'm too firmly addicted to Cantr for this to do more than annoy me a little.

[Cherize]

As a woman who likes to cook, thank you.

[Revanael]

All of this is one good reason why some sort of artificial rebalancing is needed, or a full reset...

[rklenseth]

All of this is one good reason why some sort of artificial rebalancing is needed, or a full reset...

Or the older people will die or their weapons will rot away or break....

[The Industriallist]

All of this is one good reason why some sort of artificial rebalancing is needed, or a full reset...

Or the older people will die or their weapons will rot away or break....

Old people dying doesn't really fix the problem...and their weapons don't fall apart yet so far as I can tell.
Once they fall apart and break, it'll just be an odd starting point, and the world will converge towards it's proper level of wealth.

[rklenseth]

All of this is one good reason why some sort of artificial rebalancing is needed, or a full reset...

Or the older people will die or their weapons will rot away or break....

Old people dying doesn't really fix the problem...and there weapons don't fall apart yet so far as I can tell.
Once they fall apart and break, it'll just be an odd starting point, and the world will converge towards it's proper level of wealth.

Old people die and the next generation comes to take their place. And also when they die you can strip them of their weapons or simply bury the weapons with them.

Everything in the game will eventually break or rot away. I'm not sure if it has been programmed yet. Programming probably won't tell anyone so we won't know until we see it happen in game. So it could be already programmed and we just don't know yet because it hasn't be long enough for such things to degrade to the point of breaking or rotting away.

Also for those that complain about things being broken down into parts, when object degradation does occur you might be happy for this fact because when something breaks it might only be a certain part of that object and you will be able to reuse the other unbroken parts.

[The Industriallist]

You can strip them of their wealth, but the wealth still exists. You can't bury weapons on bodies...at least, not last time I checked. That may be a new feature...if so, destruction of most goods (and notes!) is now in. That would be a drastic shift in the world...

Slaughter the newspawns! We need to dispose of these notes!

[rklenseth]

[Lumera]

LOL, I know it may seem like I whine about things and am constantly asking for changes, but believe me when I say it's only because I love Cantr. I wouldn't bother complaining about a game I didn't care about.

So I mean it in the nicest possible way when I say that this issue is the stickler for me. I feel like item degradation (combined with a full reset, while I'm dreaming...) is absolutely necessary for Cantr. You can't even pretend to have balance without it, especially when new weapons and tools are getting harder and harder to make.

While I fully support making the game more difficult, it's only an improvement if it applies to everyone, not just the players who had the bad luck to join after the changes were made. Yes, older characters should have an edge because they've been around longer and have had more time to work accumulate wealth, but it's ridiculous if they can sit back and do nothing while younger characters have to struggle longer and longer to get what they had practically handed to them.

Think about it this way; What if in your parents' generation, brand new, indestuctible mansions and cars sprouted out of the ground, complete with electricity and water and a magically replenishing tank of gas? But right before you come along, everything stopped growing, and from then on any new houses and cars had to be built, and bills had to be paid and oil drilled for gas and so on. While the older generation can just kick back with their cars and houses in perfect condition and all the money they stockpiled by not having to pay bills, you have to spend years and years working two jobs and going to school at night just to scrape by with a crappy apartment and fare for the bus.

Does that strike you as being balanced or of promoting a healthy economy?

[Lumera]

Oops! Looks like Serenity posted while I was still typing. Well, I'm thrilled to hear things will eventually rot, so I guess just disregard most of what I just posted.

[joshua johnson]

Generally speaking I like the idea of rotting and breaking, but on the other hand.....

I can think of a character that I have that is really really far from one of the iron resources, so iron in his area is extrememely rare. It has taken years, and a resource party has not yet returned with it (they could be dead or have decided not to come back too) Anyway....if machinery that he has with iron in it were to degrade, there is no way he could keep up that machinery.

Perhaps that is good, but my character certainly won't like it.

For degradations, I think weapons aught to degrade quicker with use, and possibly shields as well, although at a slower rate. Clothing too, just like in the real world. Tool degradation should happen, but again at a slow rate.

I would hope that the things that are degrading are repairable. It would mean a whole new set of service shops to fix tools, armor, bikes, everything. Perhaps it would be mostly labor with a small amount of the original resources to restore something. Maybe mostly labor at half the rate plus 10% of the original resources...to fix nicks and scratches on things, or to patch holes in clothing. So if something was 10% damaged it would take 5% of the original work plus 1% of the original resources. Just a thought.

[The Industriallist]

I think Kroner had a similar but somewhat more resource-intensive version of that in an earlier degredation discussion. Reparing has usually been assumed, though it isn't actually necessary. I'd rather have degredation, or even just breakage, without repair than not at all, but degredation and repair would be the best.

[kroner]

someone had a very clever way to implement item breakage without having to add a damage value to all the items in game. there would be a very small probability that an item would break which would be evaluated at each use (or each hour of use). if you got unlucky and the item broke, it would disappear. because whether the item broke or not would be evaluated indendently at every use, no values need to be stored for the specific item, only the breakage probability for that item type.
this isn't the most ideal system, but it's probably the least programming intensive method, and i think it would work well to solve the problem of economic build up.
i don't remeber who proposed this, but it's very good.