Tailor Archive
Thread: The more I think about it, the more disgusted I become..
Gyopi wrote:
What is worse is that this appears to set up a vicious cycle. For example, when they fixed commandos, it seemed like everyone rushed to become one. That leads to more people in that profession to scream about every little issue, so they get more attention and fixes, etc.
Well, this is one reason why I'm careful, and usually conservative when it comes to screaming about issues. The clothing experimentation removal upset me a lot, that was uncalled for ihmo, but one of the nice things about tailoring is that it is a "manageable size" right now. On my server we have just enough tailors so there is competition, but not so many that it is cutthroat. Demand still fortunately seems to exceed supply. Tailor seems to have just enough problems/drawbacks to make it unattractive to most folks, yet not enough so that it is horribly broken like some other professions. Some other crafting professions seem to be getting a lot of attention like bio engineer, and probably after that droid engineer. Cool, they get stuff fixed, but then everybody and their sister are going to rush into that profession and it will become cutthroat the way architecture became. Rancors and probotsfor 3k on the bazar anyone? lol. I'll bet anyone here that that day will come.
In some ways I think tailor is like a secret. It's a great little profession that is fun, not very broken, very profitable, but still kind of flys under the radar of most players. I just hope it stays that way, lol.
To pipe back in on my own subject...
Let me clarify about Armorsmiths. Why shouldn't they have to take the Tailoring line if they want to have the colors? I have to take armorsmith if I want to make the armor. The fact is, they didn't want to give up 20 points from a combat profession. In short, they complained and got 20 skill points for free. That's the point.
Someone said they're thinking about making installations decay? They already do! It's called maintainence. I pay a regular fee to keep my harvesters and houses from falling apart. Don't believe me? Don't pay the maintainence on your house. It, your furniture, your vendors and all your stock will disappear in a heartbeat! In fact, the CSRs have gotten reports on the maintainence fees being bugged, accelerating the maintainence usages (spending an entire month's maintainence in a day) and making houses go bye-bye.
The only things in the game that don't already decay are clothes and consumables. Since consumables are just that... consumable, I have no problem with them not decaying. And they can't figure out how to work out clothing decay? Geez, Louise! Give me any code monkey in their office and I'll have the thing fixed in an hour. How about this... while equipped, clothes decay at a rate of 5pts/(1 + Durability rating) per hour. The durability rating is the % experimented to rendered as a decimal. The decay is assessed for the whole hour at the 3-minute mark of every hour from time of equipping. Short, sweet and simple. If we need a greater range, make the equation 5pts/(1 + (4*Durabilty rating)). Most any clothing is going to come up with at least a 5% rating... so crappy clothes would decay at [5/1.20] 4.166pts per hour that you are in play and the article is equipped.Most of the stuff I was making before that ganked it was around 65%, so it would decay at a rate of [5/(1 + (4*.65))] 1.388pts per hour. Any incap drops all equipped clothes by 10pts. A death drops an item (whatever's equipped at the proper 'to hit' location) by 25pts, but only one item.
There you go. Took me 5 minutes. I'm not much of a code monkey, but I bet someone familiar with the databases could knock this out before lunch. Now, all clothes wear out... and the guy who's got a half-dozen laser burns on his chest will have to buy a new shirt sooner than the dancer in the cantina.
I've said this a time or two before... what Sony needs is a GM (Game Master, for those not familiar with RPGs)or two who have a clue... and play the game.
/agree Kylania
When I see dancers getting incapped in the cantina, then I will feel my clothing is being properly decayed 
Don't get me started on this topic...they are discussing making Buildings and furniture decay in the architect forum. Can you imagine what that would do to shopkeepers? Ugh...makes me ill.
Original rant: yes I tend to agree...adding some new clothing items, some customization (anyone ever play NWN? remember how you could choose from 20 different arm/bicep/shoulder/waist/torso/thigh/calf/foot peices and make completely custom armor? That would rock for clothes..even a dress), and perhaps making some quested patterns or components would make me feel like I'm moving forward instead of backward.
That's why "event-based" decay works from a programming standpoint. Every time a piece of armor gets hit, it might decay, every time a gun is fired, it might decay, etc. You can easily "piggy-back" the decay code onto existing code, with little cost. But with clothing, the solution's a lot less obvious. Do you check every piece of equipped clothing in the game once per minute and apply decay? Maybe you record and check timestamps of when a shirt was equipped, and apply decay when it's unequipped? All the likely methods could present non-trivial performance issues.
Which is not to say it can't be done, but the "one hour solution" you describe would probably cause weeks of debugging because it doesn't think through all the ramifications.
moody628 wrote:
Let me clarify about Armorsmiths. Why shouldn't they have to take the Tailoring line if they want to have the colors?
Uhhh, tailors have some kind of god given right to be the master of color? I'm not following that logic.
If they give architects the ability to make colored furniture - do they also have to be tailors?
Bios are supposed to eventually be getting the ability to color animals - are they going to have to be tailors too?
I don't see the function of color as being the domain of any one profession.
Easy solution:
Don't calculate the decay "real-time", calculate it say only when the servers start up (make it part of the startup sequence only). At worst it adds a tiny bit of time to the startup of the servers, but wouldn't affect gameplay.
SueDenim wrote:
The only problem with that approach is that you'd have to write some sort of code to periodically check and apply decay to equipped clothing. Doing this would probably have non-trivial performance consequences.
That's why "event-based" decay works from a programming standpoint. Every time a piece of armor gets hit, it might decay, every time a gun is fired, it might decay, etc. You can easily "piggy-back" the decay code onto existing code, with little cost. But with clothing, the solution's a lot less obvious. Do you check every piece of equipped clothing in the game once per minute and apply decay? Maybe you record and check timestamps of when a shirt was equipped, and apply decay when it's unequipped? All the likely methods could present non-trivial performance issues.
Which is not to say it can't be done, but the "one hour solution" you describe would probably cause weeks of debugging because it doesn't think through all the ramifications.
I agree with the poster who said we should have no dominance on colour. In my eyes thats simply absurd.
Kind Regards,
Tally, Master Tailor of Eclipse
And given the state of the database management in the game already, I doubt that'd fly.
The real trick with clothing is the absence of discrete, logical, "This happens, then decay happens" events for decay to occur. Implementing "time worn" based decay would, at the very least, require a new system with non-trivial overhead, and might have all sorts of unforeseen consequences on overall game and database performance, etc.
I have a feeling that we'll ultimately have something less satisfying, but more feasible, like a big list of discrete events that might potentially cause worn clothing to decay at that moment:
- you get hit with a weapon
- you get incapped
- you perform a dance/music flourish
- you use MaskScent
- you have a critical failure while crafting
- you stand in a campfire
etc.
ArthurDentOnBria wrote:Easy solution:
Don't calculate the decay "real-time", calculate it say only when the servers start up (make it part of the startup sequence only). At worst it adds a tiny bit of time to the startup of the servers, but wouldn't affect gameplay.
Then all you have to do is make sure to take off your clothes (or at least the ones you care about) before you log off so that they don't get counted in the daily decay update. I still think that decaying clothing by changes in the HAM bars is the best way to handle clothing decay.
^ agree
If you're getting shot by blaster-fire from pirates, I would **edit** well hope your Gunman's Duster would be worse for wear because of it.
Non decay on clothing is ridiculous