Gathering fails should yield some and kill node

Suggestion:
Instead of having gathering fails result in nothing and not damage node, I propose that it should yield subpar and destroy the node in the process.

Otherwise it's just an endless repeat of frustration with no adventure.

Example:
Let's say in adventure I face a wolf and go victorious out of that. Then skin it with a 20% chance. That means that after the adventure I'm now bound to on average have 4 frustrating fails in the same spot, and spending time again and again, triggering our wetwares stress systems.
This is not encouraging.
While if we would go with my suggestion I'd only do the skinning once but the fail/success would be akin to lottery in that fails yield sub par and success yields a win.
So maybe a success would yield hides and a carcass, while a fail would yield hide scraps and 'mangled/ruined carcass' (which can still be butchered but for much less yield).

Tree chopping fails could yield bark and such but no wood.
Sickle fails could yield garlic the herb instead of garlic the reagent.
Mining fails could yield crystal dust instead of gems.
Etc

This would trigger a different wetware response of continue to play to win. Instead of stress and then frustration.

Also rethink the quantity thing come from node remain after successful gather. This for me is just adding frustration since it seems like a loss due to more work necessary instead of a win.
I regularly abandon nodes which I just harvested successfully and which remained due to the quantity skill.

 

Agree. Very good suggestion Spoon.

 

Tree chopping fails: A branch falls from above. The axe glances off the tree into your shin. The tree falls toward you. A squirrel laughs.

While I agree with you that the red fail bar is annoying, randomly "winning" and failing is an extremely addictive reward system for humans and rats!

I personally don't mind failing and as I get "better" I appreciate that that bar shows up less. In the case of gathering, a person really needs to harvest 10, 20, and 50 exp nodes for a long time before banging their head against 110 and 200 exp nodes.

 

I dunno, seems like it could be more frustrating to run out of nodes so quickly with potentially little to show for it.

Have to consider all the competition racing to gather all the resources in a scene too. Now that they will all be destroying nodes and moving to the next instead of spending time working at one node, there will be less to go around and fewer resources Per person gathering.

It's my preference to have to deal with hacking at 1 node several times before being rewarded than to enter completely barren scenes all the time because i wasn't there first.

 

What if you succeed everytime but you get poor, low, good or excellent quality resources that determine how many refining products you will get.

Add durability to items gathered indicating quality? So they still stack perhaps the durability averages?

 

Sorry Spoon, I don't support this idea... The entire system isn't in yet, Chris was saying in one of his posts that "tools will wear on fails" and so far tools stay at 100%... It won't be very wise to continue harvesting a node you've failed 3 time at harvesting...

 

Prosperity don't wear but other tools go down 1 durability per use.

 

Yeah I had my poor skinning knife bust right after slaying a whole pack of wolves

 

I must be in "God mode" then, because none of my store bought tools have ever worn out or broke... My armor/weapon wear out all the time, but never have broken when hitting zero durability... Mmm... very strange...

 

I agree with the notion that a failed attempt should 'damage' the product sometimes, resulting in low quality returns, and less high quality returns the more we fail at that node.

I also think a node should have a certain number of product, say, 2-3, or 4-5, so you could succeed, fail, fail, succeed, fail, resulting in 2 quality products, 3 crummy by-products(slugs).

The number of products acquirable should very according to skill, and type of node. A larger creature like a bear should have more product to skin than a squirrel.

Most gatherables however, can very greatly in amount of product from node to node:
Ore veins could be a small pocket, or large pocket as you dig.
Garlic could grow in bunches of varying amounts..
etc.

 

I for one would never support another UO Lottery system, where you would need to harvest literally thousands of un-wanted product, just to get the few that you actually needed to craft... As it stands now, 300 ores boil down to 75 usable ingots, that is a pretty steep ratio... Then if you want to alloy these ingots, you further reduce any usable product... Games are supposed to be Fun, not a second job...

It's fine to have your tools wear out, it's fine to fail multiple times, all that's wasted is time... From what I've seen all that can be avoided by using "prosperity" tools and harvesting a lower level node (since all the nodes have similar yields), in fact it raises the chances of not destroying the node, so instead of increasing yield, you just try again... I'm all for a system like that... But reducing the node yield on a fail or having multiple "quality" product is just asking for trouble, and counter productive...

 

That's how I felt too. What's the point of a 25% (or whatever) chance at successful harvesting when all that means is my trying to harvest the node three more times (on average)? It might as well be 100% success rate in that case. Or if the first try misses, the node is useless.

 

Tool wear was exactly why I picked up ALL the prosperity tools in the store! Don't want to have to deal with replacing tools

I do agree with the OP that its a bit frustrating to just fail over and over again with no exp. Maybe give a smaller amount of exp on failure. You can learn from success and failure you know

 

That isn't what I'm requesting though.
Take hides as the perfect example.
There is hide scraps which requires an extra step of refining to make leather when compared to real hides.
So a fail would supply scraps while a success would supply full hides.
Then when you get home scraps take two refinement steps and full hides only one.

Same thing can be balanced throughout.

 

Hi Spoon, I re-read your original post and as I understand it, you want a "reward", no matter what happens (fail/success)... You're willing to take a "worthless" reward on failure, but you want a reward none the less... I understand you feel frustration, when you fail multiple times in a row (believe me, I feel frustration too when I fail having a 98% chance too, but I think your talking about 10 times in a row)...

I don't think you're playing the system the way they want you to play it... SotA is a "level" based game, not only for the chr, but also for the "scene" your in, and likewise the "node" your trying to harvest (yes, it has a level too)... All three of these factors play a part in the "formula" they use for success (this is just the outcome of any roll)...

For examples sake, the scenes are level 10, level 50, and level 100 (easy, medium, hard), your chr starts at level 5, so when you play in a level 10 scene it's a little hard (until you reach level 10, then it gets easier)... Once you hit level 25, a level 10 scene is so easy, you need to move on to a level 50 scene, then it's hard again... It's done this way to maintain the "sandbox" effect, some players like to be level 10 and go in to a level 100 scene (and they conquer it without any frustration because they don't see it as frustrating at all, just a challenge)...

All the nodes are the same way, you fail a lot because your level is so much under the nodes level... I don't think you should get anything from a fail, and I don't think the node should deteriorate either... I don't know what levels you are but I'm adventure 54, production 42, I got 111 points in each of the four gathering skills, I got all prosperity tools and I'm having a blast... Some Grey wolves, I harvest 10-12 times in a row (but they must have changed that, too many hides in the world), but I have done it with ore 5 times, reagents 3-4 times, cotton 6 times, wood 3 times... Occasionally, I'll have a fail twice in a row at 98% chance... I don't think I've seen any nodes that are under 51% for me, then I start failling...

That's the same "odds" as Blackjack, I don't feel frustration, I double my bet and Boom, "Winner"...

 

@SmokerKGB

Not really. I'm at max skill level in all the gathering skills, except skinning. With prosperity tools.
I usually have 50-60% on tier 5 sources.
And yes I have really long fail runs.

However that isn't the issue though.

Instead, as implemented in R16, if you have a 20% shot at gathering, then that doesn't mean that you will fail, ever. It just means you need to be persistent and work 5x to get it. (or until your tool breaks).
That is not a good model, nor does it feel rewarding. (Unless you get a crit).
Then if you increase the yield part so that the node remains, you do 5x again, and maybe again. *yawns*

It also means that if you are serious about gathering, you will stand still waiting for the timer again and again and again etc.
Not really adventuring. While if one goes with my model the node is gone, so you need to move on. Forcing you to take more risks and adventure leading to excitement etc.

 

I think that each of the gathering skills should work different.

For example skinning could easily result in a fail leaving you with little chance of getting anything useful other than scraps once you messed it up.

Picking herbs would probably give a lower yield on a fail. Once you pick it there is nothing left to do and you are left with only what you managed to get right the first time.

Failing at cutting a tree could actually result in some damage to the player and maybe a loss in yeild since someone skilled could probably get more wood out of a tree.

Failing at mining could work as it is currently and leave you with nothing (or dirt) and you have to try again.


Having things work different like this could make the different activities appeal to different types of players.