Occupation Logic

[jared96]

Figured I'd make a spot to openly discuss various techniques to approaching the occupation recipes. With no precraft window and the long cool down, experimentation opportunities are limited. The 1st 3 levels are doable enough with our little group's experience ranging from finding that all important 100% recipe in two tries to doing 12 and only gaining the 80's and 90's. With the generosity typical of the players in this game having posted recipes on their guild forums up to 70%, one can if they so choose, avoid the frustrating process of a string of 30% recipes.

However, Echelon 4 has presented some challenges. Before this level if you kept throwing new numbers at the slots, you were bound to get a > 30% recipe which could then be used as a basis for tweaking. At Echelon 4, those > 30% recipes are proving much more elusive. At echelon 6, I can't imagine how difficult it's going to be and we are only talking "Apprentice" levels here. What's come after Apprentice ? Journeyman, Expert, Master ?

So intent here was to create a place to discuss approaches, ideas, patch suggestions, etc.

As to the suggestions, my first one would be to think about the 20 hour timer. Not saying it's to big or too small, just oddball. I'd rather see a 24 hour timer or a 16 hour timer so that you could at least schedule a regular routine w/o setting the alarm for the middle of a sleep period if you wanted to take advantage of all your opportunities. Perhaps a 24 hour timer for the 1st 3 levels and once you have entered the echelon 4 climb, drop it to 16 as recognition of the player's accomplishments to date and the fact that at this point it gets very difficult.

Of all the echelon 4 peeps I have spoken with one has beaten 30% w/ a whopping 33% on the 10th try ....our little scrollmakers group has tried 11 recipes and hasn't broken 30% yet. Perhaps we are having a string of bad luck (after all we got real lucky on each 3) or perhaps the system will provide too little risk / reward for players to pursue. I have been surprised at the number of players who are not actively pursuing a profession stating that they see no real value to them. Maybe the real value won't appear till after the Apprentice Levels. Personally I am enjoying the new content and found the 1st three levels at least worth pursuing.

The obvious logic of throwing all new numbers at it after a 30% recipe (since it's obvious all or most of your choices are bad) does not appear to work at ech 4. Pretty much have used every number in each slot w/o success so far. Running out of time atm so will come back and start some discussion on various approaches to tackling the problem.

[final60]

mmm Freddy all I see in your post is that at echelon 4 it gets significantly harder. 11 scrollmakers are trying and not succeeding to find the recipe to progress, where it was alot easier previously.. It wouldn't be logical to reduce the timer or increase exp. That would just make it easier. Nothing is wrong, it is just getting hard now. In a year or so everyone will know the recipes and it will be easy at echelon 4 for everyone. It is only hard now because we are the first to do it, like it was hard in 2005 to get your first masters, before everyone had good gear, cats, alts to level with..everything is knowledge.

[mirrorgate]

20 Hour timer makes perfect sense to me. The idea is that you should be able to easily do one per day. If the timer were 24 hours then each time you were a little late you would be pushing the time to repeat further and further back till you had to miss day. With that 4 hour error margin even with some shift in your rl schedule you should usually be able to still get one per day done. I don't think it was anyone's intention to have people riding the timers to the minute.

As for the 11 tries still at 30% well that seems to be just plain bad luck. From Echelon 3+ the 30% results just don't reveal bad numbers any more as some options seem to subtract from yield. I guess the best approach if your luck is bad is to simply switch tact and work on one base recipe so that way each day you try you can eliminate on option. That way although it might take a while at least each day brings a measure of progress. Constant random selection relies on luck and a miss offers you nothing in return.

[sidusar]

I agree completely with both Final and mirrorgate.

Maybe the real value won't appear till after the Apprentice Levels.

It's interesting that you're assuming there is more after the apprentice levels. Not saying there's any proof in either direction, but I've always assumed there isn't.

The obvious logic of throwing all new numbers at it after a 30% recipe (since it's obvious all or most of your choices are bad) does not appear to work at ech 4.

Well, as far as I can tell, the problem is that all the non-100% numbers get so terrible that they drag the total way down. So having one or maybe even two good numbers can still give a 30% combination just because the other bad numbers drag it down. So as you say, just because a number appeared in a 30% recipe does not mean it's a bad number anymore. That makes it more difficult to figure out recipes, obviously.

Perhaps the idea was that the whole server would work together to figure out these recipes, and we're completely gimping ourselves by all keeping our recipes to ourselves?

I'd rather see a 24 hour timer or a 16 hour timer so that you could at least schedule a regular routine w/o setting the alarm for the middle of a sleep period if you wanted to take advantage of all your opportunities.

Nononono! Absolutely no! Think about what you're asking for a minute here.

The 20-hour timer is perfect to give casual players an opportunity to craft once per day, while giving them some flexibility as to which time of the day they want to do that crafting. A 24-hour timer would force you to craft at EXACTLY the same time each day, and every time you can't make that, you'd be forced to craft at a LATER time than the previous day, forcing you to stay up later and later until you have to skip a day completely.

That is why it's 20 hours. The intention is to let us craft once a day, while exactly *not* forcing everybody to set their alarm clock for their next crafting time. You can chose, with the 20-hour timer, to craft every 24 hour already. How would changing it to 24 hours make things better?

It wouldn't. All it would do is force the more casual "once-a-day" occupationers to set their alarm clocks too. Just because some people are so obsessed with getting the most out of occupations that they can't limit themselves to crafting once a day and set their alarm clock for their exact next crafting time anyway, you think the game should force ALL of us to do this?

[jared96]

mmm Freddy all I see in your post is that at echelon 4 it gets significantly harder. 11 scrollmakers are trying and not succeeding to find the recipe to progress, where it was alot easier previously.. It wouldn't be logical to reduce the timer or increase exp. That would just make it easier. Nothing is wrong, it is just getting hard now. In a year or so everyone will know the recipes and it will be easy at echelon 4 for everyone. It is only hard now because we are the first to do it, like it was hard in 2005 to get your first masters, before everyone had good gear, cats, alts to level with..everything is knowledge.

I was posting just before leaving for work so didn't have time to get to the nitty gritty....wanted to get some conversation started which would be productive to all concerned. Granted those that want to keep things for themselves won't participate and I don't expect that group to participate.

The one thing I would jump on is the Lucky Flowers thing. The two TP's every 2 days seems well thought out but I don't get the lucky flowers.....they might as well not be there as they have no significance. I gathered some enough larva / ink Saturday from the egg room to make 400 certs of each and off I go to improve my mats.....I have 4 lucky flowers or 1/2 of 1 % of y certs. Don't see how the lucky flowers fit into the schem,e of things.

As to your other points, the purpose of new content is at least in part to attract those who are vacationing from Ryzom and bring them in for a spell. I'm not seeing it. In asking who's doing what, more than half the answers are "eh". Many started, many stopped. I'm not suggesting making it easier or giving more XP. I am suggesting that if it gets to be drudgery, people will stop doing it. I see two solutions to drudgery.

1. Cooperation. Working in groups, you can attack more combos per day. This seems the most logical fit to the Ryzom community I have known for 6+ years and the main purpose of starting the thread.

2. Progression. As you dig for example...you went from 2 mats to 4 to 6 to ..... the rate you drove the timer down decreased a little bit more each time you got a new skill level. What progress do we see here other than in the "goodies" .... I'm more of it's the journey kind of thing which, in reference to what you said, I don't use cats except to eliminate the drudgery of twice as much digging to craft. I'm by no means anxious to get to the end, I'm enjoying the walk and the change of scenery that goes by. But there's no scenery chnange when you're on a treadmill. That's why I said 24 hours would be fine. Start w/ 20 on Ech 1, 19 on n ech 2 and down to 15 for ech 6 .... at least something's changing. Don't have to be the cooldown, but make something change. It doesn't always have to be about the goodies. Keep it interesting, peeps will stay .... make it repetitive and boring only the prize oriented will retain interest. If I'm wrong then I can't understand why a /who brings up no names in region almost every time I'm down there.

I think the concept was well thought out and I'm enjoying it but the treadmill mindset is hard to avoid w/o 1 of the 2 options described above....other feed back I'm sure will result in whatever future tweaks are made but if I may, I'd like to focus on the cooperation aspect and continue the discussion with peeps interested working together to overcome the challenge pout before us. I enjoyed the years of playing w/ simulators and working out the mathematics of crafting and hoping to start anew with our latest challenge.

[jared96]

It's interesting that you're assuming there is more after the apprentice levels. Not saying there's any proof in either direction, but I've always assumed there isn't.

I am a creature of logic. Listened to a comedian last night describing his experience in a fast food joint. He asked for a plain tea to which the waitress replied "Oh you mean unsweetened". He said no, I dom't want you to take some tea, put somethings weet in and then "unsweeten it", I want some tea that was never sweetened in the first place such that it now required unsweetening.

She then asked what size and he replied "small", to which the waitress then replied "we only have medium and large". Medium, by definition requires the existence of a small and a large, otherwise there can't be a medium. Similarly, "Apprentice" by definition requires that when you complete your apprenticeship, you become something else. ANd let's not forget that the Identity tab has two windows....one for "basic Occupations" and one for "Advanced Occupations".

As for the timer....lemme refer to the forest through the trees analogy and address "the point". It's not whether it's 24 or 16, it's the fact that it's static....pick any number you want .... but let there be some feedback or change in scenery so to speak that something changes as a result of attaining higher levels.

Perhaps the idea was that the whole server would work together to figure out these recipes, and we're completely gimping ourselves by all keeping our recipes to ourselves?

As said before, that's not a part of Atys I can claim membership in. If I have 2 of something, someone can have one. While I won't disclose someone's shared recipe w/o their permission, if I created a recipe, it's anyone's [almost ] for the asking.

I intended to mention some ideas for "tweaks" in passing as some side chatter before covering the intended subject of cooperation. I then noticed time getting short and had to end the post before leaving for work. I'll blame myself for not having the time to refocus the post before running off, but given the histories here, I'm not sure it would matter.

I'd like to leave the tweak chatter aside as I think the devs will address any potential tweaks based more on what peeps are doing (or not doing as the case may be) that what peeps are chattering about in the forums.

With a bit more time on my hands I'd like to refocus on strategies for tackling this challenge and who might be interested in forming coalitions to grapple with it.

[kuroari]

1. Cooperation. Working in groups, you can attack more combos per day. This seems the most logical fit to the Ryzom community I have known for 6+ years and the main purpose of starting the thread.

Okay, See one of the points of Occupations I thought was to make it easier to solo... Unfortunately for as difficult as these 'harder' occupations are - even at echelon 1 - it's nearly impossible to do much solo without super high levels (to survive kitin in lair) without getting TONS of Death Penalty.

I figured out a 70% recipe my second try for echelon 1 larvester and just used that to get to ech2. Now I'm about to start 2 but I'm not looking forward to having to move deeper and deeper into KL.


So, Here are my issues (with the 'hard' occupations, i haven't done any of the 'easy' ones yet) ::

1 - It's WAY too hard to get the components necessary SOLO. The amount of time spent gathering components + collecting death penalty so far has not proved to be worth the time spent on these things.

2 - I've yet to see any logic in the recipes.. We had these things thrown at us from the blue.. do I want to use Thick Larva and Flambe it with Shooki Liquor after soaking for 10 hours? I dunno.. I guess?

3 - You can either USE the items you spent so much work making, or you can get XP. Personally I haven't taken a SINGLE item from my occupation because I was wanting XP (thinking that obviously with a higher level it would be easier to make things.. right? WRONG) Why can't the master look at my tasty flambe'd larvae and let me have em back after?

An addition to the game that I think has GREAT potential is too 'odd' atm.. It really hasn't made solo-ing easier for me.. It demands REALLY high level + skill to accomplish and then it has that forced 20hr cooldown with recipes that are totally random.

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And for Marelli, The chapter IS called "basic occupations" .. I assume that means we'll have "advanced occupations" at some point (or are supposed to anyway).

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Those are just some of the bigger points i've come up with so far from just doing some 'low level' larvesting. I'm defo interested in seeing where this thread will go. Kudos FF

[gcaldani]

I understand the frustration of Freddy, but I have to admit, despite in the past I was very critics with the devs, that Occupations are well done as a concept.

The only thing devs forgot, or intentionally missed, is the lack of merchants to put the stuff on sale. This is a big mistake, imho.

For me, hard occupations are ment, as usual for ryzom, to be a group activity. Up till now (i'm G3 scroll) i have found no big problem into the Lair, apart of some thrill here and there. But we like the challenge, right?
So, I suppose, starting from G4 we need to start working togheter.

The stuff obtained should be useful to help people to solo in game, not the occupations themselves.

But we need a merchant for that stuff, that's it. Imho.