View source for Post:Foraging Info - 09/02/2003 - 16:11

{{Post
|a=DR-JENT
|t=Foraging Info
|d=09/02/2003 04:11 PM CDT
|n=143
|f=Abilities, Skills and Magic \ Game Master and Official Announcements
|c=m
|p=Okay,

I think we are pretty close to fixing the major issues. I have some time right now to give you some more details that some folks have been asking for.

So why did we do this change?

The old system had some major flaws and was one of the oldest existing systems in the game. Which meant the system was designed under the programing conditions of the DR beta release. The system was close to being max'd out with the number items, meaning we could not add more items if we wanted to. This was a problem since Substances 2.0, and the new creation systems, careers, and abilities that can now happen with Substances 2.0, would be severely constrained. So we needed a way to add more items.

The old system taught very poorly, especially for Survival Prime Guilds. The exp. gains now should be very reasonable. We also wanted to offer more ways to learn the skill then just foraging corn over and over. We decided to add some different types of foraging and a new way to Collect items. With these new ways to foraging we can offer better exp. gains and deal with the timer issue. Under the new system the timer was pretty easy to figure out and didn't offer much variance. The new system still has timers but it varies more but there are ways to gain exp. without a timer, as some of you have already figured out. When DR2 comes out there will be no more timers in the system. We will add a way to track if an item is over harvested from the room. Once all the Riolur leaves in the room have been found, and it will be very high number, it will take a few IG days for the leaf to grow back.

Under the old system the environmental setting of the room made very little difference as to what could be found. There were 2 things the system checked for to find the item in the room and then did another check on one environmental setting to see if the player could find it or not. This was very limiting and the result was very little depth to the system (and boring). As you might have figured out we love details in DR but you should also believe us when we say we are also concerned with playability issues. To that end we are going to keep monitoring the new foraging over the immediate future. 

Anyway, here is a list of some things the Foraging System looks for.

The Difficulty of the Item<br />
The Rarity of the Item<br />
What sort of Biosphere the item can be found in, Forest, dessert, ocean, etc.<br />
The Temperature range the item grows or lives in.<br />
The Humidity range the item grows or lives in.<br />
The Season in which the item grows.<br />
The Terrain in which the item grows or lives, this is a more specific setting then Biosphere. So for example a Cave or Road in a Forest. The Cave or Road being the Terrain and Forest being the Biosphere.<br />
The Ground type in which an item grows or lives. Dirt, sand, gravel, etc.<br />
The Season in which the item grows the best.<br />
The time of day.<br />
What moons are out.<br />
The weather.<br />
How fertile an area is.<br />
Then we can have certain items room specific, this is something that is being worked on. The Corn field and no Corn thing.<br />
On the Player side we check for more than just Foraging ranks but I cannot really go into that.<br />

What we did was to take the items that existed under the old system and make then as generic as possible but still within reason to the new system, so not all current items use every single defining environmental factor. In fact only one or two items at this point do. We are still listening to issues with specific items but the way some items are defined they can simply not be found in certain areas. This is why some of you can't find yelith root where you use to find it and are finding where you could never find it. As you can see from the above list the Environmental settings of the area you are in play a big part of what you can find. 

Difficulty and Rarity directly effect the exp. gains so we set the items to be more in line with the new system. Under the old system if you had 100 ranks of foraging you found most everything if you where in the right room. Also, the old exp. gains were very low as compared to the new system. So now we have folks who can't find a pine limb or a healing herb that they did a few days ago. We adjusted the difficulty factors down and adjusted specific items to make it more palatable. Unfortunately some folks are going to need to train the skill up to get the more useful items. However, we are very happy with how well the system rewards exp. and think most folks can train up the skill very reasonably. Further, foraging under adverse conditions does not teach better, it is all in the success of item foraged. We had discussed this with some GM's while we were developing the system and it was decided this is the way to go.

Now as far as items go for those players with low foraging ranks and ideal items for specific ranks. If you are still reading this you might be understanding that it is impossible to say at what rank you can find what item. However I can give you some general ranges -

A few items new players and very low foraging ranks (0-30) can find -

Berries<br />
Fish bone<br />
Branch<br />
Grass<br />
Leaf<br />
Rock<br />
Stick<br />
Twig<br />
Dirt<br />

A few items that players with low foraging ranks (30-50 ranks) should be able to find- 

Blueberries<br />
Strawberries<br />
Scallion<br />
Georin Grass<br />
Limb<br />
Vine<br />
Weed<br />
Jadice flower<br />

From 50-100 ranks

Blue flowers<br />
Red flowers<br />
Tree root<br />
Clam Shell<br />
Shark Tooth<br />

-Pine Sticks and Limbs are starting around 90-110 ranks. Other woods come not to far after that. We are still looking at this closely/


Lastly, there are only 118 items currently in the system. We can go as high as 10000 items and just might over the next few years. This winter you should see another 100 items released. Despite some pain folks might be experiencing we feel the future of foraging looks a lot brighter now.


Thanks everyone!

[[Jent]], [[Paklin]], and [[Taiga]]

PS Please post any responses, questions, or conerns about foraging in the Abilities, Skills and Magic Folder -Survival Skills - Staying Alive - Topic
|sub=Foraging,forage command
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