SUGGESTION for time orbs #3257

New Issue

daydream · 2022-12-17T03:26:40Z

daydream commented

2022-12-17 03:26:40 +00:00

Players have reported believing that YL is plunged into darkness a lot more than it is bathed in daylight. This perception can easily be felt by anyone trying to build or explore who would like to be able to see what they're doing for longer periods of time - but is it reality or perception skewed be the desire to work at full capacity?

The perception is not helped by a player announcing in main chat a couple weeks ago that they planned to make it dark as often as possible because they "like the darkness" I believe was the phrase. I have a vague memory who said it, but I am not sure - it's not an excellent thing to do in any case this isn't a player report - it's a request to tweak and here is my suggestion:

The orb of dawn should have a shorter time out than any other orb available. Why? Because it affords the most amount of daylight and that is what the majority of the players want. It will be a cat and mouse game just to keep up with the "prince of darkness" whoever it is, but this has become as issue due to their constant nightmaking. I often notice it’s been dark a LOT and attempt to use orb of dawn only to find that we’re in a global time out, so my guess is someone is making it dark. A lot. But this perception would need to be verified.

NOTE: Perceptions may vary due to builder/explorer desire to build right around the clock in good light conditions. So step one is to determine if this perception that “someone is doing it” a true perception or not? If no, disregard suggestion. If yes, think about tweaking global time outs so daytime has more of a chance because, simply put, more players prefer it.

Players have reported believing that YL is plunged into darkness a lot more than it is bathed in daylight. This perception can easily be felt by anyone trying to build or explore who would like to be able to see what they're doing for longer periods of time - but is it reality or perception skewed be the desire to work at full capacity? The perception is not helped by a player announcing in main chat a couple weeks ago that they planned to make it dark as often as possible because they "like the darkness" I believe was the phrase. I have a vague memory who said it, but I am not sure - it's not an excellent thing to do in any case this isn't a player report - it's a request to tweak and here is my suggestion: The orb of dawn should have a shorter time out than any other orb available. Why? Because it affords the most amount of daylight and that is what the majority of the players want. It will be a cat and mouse game just to keep up with the "prince of darkness" whoever it is, but this has become as issue due to their constant nightmaking. I often notice it’s been dark a LOT and attempt to use orb of dawn only to find that we’re in a global time out, so my guess is someone *is* making it dark. A lot. But this perception would need to be verified. NOTE: Perceptions may vary due to builder/explorer desire to build right around the clock in good light conditions. So step one is to determine if this perception that “someone is doing it” a true perception or not? If no, disregard suggestion. If yes, think about tweaking global time outs so daytime has more of a chance because, simply put, more players prefer it.

flux commented

2022-12-17 04:23:45 +00:00

simply put, more players prefer it

this isn't a democracy. even as an admin and mod maker, i don't have much of a voice. "the loud and active people like it" is something the creative side needs to listen to, but any fun game must have things that're challenging, and we can't only listen to that one side.

that said, i like the idea of balancing day/night more. some of my own ideas:

relative day/night length shouldn't be fixed. currently, "full night" and "full day" are about the same length of time, w/ a bit of transitional behavior between the two. creating "seasons" would be neat, where sometimes the length of day is more than night and sometimes vice versa. it also is somewhat possible to introduce different day/night cycles for different players or in in different areas, but the game doesn't have a good overall mechanism for doing that rn.
night should have more advantages than it does currently. werewolves (and vampires?) are one suggestion, but there ought to be more advantages weighing against the greater risks. maybe some crops should require a night sky - but not a cave - in order to grow? for the distant future, i can imagine magical plants that have to be exposed to the sky at night, but will die in actual daylight. i can imagine a setup that relies on mesecons solar panels, a "not" gate, and ghoststone.
nightvision should be implemented somehow, and possibly in multiple ways. on this server, there's been discussion about implementing nightvision for werewovles and as magic ability, and i think both things should be expedited. in particular, it should be much easier to continue building in your own areas when it is "night". nightvision for builders is almost as important as builders' flight.

> simply put, more players prefer it this isn't a democracy. even as an admin and mod maker, i don't have much of a voice. "the loud and active people like it" is something the creative side needs to listen to, but any fun game *must* have things that're challenging, and we can't only listen to that one side. that said, i like the idea of balancing day/night more. some of my own ideas: * relative day/night length shouldn't be fixed. currently, "full night" and "full day" are about the same length of time, w/ a bit of transitional behavior between the two. creating "seasons" would be neat, where sometimes the length of day is more than night and sometimes vice versa. it also is somewhat possible to introduce different day/night cycles for different players or in in different areas, but the game doesn't have a good overall mechanism for doing that rn. * night should have more advantages than it does currently. werewolves (and vampires?) are one suggestion, but there ought to be more advantages weighing against the greater risks. maybe some crops should require a night sky - but not a cave - in order to grow? for the distant future, i can imagine magical plants that have to be exposed to the sky at night, but will die in actual daylight. i can imagine a setup that relies on mesecons solar panels, a "not" gate, and ghoststone. * nightvision should be implemented somehow, and possibly in multiple ways. on this server, there's been discussion about implementing nightvision for werewovles and as magic ability, and i think both things should be expedited. in particular, it should be much easier to continue building in your own areas when it is "night". nightvision for builders is almost as important as builders' flight.

flux commented

2022-12-17 04:27:49 +00:00

cf. #1550

Boot commented

2022-12-17 09:57:32 +00:00

The night also has its meaning for builders. Beautiful buildings also include suitable lighting. At night you can devote yourself to the often neglected interior design of the buildings. In the mines and in the nether, it doesn't matter if it's day or night. Therefore, everything can remain as it is. Really annoying is only the long travel at night. Then there is really a danger of falling into fissures. Whether you need a night vision for this or whether these fissures should "glow" a bit at night?

flux added the

1. kind/balancing

2. prio/controversial

labels 2022-12-17 16:42:18 +00:00

Sokomine commented

2022-12-17 20:18:31 +00:00

Daylight is really important for builders. Lighting up the build is also of importance - and for checking that a short night now and then is needed - but most of the time beeing able to see what's going on is what is important. Night just strains the eye and turns a game meachnism into a high physical discomfort.

daydream commented

2022-12-18 08:09:35 +00:00

I absolutely LOVE night time in this game but for a player to announce that they intend to make it dark as often as humanly possible just because they like the darkness is annoying. Nobody is suggesting all the times (dawn, day, dusk and night) aren't beautiful and wanted. Far from it, just making that point very clear. I am not advocating for constant daytime like The Sims 1 (lol) for a second. How boring that would be! Maybe this should be more of a player report and less of a code suggestion afterall.

flux commented

2022-12-18 20:49:46 +00:00

maybe use of the time orbs could be gated behind a privilege that could be revoked?

👍 4

flux added the

4. step/discussion

label 2022-12-18 20:49:54 +00:00

sherkhan30452 commented

2022-12-19 17:59:42 +00:00

maybe use of the time orbs could be gated behind a privilege that could be revoked?

I agree with this, I am building a lot/flattening/digging a lot of stuff and can't use lava pickaxe on the dirt fast in the night time.

> maybe use of the time orbs could be gated behind a privilege that could be revoked? I agree with this, I am building a lot/flattening/digging a lot of stuff and can't use lava pickaxe on the dirt fast in the night time.

Ravise commented

2022-12-20 10:26:23 +00:00

For the issue of "there is not enough day on the server", lowering the beds quota for sleeping might help. Currently, beds need >50% of sleepers to skip the night, which means 10+ players. As a result, orbs are significantly overused relative to beds. Using orbs is extremely cheap for long term players.

People want more daylight? Let them make an effort. Carry a bed, go to sleep. Coordinate. Express yourself.

There's two degrees of freedom for balancing this mechanic: when the "beds" night start/ends and how large is the sleeper quota. As a wild guess, I'd suggest something like 35% to skip 00-04hrs. That leaves half of the night to be unskippable through beds (orbs still apply) and lowers the quota to count for afkers and people, who won't care. Yet, it still requires at least a partial consensus among the players (unlike orbs).

For the issue of "there is not enough day on the server", lowering the beds quota for sleeping might help. Currently, beds need >50% of sleepers to skip the night, which means 10+ players. As a result, orbs are significantly overused relative to beds. Using orbs is extremely cheap for long term players. People want more daylight? Let them make an effort. Carry a bed, go to sleep. Coordinate. Express yourself. There's two degrees of freedom for balancing this mechanic: when the "beds" night start/ends and how large is the sleeper quota. As a wild guess, I'd suggest something like 35% to skip 00-04hrs. That leaves half of the night to be unskippable through beds (orbs still apply) and lowers the quota to count for afkers and people, who won't care. Yet, it still requires at least a partial consensus among the players (unlike orbs).

👍 3

AliasAlreadyTaken commented

2022-12-21 03:18:18 +00:00

From all suggestion, those are my thoughts:

In YL, both night and day must serve a purpose. We need both. Magic plants that require moonlight is one example of a good suggestion. Some surface mobs only appear at night, we don't want to make them pointless.
We want to allow occasional skips, but not all the time. Currently beds are a way of skipping night as pointed out, but a bit hard to do. Accounts like Service and Bailiff do not count towards this 50%
The orbs are too cheap, especially when they can be repaired.
In the past we had a mechanic that would make the timeout longer, the more often the orb was used. it added 1 ingame day to the timeout if the orb was used less than 3 days ago and decayed by 1 day every 3 ingame days back to its initial value of 1,5 days. I cannot find this code anymore, but its trivial to reimplement
Your Land is maybe not a pure democracy, but if one person can spoil the game for everyone else, something is not right. Coordination and consensus are key design elements of YL, I like Ravises suggestions.
I do not like the idea that one time of day is more valuable than another. Means, if we want to buff or nerf one orb of time, we must do it to the others as well.
A privilege is a good idea, but that applies to a lot of stuff. Let's keep in a future option, but not implement yet.

From all suggestion, those are my thoughts: 1. In YL, both night and day must serve a purpose. We need both. Magic plants that require moonlight is one example of a good suggestion. Some surface mobs only appear at night, we don't want to make them pointless. 2. We want to allow occasional skips, but not all the time. Currently beds are a way of skipping night as pointed out, but a bit hard to do. Accounts like Service and Bailiff do not count towards this 50% 3. The orbs are too cheap, especially when they can be repaired. 4. In the past we had a mechanic that would make the timeout longer, the more often the orb was used. it added 1 ingame day to the timeout if the orb was used less than 3 days ago and decayed by 1 day every 3 ingame days back to its initial value of 1,5 days. I cannot find this code anymore, but its trivial to reimplement 5. Your Land is maybe not a pure democracy, but if one person can spoil the game for everyone else, something is not right. Coordination and consensus are key design elements of YL, I like Ravises suggestions. 6. I do not like the idea that one time of day is more valuable than another. Means, if we want to buff or nerf one orb of time, we must do it to the others as well. 7. A privilege is a good idea, but that applies to a lot of stuff. Let's keep in a future option, but not implement yet.

flux commented

2022-12-21 06:34:03 +00:00

lowering the beds quota ... Carry a bed, go to sleep.

i'm not against lowering the beds quota so that sleeping can have an effect, but i'm very much against the idea of having beds that you can carry around to help skip the night. if the night skip quota is lowered, there should also be a mechanic that you can't use a bed to skip the night if it hasn't been around for at least 24 hours, or something like that.

> lowering the beds quota ... Carry a bed, go to sleep. i'm not against lowering the beds quota so that sleeping can have an effect, but i'm very much against the idea of having beds that you can carry around to help skip the night. if the night skip quota is lowered, there should also be a mechanic that you can't use a bed to skip the night if it hasn't been around for at least 24 hours, or something like that.

flux commented

2022-12-21 06:38:20 +00:00

overall, i think

days should be significantly longer than they currently are, to allow people to commit to a task w/out having to worry that ambient conditions will change while they're trying to work
the length of days/nights shouldn't be fixed too much either - seasonal changes would be nice
the length of day/night ought to depend on the position in the world, and biomes in particular
there should be magical items to help builders build at night - basically, night vision, using player:override_day_night_ratio

overall, i think * days should be significantly longer than they currently are, to allow people to commit to a task w/out having to worry that ambient conditions will change while they're trying to work * the length of days/nights shouldn't be fixed too much either - seasonal changes would be nice * the length of day/night ought to depend on the position in the world, and biomes in particular * there should be magical items to help builders build at night - basically, night vision, using `player:override_day_night_ratio`

AliasAlreadyTaken commented

2022-12-21 09:11:36 +00:00

there should also be a mechanic that you can't use a bed to skip the night if it hasn't been around for at least 24 hours, or something like that.

How about "only beds in own area" count?

builders vision

Would tie in nicely with builders flight, could be under similar conditions like "works only in owned area", else everyone would use it everytime.

It's question of balancing though, the more advantages we stack on builders, the more creative-ish and less survival-ish the world becomes.

> there should also be a mechanic that you can't use a bed to skip the night if it hasn't been around for at least 24 hours, or something like that. How about "only beds in own area" count? > builders vision Would tie in nicely with builders flight, could be under similar conditions like "works only in owned area", else everyone would use it everytime. It's question of balancing though, the more advantages we stack on builders, the more creative-ish and less survival-ish the world becomes.

flux commented

2022-12-21 17:40:52 +00:00

How about "only beds in own area" count?

then, only if the area is 24 hours old or something? otherwise you can just create a protection area next to a battle, place a bed, and sleep in it to recover.

then again, golden apples are cheap, and i'm not sure who would actually do this.

> How about "only beds in own area" count? then, only if the area is 24 hours old or something? otherwise you can just create a protection area next to a battle, place a bed, and sleep in it to recover. then again, golden apples are cheap, and i'm not sure who would actually do this.

AliasAlreadyTaken commented

2022-12-23 16:09:21 +00:00

Similar to #3237 we should have a "cannot create area when enemies are around" or "cannot sleep when enemies are around"

👍 1

Sokomine commented

2022-12-28 06:19:54 +00:00

"cannot create area when enemies are around" would make it impossible to protect prisons for voice mobs :-(

👍 1

Ravise commented

2022-12-28 12:19:22 +00:00

"cannot create area when enemies are around" would also be terribly annoying for newbies settling in the wilderness. Mobs will spawn when players are around and players won't be able to stop mobs spawning by protecting the area.

👍 4

flux referenced this issue

2023-05-09 05:08:44 +00:00

sixwolf reports: werevolves are nocturnal being ... #4428

AliasAlreadyTaken commented

2023-05-09 06:36:37 +00:00

"cannot create area when enemies are around" would make it impossible to protect prisons for voice mobs :-(

At least for me, this is more a PRO than a CON

"cannot create area when enemies are around" would also be terribly annoying for newbies settling in the wilderness. Mobs will spawn when players are around and players won't be able to stop mobs spawning by protecting the area.

Still, making an area yours and yours alone requires you to throw enemies out first. That pushes for building fortified places and tending to the surroundings first and getting to know it, before dropping an area.

> "cannot create area when enemies are around" would make it impossible to protect prisons for voice mobs :-( At least for me, this is more a PRO than a CON > "cannot create area when enemies are around" would also be terribly annoying for newbies settling in the wilderness. Mobs will spawn when players are around and players won't be able to stop mobs spawning by protecting the area. Still, making an area yours and yours alone requires you to throw enemies out first. That pushes for building fortified places and tending to the surroundings first and getting to know it, before dropping an area.

👎 4

flux commented

2023-05-10 00:21:31 +00:00

"cannot create area when enemies are around" would also be terribly annoying for newbies settling in the wilderness. Mobs will spawn when players are around and players won't be able to stop mobs spawning by protecting the area.

Still, making an area yours and yours alone requires you to throw enemies out first. That pushes for building fortified places and tending to the surroundings first and getting to know it, before dropping an area.

hm. except enemies will respawn as quickly as you clear them out, particularly at night. also, there's a ghost floating 60 nodes above you that you can't see or get to, or a mime 60 nodes below in some cave, so now you can't /protect_this. taking a new player's perspective, i don't like those outcomes.

> > "cannot create area when enemies are around" would also be terribly annoying for newbies settling in the wilderness. Mobs will spawn when players are around and players won't be able to stop mobs spawning by protecting the area. > > Still, making an area yours and yours alone requires you to throw enemies out first. That pushes for building fortified places and tending to the surroundings first and getting to know it, before dropping an area. hm. except enemies will respawn as quickly as you clear them out, particularly at night. also, there's a ghost floating 60 nodes above you that you can't see or get to, or a mime 60 nodes below in some cave, so now you can't `/protect_this`. taking a new player's perspective, i don't like those outcomes.

👍 2

whosit commented

2023-05-10 17:12:12 +00:00

That-other-game had a nice working mechanic of putting torches everywhere to prevent spawns. Building a fence, lighting up your territory and clearing up leftover monsters would almost guarantee that area is safe.

Maybe preparing the area for claiming in small chunks (like putting torches and lighting ~80% of it) to then be able to claim it? (or "preparing" it in some other way?)

Not sure if it's feasible.

That-other-game had a nice working mechanic of putting torches everywhere to prevent spawns. Building a fence, lighting up your territory and clearing up leftover monsters would almost guarantee that area is safe. Maybe preparing the area for claiming in small chunks (like putting torches and lighting ~80% of it) to then be able to claim it? (or "preparing" it in some other way?) Not sure if it's feasible.

flux commented

2023-05-11 04:37:44 +00:00

That-other-game had a nice working mechanic of putting torches everywhere to prevent spawns.

this is a great example, except that minetest mob spawning is controlled by multiple disparate mechanics, because there are multiple different mob mods with incompatible APIs.

it's a problem i care about though, i hope to come up w/ a solution sometime this year.

> That-other-game had a nice working mechanic of putting torches everywhere to prevent spawns. this is a great example, except that minetest mob spawning is controlled by multiple disparate mechanics, because there are multiple different mob mods with incompatible APIs. it's a problem i care about though, i hope to come up w/ a solution sometime this year.

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