Topic

Trees v Patches... To Kill or Not To Kill

Hot topic I know.... but I don't want to clutter the other threads with my long winded take :)
There is a balance to be struck to have a healthy environment. On one side of the fence, you have the people who, once a tree is planted believe that it should never ever come down again... and the other side who believe it's perfectly healthy for the world to have no trees at all. Both sides are emotionally attached to their position... but I think the answer is somewhere in the middle.

Players need patches... not just for projects but for other goals. Digging has achievements, and that means patches.... new players have quests to plant, and planting has achievements, and that means patches.... but players need resources, and that means trees! Not just trees, but a variety of trees : )

I said it elsewhere but we've been given a lot of room to build the world, rearrange, and have a good time doing it. Not everyone is going to have the same definition of 'good time', and that is wonderful! Experience tells me, those who participate in collaborative efforts are the ones who have a) the most fun and b) the most success with Glitch. Within the Glitch world, I see both sides of the fence having an amazing time once a few tweaks are made. My thoughts on tweaks?

1) Part of the problem is the design of the trees themselves. They only die naturally when they haven't been petted and watered in a while. Our trees get so much love they stay fully mature all the time. Answer: Give the trees natural life span (linked to a skill perhaps, higher the skill at planting the longer the start value potential) and the trees naturally die regardless of how much love they get. Perhaps if the tree gets loads of love it can obtain an extra 'elder tree' stage that allows it to live 50% longer when planted on the care of an expert tree person (and is maybe immune to poison or takes 3 poisons and 30 minutes to kill)? Could make for some seriously interesting social interaction as a seasoned planter encourages a group to make sure the tree gets love. Keeping track of all those trees is a Group unto itself.

2) Extending the duration of poison. Ever tried killing a tree in life? It takes hours. Equal to the trees living longer, perhaps the time for poison is shortened when applied by a skilled gardener. Going from the example set during the test.... 10 minutes sounds like a healthy time. It's long enough for a player to react, and ensures a commitment if someone wants to hang around and make sure the trees die. It's also about the amount of time it takes to repair the damage and get the tree growing again... so the energy/time commitment on both halves is balanced.

3) Setting a cap on the volume you can purchase from vendors in a given Glitch Day. This will also help with the complaints within the Street Projects, Cooking and Market/Economy camps... no more putting 500 Hooch up on auction, or 100 Sandwiches. A quick review of what's required to achieve a quest + a little bit should set a cap that people can learn to live with. It will also get more people converting materials into various things. (I know the intent is for vendors to be reworked/go away entirely, but we're not at a point where the community is ready for that.)

4) Giving us a new option... a 'safe potion'... something that could be purchased to protect the tree up to a certain point. I think stage 6 or 7 is a good spot... this means the tree will make it to a mature and producing state for a good while before it can be killed, but it can still be killed on an almost Glitch Day basis. If capped like the poison and antidote, it also means a planned effort has to be made.

Socially, there is a lot both sides of the fence can do here. If it were me, I'd be spending my energy on forming a Group (Public or Private, you have some control settings) and enlisting like minded people. Start taking advantage of the in-game social features... the Chat Channels and whatnot... both sides will make a bigger difference if they move efforts out of Help and into a Group.

In your planting efforts, try to make sure you give a thought to the types of tree you are planting (perhaps that ability is also linked to a skill and given a per day cap. 5 per type is 25 trees a day... it would solve the brewing bean/cherry problem). Kind hearted as it is to plant whatever you are able... if the whole world is bean and cherry, the world will grind to a halt. Also... if every single patch is planted, there is no choice but to kill a few trees. Consider leaving a patch behind. Perhaps there's a bunch of people who want to form a Group to balance the world... 

See, that's the beauty of the world the developers have created for us. The more you take advantage of the social aspects, collaborate with others, and join in shared Personal Missions... the more you are going to enjoy it, and the easier the world is.

Posted 20 months ago by Travinara Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • Agreed with all of this, particularly 2) on balancing the work required for cultivation and harvesting -- except that 4) surely needs to be a tree-hugging skill, as an extension of petting, that only works when there's a cumulative effort.

    On the point of tree diversity -- careful consideration of, say, the spice/gas/bubble ratio in Ix went out of the window somewhat when entire streets were laid bare. You planted what you had, or what you could make. That's probably not going to be an issue going forward.

    How about a quest related to the acquisition of Botany that actually encourages players to kill a tree, harvest planks and dig the patch, then replant?
    Posted 20 months ago by Holgate Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Ooooo I like the Quest idea Holgate!

    I think with the ratios, I think I'm trying to say add 'dirt' in the mix.

    As for the 'planting what you had/could make'... that actually makes the problem worse, because now those trees need killed by someone who cares about the balance. Sometimes the most helpful thing you can do is walk away. Naturally, people are going to want to fill a hole every time they see it... so the Bean Problem isn't going to go away.
    Posted 20 months ago by Travinara Subscriber! | Permalink
  • While I understand the whole wanting to have  everything relate to each other in the gathering of resources. Dig patch, tend patch, plant seed, grow tree, pet/water/harvest tree, kill tree, at some resource from that like loam. Rinse repeat.

    Which works if there are 100 people playing.  When there will be hundreds, or thousands playing, the world can't grow fast enough to keep up with the need for resources. There has to be some unlinkage between the resources between there will be conflicts.

    We will not need PVP, we will have resource wars.  And that will not be fun.
    Posted 20 months ago by Tibbi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I tend to think that anything that can be done in the game should be able to be undone... but the undoing might require a higher skill level or more money or multiple people.

    Probably, one should have a high gardening skill level to kill trees. Possibly, it should require a license. Possibly, it should require either multiple applications (akin to piglets needing to be fed multiple times to grow?) or multiple people to kill a tree. (Maybe not trees at your house).

    We have talked about "players as rooks" before, and I think that's what Briar did the past two days. I think what we are talking about in this thread is getting the balance right, and not prohibiting the behavior entirely.

    And possibly, changing anything is not required here. Briar was focused on killing trees. If other players care enough, this could be combatted with posses with antidotes.
    Posted 20 months ago by clare Subscriber! | Permalink
  • A tree killing license would be great. Then if there are players who are REALLY troublesome in that area, they could have their license revoked temporarily if they're killing too many trees at once without replanting or something. Players who kill but replant or who just kill a few trees for patches would have no problem keeping their license. 
    Posted 20 months ago by leah Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thanks Clare. +1
    Posted 20 months ago by Mac Rapalicious Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I agree that trees should die of old age, regardless of how well loved they are. It's an easy way to ensure there is a constant cycle of patches, seedlings, and mature trees. I also agree that killing trees should come at a higher cost. Whether a limit to the number of trees you can kill in a given day (akin to the quoin limit we already have) or a higher cost for the poison, so it's not as easily accessible to purchase in mass quantities. I do like the idea of needing multiple applications of poison in order to kill a tree. 

    Oh, and I think Ix needs to be expanded into more streets, with more patches...
    Posted 20 months ago by Essie Kitten Subscriber! | Permalink
  • License to kill tree would be a good start.  Maybe just a percentage of trees can be killed. There has to be at least a percentage growing, being seeded, being harvest-able. It would mean more trees on a streets.

    Personally, I'd rather there be a way to just create the patches without involving trees. 

    Maybe a permit to make a new patch (the street would have to have null patches that can be dug into existence with the proper permit.  Then something to "seed" the loam. 

    Then trees can just have a natural lifecycle (with the percentage of trees at some point of the cycle)
    Posted 20 months ago by Tibbi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I love the idea of a license to kill. Could apply to more than trees.  ;)
    Posted 20 months ago by en Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I love the License to Kill idea... but feel like it's missing a skill related element. Maybe you have to go obtain it after you learn an advanced gardening skill in order to make everything work together. Provides a new reason to visit the Bureau Hall after getting your papers.
    Posted 20 months ago by Travinara Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I had to go back to the Beuro hall to get my building permits :D They know me really well down there now. I wouldn't mind a trip back to get a hunting license...
    Posted 20 months ago by Essie Kitten Subscriber! | Permalink
  • All conditions of patch need to be able to win for an acceptable (X) amount of time.  One faction being able to stalemate another will kill the game like nothing else.

    only poison old growth (level 9?) w/o timer, no more antidote (it currently has a worse potential than poison), can't plant or dig on new patches for X time, can't convert earth patches back to regular patches with a hoe for X time, have dedicated patches for all types of trees like dark=egg plant with at least half in the world still being undedicated, super old growth dies on its own eventually

    I think they want conflict, factions, etc. This still has conflict, but makes all sides take turns.  It doesn't help with the conflict of converting a patch into an earth dig or a seedling.  That would go away if patches have a cycle (dirt to tree to dead to dig to dirt?) or if shoveling is moved to cliffs and heights.
    Posted 20 months ago by Tingly Claus Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Without a cooling period or some other constraint, wiping out all the gas and egg trees in the 'verse is not *that* hard if you're determined/bored enough because they grow predominantly in under-developed regions. Wiping out all the bean and fruit trees in the 'verse is significantly harder because of the size of Meadow and Forest.

    My question is, why are long-time hubs like Ix and Uralia so under-developed compared to newer hubs like Shimla? Is it the lack of new art or just neglect?
    Posted 20 months ago by ping Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think there should be mud bogs..... like peat bogs, except that they give mud blocks as well as loam...... at least that will solve the problem of people who kill trees for projects. 
    The people who poison for fun, that we can't really solve, the only thing we can do so far is a bunch of people guarding a patch, and whoever who poisons a tree gets spanked non stop by the people from the same group for a day or so, while the patch guarders use antidote on the tree.
    Or, after poisoning a tree, a debuff called guilt can come up and keep taking away energy and mood for a day.
    Also, why can't we plant gas plants? Soon, if all the gas plants are poisoned, there will be no gas. Which would be difficult.
    Also, there should be a little link called statistics, maybe, and that displays the percentages and ratios of trees and patches. Maybe even display the percentages of individual tree types.
    Posted 20 months ago by KitkatCat Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Awesome ideas Tingly... I totally agree both sides need some sort of balance. I think you may be onto something with a lock out on planting in newly poisoned dirt... maybe it stays 'toxic' to planting for 2 or 3 minutes.

    Also, maybe an advanced gardening skill allows you to 'dig out' a newly planted seedling or growth under stage 3 without poison. As annoying as tree poison is, it's also annoying when someone has planted in the patch you just cleared for dirt. I cleared the trees in my home cause I got tired of fighting for digging space.
    Posted 20 months ago by Travinara Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Oh yeah, ping reminded me of another, have more dark patches.  With oldest growth dying and randomness of the players, streets should have trees of varying ages eventually.  With only old growth being poisonable, the youth and middle aged will survive.  Actually, I could get rid of poison along with the antidote and just take a hatchet to old growth.  Making a type of tree temporarily extinct would take a ton of long-range, precise planning and execution by a large group of amazingly secretive people.

    I was thinking of timers being at least 10 minutes, maybe 20 or 30 or more.  I stole the old growth idea from trav. :)  The rest of the same was us thinking alike.
    Posted 20 months ago by Tingly Claus Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "Personally, I'd rather there be a way to just create the patches without involving trees."


    This. +1
    Posted 20 months ago by Mackenzie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 On trees having a lifecycle.
     +1 On needing a license to kill trees and that you need a skill to get one (either a new one or Botany can be used). 
     Idea: if Botany is used, then it is entirely up to you if you wish to apply for a license or not but I think said license should somehow be added to your skills, i.e. does not go in your inventory (so cannot be traded, gifted, donated, etc.), and either is good for use x times of use or that is valid a given period (x number of Glitch days might be interesting).  Because of the present need for patches for projects and quests, I am a bit uncertain if the license should require you to re-plant, but perhaps could include that you do so but not 100/100.

    Idea: I have limited experience in tree-killing, only tried it once (when we were in alpha) in my own garden, and I have never actually seen anyone kill a tree, and what I experienced might haven been a bug.  When I poisoned my tree, I was unable to move for the entire 10 mins it took to die, I had to stand there and watch and not least listen to the tree plead for antidote.  I thought that is what happens when you kill a tree. Something?

    Idea: in one word: composting.  When you kill a tree you can now chop it down and get planks.  What about the rest of the tree (root, leaves, branches) “tree-matter”?  So, what if we had compost heaps where we could deposit tree-matter and these compost heaps worked a bit like the shrines do, i.e., deposit x-amount of tree-matter and be able to extract an amount of the desired soil type (using the same rarity principle that is used when you dig a patch).  Of course, you could also chose to donate your tree-matter to a shrine (but only tree-matter to compost heaps) – you choose which you prefer.

    This last idea made me think of re-cycling centres.  Working on the same principle, places where you could chose to “donate” used, broken or even unwanted tools and get a certain amount of metal ore back.  This not to replace the current ability to either: sell to a vendor, sell at auction, donate to a shrine, repair, leave on a street, etc. (this is a bit off topic I know, please see it as connected to the compost heap idea, not as a separate issue).

    In short, something for something and being given choices.  You choose how you wish to manage your resources, interact with Ur and its residents. Your choices can have immediate impact or long-term effects both for you and/or the community as a whole.  Only time can tell ….
    Posted 20 months ago by Lellie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I agree with Ping that some areas are underdeveloped, and that this is feeding into the problem of the tree resources. (Also in general as the world gets bigger, it will be harder to wipe out all the trees of a given type.)

    Also, if the licensing thing works out, I do like the idea that you have to keep up the tree love to maintain the license. Although. When I think about that from the game-development perspective, it makes the whole tree thing more complicated. And see, the notion of expanding 1x is somewhat at odds with developing a system for dealing with trees.

    I think in general I am Libertarian when it comes to Glitch. I don't think the game or GOD should prevent bad behaviors*. I think the Briar incident demonstrates a player-initiated (as opposed to game-initiated) call to community, and that's a interesting thing to have to work out. There have been glimpses that the game itself is going to cause problems that we need to fix together (actually, it's already happened; I just missed it... the rook destroying locations). This is all going to be part of Glitch. So we all need to adapt to the notion of a world that is not all sugar and spice. (Hey! How come there's no sugar!? No wonder that lemonade sucks!)

    *Yes, this has to be qualified because there will be harassing or other behaviors that WILL require intervention. But in general.
    Posted 20 months ago by clare Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Perhaps a "transplanting trees" ability.  IRL trees can be transplanted until they are a fairly substantial size (4 in diameter trunk).  Maybe there could be a deforested area that needs replanting where people could transplant trees. 
    Posted 20 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I agree with KitKat about *mud bogs* and have said on another thread that maybe patches could be *harvested* like trees, so that we wouldn't need so many trees killed.

    Not much to be done about *fun* tree killers, except wait for their tiny minds to overload! IMV
    Posted 20 months ago by Cassandria Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Botany is required to use tree poison. It's just a low level skill.
    Posted 20 months ago by Mac Rapalicious Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 on the mud-bog idea.

    +1 on the killing limit


    +1 on raising the price (considerably, like make it cost thousands) on tree poison, to make a disincentive for mass killing.


    Maybe make one or two patches per street that can't be planted and/or one or two trees of the proper species on each street that can't be killed, or that will die naturally.  Although I really hate the fact that someone killed huge swathes of trees, I also found it very frustrating trying to find patches to dig either for projects or for the dig a patch quest.


    Also see various threads about the brokenness of projects and/or quests.  I like the idea of both these things, but somehow the dynamics/logistics are running counter to each other. 
    Posted 20 months ago by Tradescantia Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I feel like a killing limit and substantial price hike is punishing those of us who kill and replant responsibly. I'd much rather see something that limits people who abuse the feature rather than making changes that have a potentially negative impact on all players. 

    I'm still not done with my "tend patches til you get a musicblock" quest and I've killed/replanted/Fertilidust-ed a LOT of trees. I don't want to be forced to spend thousands of currants and a lot of game time because of a price hike brought on by one group of players. 
    Posted 20 months ago by leah Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thing is, patches regenerate as needing tending quite quickly.  I did the "tend patches until you get a musicblock" quest without killing a single tree, just by walking back and forth on one residential street where there were two patches.
    Posted 20 months ago by Tradescantia Subscriber! | Permalink
  • leah... I finished that quest while digging peat. I don't know if that was a bug or if it the wording in the Quest just needs changed to dig.

    The mud bog/dirt pit is over in the Ideas Forum (under Dirt-y Jor or Three) along with a couple other ideas.
    Posted 20 months ago by Travinara Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I went to residential spots where I used to dig in the past and all patches were planted. Rather than spend time in a residential spot killing and replanting trees with nothing else to do or wandering around searching for patches, I chose to kill and replant in an area where I could do other things nearby while waiting for poison to work & patches to revert back to needing tending (one street away from the Community Gardens, since I also had a quest to do there). I'm not sure if the quest is bugged or if it sometimes just takes a very long time, but I never did finish it even after killing the same three trees and tending patches over and over for quite awhile. 

    I'm sure I could have done it without killing trees but I chose to go about it a different way that I thought would be more efficient and less boring. I don't feel like my way of doing it should be made much more difficult and more expensive when there are other options that could curb mass killings that don't have a negative impact on people making an effort to use the killing options & resources in a way that doesn't negatively impact the community. 

    Anyway. I don't want to get stuck on the idea of completing that particular quest. It's not about that quest, it's about looking into options that address the people creating the problem rather than making changes that impact everyone. 
    Posted 20 months ago by leah Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think a lot of the solutions presented here are too complicated or gameplay limiting.

    Trees ought to die as a result of a "votes for vs. votes against" system.

    ~ The System ~

    Petting/Watering constitutes votes for.

    Poisoning constitutes votes against.

    The more loved a tree is, the more difficult [expensive] it is to kill.
    Posted 20 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Oh, and Developers could adjust the ratio of Poison required to kill relative to Petting/Watering required to live if the system requires re-balancing.

    You'd also get dueling status bars that way. Which is good because dueling status bars are good.
    Posted 20 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • You'd also get dueling status bars that way. Which is good because dueling status bars are good.

    Especially with a banjo accompaniment.
    Posted 20 months ago by clare Subscriber! | Permalink
  • One round of expensive poison and problematic tree killers could get control.  plant, kill, plant, kill,...  That's assuming that you can poison seedlings.  But even the best solution will have to have some sort of trade-off.
    Posted 20 months ago by Tingly Claus Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "One round of expensive poison and problematic tree killers would get control."

    For petting and watering, there's a limit to how much one player can do in a game day. I'd assume it'd be similar for poisoners, so you would have to form a significant posse in order to kill a mature, well loved tree.

    As for seedlings, if you really want to protect one from a clear and present threat .. just get a few tree hugging buddies together to do the planting. Start filling up that "huggle bar" right off the bat.

    Clearly there will be some element of a struggle for control, but setting the "vote" ratios relatively well should mostly confine that conflict to moderately used tree harvesting areas. Disused areas with lots of unloved trees would be ripe for poisoning [and replanting]. Heavily used areas with lots of well loved trees would be almost impossible to disrupt.
    Posted 20 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • One guy with a load of poison could counter seeding love pretty easily.  They can also do things like keep patches as earth digs, space out kills so they have a minute to go from patch to patch.  The biggest question I have with my own suggestion is not being able to ax trees until level 9.  That may swing things too much towards trees.  We oughta have a test sometime where we see how we can mostly control the game, even bring it to a near stop.
    Posted 20 months ago by Tingly Claus Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'll respond to  your criticisms regarding a single individual killing trees by reposting  my previous comment:

    "For petting and watering, there's a limit to how much one player can do in a game day. I'd assume it'd be similar for poisoners, so you would have to form a significant posse in order to kill a mature, well loved tree."
    Posted 20 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • There isn't a poisoning limit as far as I know.
    Posted 20 months ago by Tingly Claus Subscriber! | Permalink
  • We are discussing a hypothetical implementation. In this implementation, there is a limit.
    Posted 20 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink