Less Is More: A Tale Of How We Removed A Lot Of Pointless Items

[Remus]

I have now taken a look on Test Server. For those who don't have the inclination to look, things are much as reported in the DevLog but the following were not obvious, well not to me at any rate:

• The base Small outfittings have the old Small 5 stats, the old Small 1 player level (ie 1), the old Small 3 recipe and the old Small 1 insurance (ie nothing).
• Small 6s have become Small (Advanced) and have kept the old Small 6 stats and recipes, but have dropped in level from 25 to 15 and in insurance from 113 db to 68 db.
• Small Long-Barrelled Guns have caught the devs out a little. The idea is clear that the new basic Small Long-Barrelled Guns should have the old Small Long-Barrelled Guns 3 stats and recipe, and the old Small Long-Barrelled Guns 1 level (20) and insurance (90), but they have forgotten to remove the 1, 2 and 3 from the names.
• Small Long-Barrelled Guns 4 have become Small Long-Barrelled Guns 4(Advanced) [sic] keeping the original stats, recipe, player level (35) and insurance.
• Mediums have been dealt with much the same as Smalls, except there are no (Advanced) outfittings. All black Mediums with the exception of Long-Barrelled Guns inherit the old Medium 5 stats, the Medium 3 recipe, and the Medium 1 player level (10) and insurance (45 db)
• Medium Long-Barrelled Guns have been dealt with similarly to Smalls. The numbers have been retained but are meaningless as all three outfittings have the same stats from Medium Long-Barrelled Guns 3, and level (30) and insurance (135) from Medium Long-Barrelled Guns 1. The one recipe is from Medium Long-Barrelled Guns 2.
• There are no surprises I can see with Large, Huge and Colossal outfittings. They each have the stats of the Large 4, Huge 3 and Colossal 2, the recipe of Large 3, Huge 2 and Colossal 2, and the level and insurance of Large 1, Huge 1 and Colossal 1.
• None of the old items have been withdrawn. If you had a Small Armor Planking 3 you now have a Small Armor Planking. If you had a Small Armor Planking 3 and a Small Armor Planking 4, you now have two Small Armor Plankings, but they cannot be combined in stacks in your warehouse, inventory or AH listings. This last, in particular, will cause problems I think.
• There is only one recipe for each item. Recipes for the clones have been withdrawn, meaning structures aren't clogged with identical recipes. Only one of the new outfittings of each type can actually now be made.
• None of the old recipe books have been withdrawn. The consolidations seem to make sense, but I have not checked them all in detail. For instance Book: Basic Gun Outfitting, Medium and Book: Advanced Gun Outfitting, Medium have both been renamed Book: Gun Outfitting, Medium, and both books have the same seven recipes for the seven types of Medum gun outfittings.
  As with the outfittings themselves this means that recipe books that originally had different names cannot be stacked together in warehouses, inventories or on the AH.

From all this, I have a few suggestions:

• First of all, get rid of the error of Small and Medium Long-Barrelled Guns numbers
• Another genuine error: If you are going to keep it then do rename the recipe that makes Small Long-Barrelled Guns (Advanced); it has the same name as the other one.
• If you can, please get rid of the duplicate F1 entries for books and recipes, at least from the indices.
• If you can, please combine the clones into genuinely the same item. The duplicate AH listings won't half confuse people and cause badwill, particularly since the majority of the playerbase probably sees little benefit from these changes.
• Black outfitting insurance was already low. Please change it back to match the recipe level.
• Get rid of Small (Advanced) outfittings. Why do you want to make this great change allowing top level outfittings to level 1 characters but then give level 15 players in small ships a further advantage? At level 15 players should be thinking Medium; the few Smalls above this level (Cruizer Heavy, El Dragon MC, Fallen, vH MC) should have enough advantage without this. The three Logisitics recipe books can all be renamed:

  The Logistics of Small Ships, 1 > Book: Gun Outfitting, Small
  The Logistics of Small Ships, 2 > Book: Hull Outfitting, Small
  The Logistics of Small Ships, 3 > Book: Sail Outfitting, Small

  collecting the same recipes as their namesakes.
• The Long-Barrelled Guns now look out of place with their levels. As with the Advanced, why should players in small ships at level 20 and medium ships at level 30 get some dubious advantage denied to their lower level brethren. I recommend these are made level 1/10 like the other black outfittings.
• Please make Large outfittings level 19 to allow players to outfit their Atlasses. Or make all these black permanent outfittings level 1 to allow for future ship level / size changes.
• Please give the new Medium outfittings to the old Medium 4 stats. Medium 5s are the same as Small 5s (well those I have checked are), so where is the advantage in being Small? But Medium 4s are still better than Large 4s.

There is one thing I have not been able to check. Since many of the old recipes have been withdrawn, if you had learned recipes from, say, Book: Advanced Gun Outfitting, Huge but not Book: Basic Gun Outfitting, Huge, then you would know the recipe for Huge Wadding 3 but not 1 or 2. But if the new Huge Wadding recipe is the old recipe for Huge Wadding 2 this presumably means you don't have the new recipe. It is of no help that if instead of learning the recipes you had kept the book in your inventory it would now contain the recipe for Huge Wadding.

Originally Posted by GeezerZ2 Having said that, I am un-clear what is to happen to the fittings that get converted. It appears they are not going to be stackable. What will happen to the warehouse they are stored in if 250 stacks of fittings get converted and turn into 2500 fittings?

You have nothing to worry about. 250 stacks will remain 250 stacks. Unfortunately, you won't be able to consolodate them into 50 stacks, even though several of the stacks have the same name.

[ozziefudd]

Thanks to Remus for a fairly extensive review and QA of the new black fittings. Agree with what he said (unless it somehow conflicts with comments below).

1. Do NOT retain more than one type of fitting per level. Do lower level players really need the (Advanced) versions of these fittings? NO. Normally players will race through the lower levels so fast that they barely have time to buy fittings at all. The (Advanced) are only useful for higher level players using small boats to grief or to "seal club".

2. Please take this opportunity to compute the CORRECT insurance on black fittings. Back when they added insurance to black fittings the insurance amount was computed incorrectly, and they never bothered to correct the amounts (e.g., the old MS excuse, "it's not a bug, it's a feature). Make it right with this change.

3. Take the time to create a fittings and recipe book exchange rather than just rename items and let unwary players and especially returning and new players founder trying to figure out why things won't stack or why other unforeseen bugs make their fittings act funny. This was done earlier when ship recipes were changed, and when commendations were changed and in each case much confusion was avoided. The new items will also stack as expected and you will get a ton of thanks from all players for this.

[bhxlej]

Originally Posted by ozziefudd 3. Take the time to create a fittings and recipe book exchange rather than just rename items and let unwary players and especially returning and new players founder trying to figure out why things won't stack or why other unforeseen bugs make their fittings act funny. This was done earlier when ship recipes were changed, and when commendations were changed and in each case much confusion was avoided. The new items will also stack as expected and you will get a ton of thanks from all players for this.

Couldn't agree more. Saves a lot of warehouse space and as ozziefudd said, potential other glitches and player confusion.
In particular also please include the books.
Most of all, believe your own sloagan "Less is More", less confusion = more convenience.

May I also suggest the next step, which for me would have been the first - getting rid of the myriad of totally useless green general outfitting items which come sometimes as drops. So far I have never come across anyone who ever uses Course Bonnets, Bulbous Stern Lanterns, Heavy Ketch Anchors etc. Very occasionally they would be useful in specific situations, but normally the 3 general slots are better utilized by filling them with more useful items, so on the rare occasions that you might benefit from these uselesss items I can guarantee you that you won't just happen have them equipped....

[GeezerZ2]

all in all this is going to be a wonderful improvement to the game. General outfittings need to be done the same way.(or are they onthe cutting board as well already?) Not so much combining the levels together but just plain getting rid of some of the ones that are never used. Less is More is a great idea and remus you should get a job with FLS, awsome research and ability to convert it to readable and undestandable text.

[Half-Hitch]

Thanks for the list Remus, I managed to get the Long Guns names and recipes fixed for the final Test Server build.

I spoke with our dev team and think we MIGHT have a way to fix the stacking problem. More on that soon!

[Eggzie]

Originally Posted by Half-Hitch Thanks for the list Remus, I managed to get the Long Guns names and recipes fixed for the final Test Server build. I spoke with our dev team and think we MIGHT have a way to fix the stacking problem. More on that soon!

Remus rocks, don't he?

[macer123]

Originally Posted by Half-Hitch Thanks for the list Remus, I managed to get the Long Guns names and recipes fixed for the final Test Server build. I spoke with our dev team and think we MIGHT have a way to fix the stacking problem. More on that soon!

Thinking you guys should hire Remus as one of your QA guys!

[Eggzie]

Originally Posted by macer123 Thinking you guys should hire Remus as one of your QA guys!

I'm about to compare Remus to a cow, or is he the free milk in the equation?

[Hootuk Myrum]

Originally Posted by Eggzie I'm about to compare Remus to a cow, or is he the free milk in the equation?

lol Remus is FLS's f2p toon...hope they plan on subbin him or else his productivity will be reduced by 75%.