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Installation Decay

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From crashdown in a different post:

"But also I think you should post an idea to suggest a slow decay of installation score based on whether the character is permanently gone (the bit has been erased) or if they haven't logged into the game for x amount of time (talking likely months here)."

I think this is a good idea and fixes the issue where players who skill into installations can install things that can never be removed in the lifespan of the game.

Installation decay can simply be tied to if somebody's PC is inactive for months, then things start decaying, or a slightly less fun (imo) way is you could make installations take monthly maintenance so the installer has to come back to the furniture and redo the bolts or something.

this is piggybacked from a thread on game problems and complaints where peeps were talking about how it sucks that certain PC installed objects installed by people who specced specifically for installs and had PCs for years can no longer be uninstalled even by PCs who are pretty skilled with installs. Really annoying issue, especially when it comes to old, old camera systems

By Leech at Aug 21, 2023 8:03 AM
I think an elaborate decay process, which then would probably also need to cap off somewhere so it doesn't decay to "any idiot can uninstall it" is probably asking a little too much coding for something too minor.

Something far more binary in solution such as "after 3 months of inactivity from the installer, the difficult drops to 80% of their skill" that doesn't have to be constantly decremented in instances of decay would be perfectly sufficient, and protects people that invested in having someone very skilled set up their things and then have them go inactive (which the person that got them to install it has absolutely nothing to do with) to some degree, which always seemed like the primary issue in regulating this to me: The owner/user of the object and the installing person aren't always the same.

By PCow at Aug 21, 2023 8:08 AM
These are very much ideas borne from an anecdotal problem ("I want to uninstall this thing now without specialist help"), that fails to understand the actual solution, ignores the implications of such a change, and discards the cost made to install something securely in the first place.

This concept would do even more to punish players for engaging with or investing in what is already a niche and maligned part of the game that's seen multiple nerfs already. Setting aside that nothing else in the game has any kind of activity factored decay to it, it would eliminate any kind of hopeful business for any players but the most advanced and permanent while at the same time making the skills they've spent months or even years investing in even weaker in comparison to the usual combat combo.

By 0x1mm at Aug 21, 2023 11:04 AM
'Now, without specialist help' assumes that players haven't been through every specialist they can go through, or are somehow not holding up to their end of the old mantra 'find out IC'. That is a bit of an oversimplification of the issue at hand, which is more accurately "I want SOME method/avenue of uninstalling X some day".

I agree that a decay system would be tricky, and potentially imbalancing. I wouldn't want to make it even less attractive to take these skills. The fix honestly might be as simple as a look over the uninstall code and what it's checking in the roll

By Leech at Aug 21, 2023 12:21 PM
The original suggestion from me was to account for people who do invest but either end up dying and after X amount of time or people who installed those but have been logged out for X amount of time.

There are some people who will invest enough into any type of skill where they cannot be matched. And that's great! No hate towards them, but when they're gone it leaves everyone else in a bit of a funk.

Making a decay system that kicks in after months of absence feels the appropriate compromise. 95% of the time someone who truly wants something down is going to exhaust those other avenues leaving this one as the only one left. They aren't going to default to waiting three months, imo.

By crashdown at Aug 21, 2023 12:26 PM
Again I feel the problem there is that the person that did the install isn't necessarily the person that's using it, or paid to have it installed and still wants it down, and who shouldn't be punished for someone's inactivity. So you'd want to allow for 'maintenance' of someone who's active to remove that decay again. Perhaps maintenance can be done at a fraction of the skill?

How big of a fraction? Well, maybe fairly moderate amount. High enough not everyone just slaps in a Bronze soft to do it, but low enough that people that are wanting to start going into those fields actually can get steady work from it. Because, let's be honest, there's just as much a disincentive in going into those skills if you know you won't actually be able to uninstall anything for 2 years.

By PCow at Aug 21, 2023 12:31 PM
I don't understand the argument. People pay tailors to create clothes they wear which are then destroyed or stolen by other people all the time. People pay for gear from fixers that's stolen from them either thought straight theft or murder as well.

Paying someone to do something doesn't mean it should last forever even after they're gone. A solution to that is if the person who installed your stuff disappears you could hire someone else of equal ability, if they exist, to take it down and redo the install for you.

I'm fine with the idea of maintenance, but the argument being laid out of how it isn't fair for someone who paid for something to have it taken from them for any of X reasons just doesn't line up with the rest of the game.

By crashdown at Aug 21, 2023 12:58 PM
Maintenance busywork is just flat out bad for player engagement, it makes people less likely to engage with systems at all. The idea that there are objects all over the game world that can't be interacted with because someone back in the day put them up with a billion skill is just wrong and comes from player misinformation as much as anything else.

Firstly because long defunct objects do get pruned out, but also because players widely misinterpret things as being both inactive and excessively installed when in fact they're both active and characters just lack requisite understanding of how to deal with them (both in character skill and player skill terms).

There is a constant crabs in a bucket mentality where players will pay lip service to the idea of non-combat archetypes being better supported, but then advocate for nerfs to already almost non-existent skillsets. One of the reasons there is sometimes a struggle to find an appropriately skilled character to do certain tasks because the skill itself is so underpowered compared to others. The appropriate path to take there is to make it more desirable for players to invest in so there is more competition, rather than to gut them until everyone is on equally terrible footing.

There is probably only a handful of players who even know how the rebuilt device system works, years later, and the whole thing is weaker than ever. If anything this stuff should be improved, rather than weakened.

By 0x1mm at Aug 21, 2023 1:42 PM
Not really a fan of this conceptually, because I'd rather see effort put into expanding the other tech skills like electro rather than making one of them worse and coding an entirely new system for it while also devaluing others investment into it. Being a techie is already kind of not great. But pretty much what 0x1mm just said.
By Kalii at Aug 21, 2023 1:45 PM
And to be clear: The majority of the time players think something is impossible to install, it's actually very doable. They just don't know how to do it.

The vast majority of cases where characters are appropriately skilled and actually know what they're doing and can't manage it, they are trying to uninstall something that was installed by an admin/NPC which for anything older than a year or two means a service request is necessary because the install strength was infinity.

The remainder of cases are almost always because a character has weak skills, low stats, the player is doing it wrong, or using the wrong tools.

In the very small number of cases when something has actually been installed by an extremely skilled character and being contested by someone with weak skills, there is no real need, right, or justification why someone should be able to override their skill rolls with inferior investment/ability. The entire benefit of installation ability is the install strength, without that what is even the point?

By 0x1mm at Aug 21, 2023 1:52 PM
I'm with 0x1mm on this.

If an object has been installed by an expert then it should require someone who is equally or better skilled to uninstall it.

There are a couple devices in the game that my character has been trying to uninstall for years. The fact they can't is one of the things that I love about Sindome. Skills and attributes matter.

Some characters might leave behind cool stories.

Others might leave behind some chingadera in some place.

There are so many ways to make lasting impacts on the game.

By Hek at Aug 21, 2023 7:22 PM
Instead of decay, I'd prefer two other pieces. Pretty sure I've suggested them elsewhere but I can't really recall.

Piece 1: Teamwork

Establish a way for a couple (2-3 maybe) PCs to work together to install/uninstall things they couldn't manage alone. More than a couple will just get in the way and negate the teamwork. We can use teamwork in combat and are always encouraged to look at ways to overcome the 1v1 monster you can't possibly beat. But outside of combat things are generally regulated to 1v1. I'd love for this to change.

Piece 2: Theft/Destruction

If a piece of security gear is in a publicly accessible place, a place any person can just wank in and access, there's a tiny chance (probably a prop on rooms that changes based on parent) that an installed item (art,camera,furniture,etc) will be removed. What happened to it? Theft or vandalism happened. Just tune the % chance per time period so the average lifespan of an installed item is reasonable given the room. Of course this wouldn't impact any installed items identified as admin installed.

I think that these two things together would reduce the proliferation of installed items and encourage teamwork in more things than combat. Among other things.

By Grey0 at Aug 22, 2023 7:46 AM
Conversely, max UE skill monkeys could team up to install something that even the gods could not uninstall, for better or worse.
By SoulTune at Aug 22, 2023 7:54 AM
Good point SoulTune. Maybe have an upper limit that nobody can go over regardless of how many are teamed up. It's certainly a possible point of breakage but not one that can't be addressed.

By Grey0 at Aug 22, 2023 7:56 AM
Teaming up to achieve better skill rolls always seemed like a cool idea to me, and I think it would make more sense in this case as a solution if there was an issue (and also just in general it would be fun). Everyone would get better with cooperation rather than everyone being made worse.
By 0x1mm at Aug 22, 2023 5:30 PM
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