Shattered Kingdoms

Does the hoarding code apply to each item individually?
10 hours logged will keep low level items.
20 hours will keep high level items.
30 hours will keep unique items.

So your hours logged is checked against every single item you have?
I always thought it was a little different. But this way seems logical.

As was mentioned, there are essentially two different "de-hoarding" systems at this point - the one that checks everytime you logout and the newer one that checks during the monthly update. This does tend to lead to some confusion. I would have to find time to double check to be certain what this help text was intended to apply to, but I believe it was intended to be more prescriptive than a guarantee.

In other words, it's not that equipped items are guaranteed to be kept, but that you should discard non-equipped items because they are presumably less valuable to you than the ones you have equipped.

A quick update on this from my end. I found several hundred instances of equipment where a level reduction was possible, which should reduce the strain on characters with limited hours in a given month. Characters that log zero time will not see any benefit from this, but every character with between zero and fifteen hours stands to end up better than before in terms of equipment loss and the odds of getting a hoarder flag. This will also let new characters get better equipment earlier than before. Over 90 pieces got a level reduction in the Wastelands alone.

Most of the equipment that got adjusted was armor or treasure. I left weapons and most containers alone, because level settings affect other things such as container capacity or a weapon’s ability to damage things like elementals, which can be immune to weak weapons.

Water, mithril, and tanso items saw the most reductions. A handful of items with diamond, adamantite, sacred oak, flame, dragon scale or a few other material types also saw some reductions. I made a few improvements on neglected or outdated items. I’ll note the zones where in the builder update thread.

For reference, for equipment at minimum level settings, energy or adamantite will identify as outstanding quality and can generally be retained by champion level characters against thieves. Sacred oak and dragon scale will identify as superior quality and can be retained by master level characters. Mithril, diamond, and flame also identify as superior quality and can be retained by mentor characters. Water and tanso will identify as above average and can be retained by veteran characters. One popular suit that is an exception to this is the brine armor, which could only be brought down to expert level. There are other exceptions you will discover through identifies, and in the case of obviously elite scripted or unique stuff, but I dropped as much as possible to minimum I could.

There are some measures players can take to avoid the hoarder flag. First and foremost, discard extra stuff and near god-like gear if you know you haven’t put in more than a handful of hours. Another method to avoid equipment loss and hoarder problems is to use scout skins or, for characters in tribunals, the tribunal outfit command. Neither skins nor tribunal issued items are limited items. These aren’t necessarily the best kits you can put together, but they are at least serviceable for semi-active characters.

I have little issue with how you are running the game. I ultimately love the game and want to see it excel, even if the game pisses me off from time to time! It would be nice if you could look in to that help file, maybe correct it.

It might be semantics, but I’d say “edit the help file for clarity” instead of “fix it.” Because I don’t believe that the information is incorrect, it’s just a little confusing. But I agree that editing for clarity would be nice.

As for Thuban making these changes, thank you for responding to the request of the community. But I’d like to discuss it a bit further.
To break down whatbhappened in this thread: someone got delooted and got slapped with the hoarder flag for not logging enough hours. So we lowered the requirement on individual items, making it so less time is needed to keep higher level items.
But my new concern is that these changes make it easier for actual hoarders to hoard.
Now the hoarders, which this code was implemented to fix in the first place, have to log less hours to successfully hoard items.
I admit that I am a bit of a hoarder, but I’ve always been pretty active. (Albeit I played at odd hours until recently). The required hours was never really that difficult to meet.
I am always excited when the monthly reboot to hit so I can go out and find everything that gets sent back into the game. It’s like a mini-GRP each month, in the fact that it’s a scheduled event. It’s usually between 2 and 4 people that lose loot each month. And now I feel like that’s going to drop to 1 - 2 people.
So while we fixed the issue for someone who felt they were wrongfully branded a hoarder, we’ve taken away the active players ability to get that limited hoarded loot.

Could we maybe start a discussion to determine which loot should still have a very high value?
Can we list specific armor sets, weapons, trinkets, and devices that are heavily sought after? The things that people look for every time the monthly reboot happens?

Example: I’m fine with the Cain Techt heavy armor having a low value, and being less affected by the hoarder code. However something like Karnak’s armor, The GGI Suit, Somnium’s suit, Ephaltius’ suit, and the stardust suit should all have maximum value associated with them.
Nephrite talismans, the twinkle star, the Bracer of Vengeance, and the true sight glasses should all have a maximum value.
I think this would be a well-refined system to ensure that if you want to keep the best equipment, you need to log heavy hours. But if you just want decent gear, you’ll still be alright with limited hours.

I think you might be jumping the gun a little. If we still had the play numbers that we had 4 years ago, there might be reason to be concerned. But it appears that the worst real hoarders are gone, I doubt this will have the effect you fear. Maybe time will prove otherwise, but I think we have room to wait and see.


If you read back over Thuban's explanation, I think the items that you call out are specifically the type of items that these adjustments did not touch. Based on the written description, I think it's specifically that "decent gear" that will be easier to keep with limited hours, not the boss EQ that had, and still has, maximum value associated.

You make valid points and time will tell.
I’d like to clarify a couple things though.
I think there are 2 types of hoarding.
Hoarding quantity where someone has a bunch of things they’ll never use. This is addressed by the Thieves Rule of Six.
And there is also hoarding quality where someone has limited gear but never plays. This is addressed by the monthly dehoarded.
My only concern is that the quality hoarders now have it easier and some of the limited gear will never get back in rotation.
But like you said, we’ll see how it plays out.

Addressing your comment about Hoarders Being Gone: it takes one inactive player to quality hoard a unique suit like the stardust. That doesn’t have scripts or anything. It just has innate greater saves. So it could have been value deducted and could fall into this change.

It has scripts.

Still having trouble with hoarders?