FIRESTRIKER: slower condition decay

[sandutter]

A real firestriker lasts about 12 000 strikes. I think the firestriker in this game should loose condition MUCH slower than it does now. It seems to be pretty rare, so when finding a firestriker with the improved condition decay rate, the player would yell "YES!" and rise up to do a little tap dance, because he or she knows that the lighting problem is then solved for a very long time forward.

[UpUpAway95]

I don't think you're finding new firestrikers though.  You're finding ones that have already been almost completely used up by their previous owners and either discarded by them as no longer really being useful or that the owner was unfortunately unable to finish using up because they perished. 

I don't think it's really necessary to increase the number of strikes one gets from a firestriker anyways.  The boost firestrikers give to the chance of successfully lighting a fire is really only relevant during the early game.  Once the player reaches Level 3, all that's needed to have a 100% chance of success is a book.  At Level 4, a stick will have a 95% chance if the player is using a flare, wooden match, magnifying lens, or torch.  Of course, if you light a torch first, you then have multiple chances to light a fire regardless of your firestarting skill level.

[Guest jeffpeng]

If a firestriker had like 250 instead of the average 25 uses .... that would upset balance pretty heavily. If it had like 2500 uses .... that would make matches completely pointless. After the initial settling in period and with a decent amount of loot you shouldn't require more than two matches per day on average, and utilizing permafires and mag lenses players have shown that you can go by with a LOT less. So already 250 uses would be more than you'd ever really need in an "average game" of around 100 days.