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Noizhead

Make shield skillgain more like weapons.

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2017-10-27:  I bumped this thread because I still feel it is relevant; some details in this OP are no longer valid.

 

The recent brouhaha over shield training got me thinking about how bad shield skills are to train, and weapon skills are much more intuitive to train.  Why aren't they more similar?

 

Right now, weapon damage is derived from a ton of factors, but the actual skillcheck at the end is designed so that the gain rate is always very good if you are using a weapon of decent QL, and the gain size is based on the damage you deal.  You can't grind the skill on just a few mobs, because you need to do actual damage to things in order to gain weapon skill--you are forced to actually go out and fight.

 

Shield skillchecks, on the other hand, have a whole pile of things that factor into them, and since the skillcheck is part of blocking itself, getting the best gain rate involves manipulating your effective skill with low shield QLs so that blocking is what you could call "difficult, but not too difficult".

 

I say that shield skill should be revised to function like weapon skill:  copy weapon skill's skillchecks so that the gain rate is always high if you are using a good shield (difficulty=skill, use the shield as the tool), and base the amount of skill gained on the size of the hit you blocked.  This would make the current/old method of grinding shields obsolete (good riddance), instead rewarding players for using decent shields against enemies more threatening than cows and horses.

 

Since pen training would not be a fact of life anymore, you could toss out the 0.1 minimum shield damage as well, to further encourage hunting for skill--it's my understanding that players do a lot more than 0.1 shield damage when you block a hit, so that weird mechanic must exist as a result of people wrestling pigs all day.  Shield skillgain, in general, seems riddled with old contrivances that could be thrown out.

Edited by Noizhead
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We're in the process of working with a system similar to this, we will be spending time testing it prior to release to ensure that it's more dynamic and faster to gain, promoting actually fighting to gain skill instead of relying on creatures in pens.

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+1 and also something's gotta be done to damage to shields (and weapons, but that would be offtopic). Promoting player trading is good, but now if you hunt regularly, you have to reimp every day.

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I don't see any issues about shield damage and constant need to repair, as it absorbs a lot of energy when you block. Could be better differential based on material though. 

I'm totally joining on the idea to make actual hunting the way to grind shields - my skill is still below decent as I hate the boring pigbashing.

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+1 It would make a big difference

Would help newbies alot and i will finaly use my short sword and small shield :D just becouse..awesome!! 

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As a side note there is an enjoyable skillgain mechanic for shield skills implemented already in another game called Wurm Unlimited. It is really possible to get decent skills in shields by actually hunting there.

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Well, the issue is not about the damage itself, but rather about the repair difficulty. It's losing too much ql. And since soon lowql skiller shields won't be a thing,..

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I am all for not having to face punch a bison but not sure I want to fist fight a troll if I get the same shield out of him as I would FS.

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I would prefer both as an option because even on a super low populated server(s) (elevation+desertion) with just a few people hunting as is, the spawns dry up really fast, so if everyone has to hunt for that uber shield skill too, spawns probably need some kind of buff to respawn in the same areas

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Never did like pen training, hunting is fun due to the exploration aspect (for me).

Having both options on an even plane gives freedom to skill in combat in either way. An adjustment on skill gain to work like weapon skill gain would only benefit the players.

Besides, who actually likes using low ql anything? That has never sat well with me, due to it being counter intuitive.

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I'm unearthing this thread because I feel the shield changes in 1.3 made grinding worse.

 

I had to confer with some code wizards to have any hope of figuring out the right shield QL to grind with at my level, and it was thanks only to their calculations that I was able to get to 99 shield skill--previous attempts had only led to frustration and putting off the grind again.  I did this by using a shield at what you could charitably describe as "trashcan lid" quality and fighting trolls to the exclusion of anything else--at the end, I even had my horse's ass in their face to give them more CR to nerf my own block rate just a little more.  This is because the difficulty of the shield skillcheck relies on the mob you're fighting & its relation to your own fighting prowess, and the size of the gain is based on the strength of the hit you've blocked--in normal circumstances, this means you have to fine-tune your shield QL for trolls and trolls alone, since they are the only mob that hits hard enough for a good gain size, and getting the right QL for trolls means your gain rate with other mobs will be poor.

 

If a design goal of Wurm is to encourage participation in PVP, then PVP-related skills should all be straightforward to grind, and by and large they are:  kill lots of tougher mobs for fighting, kill lots of mobs with a good weapon for weapon skill, and shoot lots of things with harder shots for archery.  Shield grinding sticks out like a sore thumb, forcing players to fiddle with lower shield QLs and seek out a single mob type.  One characteristic that makes a grind good is reliability, and encouraging players to hunt only one kind of creature is yet another way that shield skill is frustrating to raise.

 

As earlier in the thread, I say to look to the weapon skillcheck as an example of what a shield skillcheck should look like:  the weapon skillcheck's difficulty scales with your level and doesn't factor in the opponent at all, encouraging you to use a good weapon whether your skill is 1 or 99, while allowing you to get skill at a good rate from any creature.  Basing the gain size on the power behind the hit you blocked is a good idea, but the difficulty of the check just has too many variables to make the grind anything but miserable.  Make the gain rate reliable, perhaps factor your opponent's CR into the gain size alongside the hit's damage, and shields would finally be straightforward to level up without requiring insane number crunching and knowledge of esoteric game mechanics.

 

 

post-script:  One of the things that made the shield grind bearable was that my character is ridiculous to begin with, and I could fight trolls all day without being in danger.  How is a more normal character supposed to grind the skill without hating life?

Edited by Noizhead
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I wish so many more skills were as gloriously simple as weapons. Use best gear, use it a lot, get skilled.

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+1. The new system is terrible, and you pretty much can't get decent skill unless you just sit somewhere and let a troll beat on you.

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Skill gains is one reason I play Wurm Unlimited.  Rather be able to gain skills on usage instead of the Wurm Online version.

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I am tired of repeatedly trashing my armor set while trying to grind shield skill with a trash can lid.

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+1 Shield gains are absolutely terrible when hunting. I'm currently sitting at 86 medium maul from killing every living thing in the area, and only got 60 metal shield, 36 on the parent skill and 18 shield bashing. I have to either fight a troll/champ croc with a low ql lt smaul or any weapon that takes 10 minutes to kill, or tank rift mobs if i want anything resembling skill gain.

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