Aldaturo

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Everything posted by Aldaturo

  1. Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, Ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
  2. I'm not suggesting something that trades lower ql for faster production, but rather slower production and lower ql (compared to the basic tool) if you - the player - haven't mastered the technique of operating it, but gives you higher yield and ql as you gets better at operating the machine? The increased complexity of a windmill compared to a grindstone means that it's not as straightforward to use, so more difficult to master, but for those that master it, it is more efficient? The construction difficulty is a one-off fee, which can be negligible for long term players and excessive for new players (so new players, now at a disadvantage, may lose a source of income) For building repair to be sufficient for balance, the repair must be very high unless production is only a little bit quicker. If the advantage of the machine over the basic tool is small, how would it compare to a rare/supreme/fantastic tool? or an enchanted tool or a combination?
  3. Is it the tedium that makes the reward greater, or is it the time it takes to achieve a goal? I think it is the latter. I actually think that the reward can be even greater if the player will get greater satisfaction if s/he enjoys the road to reach the goal instead of going through a tedious process to reach it. That is why I don't support automation, but I do support interactive alternatives to current crafting methods that can have better yield over current methods, depending on player skill (not character). I.e. the better the player interacts, the higher yield and QL. I've previously post a thread where the player needs to interact with the machine, and the result of the interaction affects ql and yield. This interaction would simulate operating the machine (e.g. wind speed varies according to RNG; operator can apply brakes to control mill speed; at regular intervals an amount of grain is converted to flour; amount converted depends on mill speed and grain between the mill stones; the player controls the amount of grain in the mill by adjusting flow from the grain hopper to the mill stones; for high yield (rather faster conversion) the player need to keep the mill at the optimum speed and grain level for as much of the time as possible). Allow keybinds for machine interactions (random element makes it harder to macro). Design this so that on average, the yield/ql is slightly lower than for the same amount of time/interaction(clicks) with the current method (grind stone). I guess this qualifies as a mini-game (or micro-game). I don't think it would be suitable for Wurm to have something akin to tetris or pong clones which must be played to keep the automata going, but I think my suggestion will achieve what you want whilst still being in-character for the game.
  4. The problem is that reducing clicks means you can do more when afk/idle (stacking commands allows you to do some things). I like the idea of sawmills and grain mills, but I think that it would be better if they require the player to keep focused on the game (which means interacting with it). If the concern is the amount of mouse clicks, the solution isn't to add a building or automation, because although that may solve the CTS issue, it has a much larger effect on game mechanics. Reducing mouse clicks is primarily a UI issue. One solution could be more keybinds (e.g. CREATE(a,b,..,z) which would be equivalent of clicking create in the menu, then selecting submenu a, sub-submenu b, ... and creating item z) That way, you could keybind create->anything. However, that would make the game wide open to macroing, so that would be insufficient. I suppose the order of create sub-menus and items could be randomised, so you would have to select the correct a,b,...,z. Alternatively, in the windmills thread, I suggested a wind mill that required user interaction (adjust grain flow, and apply brakes) which together with a random variable (wind speed) affected the yield and QL of flour produced. In such a scenario, there could be key binds for the various user actions whilst making it harder to abuse than the above CREATE keybind.
  5. That makes sense - Your OP made it sound like the QL increased by the apiary being in an enclosure. An alternative is to make the apiary lockable, which is probably better if my suggestion of different flavours depending on surrounding vegetation is adopted, as it would encourage spreading apiaries out. Another point could be that the if there are too many apiaries in the local area, yield comes down. I envisage that most tiles (including rock,dirt) can produce a specific amount of pollen at regular intervals (rock, dirt produce little, grass, flowers, trees produce more). At a less frequent interval, an apiary gathers up to a max-per-tile amount pollen from each tile in its catchment area. This can deplete the pollen from a rock tile, but not a tree tile. However, if there are many apiaries with overlapping catchment areas, the overall yield may go down. The quantity of honey/wax is dependent on the total amount of pollen accumulated, and the quality is dependent on the distribution of pollen sources.
  6. In another thread on this HFC improvement, I posted a relatively lengthy post with a more elaborate suggestion, which sort of encapsulates cravings. I thought I'd crosslink here as well, as I think it is relevant.
  7. +1 Apart from this: The reason is that bees easily bypass fences and fly quite far from their hive to gather pollen, on the order of kilometres rather than metres. How about taking vegetation in a larger area into consideration, and pollen is collected at regular intervals from the catchment area. The quantity and source distribution of accumulated pollen affects QL and flavour. E.g. if you have your nest on a mountain with only rock, you get none or a little low ql honey. If you put it in a mixed forest, you get more,better ql, and if you put it in a large apple orchard, you get higher ql still. (You could also get different flavours of honey, which I think could tie in nicely with other uses, e.g. in cooking/brewing etc, e.g. as I've described here). Regarding no poking around - I'm not a beekeeper, but if bees require maintenance IRL, that ought also be reflected in game, rather than "get queen, build nest, wait until harvest time". If so, doing the "right" amount of maintenance could would give the best QL, and you could maybe be attacked by bees if you fail?
  8. Well, I just applied my opinion of how skills generally can be vastly improved to the topic of your thread :-)
  9. <skill> has always been the same FTFY. On a serious note. I think that Rolf et al. ought to have a good think about the whole skill system, including HFC. At the moment, it is largely based on timers, difficulty and ql. An exception to this is meditation when you start answering path questions. But for most skills, you grind the skill until you reach some goal you've set. For crafting skills, it's easier to find incentives to grind. For other skills like HFC, it is more difficult to find incentives to grind it, because the results isn't as tangible as for weapon smithing, ship building etc. I'm all for making HFC more worthwhile or content rich, but I will give this (and the cravings idea) a -1. The reason is that the suggestions seem to add a few things that increases the complexity of HFC, but it doesn't add that much to game play. Yes it's cool to be able to make dough, then a pizza base with a (new item:rolling pin), then get tomatoes (new plant) and squash them, add grated cheese, add some onion, some meat and bake in an oven. And although I think adding a few recipes, another tool or plant are not necessarily tasks that require a lot of dev time (most of the time would probably be for the graphics guys), adding a lot of them will. And because you can keep adding them ad infinitum to further increase the richness of HFC, I don't think it's a wise decision to make (because you get down a one-way street). I'd prefer thinking a bit more out of the box, and the cravings post does that to some extent, in that it adds a use for the different products of HFC, and so encourages diversifying more (than the current grind HFC until you can cook meals, then cook meals forever-and-ever-amen). To improve on HFC, I think these are key things to consider (and some of these are transferable to any skill) Make use of the huge variety of ingredients we already have (there are already many different types of herb/meat/fish, for instance) Avoid upsetting people who have no interest in cooking by shaking HFC up too radically. Make the game more 'sticky' (immersive,engaging), so that more people stick with the game (I have argued elsewhere for things that replaces the wait-for-timer approach to skills with something that engages the player, which could include operating machinery (in the Windmills post, I suggested the player control grain flow and apply a brake, which along with a third variable wind speed would determine the outcome of the operation, which could be a vast improvement on the basic tool grind stone if the player was skilful). Another way could be to add an element of player research. Encourage trade and player interaction generally. For HFC, I think the research approach is the best approach. The basic idea is to give the player an incentive for the player to play more thoughtfully than choosing the right tool to imp until s/he's gotten to the desired skill level or made something of the desired QL. To contrast this with the cravings idea, in which the game tells the the player "you'll get a benefit if you go cook X right now". If instead, the game provides a general incentive for the player to experiment with recipes, the player who choose to do that will feel that it is them, and not the server, that is the driving force behind the player devoting time to cooking. In contrast with the cravings idea, in which the game tells the the player "you'll get a benefit if you go cook X right now", I think the game should provide a general incentive for the player to experiment with HFC. The players who choose to experiment will feel that it is them, and not the server, that is the driving force behind the player devoting time to cooking.There are a number of ways the experimentation could be facilitated, such as: Make eating certain HFC products give shorter timers/higher skillgain for certain activities. Can be combination of generic and character-specific. E.g. Meat casserole may be generally good for mining, but one charcter may get more benefit from beef+rosemary and another from pork+thyme. There could also be a disadvantage for other activities. Make eating certain HFC products give a temporary boost in characteristics.There could also be a disadvantage for other characteristics. Add some sort of skill that grows upon tasting new flavours - add some benefit to developing this skill (e.g. characteristics increase or faster characteristics increase) Give each player affinities for cooking certain recipes, which increases the pros/cons of the HFC product when they cook it (encourages player experimentation) Give each player affinities for eating certain HFC products (like a fixed craving). Increases the pros/cons of the HFC product when they eat it (also encourages player experimentation) Add location-based specialties. Maybe some ingredients can only be foraged/grown/hunted in certain locations (or even on certain servers). Maybe there are locations/areas that increases pros/cons for certain recipes, which stack with the cooking-affinities above. Make use of the variety of ingredients already available (pork and rosemary casserole is different from pork and thyme casserole). The above approach will make sure that players can choose to pursue experimentation if they find that interesting. If they don't, they can continue with the status quo. Affinities for cooking recipes and regional specialties can also encourage trade (But only if the complexity is such that it is non-trivial to set up shop in each region, as happened with regional ores) I think if an approach such as the one above is introduced, each additional recipe/ingredient/tool/technique will add a lot more to the game than if added to the current system. Finally, here are some ideas for things to add complexity recipes: pizza, pies, sweet pastries, savory pastries, beef jerky, sausages, haggis ingredients: tomato, pepper, bell peppers, chilli peppers, lettuce, mutton/lamb, chicken, eggs, rice. tools: rolling pin, cake/pie tins, pestle+mortar. techniques: curing, pickling, drying, smoking. edit: Non-sensical sentence.
  10. I completely agree that nothing should be added that knocks a hole in an existing market. I would also like too see wind mills in the game, simply because I like the look of wind mills. But I also think that too implement a wind mill that is no more than a glorified grindstone would be crazy. I think that was the starting point for my previous post. And I'm not advocating automation per se, as I also agree with you that afking should not bring benefits. But I think that a middle road needs to be found, between glorified <basictool> and automated <basictool>. My suggestion above aims for that. But it is just a suggestion, and it can be altered. Make it so that it can go wrong, and have zero yield consuming all the raw materials. Make the logic such that it WILL go wrong if the player does not interact with it. This way it doesn't automate anything, but it still offers a technological advance over the basic tool. I agree, but how different is queueing up commands before do something else? I quite often queue up commands, do something else on the computer/in the house, come back to check progress, repair, then queue new commands. I would agree that the difference isn't that big. I might not have time to go down the pub for a pint, but I'm certainly not focussed on the game whilst the timers run out. My suggestion above can be tweaked to require player interaction, so actually to use a wind mill I would pay more attention to wurm than I currently do using a grind stone, whilst at the same time get a big advance of using the grind stone. But I may prefer to let someone else use their time making my flour, because my time is limited - so instead of using a wind mill, I buy it from new players.
  11. So what you are suggesting is a slightly faster version of the grindstone. I think adding a windmill for that would be overkill - would not a rare grindstone be slightly faster than an ordinary one already? (I'm guessing about that, as wiki says rare tools generally are faster than their ordinary equivalents. Saying that, I would absolutely love to see windmills in the game. I think wind mills are technologically such an advance on grindstones, and this should be reflected in the game if windmills are added. So I would go to the other extreme to what you suggest - make windmills expensive buildings that offers some larger benefits than a slight timer increase. And it doesn't need to be pure benefits either, those benefits can come with other disadvantages. Just to throw some ideas out there, windmills may... ...require a master miller to operate. ... offer some sort of automation, but require the operator to be nearby (if not constantly queuing milling actions). ... be faster than grindstones, but offer lower ql; ... be slower but offer higher ql. ... be useless in no wind (obviously). One thing I'd love, which can incorporate all of the above, is a building which can be operated by one character (at a time). The operation of the building depends on a few variables, some of which can be adjusted by the player. For instance, the wind mill can be affected by the wind speed, and the player can apply brakes and adjust grain flow. The combination of these variables affects the speed and QL. If the player does nothing, the result is slowly making low QL flour. However, a skilful player (not just skilful character!) can increase the speed and QL of the milling operation Why hate automation? This is a sandbox game. In the biggest sandbox of them all, we automate every task we can, so we can play wurm instead of working/studying/whatever. But technological improvements doesn't happen because we ask the powers that be to implement it for us. It comes out of hard work. It comes out of relatively well-organised civilisations where craftsmen are highly valued. So I would say automation isn't all bad, and I think in my suggestion above it could work. I will agree that automation in a game like this can cause inflation of commodities (can I have a large cart + small wheel + 8 dredge lips + 8 small barrels + 1 hamster = barrel wheel excavator for digging 8 dirt per second please?). To avoid this doesn't mean we need to avoid any automation. It just means that if automation is to be added, it needs to be added in such a way that it maintains overall balance of game economy whilst adding some other benefit to the game.
  12. I've just read through this entire thread, and thought I'd add my 2i. I first played wurm before it went gold, as a villager of Kyara. I stopped playing when it went gold, and only returned about 3 years ago, starting a new character on GV. I stayed on GV, for a while, but had a break until about 6 months ago, when I tried logging in and found that my GV character was still active even after more than a year's break. I have recently created a new character that is premium on Deli, and am considering to set up a deed for my homestead. Although I'm likely to be the only member of the settlement, I would not call myself a hermit, because I'm in a great neighbourhood with similar settlements. My thoughts on the early discussion in this thread about more challenging PvE (whether that is aggro mobs or natural disasters or seasons or whatever) should be relatively straightforward to implement on different servers - make Exo/Deli/Indie differ by more than the world map, have slightly different configurations to both retain the status quo but also create variations of rules to widen what is on offer. Or add new servers to add this variation rather than change existing ones. I think that improvements to trade would be a great addition to the game - but rather than automatic global AHs, I lean towards player-driven trade, whether that is trading houses or haulage companies. I would encourage the devs to think about features that can facilitate player-driven improvements to trade, whether that is larger carts/ships with built-in xSBs/animal cages or some kind of system for allowing third-party delivery - someone mentioned contracts. Another option would be a new building (similar to merchant) for haulage that facilitates the three-way transaction between seller/haulier/buyer. Going back to player retention, and the "I've-built-my-settlement-now-what" problem, I think that although there are a great deal of different skills in the game, a lot of them are developed in the same manner. There is very little difference between BS and carpentry: get raw materials and create/imp/repair things, waiting for the timer and selecting the appropriate tool for the imp. There are of course exceptions, such as meditation, but a lot of the skills works on the timer-based grind basis. I love the suggestion of individual nuances in skill, e.g. someone being able to make slightly lighter swords than normal etc, and making someone with a certain skill submit new models (although not all players will want to learn blender to create their model). here was also a recent thread about adding crossbreeding to seeds, with some commenting along the lines of "don't add another thing we need to master". However, I think this sort of thing would add a dimension to Wurm. You can continue to use the normal seeds, but if you want to get into crossbreeding, you can try and develop new strains (with pros and cons - for instance faster growth but lower yield, or faster growth but rot if not weeded etc). Another example of a way to add dimensions: I used to play A Tale In The Desert during the first telling of the tale, and they had a food system that was quite interesting. each ingredient had a characteristic modifier, and so you could cook meals to give you temporary altered characteristics (however, you didn't need to eat for sustenance). Additionally, you gained gastronomy points when you tasted new dishes, and at 100,200 and 255 gastronomy, you gained a permanent boost in your perception characteristic. Likewise, the game had beer brewing and wine making, and the beertasting and winetasting skills also gave perception boosts at 100,200,255. But each of cooking, brewing and winemaking required different things to achieve different flavours. For cooking it was mostly down to ingredients, with some e.g. different fish were available at different locations, and different mushrooms would spawn in different, some times very remote places. This created a trade, in particular for mushrooms. For beer brewing, the recipe used (amount and type of malt, amount of honey) and the location (different microbes at different locations) affected the flavour. For wine making, the strain of vine (which could be crossbred) and the location of the vine (soil conditions) created different flavours. Beer brewing and Wine making in this game resulted in a lot of public and private tasting sessions, and so facilitated player-run events on small and large scales. Wurm could learn from what ATITD did there, by leaving the current functionality as-is (cooking for skillgain and sustenance), but adding a dimension by making what you cook and eat meaningful as well. That way you can be perfectly happy just cooking stew/casseroles until you can cook decent meals, but if you want to systematically explore recipes and their pros/cons, you have an optional approach to cooking that may appeal to some players. My main point here is that there although I'm happy to grind skills to get to where I want, exploring alternative skill paradigms may result in a more varied experience, and possibly make the grinding more enjoyable because it's not just about waiting for timers. I forgot to say, those 2i were ores, not coins (sorry for the lengthy post) Finally, thanks to Rolf et al for a great game