Roccandil

This. This is what Wurm really offers: a massive, persistent, changeable world. That's the core value of Wurm (and what keeps me playing). Making that more approachable is what Wurm needs.

Yes, I've seen this on Epic as well (though the last few I've seen seemed all right).

I still think Angelklaine's idea of allowing Epic to be an item sink for Freedom could work...

Rifts are boring!

Hmm. Valrei mobs already have the chance to drop seryll (plus a chance for a potion drop). I could see a chance of non-seryll moonmetal being extended to champion creatures, perhaps. Would Freedom champ missions imbalance that?

I'm already at 77+ body, with body stats to match, so stat gains seem good to me. While I don't have an earlier frame of reference to compare to, I do know stat gain was increased at some point after the big update. Again, though, you need to be doing low difficulty actions; that's critical for stat gain.

Since the update, I've ground many skills to 90+ on Epic. It's straightforward; you just need to stick to low difficulty actions (you can't skill like you did before, or like on Freedom). My first priest is nearly 70 prayer, without even focusing on it. Prayer looks easy to get to 70.

+1. Would love some way to get this! Also, please let it stack with Flaming Aura (just like the frost imbue can stack with Frostbrand).

As a sub-suggestion, specifically regarding the existing priest goals to create statuettes and altars, I'd consider providing a separate "Religious implements" goal tree, that would allow those completing it the capability to create and imp altars and statuettes, without needing any jewelry-smithing skill (or gaining any via imping, so no exploitation to get broad jewelry-smithing skill). After all, it -is- logical that priests would be interested in crafting statuettes and altars, and that their deities wouldn't want to prevent them from improving their own statuettes or altars.

Not on Freedom, no. Too much has been invested there to radically change it; I get that. Epic, however, has already shifted in this direction with the skillgain update. Epic is designed for new people (at least, as I understand it), and it would make sense to try to attract brand-new players to Epic with big changes. Even beyond Epic, I'd still love to see successive temporary challenge-like servers, each trying out some new bizarre mechanic, while giving everyone a chance to experience starting on equal footing on virgin terrain, and providing a nice end-of-server bonus to take home to Freedom/Epic so folks don't think it's a waste of time to play on a temporary server. Anyhow, thanks for the discussion!

I posted this suggestion in another thread, based on a Sindusk comment. This could apply to Freedom, Epic-only, a temporary challenge server, or something else entirely. As Flubb also suggested, a goal-based skilling system wouldn't necessarily have to replace the current skilling system. Repetition is both easy to bot, and boring to do, and the more I play Wurm, the more I'm inclined to say scrap the skilling system entirely. Replace it with a goals-based system, in which the gameplay diversity of a skill is used to level up a player, rather than the uniformity of grinding. Not only can that make it more fun, but also harder to bot. For example, consider the following spread of potential prospecting goals (prayer doesn't have enough gameplay for my purposes here! ) : Find rock salt Prospect a vein of rock Find an iron vein from the surface Prospect an iron vein Analyse a rock shard Find a zinc/tin/copper vein Prospect a zinc/tin/copper vein Analyze one of every shard (marble/slate/sandstone) Find an iron lode (at least 3+ iron veins revealed in one prospecting action) Find 10 unique iron veins Find a silver vein Find a silver lode (at least 3+ silver veins revealed in one prospecting action) Find a gold vein Find a gold load (at least 3+ gold veins revealed in one prospecting action Find a resource rich area (at least 5 different kinds of veins) Find a resource poor area (only rock) Find 10 unique silver veins Find a motherlode (at least 5 gold veins revealed in one prospecting action) And so on. Add/scale/balance the goals as needed (I realize some could be griefed), and use them to level up a player in prospecting, unlocking more capabilities as they go. Whatever the details of the goals, consider the fundamental/functional difference: - Current system has player standing on one tile hitting a button over and over again, occasionally shifting tiles. Fun level: low. Bot vulnerability: very high. - Goal system has player exploring servers actually prospecting for veins. Fun level: potentially higher, especially for newer players (you need to meet logistical requirements first: get yer gear, get yer faithful pack horse, figure out how to live off the land and dodge the varmints, and then become that grizzled prospector of legend always muttering about "gold, gold in them thar hills!"). Bot vulnerability: very low. I know which method I'd prefer.

Instead of automatically giving players rewards for goal completions, whether they want them yet or not, allow players the option of claiming the rewards when they're ready. That way we can burn down sleep bonus, or be on the right cluster, to prepare.

Yes, the prayer grind is easy on Epic, and I wouldn't mind hosting Freedomers who just wanted to do that (would help charge the Serenity favor pools!).

To be honest, I'd implement a goal-based system for unlocking capabilities. You want to create a gold altar? You've got some goals to do.

I know why I'm posting what I'm posting, and I know your descriptions of me are inaccurate. But, whatever you think of me is your business, and not only am I not interested in changing your mind, I think trying to tell you what I think I am is generally pretty silly (if only from the perspective of offering evidence). As as sidenote, that's simply dependent on balance. What's a good base skill for 100% knarr creation? 50 shipbuilding? 70? Varied dependent on keel QL? It doesn't have to be either low or high. Allowing someone to create a knarr (or something simpler, like a gold altar) at 6% chance still means someone with low skill can randomly do something that really should be reserved for a higher skill. More precisely, I dislike the idea of making it seem to a low-skilled player that they can short-circuit the real work required, in any way. I'd much rather say, "hey, a knarr is an advanced piece of gear that you need to be extremely proficient in shipbuilding to create, and here's what you need to shoot for". I'd hard restrict creation, imping, outcome QL, etc. all to skill (and tool/mat QL, where relevant). I don't see that as a switch. Still, I think it's silly to allow a player to think they can imp something if they really can't. It's like having options on a context-sensitive in-game menu that do nothing (hello, load cargo on a wagon while you're sitting in it!). (I note, however, that I was able to imp past 99 on a toon with less than 90 effective skill, so yes, you -can- get high-end results with lower imping skill than really should be required.) I think failure RNG should be eliminated across the board; I see them all as the same thing: unnecessary, petty frustrations that poison an otherwise good game. Imping failures may be small, but they add up (for that reason alone, I hate doing it), and if imping with a scarce material (moonmetal), that does increase the risk. One way or another, as a developer, I'd hate to rely on the RNG mechanics in Wurm to attract an audience (although, to be honest, I think they push away more people than they attract). Nevertheless, it's the defense of gambling mechanics in Wurm I find peculiar. Again, you speak of reducing the gambling effects as your toon gets more skilled, which, to a certain extent, is true, but it never really goes away (I should know; I have effective 99+ in many skills). That is, if reducing RNG failures is good, why not just eliminate them entirely? Yes, it doesn't make much sense for a priest to learn jewelry-smithing. Bottom line, I see no merit to RNG failure, in any form. Every benefit you all have argued seems noise-level to me, whereas every little random failure is a voice telling the player they're wasting their time and effort, and that they should be doing something other than playing Wurm. Those voices add up, and I'm convinced they have contributed significantly to Wurm's low playerbase. (Again, I point to Minecraft.) Wurm just doesn't need that kind of RNG. Wurm has something incredibly unique already: a massive, persistent world where you can alter anything in it over time. But, instead of drawing people into that gameplay, Wurm gates it behind frustrating, repetitive requirements.

If you -are- projecting, there's really nothing I can do about it, except point it out. I'm honestly not following your objection. Perhaps it's a failure of my own articulation, but I see all these as manifestations of the same thing: - creation chance - imping chance - enchanting chance - wild outcome QL ranges - surface mining chance And so on. Any differences between them are noise level to me, perhaps because in the context of the massive nature of the Wurm world, failure RNG simply feels like so much noise. Ultimately, I know it's primary effect is to push people away; Wurm doesn't need it (no matter how many people defend it). This feels like quibbling. How many gamblers work hard to get the money to gamble? The "low effort" criteria merely exists at the moment of gambling. So, in the case of enchanting, every cast on, say, a supreme weapon is a gamble: you -might- shatter it. And it's easy to gamble at that point: just do another cast. How hard it was to get the weapon in the first place is irrelevant. Or, for another example, I decided to complete the "create gold altar" goal with my Vyn priest, who would never otherwise need jewelry-smithing. Getting her to 20 effective skill wasn't too bad via creation on Epic, and then I decided to gamble my gold on her fairly low creation chance. Again, the gamble was easy, regardless of how hard it was to find/mine the gold. It wasn't a fun gameplay choice for me, but I wanted the goal. Chess is an example of simple rules providing emergent complexity, just as the terraforming rules in Wurm are also simple, but again provide emergent complexity. When building my deed, I did a -lot- of slope calculations to get exactly the outcome I wanted, and RNG had nothing to do with it. When I had to surface mine, however, the failure RNG was simply a frustrating layer of noise, but again, it had nothing to do with the slopes I could create. RNG is not necessary for skill-based interactions, and it tends to mask them. Thanks for that! I appreciate a reasonable discussion.

Repetition is both easy to bot, and boring to do, and the more I play Wurm, the more I'm inclined to say scrap the skilling system entirely. Replace it with a goals-based system, in which the gameplay diversity of a skill is used to level up a player, rather than the uniformity of grinding. Not only can that make it more fun, but also harder to bot. For example, consider the following spread of potential prospecting goals (prayer doesn't have enough gameplay for my purposes here! ) : Find rock salt Prospect a vein of rock Find an iron vein from the surface Prospect an iron vein Analyse a rock shard Find a zinc/tin/copper vein Prospect a zinc/tin/copper vein Analyze one of every shard (marble/slate/sandstone) Find an iron lode (at least 3+ iron veins revealed in one prospecting action) Find 10 unique iron veins Find a silver vein Find a silver lode (at least 3+ silver veins revealed in one prospecting action) Find a gold vein Find a gold load (at least 3+ gold veins revealed in one prospecting action Find a resource rich area (at least 5 different kinds of veins) Find a resource poor area (only rock) Find 10 unique silver veins Find a motherlode (at least 5 gold veins revealed in one prospecting action) And so on. Add/scale/balance the goals as needed (I realize some could be griefed), and use them to level up a player in prospecting, unlocking more capabilities as they go. Whatever the details of the goals, consider the fundamental/functional difference: - Current system has player standing on one tile hitting a button over and over again, occasionally shifting tiles. Fun level: low. Bot vulnerability: very high. - Goal system has player exploring servers actually prospecting for veins. Fun level: potentially higher, especially for newer players (you need to meet logistical requirements first: get yer gear, get yer faithful pack horse, figure out how to live off the land and dodge the varmints, and then become that grizzled prospector of legend always muttering about "gold, gold in them thar hills!"). Bot vulnerability: very low. I know which method I'd prefer.

So true. At least that's -not- true on Epic, but then, not many people play here.

I suspect you're getting those ticks every prayer, and Snoo isn't.

Posting this by request: Fo passives: Magranon: Paaweelr: Smeagain: Tosiek: Vynora: Nahjo (provided by Angelklaine):

What's a Halbred? Does it have something to do with a crazy crimson computer? (I, of course, know what a Halberd is. ) Quick, check for more typos!

Well, to adjust slightly: Action failure -is- all one subject: creation, imping, bad QL results, failure to channel, shattering; it's all RNG failure mechanics, and it has much the same effect on potential players. We may certainly enter the subject at different points, but it's the same subject. That's your preference. What you call a prescriptive list, however, is simply a recipe that also requires a hard level of skill: and recipe-based crafting works. (See Minecraft.) I see no engagement or exploring in your example: just encouragement to mindless repetition. For instance, in building my tarwall, I had to plot and plan what skills and materials I needed, and the requirements were massive. Plotting and planting a cherry forest was engaging. Figuring out how to get high QL cherry juice, and tracking down a rare fruit press was engaging. Protecting my stockpile on a PvP server was engaging. All that took months. (And yes, that took tenacity, and adversity was overcome. ) What was -not- engaging was finally mixing the fluid and watching RNG make hay with all that prep work. That was extremely insulting, off-putting, and rage-inducing, but I had no choice but to waste my time if I wanted to complete the project. That kind of "adversity" is superficial, confining, (and from a business perspective, downright stupid). Recipe-based crafting, on the other hand, is not confining. Rather, it provides clear goals to consider and shoot for, and those incentives draw people in, rather than pushing them away. Perhaps most precisely, the best kind of recipe-based crafting encourages emergent complexity. (Again, see Minecraft. ) Oh, and digging is perhaps the best Wurm example of what I mean: you dig, you lower a corner. No RNG, just simple rules. And those simple rules let you do amazing things, if you're willing to think, figure out a plan, and stick to it. That's the best kind of overcoming adversity. No matter how you dress the RNG, it's still gambling, especially for the new player. And that's a critical point. I do find it ironic that you claim the point of the gambling is to figure out how to gamble less. Unique? Oh, my. RNG is -lazy-, the crutch of the unimaginative developer! It's noise masquerading as content, and it's completely unnecessary. From my perspective, you're arguing that chess should have RNG governing things like combat outcome and move chances. The sad thing is that, like chess, Wurm doesn't need RNG. Wurm is this wonderful, huge world that's been gated to the small number of people who can stand or even enjoy the needless, noisy frustrations that mask the true game. And, yeah, you "veterans" are the players who tried Wurm, actually liked the insanity, and stayed. Naturally, any outsiders who point that out will get jumped on, and most people won't even try. But games like Minecraft prove there's a market for a Wurm that isn't off-putting, and topics like this one are simply more evidence that a much larger potential population base exists for Wurm, if it could relinquish the insanity. If you're content with Wurm population levels as they are, so be it, but there really aren't many of you.

Were it my game, I'd allow you to pray repeatedly until your stamina bar ran out, all for one click. Why is attempting to force people to be "attentive" to monotonous and repetitive gameplay considered a good thing? If I wanted people to be attentive to a game I developed, I'd earn it by designing interesting and fun gameplay, not force it by dangling a distant reward in front of players and saying, "click tens of thousands of times in this long, indescribably boring process to win!". Almost sounds like a cruel experiment.

I watch every skillgain, and -all- skillgain stops (not just digging), including things like repairing. Relogging fixes it.

Not sure if this is related, but I can't build a bridge connected between tall buildings that passes next to (not over) a mine door on the ground below. Seems odd.