Improve Push/Pull - reduce clicking, save our wrists!

[Nekojin 197]

As I'm sure most people here are aware, one of the biggest causes of Repetitive Stress Injuries (RSIs) is mouse clicking... lots and lots of mouse clicking. Second to that is repetitive keyboard clicking. Since we don't want RSIs as a result of moving things around, let's see if we can't fix one of the biggest sources of it in the game.

 

Push/Pull is one of the older unchanged game mechanics. While many other things in the game have had new ways to reduce clicking activity, Push/Pull is still one of the most click-intensive actions in the game. A few days ago, I wanted to have a Magranon altar on my land, since I follow Mag. But there was a very powerful Vynora altar not too far from me, so I couldn't build the altar on my land. I had to get out of the Vinora Aura before I could even try to build the altar. That was only about 20 spaces away from the edge of my land...

 

After building the altar, I then had to spend close to an hour, and many clicks - hundreds, I think - to get it onto my property and sitting where I wanted it to be.

 

We can do better than that. And some parts of the game have done better than that - Ship Transporters remove the need for large amounts of clicking to move ships across land, for example.

 

So, I propose two different ways to make the Push/Pull system work better - same function, less clicking.

 

First is the easier method. Instead of just Push and Pull, allow Push x10, Pull x10, and Push x100. Make them take up the same amount of time that using Push 10 times (or 100 times, respectively) would, and move the item the distance that many Pushes would move it. Simple, easy to code, no confusion about how it works.

 

Why isn't there a Pull 100 in that idea? Because for most cases, the difference between Pushing something and Pulling it is nonexistent - in both cases, you'd just move it. The only time that Pull becomes necessary is when you can't Push something - when it gets caught in a corner, for example. So all you need to do is Pull it out far enough so that you can Push it as far as you need to go.

 

Method #2 is more complicated, and would take more programming, but might be better off in the long run. Allow people to Grab And Push (or Grab and Pull), and make it so that the item you're Pushing/Pulling moves with your character, in the same way that Leading a horse works. Lower the player's movement speed in the same way that being overloaded does in order to keep the overall movement speed about the same as current Push/Pull. Voila, far fewer clicks to achieve the same result, especially if you're expecting to move something long distances.

 

And in both methods, you can leave the standard Push and Pull in the game, so that people can use them for fine-tuning the position of their items.

[Xalorum 766]

I key bind push/pull. If I clicked I would go crazy too

[Idony 697]

Ditto what Xalorum said.  I just bind it to a key (I like to use space bar) and cue up as many as I can at once (soon to be 5! woo!).

 

My insanity levels have gone down considerably since I stopped manually clicking each move action....

However.. I still am highly addicted to Wurm.. so not completely cured!

 

 

Not sure how much key-binding experience you have - but you can set them a couple of ways.

1. In the Startup go to "Options" and then "Keybindings" tab. 

You can even use this method from ingame by opening options (press "o" or "Escape" then select "Options")

2. Type your bindings in console (F1) while you are in game (Eg. I open console and type :  bind space push ) Wiki is a great source for looking up available key-binds http://www.wurmpedia.com/index.php/Key_bindings

[Tuanta 484]

Would like to see improvements with the functionality eventually but until then.

Here's what I use:

bind shift+W PUSH

bind shift+S PULL

bind shift+D TURN_CLOCKWISE

bind shift+A TURN_COUNTERCLOCKWISE

[Leroy 315]

+1 on option #2 should be able to drag anything you can pull (I can pull my knarr up a hill but can't drag it through waterways?) I'd be all for lowering the movement speed to 1km/h (about same rate of pushing/ pulling objects).

[Chiqa 742]

Keybind works great.

[Vornak 36]

I'd like to see option 2 implemented one day, even if it turns out to be a little slower then little jumps when pushing or pulling.

A nice smooth movement would help make it feel less painful to move around furniture and stuff.