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Docterchese

General Balance Discussion

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Honestly I'm a little put off by this post. We've had countless people who really care about the game, bringing these issues up in forum posts, for as long as WurmOnline has been around. With that said, I will try to contain my frustration, remain "positive", and address the three primary issues.


  1. Proper process for reporting and logging of actual and/or perceived bugs
    • There are resources available (many free) which could be used for bug tracking.
    • How many times must we hear "Lanterns taking damage in inventory" or any of the countless other perceived bugs that are brought up. If there was a tool for submitting bugs, then the community would feel heard. (Its nice to be acknowledged) Your greatest resource are your player base. (Note: The "bug database" should be searchable by your player base)

  2. Proper process for submitting and logging of suggestions from the community
    • How many times must we hear "Saddlebags" or any of the countless other suggestions that are brought up. If there was a tool for submitting suggestions (much like the bug process above), then the community would feel heard. (Its nice to be acknowledged) Your greatest resource are your player base. (Note: The "suggestion database" should be searchable by your player base)

  3. Proper patch log
    • Knowing the inner workings of how skill gain is calculated certainly isn't something that needs to be completely explained. However, changes to something like PVP and general functions should. Take a look at other popular games for examples. (League of Legends, Starcraft 2, etc)

Issues list:


  • Lanterns in inventory taking damage.
  • Lanterns remain (lit) after snuffing.
  • Using a bucket to harvest maple sap and milk cows. One overflows and loses product while the other gives a warning and stops the action.
  • ...

 


I was going to list all I could think of, but I and many others have stated them all countless times before. Taking the time to list them all over again just makes me contemplate leaving the game entirely. So I will stop here.


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We've had months of suggestions on bug fixes and now we're supposed to relist them all for the benefit of an unknown someones? Don't we have PR peoples to read stuff and pass them along to the devs? It's hard not to be fairly cynical at this point ;)


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WOGIC:

24) Back a couple years ago, the running depths of boats was changed.Ever since then my big boats cannot enter my port because the rock is too shallow.Could you increase the depth we can lower rock with a pick to the deepest running boat?

As far as I know(didn't test with every ship) the last surface mine change made it so you can surface deep enough to let all boats pass.

The problem is that you can surface mine 2 past the max "tunnel" option. Leaving you in a situation where you can't use concrete to raise it and can't open from outside.

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We've had months of suggestions on bug fixes and now we're supposed to relist them all for the benefit of an unknown someones? Don't we have PR peoples to read stuff and pass them along to the devs? It's hard not to be fairly cynical at this point ;)

 

You do, and we do do that - but a drive to have as many little suggestions as possible is worth trying and does seem to bring up a number of things that weren't on our radar.

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I found out just a week ago or so that the depth you can surface mine to was changed and now you can mine 26 slope underwater if I'm not mistaken. I'm not sure if this change was documented or not but I can verify that 26 slope is now the max instead of 14 slope as before the change.

 

Fantastic! I just confirmed. Nice fix.

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Fishing rod storage. I haven't checked lately but it seems like I can only put my fishing poles in my large cart. At least make it fit on a weapon stand.


 


Fish in food storage bin, just like meat.


 


Fighting skill. I've played on and off over the years and my fighting skill is barely 20 while I've got digging over 80. Even when practicing on a dummy, it takes a ton longer to gain any skill than it does with archery practice. It's extremely difficult for a newbie to survive even the starting areas with any mob unless they can survive long enough to run it back to the guards. One of the reasons I keep quitting is that I can't even hold my own yet if I try to go out and explore away from guard towers and such, unless it's a wild cat I'm fighting.


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Fix the bug where things randomly disappear. It's hard to hunt when I can't see corpses on the ground, my horse disappears, and I can't see my cart, unless I relog. 


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General Balance? 


 


Is that for a high end player on one of the maps....... or for a newbie on the same map because the two in various aspects cannot be balanced.


 


Take PvE combat for example, there are no zones, no instances, no specific areas, a creature of any strength can appear anywhere, players of any level of experience are free to wander anywhere. Balancing the PvE combat system for an experienced player is going to be done on the bloodied remains of the newbies. Switch it around and a good experience for the newbies is going to be on the bored petrified remains of the skilled players.


 


Or do you mean ability balance where the relative "strength" of a 1 skill player is compared to one with say 95 skill. The scaling is ...... not kind.... to newer players.


 


Or do you mean how bonuses stack in this game and the absurd size of the bonuses to start with?


 


There is a serious problem when the word balance comes up because there are so many inter-connected subsystems, the knock on effects  can be frightening, we already have dozens of calls for small changes here and there. Some may actually remain small but others will have a larger impact and cause more imbalance than balance.


 


I honestly believe this is the wrong approach to take, do not call for changes which might improve balance instead lay out what a balanced system is (and why it is) and then work down looking for areas which do not conform and fix them.  Top down, not bottom up. This approach is proven to be way more successful when used.


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Why not the ability to create "cages" or some other animal-safe crate, and be able to crate animals? It's been suggested many times before. Even if you don't want them to leave the server, that can be coded in as well. Or hell, give us a special ship that's designed to load animals. Anything is better than watching your favorite mount struggle for air while you're sailing...

 

Would love to see a "flatboat" aka ferry that you can drive onto, wagon/cart loaded, and drive back off of. Make a version with railings and you can lead X number of animals onto it. 

 

EDIT: Forgot the Wagon Ferry :-P

1800s US Flatboat on a river.

flatboat_on_the_ohio_ar_waud1600x1118.jp

 

Wagon Ferry

 

wagon-on-ferry-lg.jpg

 

Edited by Audrel
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Food.  Add more high end types, maybe even some with buffs.  


 


There were some great alchemy systems suggested.


 


Make thrown weapons useful perhaps. 


 


Add more actions for the skills that only are used for one thing.   Example - with 50 firemaking skill you have an option to set a tree on fire and leave a pile of ash.  Give it a long timer to light it, a long burn timer, and can't be done in enemy influence maybe.


 


Take off the chaos restriction on surface mining max slope being 1x your mining skill.


 


Add plantable mushrooms.


 


Make the trellis system functional for grapes.


 


Add a new boat class perhaps, between sailboat and knar.  Something that can carry 3 crates, basically a workhorse version of a sailboat.


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heres an idea, do your jobs, Read the suggestions sectiion, Read the bug reports section, Several years of them  and then go report them to the dev's. You wanted to be pr and the extra helpers, now go look, its not our job to re-report the same crap over n over n over n over n over n over n over n over n over n over n over again as we seem to keep doing............ Find and fix them. 


Edited by fatboy
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Was just thinking. Nothing I commented about is really a balance issue. They are good suggestions for mechanics that could use a tweak but not really balancing.


 


So, balancing. Equal effort sacrificial items for priests. Yoyos vs garlic. There's something that majorly needs a bit of weight on the other side of the seesaw.


Edited by Audrel
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If you can pick it up and put it in your inventory, the spirits ought to be able to mail it, period.

 

Also, lets encourage trade and mail by dropping the fees charged.  Flat rate postage - 1c per item anywhere, anytime.  Let's compete with UPS!

 

Definitely this.

Or at least even have it a % of the CoD price up to a maximum of 10c, if you are mailing something CoD.

For example anything 10s+ it costs 10c to mail, anything 1s and under is 1c. 1c per 1s value.

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Traders need some balancing. Heck, they need some reworking entirely I think, but at the very least they need some attention to make them worth the 50s price. I've seen a few trader deeds go for 20s with silver in their coffers just because Traders aren't as attractive as they were before.

 

I am not saying they should just give away free silver.

 

I'm saying that they need a better purpose. Some sort of reason for existing. They need better management, and at the very least the ability to pick up and place down somewhere else - even if that requires an additional fee of some sort. That way people who already invested their 50s (which translates into 50 euro) aren't entirely out of luck.

 

Considering that you can make decent silver on junk sales and rare rolls on fighting and foraging, paying in 50 euro doesn't seem worthwhile anymore.

After the cost of 50s its not free silver anymore. You get free silver already from a ton of activities.

Trader hate is a great example of Wogic, and the devs ceding into it is just an example of why the game won't progress. Also a good example of why this thread is useless.

Its not the first, won't be the last time a dev asks directly for input in the forums then completely disregards the consensual posts and does the ones their closest "mates" have suggested, and which are easy to implement.

Edited by KanePT
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After the cost of 50s its not free silver anymore. You get free silver already from a ton of activities.

Trader hate is a great example of Wogic, and the devs ceding into it is just an example of why the game won't progress. Also a good example of why this thread is useless.

Its not the first, won't be the last time a dev asks directly for input in the forums then completely disregards the consensual posts and does the ones their closest "mates" have suggested, and which are easy to implement.

 

The free silvers has not always been around. In most cases, it's free coppers. I don't often get a silver coin. It goes to the same thing most people use traders for, upkeep. If I get any coins foraging or hunting, they go right back into the king's pocket at the token. 

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Priests


 


Balancing


 


Priests have the same limits regardless of whether they are on PVE or PVP


 


However


 


Many priests spells on the PVE side have very diminished effects. Diminished in that they simply are not as useful as they are on the PVP side or not useful at all.


 


Since Priests on the PVE side are paying the same amount in lost abilities and game functionality and have a lot less in terms of useful spells It seems they could benefit from balancing.


 


 Balance Options:


#1. - Add more useful spells to PVE priests spell lists. Can easily flag them for no use on PVP side.


And/Or


#2. - Remove some of the limitations to priests on PVE side. ( make them easily played as a main )


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Hey all,

 

Wurm is well over a decade old as a game, and along the way, some bits of the game have ended up a little unbalanced or odd. For instance, some items might have odd volumes (e.g. kingdom banners not fitting in an empty knarr) or maybe unmailable fishing rods (when things like halberds can be mailed) is actually something you'd like to see changed.

 

We'd love to collect as many examples of small qwerks in the game (aka "Wogic") as possible from the community, all in one topic. There's a separate topic about artifacts.

 

The devs are currently away for a few more weeks so nothing will happen immediately, and suggestions are as ever at the discretion of developers as to whether or not they'd be added.

 

Thanks for your input!

fix the creature spawn rate and location on Xan totally screwed up

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Priests

 

Balancing

 

Priests have the same limits regardless of whether they are on PVE or PVP

 

However

 

Many priests spells on the PVE side have very diminished effects. Diminished in that they simply are not as useful as they are on the PVP side or not useful at all.

 

Since Priests on the PVE side are paying the same amount in lost abilities and game functionality and have a lot less in terms of useful spells It seems they could benefit from balancing.

 

 Balance Options:

#1. - Add more useful spells to PVE priests spell lists. Can easily flag them for no use on PVP side.

And/Or

#2. - Remove some of the limitations to priests on PVE side. ( make them easily played as a main )

http://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/118645-priest-4-life/

Just sayin.

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SOTG should be lowered to 30%.


 


Valrei reward system should be completely overhauled.  


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Most of you who are complaining about SOTG just want other paths to have pvp related powers too.

You fail to see the whole picture and other paths have just as much use.

Knowledge is very good for crafting alts or dedicated crafters.

Love is good for people who like Farming, breeding etc.

 

TLDR: If you want to PvP pick insanity, power or hate and if you want to craft,w/e pick something else.

 

While the idea of different meditation paths benefiting different gameplay styles makes some sense, it just inserts another rung people have to climb to advance to compete with veterans.  (IMO) The game mechanics should encourage players to think outside the box, not sort them into slots for progression.

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  1. Proper process for submitting and logging of suggestions from the community

    • How many times must we hear "Saddlebags" or any of the countless other suggestions that are brought up. If there was a tool for submitting suggestions (much like the bug process above), then the community would feel heard. (Its nice to be acknowledged) Your greatest resource are your player base. (Note: The "suggestion database" should be searchable by your player base)

 

This is so true.  

 

1. Set up a web form for submitting suggestions instead of just forum posts.  I can't imagine that's easy to parse and keep track of in that format.  Forum posts can easily be buried after a few days.  Have a log of it and let players know of the developers' thoughts/intentions.

 

2. Yes, we need SADDLE BAGS... A leather bag similar to a backpack that gets equipped on a horse that you can store a few items in.

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Just 3 words: smithing, tempering, enchants.


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Add a bindable function that improves (while at 0 dmg) and repairs (while damaged).


Pretty simple.


Edited by Zekezor

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