General Balance Discussion

[Slickshot 1,195]

I had started working on a master list of every suggestion, good or bad, to leave to the team for them to look into and decide which ones to implement, however when I saw that there were a lot of duplicate ideas I decided it may be better to make a short list of the more popular items at hand.

 

Disclaimer:  I don't necessarily agree with all of these suggestions, as some I don't really have any experience with, however they have quite a bit of popularity or demand backing them, so they'll be represented here.

 

1. Tweaking the meditation path perks/abilities, but mostly balancing the Path of Insanity when it comes to PVP usage as most feel it is overpowered.
   
2. Allowing more items, such as fishing poles to be mailed through the mailing service.  This may also imply the desire for any item that can be picked up to be mail enabled, finished or unfinished.
   
3. Addressing, working on, and solving the underlying issues behind memory leaks and player positioning de-sync, especially in terms of PVP related servers and gameplay.
   
4. Volume fixes for many large containers such as ships to be able to hold items that they should be able to hold, such as banners.
   
5. Digging dirt should cause dirt to accumulate into a pile on the ground, much like mining, instead of accumulating in your inventory.
   
6. The ability to push/pull silver and gold altars.
   
7. The ability to pick-up and re-place a Trader if you're the original owner.
   
8. Increase the loading radius for the Corbita, Cog and Caravel.
   
9. Allow empty crates to be picked up and held in the inventory, much like an empty bsb.
   
10. Allow empty crates to be moved from the inventory of one container to another without having to load and unload every crate.  For example, dragging multiple empty crates from a Knarr into a Wagon.
    
11. Change the mechanics in clay deposits, through a spell, ability, or specific skill requirements, to allow it to be removed or severely altered (such as digging it down quite low under water) if desired.
    
12. Make surface mining more appealing than suicide by decreasing its timer or effectual potency as your mining level increases.  Why should surface rock be any harder than cave rock?
    
13. Balance Nahjo.  This could really be said about priests in general.  Training a priest high into skill margins isn't as appealing as it used to be, and the lack of new spells, ridiculous penalties and proper balancing between deities, has made priesthood largely unappealing.
    
14. Mob distribution is currently bugged in the way creatures will often cluster in just a few areas of a server, and when killed off will spawn elsewhere in a cluster.  The distribution overall does not feel natural, and often times leads to very large areas of land being virtually untouched by creatures, while other areas are annoyingly over populated.
    
15. Create cages or some sort of "storage" for animals so they can be transported across water.  This would greatly improve the herding of non-swimming creatures, and doesn't necessarily mean animals should be allowed to cross server borders.
    
16. Objects such as bsbs, lamps and HotA statues should not be able to be loaded into a vehicle if they are planted in the ground.  The only people that should be allowed to load and remove such planted objects are the owners who planted them in the first place.
    
17. Fix the bug that restricts players from eating, drinking or repairing whilst moving in a vehicle due to them quickly being "too far away" from the tile from which they started the action.  This also deals with using any items that are stored in the vehicle while traveling with that vehicle.
    
18. Specialize and vary armor more to make it useful or detrimental in more ways.  Currently armor is of course most useful for combat scenarios, and different armor types have varying degrees of disadvantage pertaining to movement speed.  The concept here is to create more perks for different armor types, such as giving a bonus to wearing leather if you're an archer or cloth if you're a spell-caster.
    
19. Increase the variety of items that can be stored in bsbs or crates.  For instance fish cannot be stored in bsbs and neither can wooden beams.  The list of items this could logically pertain to is extensive but not inclusive.
    
20. Make combat stats visible, such as parry rate or dps.
    
21. Fix the volume restrictions on ovens to make them more realistic.  A cauldron is designed to be used in cooking, but currently cannot be used in the primary cooking device in the game.
    
22. Increase the quality of information given to the player base about current game mechanics and upcoming patch releases.  As it is now, we have more of an excuse for patch notes, rather than actual patch notes, and many players are confused with how the mechanics of the game work in even the most simple applications, such as combat.
    
23. Add more incentives for F2P players to continue to play the game and buy premium.  Currently F2P players have their skills capped at 20, which doesn't allow for them to ride horses or command anything larger than a sailboat.  This also doesn't allow for them to be creative in building multi-story houses or give them the opportunity to go out and solo hunt most aggressive creatures.  Overall, new players are quite common to Wurm, however they never have the opportunity to sample a favorable portion of the game and make the commitment to go premium and increase the overall player base due to the severe F2P restrictions.  There are a lot of fixes and suggestions on this list, but this is by far one of the most important to date in terms of Wurm's future and sustained success.
    

Edited July 23, 2015 by Slickshot

[IloveWurm 90]

I need to be standing on the ground to drop a horse shoe onto a horse? 

Well, have you ever tried to putting a horse shoe on a horse while riding it?....it's....difficulty

[Cally 96]

Well, have you ever tried to putting a horse shoe on a horse while riding it?....it's....difficulty

I wasn't riding it. And it's basically a drag-and-drop motion interface. The number of things I have to dismount to do is just silly. 

[Sanrina 29]

One thing i noticed that still hasnt been put in the game yet is the temple design on missions that would be a nice addition

 

also

 

+1 on the general auction houses in the starter villages to allow people to buy and sell throughout the kingdoms

 

and one more thing the enchanted trees function should do something other the just make the tile pretty.  thanks Sanrina

Edited July 24, 2015 by Sanrina

[Noizhead 622]

Shortly after it was implemented, the Libila bonus favor item was balanced for all of one day.  It was originally QL/10 but bugged so multiples didn't count, then QL*2 (that didn't last long, thankfully), then QL/5 but bugfixed for a weekend.  After that, for no more than a day, it was QL/20 and the bug was fixed, which was what I would call "potent but acceptable".  After the next restart, the bonus favor became QL/10, and has stayed that way since.  It should probably be reduced to QL/20, or even QL/30; 4.95 or 3.3 favor for a mass-produced QL99 item that requires no further processing is  far more reasonable than 9.9.

 

Speaking of blacklighter issues:  the new gods have finally allowed more enchants and a good follower bonus to proliferate to blacklighters, but there remains no in-kingdom source of Nimbleness, while whitelighters now get Web Armour, Truehit, Rotting Touch, etc.  Either Nathan or Tosiek would be good candidates for this spell, and would further eliminate the need for keeping "enemy" priests in offdeed mines just to cover all your bases.

 

A better solution would be "all religions for all kingdoms", but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

[Zol 133]

Revert to the old way enchanted grass used to work. Back when animals couldn't pack it or remove it by eating too much. If I am spending the time to get the skill and levels to be able to enchant grass then have to wait 18 hours between each enchant, I don't want that **** removed unless I pack it myself.

[Bachus 462]

Shortly after it was implemented, the Libila bonus favor item was balanced for all of one day.  It was originally QL/10 but bugged so multiples didn't count, then QL*2 (that didn't last long, thankfully), then QL/5 but bugfixed for a weekend.  After that, for no more than a day, it was QL/20 and the bug was fixed, which was what I would call "potent but acceptable".  After the next restart, the bonus favor became QL/10, and has stayed that way since.  It should probably be reduced to QL/20, or even QL/30; 4.95 or 3.3 favor for a mass-produced QL99 item that requires no further processing is  far more reasonable than 9.9.

 

Speaking of blacklighter issues:  the new gods have finally allowed more enchants and a good follower bonus to proliferate to blacklighters, but there remains no in-kingdom source of Nimbleness, while whitelighters now get Web Armour, Truehit, Rotting Touch, etc.  Either Nathan or Tosiek would be good candidates for this spell, and would further eliminate the need for keeping "enemy" priests in offdeed mines just to cover all your bases.

 

A better solution would be "all religions for all kingdoms", but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

 

I don't play a blacklighter but it does seem that they got the 'short end of the stick' on the new gods when the best reason I can think of for adding new gods would be to balance the 3 vs 1 that it has always been as far as gods go.

[Slickshot 1,195]

Revert to the old way enchanted grass used to work. Back when animals couldn't pack it or remove it by eating too much. If I am spending the time to get the skill and levels to be able to enchant grass then have to wait 18 hours between each enchant, I don't want that **** removed unless I pack it myself.

For the love of all things, yes!

[Cally 96]

Why can't I add a felled tree to the crafting window if it's on the ground? 

[SmeJack 5,800]

The number 1 on slickshots list only seems popular by the people complaining here, if you look at the several polls and dedicated thread its 50/50 on those who think it should stay the same and those who think it needs change and the rest of his list seems to miss actual popular options. I just hope that if anything even comes of this thread that the devs might read the actual threads on specific things or that the PR guys will at least point them in the direction rather than having another no helms in archery or amour penalty situation happening again from the one suggestion that people didn't bother to argue against assuming it was too ridiculous to become a serious thing.

[joedobo 1,187]

...the rest of his list seems to miss actual popular options.

 

A lot of players have given up trying to influence change. Just because something doesn't pop up in suggestions often doesn't mean its not wanted. Once upon a time I used to post a lot in the suggestion forum. I probably have over a thousand posts in it. Now I'm made maybe 5 posts there in the past year.

 

 

imo these are very much wanted.

1. Make loading and unloading more convenient, faster, and less clicking.

-- For example, selecting 9 crates in a wagon and dragging them into a knarr in one drag action.

-- Another example; open a window that list all objects on a tile, 25 large cartes in this case, and you can open these searched-tile windows up to 3 tiles away. Select things from the window and in on drag move them into a boat.

 

2. Moving a user-selected quantity from one bulk container to another. For example, move 300 bricks from a bsb directly into a crate in one mouse drag and a couple seconds.

 

3. Water improvement "tempering" with smithing activities is wonky. It doesn't function the way one would expect it to and folks have been pointing this out for years.

 

4. Why doesn't this fit here or this should fit...bla bla. I think my conversation with ErikN has answered this. There probably does need to be some reassessment of object  and container values associated with length, width, and height. All problems with things not fitting is not about volume, its because of mismatches in one or more of those three measurements between object and container.

Edited July 24, 2015 by joedobo

[MrGARY 12,421]

[Epic only]

 

After all this time and the ever respawning uniques that will always drop drake/scale, combined with the fact that adamantine armor is better than drake, and glimmersteel/seryll (which is relatively easy to get) are better than scale, what if drake and scale were impable with leather like on freedom?   Would see a little bit more use across the cluster if people can use the little bits they get to make pants or jackets or whatever and not have to worry about more hides to imp

[Klaa 4,872]

[Epic only]

 

After all this time and the ever respawning uniques that will always drop drake/scale, combined with the fact that adamantine armor is better than drake, and glimmersteel/seryll (which is relatively easy to get) are better than scale, what if drake and scale were impable with leather like on freedom?   Would see a little bit more use across the cluster if people can use the little bits they get to make pants or jackets or whatever and not have to worry about more hides to imp

Personally dragon armor shouldn't even be impable with leather on Freedom servers; however, I've beaten that dead horse before.

[Dairuka 888]

At least Lib priests couldn't also farm their own veggies.

They also had to be on chaos, which is a large barrier to entry for a lot of freedomers.

 

But yeah, like you said, a bit late now.

 

We need developer oversight for new gods to prevent another Nahjopocalypse from happening.

 

Before people get up in arms. Remember that I'm the one abusing the Nahjo situation the hardest right now. (80 channeling in 30 days.)

[Slickshot 1,195]

The number 1 on slickshots list only seems popular by the people complaining here, if you look at the several polls and dedicated thread its 50/50 on those who think it should stay the same and those who think it needs change and the rest of his list seems to miss actual popular options. I just hope that if anything even comes of this thread that the devs might read the actual threads on specific things or that the PR guys will at least point them in the direction rather than having another no helms in archery or amour penalty situation happening again from the one suggestion that people didn't bother to argue against assuming it was too ridiculous to become a serious thing.

I'm sure there are some things I missed, however those were just most of the prominent ideas I had read when reading through this thread and taking notes.  And if we're talking about number 1 as being the bolded last entry, then it doesn't matter how "50/50" that is in terms of popularity; it is still a very necessary change in terms of the spectrum of this game.  We have too many veterans and not enough up-and-comers.  The steam in this train runs out eventually, as sad as it is.

[SmeJack 5,800]

Number 1 means... the one listed as "1." on your list... not the last one 

[geode 292]

A lot of players have given up trying to influence change. Just because something doesn't pop up in suggestions often doesn't mean its not wanted. Once upon a time I used to post a lot in the suggestion forum. I probably have over a thousand posts in it. Now I'm made maybe 5 posts there in the past year.

 

This. I seldom suggest as much as I would like to, I see many things that could be improved or changed. Now I pretty much just do "Likes".

Edited July 24, 2015 by geode

[Slickshot 1,195]

Number 1 means... the one listed as "1." on your list... not the last one 

Well I wasn't sure, because the last one is the most important (reason it is bolded and mentioned as being the most important) and is number 1 in my book mate

 

Also, in case you missed it.... 

 

Disclaimer:  I don't necessarily agree with all of these suggestions, as some I don't really have any experience with, however they have quite a bit of popularity or demand backing them, so they'll be represented here.

Hope that helps.

Edited July 24, 2015 by Slickshot

[Cartrip 132]

Please consider relaxing the 100-item-per-tile limit on piles of dirt, clay, sand, rock shards, ore and the like. That would make terraforming so much easier. The game already can handle this - I've lag-dropped into piles resulting in more than 100, and it still functions perfectly.

[adonies 25]

1. If possible, I would like to see all the combat-related messages inside the 'Combat' tab, not split with the Events tab. For example the 'RIP' message, the shield that can't be used, focus, etc.

 

2. Increase the number of activities that can be performed while riding or commanding cart/wagon/ship.

 

3. Enable hitching a drag animal (even bovine) to the handcart, maybe with the addition of a (removable) yoke -> yoked handcart.

 

4. Make handcart possible to lock, maybe with the addition of a (removable) cover -> covered handcart.

 

5. Add to the GUI a small (icons?) queue displayed what are the remaining actions in the action queue, when planning many actions it is easy to misclick.

 

6. Add 'pyrite' (to be found by rummaging) as a crude form of 'steel' (brittle iron) for the creation of 'crude' flint and steel, which would be only usable maybe 1-3 times due to the heavy damage it'd take per use.

 

7. Make flint a possible, even if very rare, rummaging find, for the above purposes.

 

8. Make it possible to transfer fire through the use of any of the light emitting items: campfire to torch to forge to lamp to street-lights to lantern to kindling to campfire...

 

9. Make all existing weapons different and viable, before focusing on making tools viable as weapons. And the other way around.

 

10. How about the addition of a 'sling' (or 'staff-sling) weapon set, complete with 'bullets' ammo and bullet 'pouch'?

[eyerobot 202]

Make more dirt go into a dredge.. Really annoying having to empty it after every two dirts.

I would prefer that the dirt go into my inventory like digging, So it's based on my stats how much i can hold before i have to move it to the boat. But I would take anything other than having to move every single dirt or my action queue stops.

[Cally 96]

 

1. If possible, I would like to see all the combat-related messages inside the 'Combat' tab, not split with the Events tab. For example the 'RIP' message, the shield that can't be used, focus, etc.

 

2. Increase the number of activities that can be performed while riding or commanding cart/wagon/ship.

 

I'd also like mend to work on more things. It feels like it only works on pelts, sometimes. What's the point if I can't mend most unrepairable things, like troll clubs and meals?

[ClericGunem 275]

Balance people transport for land and ship, stagecoaches http://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/123671-with-bridges-released-can-we-get-a-stagecoach-for-people-transport/#entry1270961

[headhunter 100]

0.8kg lamp head + 24kg log = 5kg lamp.

[Oreo 5,793]

I've got one.

Stop rewarding exploiters and allowing them to keep playing.

It ruins the game for everyone else.