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DKSprocket

New newbie equipment

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Today's patch changed the equipment that new players get. It is now:

 

50ql longsword

30ql wooden shield

30ql leather armor

 

None of it can be improved and all of it stays on the corpse after death.

 

This is definitely a great change! I did a quick test with a new char:

 

Aged spider: got it down to 5% health before dying

Aged rooster: killed it without taking any damage (0.11fs gain!)

Adolescent bison: got it down to 60% health before dying

Young wild boar: got my butt kicked

Mature/Aged sheep: very easy, 0.10fs each

Young bull: quite easy, took 15% damage, 0.16fs gain

Venerable brown bear: got it to 50% health before dying

Aged cave bug: pretty tough fight, 0.21fs

 

This definitely makes it possible for new players to have fun fighting.

Edited by DKSprocket
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Glad to see they are no drops as this will allow new players to not be deprived of life support right off :) Good work team! (Although I will miss the bad ol' days)

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This change should have went live like 5 years ago to be honest.

 

And I don't understand salty veterans who seem all about keeping new players down and forcing them to have a horrible experience and quit.  I can't believe anyone could be against this change.

 

Good job Devs.  You guys have been on fire lately.  Keep it up!

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There are things you should have to work for.  A 50 quality weapon is one of them.

 

Newbie gear should have newbie quality.

 

How long does a weaponsmith have to work to be able to make a 50 quality weapon?

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It's not so bad since the weapon can't be imped up.  I'd imagine once the newbie has like 35 FS or so the weapon will be--after being repaired by a newbie's terrible repair skill---be down to 20 or less QL.

 

It's no biggie.

 

The only issue is if someone can get infinite new weapons by creating new alts.  Does anyone know if this is possible?

Edited by Hailene

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50QL was decided upon as weapons degrade fairly quickly with use, and this is intended to get newbies using their weapons. You can't improve it, so that 50QL sword is going to repair down to rubbish fairly quickly. What this actually does is create a market demand for weapons.

 

Before this update, newbies rarely went hunting at all. Your first experience hunting was usually dying and losing all the little bits and pieces you just spent hours collecting. Now you can and will still die, but to things you'll more naturally be wary of like huge spiders and hell hounds. Having a newbie that fights more means that gear will give them a chance to gain that all important initial fight skill. They'll get a taste for combat and won't be afraid of it as much, but as their gear diminishes, their need for upgrading it will rise. When you consider that they've also had at least 3 ample chances to gain coin through this experience (foraging, killing, and burying) - they'll also be more able to actually pay for said upgrades. Not to mention selling butchered goods, if they go that far. :)

 

So my dear weaponsmiths and enchanters, get your advertisements brushed up on! Maybe even consider offering some lower QL options on the cheap. Get new players hooked on LT early on with some cheaper casts. ;)

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I agree that the new newbie-gear is rather over-powered now. Too huge a step.

 

It was correct to upgrade the newbie gear, but not by that large a step. From a ql20 short sword to a ql50 long sword is too much. Replacing the old ql20 short sword with a ql20 long sword (or even better with a ql20 medium axe) was all that was needed to allow brand-new players to deal with a pheasant or dog or cat - and feel a sense of challenge and accomplishment. Now it's a push-over.

 

There's another consideration here too: An important step in every new players's career was to be able to craft his own first gear, getting better at fighting that way, and to feel a sense of accomplishment. This has gone now, it will take far too long time before a new player is able to craft gear that is better than the gear handed out by making a new character.

 

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On 12/11/2015 at 11:24 AM, DKSprocket said:

 

Young wild boar: got my butt kicked

 

 

Beware the boar, the staple grinder in many MMOs. For here, it will eat you alive!

 

@Keenan What you say is very true. I didn't fight much of anything for nearly a full year. I ran tower to tower calling guards. It wasn't until I met a group of people who happily helped me gear up that I started fighting anything. Had I not been bear food seconds out of the portal, I probably wouldn't have hid from everything. Thought a bear will probably still kill you, you can at least defend yourself honorably instead of just laying down and dying.

 

Edited by Audrel
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1 hour ago, Audrel said:

 

Beware the boar, the staple grinder in many MMOs. For here, it will eat you alive!

 

@Keenan What you say is very true. I didn't fight much of anything for nearly a full year. I ran tower to tower calling guards. It wasn't until I met a group of people who happily helped me gear up that I started fighting anything. Had I not been bear food seconds out of the portal, I probably wouldn't have hid from everything. Thought a bear will probably still kill you, you can at least defend yourself honorably instead of just laying down and dying.

 

 

This! And you keep the gear when the bear does eat you, which allows for a learning experience in picking your battles better.. rather than a lesson in how to lose everything. :)

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Just a query, is wurm going from a hard core "survival" based game into smoother, gamier atmosphere? I'm not criticizing, just looking for some clarity, 50ql gear is a selling point and so it does seem a little high, 40ql might have been better imo.

 

Edited by Pingpong
I totally borked up my posts ;)
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Second post in error.

Edited by Pingpong
post in error.

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Maybe if we put our "ancient elite" pride aside and accepted the less "hardcoooooore" newbies who usually get filtered out, WO's player retention would not only increase, but you'd also get more people willing to.... BUY YOUR CRAFTS?

 

If you want ONLY the superhardcoreultraselfsufficient players to stay on WO, don't complain later on when there's no one to sell to because everyone in the game is just way too proficient.

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On 12/12/2015 at 7:57 AM, Proximo said:

And I don't understand salty veterans who seem all about keeping new players down and forcing them to have a horrible experience and quit.  I can't believe anyone could be against this change.

 

Misery loves company. As simple as that.

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2 hours ago, Audrel said:

 

Beware the boar, the staple grinder in many MMOs. For here, it will eat you alive!

 

@Keenan What you say is very true. I didn't fight much of anything for nearly a full year. I ran tower to tower calling guards. It wasn't until I met a group of people who happily helped me gear up that I started fighting anything. Had I not been bear food seconds out of the portal, I probably wouldn't have hid from everything. Thought a bear will probably still kill you, you can at least defend yourself honorably instead of just laying down and dying.

 

 

This was me down to a T, I wanted to kill stuff and quickly found out it was impossible and soon lost interest in exploring as it meant sure death and confined myself to mining and ship building. After a few months I packed it in and didn't come back for nearly a year when some friends started playing wurm. The village I was in was not helpful in the slightest either, if I wanted tools and weapons with casts I had to pay full price for them, if I had been able to explore I might of found a better place to hang out at.

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1 hour ago, Pingpong said:

Just a query, is wurm going from a hard core "survival" based game into smoother, gamier atmosphere? I'm not criticizing, just looking for some clarity, 50ql gear is a selling point and so it does seem a little high, 40ql might have been better imo.

 

 

One of the biggest misnomers is calling Wurm a survival game. It hasn't really been that in a long time, and I wonder if keeping it related to that genre is actually a limiting factor. People who are looking for survival type games will view Wurm as too easy, or too simple. Wurm is more of a "choose your own destiny" type of game. A medieval fantasy sandbox where your primary goals are the ones you set for yourself. In most survival games, staying alive is the primary goal, with the other elements helping you accomplish that.

 

I really think that's where the focus for new players should be, showing them that they can literally become whatever they want. This is a step in that direction, as they can now become hunters if they choose - or at least gain enough skill to make exploring an option. Like @JakeRivers said above, a lot of people (including myself) soon became hermits when we repeatedly died to everything. Most gamers view creatures like "rats" and "wolves" as newbie fodder, so when you try to take one on and die quickly, you draw the conclusion that exploration just isn't possible. If I can't defend myself against a stupid rat, then what can I do?

 

The real balancing factor needs to be in how long such newbie boons last. Long enough to let them make a choice as to how they wish to play the game - having a direction is key to keeping a player interested. Not so long that they never feel the need to contribute to the player-made economy, to better themselves though their own skills, or to make the game too easy that they quit out of boredom.

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Me and my friend made the jump from Wurm Unlimited to Online about two days before this patch, so we wern't completely unprepared machanics wise (we both played over 200 hours of Unlimited since relase) This adresses one of the two major complaints we get when we try to get folks from our gaming community ("i logged in, saw a pheasant, it almost killed me, i logged out" being a major one), the second being the lenght of the action timers. Never mind skillgains, its the fact that everything takes so blimey long to do when you start out. Having the ability to survive basic combat is a  fairly universal requirement for games when the player isn't sold on the idea of playing in the first place. As mentioned above, just because you had to walk uphill both ways in the snow sharing a pair of boots between four brothers when you were young doesn't mean everyone who comes after you has to. Change happens. And someone who won't wear out the newbie equipment by the time they would normally have ended up buying a player made one, probably wouldn't be looking to buy one in the first place.

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Three comments:

 

Please stop advising new players to chop trees with their longsword to get weapon skill! - It almost hurts to see new players misled that way.  Tell them to do that with another longsword that they make, not the good one they need to last as long as possible, if you have any sympathy in you.

 

This is not fixing the problem. - The issue is new players getting mauled by hellhounds and spiders and crocodiles at excessive rates.  Spawning mechanics are the issue that would most closely address the problem.  Hellhounds shouldn't be feeding near starter towns.  Not that the equipment won't help things, but we shouldn't lose sight of the root problem.

 

Don't go overboard. - In spite of what I just wrote, I'm not in favour of Wurm in general getting 'easier' or 'faster'.  It's just a matter of getting people into the right mindset.  When I arrived on Golden Valley, Champion Huge Spiders and Scorpions and Bears were feeding on new colonists right, left, and center.  Glitterdale was awash with horncalls and the stench of rotting flesh as the beleagured spirit guards fought monster after animal after monster that pursued wild-eyed peasants fleeing to safety.  This taught people to watch their surroundings, know the terrain, and prepare.  And those aren't bad things at all, a very useful mindset for Wurm.  And if a skilless sixteen-year-old peasant with a crappy shortsword and a shield can't kill a bear, what of it?  You can't do that in real life either.  Wurm's only issue is that it shocks people.  Not that the Warcraft facerolling types are turned off, because they would never stay anyway.  But that some people who would otherwise stay get their face eaten a few times in a row and give it up as a bad job.  They need help understanding why that is, and what they can do about it, and how they can develop from a fresh peasant into anything they like.  They don't need their possibilities taken away in the name of 'ease of access', a term which has been ruining games for over a decade.  So, guide and inform, and give them a little break on the nastiest critters at first.  But don't take the challenge away.

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17 hours ago, Teggs said:

Three comments:

 

Please stop advising new players to chop trees with their longsword to get weapon skill! ...

 

This is not fixing the problem. ... Spawning mechanics are the issue that would most closely address the problem. ...

 

Don't go overboard. - In spite of what I just wrote, I'm not in favour of Wurm in general getting 'easier' or 'faster'. ... They don't need their possibilities taken away in the name of 'ease of access', a term which has been ruining games for over a decade.  So, guide and inform, and give them a little break on the nastiest critters at first.  But don't take the challenge away.

 

All this are very good points, Teggs. I agree. If Wurm tries to jump on he bandwagon it can never compete. Wurm's chance is to be unlike the other games.

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