Nerf to Hell Horse now?

[Greyfox 427]

As per WAS on the client;
"As we continue to develop Wurm Online and address bugs that occur throughout play, there occasionally comes a bug which does gain popular use.

In an upcoming update (Due Thursday, 8th September), we will be addressing a longstanding issue regarding hitching aggressive creatures that allowed hell horses, trolls, and bears to be hitched when young or adolescent, and stay hitched as they aged.

While there was discussion about simply allowing this to remain as is, it can often lead to frustration and confusion about hitching aggressive creatures, as well as errors regarding speed calculations on the server side.
After this update, when aggressive hitched creatures age, if they are too unruly to be hitched they will become unhitched, and if not equipped with a saddle, will wander.

As we are aware some players do use aggressive creatures such as hell horses for their wagons and carts, we have increased the age limit for them to be able to be hitched to aged, however they will automatically unhitch at the very late stages of aged prior to turning old. As usual this will be modified by creature conditions (where applicable).

This WSA is to provide warning to players to ensure that any old or venerable hitched aggressive creatures are secured prior to the update. While the unhitching will only occur upon aging, not upon the update restarting, it is possible that they age and unhitch before they can be reached.

Thank you for your continued understanding,

The Wurm team. "

So, why the change?  Outside of PVP I see no reason for it.    Nerfing Hellhorse wagons and carts is not going to add anything at all to Wurm.  It only takes something away.
I do appreciate the extend in age for HH.  However, that still doesn't fix the nerf.   Imagine being out and about, and all of a sudden one HH just jumps off the wagon or cart.   Have fun with the slow limp home.

I don't know what the Devs are thinking, but as of late it seems that Devs think Nerfing is a good dev plan.   SotG, attempted nerf to Refresh, and now this?

 

 

Edited September 7, 2016 by Greyfox

[Aeris 3,764]

I don't know. Maybe they want us to breed even more regular horses? Before they decide once again that horses are lagging the servers up and make 90% of them die to disease, immediately followed by buffing trolls again to make us even more dependent on further horse breeding. Seems to be the cycle.

[Audrel 2,223]

You have got to be kidding me!

 

You can't make a cart follow the slope because it is a super mysterious exploit that will implode the universe but you can sure in hell make a horse unhitch because it's too old? Why even leave them able to be hitched at all? Yeah, I really want to breed a team of horses every damn week to cycle hitchable ones in and out. Just turn them into aggro mobs worthy only of killing for leather instead of this nonsense crap. 

[Audrel 2,223]

I guess there is a silver lining. Think of all the chickens that could be cared for now that caring for a hell horse is absolutely useless.

[Darmalus 631]

I find their presented logic for this change highly questionable, and I don't even use heck ponies.

[Psalamon 201]

i tried with them but hell i couldnt even tame one so gave that up quick and try and find a matching couple of guys or gals hh's to make a fast cart good luck..

[Cecci 1,611]

I thought we had to many regular bred horses and thus needed to sacc them for cash now?

[Audrel 2,223]

Just now, Cecci said:

I thought we had to many regular bred horses and thus needed to sacc them for cash now?

 

Coming soon! Deed ratios cut 75%! Thanks for playing Nerfs Online.

[Niki 2,278]

Okay, so I work in the gaming industry right, I'm going to keep my anonymity for obvious reason. Look friends, the game design isn't here to say it bluntly. I feel like it's bad to even express dissatisfaction because it seems to annoy whoever is making some of these changes to develop more controversial changes to the game. Feedback is important and I really hope you're reading it.

 

So what's the point seriously? When majority of the team disagrees with itself internally? This puts a confusing image in the playerbase when they see it.

 

Why mess with an already small playerbase? It's like you want us to "deal with it scrub or quit."  

 

Communication is key, having polls also helps for the whatever'th time I've said that now.

 

 

[Riddic 313]

I do think its an odd thing to pick on but should we really cry every time we don't agree with an update or save it for they do something that we truly feel strongly about.... if we whine every time why would they listen to us when it counts? 

 

 

Also yes the game is in a slump atm but to code clubs credit they are still updating the game... to a sometimes very ungrateful and entitled playerbase *But I do think the refresh nerf was dumb *

 

+1 to the polling idea (or a testing feedback like with the pvp changes)

[bdew 2,462]

5 minutes ago, Riddic said:

if we whine every time why would they listen to us when it counts?

 

If i see stupid decisions i see no harm in calling out every single one of them.

 

I'm gone from WO (and this is just yet another nail in that coffin) and can un-nerf anything i don't like being nerfed on my server *shrug*...

[rixk 830]

5 minutes ago, Niki said:

Communication is key, having polls also helps for the whatever'th time I've said that now.

Nah.. If they put every decision they make to vote, nothing would get done. Not every popular change is necessary.. and not every necessary change is popular.

 

About HH changes, personally it doesn't affect me. But it was interesting to observe it.:) It started well, nice notification, what will change and give some time to prepare for changes. Of course all hell broke loose, but this was the time, when PR team should've stepped in, they should've explained why the change was necessary etc(I seem to remember, that there was some trouble with the speed calculations, but it was completely lost in the "noise"). There was noone tho, after a while someone just started deleting posts from the announcement topic.. which was simply like waving a red flag infront of a bull.:) PR team should take control of such situations, but they simply were gone (as usual).

[Audrel 2,223]

2 minutes ago, bdew said:

 

If i see stupid decisions i see no harm in calling out every single one of them.

 

I'm gone from WO (and this is just yet another nail in that coffin) and can un-nerf anything i don't like being nerfed on my server *shrug*...

 

 I was just thinking that a couple minutes ago... There is always the WU standby where Bdew and a couple others are on top of unnerfing.

[Riddic 313]

Maybe not polls then but put it on the test server to have play with and see what the playerbase think? 

[zigozag 918]

4 minutes ago, rixk said:

but this was the time, when PR team should've stepped in, they should've explained why the change was necessary etc

The head of the PR team posted that announcement.

[Audrel 2,223]

19 minutes ago, rixk said:

Nah.. If they put every decision they make to vote, nothing would get done. Not every popular change is necessary.. and not every necessary change is popular.

 

About HH changes, personally it doesn't affect me. But it was interesting to observe it.:) It started well, nice notification, what will change and give some time to prepare for changes. Of course all hell broke loose, but this was the time, when PR team should've stepped in, they should've explained why the change was necessary etc(I seem to remember, that there was some trouble with the speed calculations, but it was completely lost in the "noise"). There was noone tho, after a while someone just started deleting posts from the announcement topic.. which was simply like waving a red flag infront of a bull.:) PR team should take control of such situations, but they simply were gone (as usual).

 

I'm sure mine will be removed first thing in the morning. *shrug* Don't really care.

 

Instead of fixing speed calculations, nerf fix the hell horses that have been broken so long it has become a feature. Makes sense to me.

Edited September 7, 2016 by Audrel

[rixk 830]

4 minutes ago, zigozag said:

The head of the PR team posted that announcement.

I know.. but he was gone after it was posted, when people were just winding themselves up.

[hemrzz 1,278]

i think allow them to be hitched.. but if they are not tame ... let them beat the crap outa the owner.

[Redd 4,281]

Another change not discussed with the community which lower QoL.

 

And they wonder why the prem numbers are dropping :/

[Retrograde 12,013]

The major issue here is the instant cries of "nerf!" without looking at the wide picture. currently Hell horses require zero additional skill to use vs regular horses, minus sourcing them from an animal breeder, they offer significant advantages and outpace any other creature.

 

The issue with this is escalation, as time goes on it becomes the dominant strategy, and the obvious choice to the point where using regular horses is considered a waste of time, especially as hell horses become more prevalent.

 

Someone who breeds hell horses will be able to supply themselves easily, with horses lasting about 2-3 months before needing to be cycled out, their work in breeding will not be wasted, as they can easily replace the horses in this time frame.

 

As for why this bug at this time? We're in the process of moving from one bug tracker to another, as we do so, old bugs listed are raised, and we address many questions over them, some have already been allowed to remain as part of the mechanics (with neater coding) and others have been listed as bugs to be addressed. Some, like this, have been met halfway, with making allowances for it to continue as a feature, but also correcting and balancing the issue.

 

This isn't the only change coming with the update, but we're aware that this one was better to inform players of before the update to ensure that they were prepared, and continue in improving communication with changes and updates.

 

[JakeRivers 2,921]

7 minutes ago, Retrograde said:

The issue with this is escalation, as time goes on it becomes the dominant strategy

 

Dominate Strategy for What?

 

Hell Horse Breeder Sales down on Xanadu?

[Gumbo 1,563]

5 minutes ago, Retrograde said:

currently Hell horses require zero additional skill to use vs regular horses, minus sourcing them from an animal breeder, they offer significant advantages and outpace any other creature.

 

Well who's fault is that?

Sounds to me like Hellhorses were another poorly implemented addition to the game. Things like this have been the cause of so many problems, and the reason why so many players get pissed right off when things they have become accustom to, get nerfed.

[zigozag 918]

 

38 minutes ago, Retrograde said:

currently Hell horses require zero additional skill to use vs regular horses...

 

...but instead of introducing a skill requirement, we decided to go with breaking your hellcarts.

 

@Retrograde, your latest answers all ignore many points made by those crying "nerf!". You figured it's time to fix some bugs. Alright. Why do you need to justify and explain in fishy and dangerous posts like this why it is needed? Fixing bugs is necessary no matter what. BUT! We have no way of knowing what is a bug and what isn't, what is exploiting and what is intended gameplay. We use what we can, and everything that behaves the same every time is considered a feature. When you decide to fix a bug like this, you're taking a feature away. Taking features away is called nerfing. Nerfing rarely achieves any good.

 

Spoiler

Also, your reasoning behind nerfing hell horses is invalid, but in the last 19 hours it was explained many times, so i am washing my hands here.

 

Edited September 7, 2016 by zigozag

[Cecci 1,611]

I supposed intended gameplay has changed...

Someone wrote the code sometime.

 

[Jaz 2,666]

I've never had hellcarts,too much hassle for me. But again I feel it is an unnecessary nerf. I don't really see HH carts dominating the world. Is it a random easy fix then to work down the backlog? You take the (easy) nerd way and not the customer care parh which is surely more bumpy though.