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Patch Notes 13/OCT/16

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The issue with shield training - and shield bas even more - is that unlike a lot of other skills you get tick ONLY when successful. Being successful on a bash is quite impossible at low level against actual mobs...

The same way obtaining the first 15-20 skillpoints in the shield skills is way more painful than the next 15-20.

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I don't understand why the devs are so set on us having to move between animals to gain skill

Like holy ######, you are still grinding in the exact same way but instead of just backing out for stamina/repairing shield etc, you now also have to move a tile and grind on another animal

 

The only fix you did with this was cause more annoyance and a ######ton more of work for newer players who do not already have a lot of animals penned up

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2 hours ago, SeeD said:

I agree, drop shield skills to 0, make everyone start off fresh, that'll avoid the window of opportunity.

 

If you're hunting in the wild its easy to move from creature to creature, if you expected hours spent letting a creature thrash at you to be considered intended play then you're wrong.

 

Plus, wasn't this "fixed" before? This is just another exploit/loophole being closed, which a lot will need to be done in order to allow the game to advance.

 

TL;DR allowing broken and poor mechanics to remain because they're the norm will kill the game much faster than fixing them

 

Touch my shield skill and I quit. I did not spend 26 days straight grinding it for 6+ hours a day.

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I've been playing on and off since exodus released.  I never tried the round of 10 pigs and fight them all without a weapon equipped to get shield skills. currently my shield skills are like below the 20s and just in the 20s and i have 71 fight skill.  So training in the wild is not very helpful for shield skill increases.  Shields are one skill that increases very very very slowly.

I think we would all appreciate this being looked at, but it has been brought up many many times and so far nothing has been done about it.

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I haven't read anything but the way that everyone 100% gains shieldskill on pvp servers is grinding on a horse or pig hitting them

it's been that way since Wild was still wild

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So that's why my fighting is almost at 30 but my shield is only like 3...

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Just now, Budzilla said:

So that's why my fighting is almost at 30 but my shield is only like 3...

No, the reason it's like that is because the skill is tedious and slow and hard to grind while hunting. This is why everyone who wanted skill in shields tended to use the tried and tested method of sit in a pen with a pig. Yet now that's impossible, see PingPongs post and wait 2+ years of regular hunting to get 90 skill

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I have to agree that this change is not needed. First of all this change doesn't remove the grinding, it just makes the grinding more difficult.

 

As to training shield skill hunting in the wild, I've done that with my PvE character (TimothyMarker). His fighting skill is 81.5, his longsword skill is 75. His LMS skill is 46.8 now, and he has an affinity in it and used a CoC shield almost all the time.

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I really don't get why this change was put in or even brought up. The main reasons why it needs to be reverted or the skill gain increased drastically are the following.

 

1 - Shield training is something that has been in the game sense the begging and has been used by everyone. The average shield skill by fighters right now is in the 80-95s. If its changed as it is now, this will be the one of the biggest and most harmful windows of opportunity.

 

2 - Skill gain is unreasonably slow by normal means. On epic, I did very little shield training (15-20 skill points or so) and I got longsword to 94, medium maul to 90 and large axe to 50 and I only got to 81 shield skill and it took years of playing. With out the shield training I would only be in the 70s or under. I don't see how people are expected to ketch up with the average skill of 80-95. At my current rate on epic I would need to take at least 8 weapon to 100 skill to get into the 90s.  Its not possible and really hurts any new player trying to get into pvp. This method was literally the only only way that new players could use to be able to get into pvp.

 

3 - Skill gain rate is unreasonably slow even with shield training. With shield training you can only get around max of 0.1 skill per hour past 70 with optimal shield ql + stance + animal and fighting 100% of the time (I have been testing it for the past 2 months). It takes 10+ hours a day to get a single point of skill. When you are hunting you are fighting 50% of the time at best, more realistically 35% of the time. That means you are going to lower the skill gain rate down to 0.05/h - 0.035/h, or for 10 hours of hunting 0.6 - 0.34. However not everything you fighting is going to give optimal skill gain so more realistically your looking at 0.4-0.1 skill per 10 hours.  This is literally making the requirements to get into pvp unreasonably impossible.

 

4 - There were already prevention methods in place to limit shield training. Sub combat skill gain stopped after 30-35 minutes (tested average) before you had to switch animals. The skill gain rate is limited to a maximum of 1 per pvp round (10 seconds) and the chance to get a skill tick at the most optimal situation is 50% (yes, tested using a 10,000+ roll simulation and in game with over 500+ skill ticks). This makes it so that you cant get skill gain for training on multiple animals because you are limited to the 1 tick per 10 seconds.

 

5 - It only hurts the players with lower skill. Older accounts with high skill are not affected by this change as they have no need to shield train. The new accounts are severally nurffed as they still need the skill as it is required to pvp.

 

6 - Players who used this "window of opportunity" are greatly rewarded. Players who used this "window of opportunity" were able keep the skill for it, while all other players from this point on will have to work many, many times harder.

 

7 - Shield training is not viewed as a problem. Shield training is not something that is view as a problem by the vast majority of the pvp or pve community as you can see from the comments or by simply talking to the community.

 

8 - High shield skill is not a problem in combat. In pvp, with a normal shield, you have a limited blocking rate of 1 per pvp round (10 seconds) at any level. So even if you get to 100 shield you are not invisible, just higher change of getting the optimal block rate of 1 per 10 seconds.

 

9 - Low shield skill is a problem and makes it extremely hard if not impossible to pvp. With lower shield skill it is very difficult block hits and arrows because nearly all of the accounts that will attack you have high skills (archery, weapon skill, weapon enchants, cr bonuses, ect.). Even if the attacker doesn't have godly stats its still necessary because, if you don't have shield skill a person can just sit back 20 tiles, out of attack range, and archer you while you sit there unable to block. It is a skill that is necessary to pvp.

 

 

Now ask your self devs, is this really a beneficial change? What does it fix and was it really a problem? What are you really trying to change? Is it really worth killing off of any new possible players and upsetting the entire community that still plays the game? the answer is no

 

Note: Shield training refers to the method of sitting in a pen with something attacking you for long periods of time to gain shield skill.

Edited by blayze
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28 minutes ago, Shadz said:

No, the reason it's like that is because the skill is tedious and slow and hard to grind while hunting. This is why everyone who wanted skill in shields tended to use the tried and tested method of sit in a pen with a pig. Yet now that's impossible, see PingPongs post and wait 2+ years of regular hunting to get 90 skill

 

What do you think I was trying to say?

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Well during that time I did do several 2h weapon grinds and build part of a subway :P but yeah it's absurdly slow.

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2 minutes ago, Budzilla said:

 

What do you think I was trying to say?

I assumed you was thinking it was that slow because of this change, when it's actually now even slower because of this change.
My bad

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Just now, Pingpong said:

Well during that time I did do several 2h weapon grinds and build part of a subway :P but yeah it's absurdly slow.

Shush, you're ruining it!!!

Even with the old "macroing" technique it was still a chore, much like other "features" :P

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1 minute ago, Shadz said:

I assumed you was thinking it was that slow because of this change, when it's actually now even slower because of this change.
My bad

 

No worries. Yeah it was slow before, now it's just insane. 
 

Devs please revert this or increase the shield skill gain. Give us noobs a chance!

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God... so many shield comments.. 

um..

 

What about this "Bugfix: Can now repair a boat while commanding it.", is that only possible for the commanding/owner of the boat or passengers could repair/improve the boat as it moves also(I guess it's easier to test it... but just in case someone gets to this question.. have anyone tried it already, what's the answer to this? (nothing like a good old troll joke.. imping that ql15 boat to 50+ for free while someone taxi you somewhere..:ph34r:)

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2 minutes ago, Sila said:

I think we need Rolf back to his position.

 

I think its more of a case for being transparent for why the changes are being done and not just a case of here is a change everyone will hate but we wont directly say why we need to do it.

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52 minutes ago, Rasu said:

 

I think its more of a case for being transparent for why the changes are being done and not just a case of here is a change everyone will hate but we wont directly say why we need to do it.

It might be nice with certain big changes, especially combat changes, to have some sort of pre-fix announcement along the lines of:

We intend to change X by doing Y.
We are doing this to counter act unwanted behavior Z.

And thus give players a chance to address the change, especially if the change wont actually effect the source of the unwanted behavior. The source in this case being that shield skill gains via actual combat are horrifically bad.

Edited by Darmalus
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Lol good job dev team, you nerf a skill. But you don't fix the said exploit. Good job.... I can't wait to see what else is in store.

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Please fix skillgain for a skill before you nerf the way to gain the skill in any sort of timely fashion. 

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Quote

It is possible to devise a scenario with unintended methods to fight with creatures and at the same time prevent them from being able to fight back.  Such scenarios are clearly not intended and can lead to the permanent ban of your avatars when caught using such a method.

 

This type of scenario allows someone to create a situation in which they can gain fighting skills without harm to themselves and by bypass intended mechanics that should cause harm to your avatar health, damage to your weapons and armor, and allow long term and potentially unattended skill gain activity.

 

Several people have been caught and penalized for this activity in the past and recently several others were penalized after the activity was detected.  If you ever encounter a scenario like this or ANY scenario of unattended skill gain with or without the use of a macro, you should report it so it can be promptly looked into and officially replicated for testing and correction.

 

Thank you,

Wurm Online Team

 

I not sure what you mean by "preventing them from being able to fight back" and "gain fighting skill without harm to themselves" because if you use a creature with low cr or a low attack rate, you can shield train without any armor and out heal the rare small damage. Basically they can't fight back because the natural healing rate is faster than their damage rate. With the low cr animals, depending on your shield ql, stance and weight you can still get optimal shield skill gain at any level (yes, tested, you can use a sheep or rooster to train 100 and it can be better than a horse depending on stance, shield ql and weight). So if I have a sheep or rooster hit me I can get permanently banned? Cool, seems legitimate and like a exploit, k thx bye.

Edited by blayze

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5 hours ago, Retrograde said:

you don't stop blocking at all, you'll stop gaining skill from blocking.

 

 

So in prolonged pvp engagements we now won't gain skill when keeping combat with 1 person? Or is this only for mobs? 

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Added additional checks to prevent unattended combat skill gain. Skill gain will now stop after a period of time with a cooldown per animal.

So bad, you just nerfed shield training..Let's make the game more grind intensive..Maybe just fix the route of the problem and not harm the inocent people?

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Seriously devs if there is something that is bannable we as players and customers need to KNoW what is actually bannable, because I read the message and honestly can't for the life of me figure out what you mean about not taking damage or weapon damage or the animal can't fight back? Is there something more going on here outside of just the complaint we have of shield training? 

 

Please stop being vague with what you mean. If something is bannable spell it out for all to know and see stop with this hidden message BS you consistently do. 

 

Someone else mentioned it in a lost but less then a year ago there was another change and service announcement that was made with something to do with combat skills training... I forgot what exactly it was. 

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