DesolationV4 - Evolution - Epoch 3

[Nappy 1,369]

1 hour ago, Xyp said:

I think part of the problem is Wurm has been geared up to give all advantages to those with numbers. You lose CR for being attacked by multiple characters, you can't do Hota due to the larger kingdom setting their alarms and poking each other that are not even online at the time to come do Hota so why show up.

 

There is a lot to work on and I know Nappy is very interested in trying to find better ways. It requires small steps.

 

One Idea that I had, which is completely open to discussions and improvements, is to make some changes to HoTA.

 

• Remove Hota Timer from Settlement Info, this stops setting of alarms, poking to prepare, and gives an advantage to those who actually live on the HoTA island, living and building in more dangerous conditions. I was very upset that people living on Home islands under safer conditions were the ones logging on and poking people for hota just before it began, with plenty of time to get there. This is also after bragging about all their hota statues they have earlier that day.s
• Keep the 10 minute alert but change it to 5 minutes, that encourages those living on the Hota Island to get in gear and get there, yet limits the ability for home island dwellers to get in gear and get there before it is over.
• Randomize the start of HoTA so that nobody can accurately time when it begins.

The above changes, while just 1 small step would help keep HoTA from being dominated by one kingdom, unless that kingdom decided to move in and live in the more dangerous zone, instead of keeping back most of the day in their home island. The upsetting part was I was online, had been for a long time, with no help, building away trying to contribute to the Epoch culture, on the main island. I said oh it is about Hota time, nobody is on maybe I have a chance, then 20 minutes before Hota they start logging in, that is disgusting. They could not be bothered to play other than to keep us lesser kingdoms from having any chance of getting Hota Rewards, just again pumping up the bigger kingdoms making the lessers get farther and farther behind.

 

Some very interesting points there actually. Would be quite interesting if we could figure out a way to perhaps somewhat randomize the actual start time of HOTA as well so that instead of being x hours after last one ended it was instead some range of x - y hours after last one ended (like from 1 hour to 16 hours after it ended). Still doesn't completely address the problem however what it does do is potentially reduce the "known" times aspect of the problem (in other words what you said above with a few more ideas from you as well).

 

The kingdom balance thing is something I feel needs to be sorted out for WU and WO in general. It's too easy to rapidly have kingdom balance issues. We usually support giving people the ability to play with their friends (makes sense right?) however in doing so we sacrifice kingdom balance and usually end up with kingdoms that aren't even remotely closely matched in terms of power. In a perfect world I suspect a 40/60 balance extreme on a two kingdom server or a 25/35/40 on three kingdom one, would (with player usage of careful alliances/war agreements) make it possible to avoid the one kingdom domination issue. Right now balance % is likely 80(J)/15(H)/5(M). Two weeks back it was around 30(J)/60(H)/10(M). Some of the wild swings are typical for most server starts however the long term goal is to reduce the swings dramatically otherwise people will leave the server from lacking the feeling of a fair or reasonably fair fight.

 

From a Desolation perspective I see the following three issues as the critical development direction in the near term (although some smaller features in other areas will be added in as well).

 

- Dynamic kingdom balance - was identified as critical in initial design brief and not implemented in favour of earlier launch date. Additionally we have a bug or mod conflict that make some of the initial character creation options not work.

 

- Significance of the Home Islands - In order to grow the community and change the feel of the game we need to enlarge the importance of the Home islands. This would attract other player types, give a reason for PVP combat troops to feel the need to both defend their own island while also attacking the enemy home islands and with time would have serious impacts on frontline combat performance. The hard core PVP is too small a group to focus only on them, solution is to give people other reasons to play on the server that contribute in a positive way to both their experience and the experience of the hard core PVP players.

 

- Continue to tweak and expand the epoch features to give players more things to do and that will provide interesting choices/options for them. The Epoch feature is really cool however it also is a tricky one to adjust especially first time through.

 

Army has a few real life things he is taking care of so he will be involved less in development and GMing from now until sometime in mid to late December when he expects to return again. In the meantime I am working with other mod developers (and getting setup myself to do some coding as well) to move these items forward.

 

If you are willing/interested in helping out with development activities please let me know. 

 

~Nappy

[Iberis 856]

Fyi, I was already over there well before you mentioned Hota on the ts Xype. Zleazy was also logged in over there and I never even mentioned Zleazy in the ts anyway (I actually mentioned Zaramoth). Zleazy relogged about 10 minutes before the Hota begun so I can see why you got the assumption that I woke him up or "poked" him when actually he had been ingame the entire time. Whether I was in the JK teamspeak with him or not he would have been there. If you want to discuss what happened and straighten things out I'll be more than willing too talk, as long as you use civil behaviour in the public teamspeak this time.

 

My understanding is that you were upset that we both attacked you after you charged at us in the Hota zone? Because it was not 1vs1? I can understand being upset or angry with me or Zleazy if we had agreed to fight 1 vs 1 prior. But we had not, I had not even noticed you tbh until Zleazy shouted at me to run back. Zleazy had no armour on. Would it really have been a fair fight for me to just stand there and not take part as you attacked the character not wearing armour? Isn't fighting on the Hota regardless of numbers the whole point of a pvp server? We will gladly offer you your gear back. I'll even ask Zleazy if you can have the hota statue as a gesture of goodwill if statues mean that much to you. But I'd rather not fall out with someone over this and I would like to talk at some point.

 

As for Kingdom balance, as I told you much eailier on in the day, I agree that JK should be locked from new players joining. I never disagreed with you. Zleazy agrees too. We want new players to join the other Kingdoms and for them to grow. There is a reason we haven't raided the BL or MR home or raided your deed. We want the other Kingdoms to get stronger. We've also come up with suggestions like telling some of the players in the other two Kingdoms to ally up with each other to take us on. There were only two of us at the HotA today, that is not overwhelming odds especially if BL and MR form an alliance or if JK is locked to new players.

 

I love the idea of randomizing the HotA times, I know some players in the past have said the times of the HotA are always an inconvience to them. Making it more random would help alot. I disagree however with saying that players on the home islands can't take part. I'm sure that is just because I was there at todays HotA but as I already said, I made the trip to the main island beforehand and I quite often spend time at the JK capital. I also think it's unfair to disallow players to join in with what is essentially the main pvp event of the server. You want to grow the community and bring pve players into the game and introduce them to pvp? Well the way they are going to fall in love with pvp is by getting stuck in and involved. Cutting them out from the fun and making it impossible for them to get to HotA's in time if they want to live on the home island.. well they might as well just stay on their pve servers if they can't take part in the biggest pvp events.

[Xyp 273]

Already over there? I ran through and around the hota zone, forraged for a few things, tamed a bison, nobody in local. You log on teamspeak talking about let me poke Zaramoth... No point in playing just to get crapped on by a junky system of one guy gets tag teamed while losing cr because he has a smaller kingdom. That system is not Nappy's fault. However I am 5 minutes from hota, you are on a home island, but you can call all your forces to the frey, I can call ... my bull...sigh.

Also 2 guard towers and 150 tiles of road not even 1% to Culture...does building on the hota island even matter at all... Said it before, it always comes down to being a PVE game.

Edited November 17, 2016 by Xyp

[Iberis 856]

Yes I mentioned something about poking Zaramoth, he was in-game at the time also. He did not however go to HotA so I don't see what the problem was with me mentioning Zaramoth's name in the ts? As for already over there, I meant at the Jk capital with is right on the very edge of the hota zone. It was a 2 minute ride to the centre of the zone so there is no point leaving for the centre of the zone until it's time. Once again you are making assumptions. Zleazy and I would have been there regardless. As I have also said previously, two players going to the hota is not overwhelming odds. You also had the chance to leave the hota zone if you did not like these odds.

 

I understand that you are trying hard to make this server more enjoyable or fair Xype, but we are too whether you believe me or not. Ask yourself what you would have done if you had been in my situation? If you were already there at hota with Zleazy and I had been the one to charge at your "leader" who had no armour on? Would you have just stood there and watched or joined in wanting to have a bit of fun and get some more pvp experience under your belt? What I think you do not realise is that you nearly made a player leave the server today. Did you think about that? The language you used in the teamspeak towards me nearly caused the other player in the teamspeak that witnessed it to leave because he did not wish to play alone and he also did not wish to play with someone who acted like that. If you want to help the server as much as I do Xype, think about things like that please. There is no reason why we can't be civil - especially since this is clearly a misunderstanding.

 

I will agree with you though on the culture aspect, it is proving to be a little bit too difficult and I'd reccomend tweaking it a little Nappy. I built 2 stone towers, alot of paved roads and a 10 tile sized house and that was just my contribution. I know Xype has built a tower and roads and others have also done more too and we only jumped 1%. 3 stone towers, 200 tiles of road and a 10 tile house = 1%? That seems a little steep so I really hope you'll consider adjusting it

Edited November 17, 2016 by Iberis

[Xyp 273]

Well first I would not have bragged about having all the hota statues then showed up to outnumber the rest of the sever (which if your numbers were correct, and I don't see how they could be since it says 3 online all together on /who before logins happened) so I guess the rest of the server not JK was just me... and go get yet another hota statue, enjoy your rewards, they will be useful against the pve mobs.

[Iberis 856]

So you are saying that because there was 3 Jk online and 1 mr that we should have stepped aside and allowed you to win the hota unchallenged? I unfortunately cannot see the logic there, or fairness. I'm sure you're reasons are just bias however like some of your suggestions to Nappy were a short while ago.

 

I didn't brag about having lots of hota statues. I made a joke about making an art gallery using tapesties and statues to help improve culture. If you misinterepted my joke about culture as bragging then that is not really my fault. Nor do I see how that gives you the right to act the way you did. Anyway I will say no more about the matter on the forums, if you do wish to apologise to me for the very unprofessional outburst then you know where to find me.

[Nappy 1,369]

1 hour ago, Xyp said:

Also 2 guard towers and 150 tiles of road not even 1% to Culture...does building on the hota island even matter at all... Said it before, it always comes down to being a PVE game.

I've been waiting on feedback about culture and if the setting is right for this epoch. Personally I've been thinking it's a little bit too harsh right now and needs a downward tweak. Was going to ask about it this weekend to get the server view.

 

Research on the other hand seems to be going well, reasonably fast. The two, culture and research, should balance out to make an epoch duration reasonable.

[Nappy 1,369]

BTW - I have been thinking about the whole server owner on one kingdom aspect since the server launched (and before).

 

I am going to implement the original plan which is as follows:

 

- Server owner will be the only player on the server with the ability to play in all three kingdoms at the player level - so I will have three player accounts, only playing on one of them at any particular time

- When playing in a kingdom I will not share information about other kingdoms (same as if I was doing GM work)

- Intent is to give me the ability to get to know all three kingdoms and give them a chance to share their perspective with me on various issues so that server owner "face time" is as equal as possible

 

Since MR is the weakest kingdom right now I will create a MR player tonight and start participating in that kingdom for awhile. Next kingdom to follow will be BL and then back to JK again.

[Tauceti 33]

Would it be possible to give a CR boost instead to the outnumbered members of fights? 

 

Oh I also decided to stay in HoTS because it is less populated. I may eventually go to MR though since it does seem pretty dead.

Edited November 17, 2016 by Tauceti

[Nappy 1,369]

1 minute ago, Tauceti said:

Would it be possible to give a CR boost instead to the outnumbered members of fights? 

 

Oh I also decided to stay in HoTS because it is less populated. I may eventually go to MR though since it does seem pretty dead.

 

Testing a mod tonight that is expected to do just that. It's going to be something that when implemented will need to be heavily monitored for balance to make sure it works as intended and doesn't either do too much or too little (good to have hard goals).

[JockII 338]

5 minutes ago, Tauceti said:

Would it be possible to give a CR boost instead to the outnumbered members of fights? 

 

Oh I also decided to stay in HoTS because it is less populated. I may eventually go to MR though since it does seem pretty dead.

 

Already in the game, called low population bonus. Gives 2 cr to the lowest pop kingdom.

 

[JockII 338]

4 hours ago, Xyp said:

I think part of the problem is Wurm has been geared up to give all advantages to those with numbers. You lose CR for being attacked by multiple characters, you can't do Hota due to the larger kingdom setting their alarms and poking each other that are not even online at the time to come do Hota so why show up.

 

There is a lot to work on and I know Nappy is very interested in trying to find better ways. It requires small steps.

 

One Idea that I had, which is completely open to discussions and improvements, is to make some changes to HoTA.

 

• Remove Hota Timer from Settlement Info, this stops setting of alarms, poking to prepare, and gives an advantage to those who actually live on the HoTA island, living and building in more dangerous conditions. I was very upset that people living on Home islands under safer conditions were the ones logging on and poking people for hota just before it began, with plenty of time to get there. This is also after bragging about all their hota statues they have earlier that day.s
• Keep the 10 minute alert but change it to 5 minutes, that encourages those living on the Hota Island to get in gear and get there, yet limits the ability for home island dwellers to get in gear and get there before it is over.
• Randomize the start of HoTA so that nobody can accurately time when it begins.

The above changes, while just 1 small step would help keep HoTA from being dominated by one kingdom, unless that kingdom decided to move in and live in the more dangerous zone, instead of keeping back most of the day in their home island. The upsetting part was I was online, had been for a long time, with no help, building away trying to contribute to the Epoch culture, on the main island. I said oh it is about Hota time, nobody is on maybe I have a chance, then 20 minutes before Hota they start logging in, that is disgusting. They could not be bothered to play other than to keep us lesser kingdoms from having any chance of getting Hota Rewards, just again pumping up the bigger kingdoms making the lessers get farther and farther behind.

10

 

Cr nerf was removed YEARS ago. Now it is simply the number of attack versus the ability to block that is the bonus.

[Zaramoth 66]

Part of the problem currently is the low skills and low quality of gear we have, later on fights will last longer and there will be more options for each player to take in a fight. Winning a 1v 2 or 1v3 is very possible if you understand this games combat
 

[JockII 338]

They also implemented crowding to reduce the possible gank limit on a player. This is based on cr.

[JockII 338]

Could also use Aggresive pets to counter numbers. for larger groups this would actually work against you due to the above mentioned.

 

 

[JockII 338]

Also the epoche tub is broken. Not taking my stuff and giving me mad  %'s 

 

[Nappy 1,369]

44 minutes ago, JockII said:

Also the epoche tub is broken. Not taking my stuff and giving me mad  %'s 

 

Will do a server restart tonight to fix it.

[Nappy 1,369]

Server restarted to fix the epoch advance tub not working.

 

Also:

 

[19:56:49] Current Epoch: 2 - Epoch Progress: Research: 46% - Culture: 51%

 

I have reset the culture goal as well. Also doing some additional testing to see if everything is working as expected related to culture advance.

[Nappy 1,369]

6 hours ago, Nappy said:

BTW - I have been thinking about the whole server owner on one kingdom aspect since the server launched (and before).

 

I am going to implement the original plan which is as follows:

 

- Server owner will be the only player on the server with the ability to play in all three kingdoms at the player level - so I will have three player accounts, only playing on one of them at any particular time

- When playing in a kingdom I will not share information about other kingdoms (same as if I was doing GM work)

- Intent is to give me the ability to get to know all three kingdoms and give them a chance to share their perspective with me on various issues so that server owner "face time" is as equal as possible

 

Since MR is the weakest kingdom right now I will create a MR player tonight and start participating in that kingdom for awhile. Next kingdom to follow will be BL and then back to JK again.

 

MR character "Sleepy" created and now active on the server. Yes, new character and yes building it up from start.

[Xyp 273]

My suggestions to Nappy were biased? How is suggesting that hota be impossible to guess when it starts biased, sorry I am not a fortune teller, it would not help me either, but would encourage activity on the hota island. Activity on the home islands needs to be encouraged, but so does activity on the hota island, it is part of complete balance. My suggestion needs expansion and discussion, it is not what I would consider a final plan at all, nor is it my job or right to make any final plans, that is all Nappy.

[MootRed 193]

16 hours ago, Iberis said:

There is a reason we haven't raided the BL or MR home or raided your deed. We want the other Kingdoms to get stronger.

 

...there isn't anything to raid. we don't even have crops.

[JockII 338]

48 minutes ago, MootRed said:

 

...there isn't anything to raid. we don't even have crops.

 

 

plant some?

 

although no onions, we just can't handle onions!

 

Edited November 18, 2016 by JockII

[Iberis 856]

2 hours ago, MootRed said:

 

...there isn't anything to raid. we don't even have crops.

 

Darkt who had joined your deed recently planted a big field and started breeding cows

[Nappy 1,369]

3 hours ago, Iberis said:

 

Darkt who had joined your deed recently planted a big field and started breeding cows

Sleepy joined the MR deed last night too so soon something or the other will exist

[JockII 338]

Jk continues is recruitment plan! With 2 more recruits today! 

 

Will Mr and BL catch up?

 

Will they find the people!

 

Toon in on the next epoche!