Skill Tree adjustment - Eliminate Smithing & adjust difficulty

[Wurmhole 3,650]

So, I have been wondering what "Smithing" and "Tailoring" do for me.  Masonry is a parent, as is Carpentry, yet both are usable skills that have purpose.  Tailor and Smithing seem really redundant.  Why have them?

 

Seems to me there are two different structures and I don't know why.  Shouldn't Black Smithing be the parent for all the smithing work?  That would match Carpentry and Masonry trees better. 

 

Let's rework the skills so all the groups follow the same structure.  Either have useless parent skills for all or for none, but not both.  I'd personally rather see them go away, then break up Masonry from Stone cutting, Carp from Fine carp, etc.  In the skills lists, I'm fine with making groups for sorting skills easier, but I'd be more inclined to sort by Gathering, Crafting, Nature, Fighting, Weapons, Magic (because I want Gods eliminated), Characteristics. 

 

Do we need a Body skill?  Aren't BS and BC enough?  Do we need Soul?  Mind?

 

Now, how about the skills that are produced by certain actions.  Seems like there are some misplaced, like Concrete and Mortar.  Either make them both NS or both Masonry.  Both both??  Maybe even switch them both to Pottery?  Why are the carving and butcher in a special knives group, when they should be in Misc Items (which should be called Tools in my opinion).  Why is the hatchet mixed in with Axes?  That makes the Axes weapon parent skill have an unfair advantage for leveling, since there are no tools in swords, mauls or pole arms.  Hatchet is a tool. Put it in Tools (Misc Items).  Alchemy and NS? Why not just one skill instead?  Why is meditating in Nature?  I'd group it in Magic (or religeon), since it is all about magic abilities.  Path of love ties in with nature pretty well, but the others?

 

Next thing I think we should do is even out skill gain rates more.  Why is Weaponsmithing 5x harder?  Why is FC harder?  Locks and jewels are pretty darn intricate and I don't see making weapons or chairs as being so much harder than them.  We really should even out skill gain rates a bit.  I know that will upset anyone that spent the time getting there, but game tweaking for the good of the masses might be more important?  Having a way to skill reset/retrain would make adjustments like these much easier to handle

 

Not sure if anyone at Code Club is giving this a serious read or not, but if so and there is any interest, I'll gladly create a more logical (well, more logical to me) structure for the skills and send it to them.

 

 

[whykillme 1,621]

Maybe you should put this idea together with your idea of adding new servers with a new skill system instead of wanting to change the current servers

[Soil 515]

out of all of this i think the biggest thing i really care about is if the weapon smithing skillgain was adjusted
like honestly why is WS skillgain a cliff compared to 90% of skills
jesus

[Jonydowy 616]

10 minutes ago, Soil said:

out of all of this i think the biggest thing i really care about is if the weapon smithing skillgain was adjusted
like honestly why is WS skillgain a cliff compared to 90% of skills
jesus

 

 

Noo! let me grind ws first with this version and after that make it whatever!  

[Zekezor 3,188]

3 hours ago, Soil said:

out of all of this i think the biggest thing i really care about is if the weapon smithing skillgain was adjusted
like honestly why is WS skillgain a cliff compared to 90% of skills
jesus

It's an arbitary skillnerf to slow down progression of a server in terms of damage output.

Works great for slowing down brand new clusters like when epic was released, but the moment the high ql weapons are available it's merely holding new people back.

[Ostentatio 1,970]

Most parent skills do help out a bit, but it's often not really noticeable at all. Maybe that's what needs changing, and parent skills like Smithing should just matter a little bit more? That said, it still leaves base Body, Soul, and Mind completely useless...

 

Skills and characteristics that do nothing (or next to nothing) are pretty confusing to new players, I'd say. Hell, even some old ones.

Edited January 1, 2017 by Ostentatio

[Becket 843]

you can do whatever you want on your own WU server stop trying to reinvent the game here.

[Wurmhole 3,650]

Becket, you have the most to lose in any changes and I get it.  However, if Code Club wants wurm to stay focused on you and others like you, it will always remain one of the smallest MMOs and on the verge of extinction.  There is so much potential with this game.  At least 95% of what I suggest is in an effort to make the game more playable and appealing to bringing in new players, as well as keeping them.  Not really interesting in finding ways to put them off, because the game does a great job of that already.  Catering to the oldest players for so many years is not working.

 

Your account has tremendous value right now.  If Wurm shuts down tomorrow, it will have none.  Everyone here is invested in wurm and would be sorely disappointed if it died.  I'd like to see it not die.

[Grandexeno 13]

To be honest, all the modifications that you suggest would break the game for all (or almost all) the people who played during the years up to now.

Given how much visibility WO has, and the type of game it is (not action, not immediate, lacks a "20xx" appeal), it would die instantly due to lack of people leaving it for good, before even having the possibility of enticing new players in. Also because it would need a new engine (3D) and whatnot <- months/ serious $$$ needed.

 

That which you want is "Another WO" and it would suit well, possibly, a WU server.

[Becket 843]

The game will never be mainstream get over it unless you turn it into a wow clone.

I could care less bout the value of my toon, if the game shut down tomorrow I could play WU or Ark whatever I want.

[Yiraia 427]

5 hours ago, Becket said:

you can do whatever you want on your own WU server stop trying to reinvent the game here.

I see what you are saying and why you are saying it, but there are many appeals to wurm unlimited and 1 huge turnoff (accord to all the people i talked about it to). That turnoff is the server being shut down and having to start all over again. I thought it would be good enough if you can gain skill at 10x the rate but i can imagine how annoying it would be anyway. A good amount of people from my town state that they changed to here even though the grinding is super tedious just to keep their stuff.

 

Btw +1 on the skill tree change portion, And why arent charcoal making and Firemaking a parent and subskill together? Milling isn't in Cooking?

 

[Wurmhole 3,650]

1 hour ago, Becket said:

The game will never be mainstream get over it unless you turn it into a wow clone.

I could care less bout the value of my toon, if the game shut down tomorrow I could play WU or Ark whatever I want.

As it is, you are correct and I'd cry if it became a WoW clone.  But let's be honest, Rolf didn't make it in hopes of only attracting 300 players.  He has moved on to other projects.  Yes, maybe if we merge this with my other idea for creating a new server cluster, that has some other changes and just leave this one here to fade away.  Whatever we do, there needs to be a version of the MMO that can keep going and just maybe grow a little.  We can't support 13 million players, unless there are thousands of server clusters, but I'd love to see a few thousand or more online at one time, with a steady influx of new folks every day.  With enough business, the revenue will make it possible for all the upgrades needed.  Look at Eve Online.  Started small and kept a slow, but steady growth, allowing for significant upgrades over the years.

[Ostentatio 1,970]

There's a lot of room for interpretation in between "let's make Wurm a WoW clone" and "Wurm shouldn't have skills that do nothing".

 

Some of the complaints about skill grouping are also defensible, although I don't see them as being a big deal.

 

For what it's worth, Fine Carpentry is not extra slow; it's the same speed as Carpentry, Blacksmithing, and most other useful item-crafting skills.
 

[zigozag 918]

Skilltree and difficulties could use some tweaks, but you're trying to suggest a whole new game here. No, thank you.

[Reylaark 1,100]

Don't think I'd go too far with difficulty tweaks.  Not that I'm a masochist, but I want to climb the same mountain the other guy did.  If we were to lower Mount Everest, more people could climb it and reach the top... but they'd never know if they could reach the same height as those who came before.

 

I also have options if I want faster skilling. I can play on Epic.  Same with any number of WU servers with their own flavors.  There's a lot of choice.

 

Far as skill tree. 

• I have a gunsmith down the street from me.  He may have started his career as a blacksmith, but he specialized to become a gunsmith.
  • Both gunsmithing and blacksmithing are types of smithing.
  • He learned about smithing in general while becoming a blacksmith.
    • He continued to refine his techniques and learned more about smithing, and blacksmithing, when he specialized to become a gunsmith.
    • Ultimately, gunsmithing took the longest and was the hardest to learn.

In Wurm, much like in RL, you're not forced to take a linear path with your skills.  You don't have to become a master blacksmith before you can start weaponsmithing.  Making weaponsmithing so hard to learn recreates the progression we see in the RL gunsmith.

 

It's not necessarily like the vast majority of games out there, but it's not illogical either.  New players just have to look at it as Wurm, not a clone of whatever they're accustomed to playing.

Nothing wrong with clones, imho.  I just don't want Wurm to become one of them.  I think it has far too much soul for that anyway.

[Wurmhole 3,650]

Well, Clearly the current system only appeal to a few. If Code Club only wants a few players, they can take the easy road and do nothing.  There is this great platform though and with a few tweaks, the potential to rope in more players exists.  If it means starting a new cluster to do it, then let's do it.  If we must keep the legacy cluster exactly the same, that is ok too.  Just do something.  Always do something.  Bridges and cooking additions to the same old mechanics isn't enough.  It has been been proven for many years now that adding a little content isn't enough.

 

So, do we just do nothing and let it sunset, or actively seek ways to drive new business?

[Makarus 458]

Wurm does need a lot of growth, but it may also kill itself trying to grow if it bulldozes over those in it for the long haul.

 

I like this idea of a new cluster.

 

Merge epic to freedom and start it over under a completely new concept, using a completely updated and modified wurm. This could be one of the many changes which go in to a new version.

 

What I like most about wurm is and always will be the stories that come from the paths one must travel to reach their destination.

Very little in wurm follows a strict and linear meta, basically pvp. What wurm needs is to try to not cookie cutter anything.

[Jaz 2,665]

I've played on a few fast gain wu servers, definitely losz my i terest there in a few months. Just like what happens in the games with easy goals. We might see Influx but I doubt that would be the long staying player types. Do we need another hundreds of abandoned rotting places?

 

It is hard to tweak the skillgroups - how can you adjust skills to be fair for all? Where I see possibilities is adding more meaning to parent skills - for example Cooking just got some with 1.3 update 

[Ecrir 887]

On 1/1/2017 at 10:47 AM, Wurmhole said:

So, I have been wondering what "Smithing" and "Tailoring" do for me.  Masonry is a parent, as is Carpentry, yet both are usable skills that have purpose.  Tailor and Smithing seem really redundant.  Why have them?

 

Seems to me there are two different structures and I don't know why.  Shouldn't Black Smithing be the parent for all the smithing work?  That would match Carpentry and Masonry trees better. 

 

Let's rework the skills so all the groups follow the same structure.  Either have useless parent skills for all or for none, but not both.  I'd personally rather see them go away, then break up Masonry from Stone cutting, Carp from Fine carp, etc.  In the skills lists, I'm fine with making groups for sorting skills easier, but I'd be more inclined to sort by Gathering, Crafting, Nature, Fighting, Weapons, Magic (because I want Gods eliminated), Characteristics. 

 

Do we need a Body skill?  Aren't BS and BC enough?  Do we need Soul?  Mind?

 

I feel that Tailor and Smithing are fine as they are, in essence they are categories and nothing more. It would make no sense at all for black smithing to be the parent of the other smithing skills. As others have stated, having experience in weapon smithing wouldn't automatically make you a good blacksmith.

I feel the current structure with parent skills works well. Body, Soul and Mind are simply categories, perhaps they shouldn't have values assigned to them if they do nothing instead of outright removing them.

Grouping skill up in the groups you propose there would just creature a couple of very large groups, that just makes it harder to get an overview and harder to find what you are looking for. If you want to find a specific skill, then a search field in which you can type in order to filter out skills would be a much better solution. This works great for the current crafting window too.

Breaking Masonry from Stone Cutting also is completely inconsistent with what you mentioned before that when it comes to carpentry and smithing, so I'm completely losing track of what you're trying to achieve there.

 

I agree with you on putting the tool related skills under a Tools categorie in a consistent manner, that makes a lot of sense.

As for adjusting skill gain rates, I don't see anything wrong with some skills being harder than others, nor do I see how the masses benefit from that being removed as logically some skills would also become harder to grind due to this change.

As for resets/retraining of skills, that feels like a bad idea. For one thing it would make it really easy to change from a crafting character to a priest character. Or finished terraforming your deed and no longer need the 70-90 digging you got from there? Well, just put it in a crafting skill. That just feels wrong on so many levels.