The Great Archaeology Rage Thread

[JakeRivers 2,921]

Really not going to rage, but I think a few things need to be addressed and discussed, and maybe have something come out from this to improve the 2 new skills.

 

1st

Tens of thousands of useless junk frags, I get why this was put in, to grind the skill on, but I wish a different way was created to grind the skill. Perhaps brushing and chipping away at parts of a token or statue before it can be assembled. Perhaps the finding of junk should scale with your skill level or maybe be removed all together. It is so sad to get a rare roll on something and it turns out to be a rock shard or sword blade, why could it not of been on that armor piece or something else more useful than just a quick meal in the altar.

 

2nd 

Decay has been slowed down, which is appreciated as some folks are sitting on tens of thousands of frags they wish to assemble for the skill gain, personally I would love to see a cabinet to hold my favorite parts I am collecting, useful things like statues and tools. (and let me use the space in my lmc for storing the items I normally want to store in the chest)

 

3rd

The only useful spell I have seen on anything would be blood thirst, and only if its on a weapon at that. All the other random spells I have seen are worthless due to being 1 power. The runes were a nice surprise but are so random that more often than not its not what you would want on the item to begin with, perhaps it would be cool if you could 'salvage' that rune off the item and apply it to something else.

 

4th

Perhaps the best feature of the whole skill set is the history of the old deeds you find. I knew Exodus is fairly old and have only been a few years on it myself, but I never imagined the scope of the deeds that have come and gone over the time this server has been opened and every time I find a new deed name I never heard of before I amazed.  I wish we had a journal that you could record deed info as you find it and have it saved as pages of a book or something, maybe a new addon for wurm assist is in order.

 

5th

Is there a light at the end of the tunnel, if the most you can hope to find is a mask or statue it may not be enough incentive for a lot to put this much time into the skill, if there is other items out there that are truly amazing and yet to be discovered that could be a carrot to dangle in front of a nose, but as it is now after the first week or so and no one has reported finding anything useful, perhaps it is time to focus back on digging tar or chipping bricks.

 

I have yet to find a mask piece and since the patch went through to change masks from 3 parts to 10 I have not heard of anyone else finding a mask piece, so I suspect the chance of finding these items was reduced at the same time as the amount of parts required was increased, almost like a double nerf. If there is anything else out there worth while finding if the chance is as good as creating a fantastic item or finding a tome on a hatchling, then I would say there is no point to working on these skills other than the novelty of seeing what deed was sitting on whatever hillside you are passing by at the time.

[Nomadikhan 2,196]

Personally, as fun as it sounds, it just seems a time waster to me.  Sure I'll grind the skill to have it, but will I set out on a career?  Nope.

 

I'd rather see some other skill added.  Perhaps, like Throwing to actually make use of the option. 

[Rocklobstar 290]

I've dug up thousands of artifacts since reaching 90 (and used all my powder and sleep bonus to get there so i've continued with none).

I've used 90ql trowel, then imped it to 97.5 to test.

I've used a 90ql shovel and a 1ql shovel to test.

I've gone to many different sites in exodus with multiple old deeds on them, and even went to indepenence to test on the oldest deed sites.

Afaik - after you unlock libila statue at 60 - archeology is done ->. nothing more to see here folks.

The Junk ql goes up at higher skill, but it's still junk in the end.

[Robus 390]

A calm, well-argued, and thoughtful post from someone that must have somehow gotten access to Jake's forum account.

No really, he's right on all points. Our boy Rock took it past 90 and still not a single shard of a worthwhile piece.

Don't give up on this Devs, there's so much potential in these new skills, let's make sure to do them justice.

[Oreo 5,793]

i love my 1/26 rock shard piece

 

[Robus 390]

Just now, Oreo said:

i love my 1/26 rock shard piece

 

I have 2/26 can we be friends then find 23 other friends?

[Subie 222]

I would love The Journal idea to be implemented . The history is very interesting to me.

[Niki 2,278]

Seems like they were a little over zealous with the nerfing, and hopefully they take all the good points here and move forward to fix the skills. Restoration should be improved upon also, higher level should yield less junk, Archaeology should give multiple fragments per search the higher level you go. Or just do away with the junk and add more content to fill in the gap at higher levels. It definitely feels underwhelming so far and I'm honestly a bit sad, I expected more interesting systems.

[Retrograde 12,013]

7 hours ago, JakeRivers said:

Tens of thousands of useless junk frags, I get why this was put in, to grind the skill on, but I wish a different way was created to grind the skill. Perhaps brushing and chipping away at parts of a token or statue before it can be assembled. Perhaps the finding of junk should scale with your skill level or maybe be removed all together. It is so sad to get a rare roll on something and it turns out to be a rock shard or sword blade, why could it not of been on that armor piece or something else more useful than just a quick meal in the altar.

 

so with higher skill you get less fragments meaning less ticks?  Not finding lower tier stuff wouldnt mean always finding good stuff, it would likely mean finding less items in general, but what you do find is more useful, which has some appeal, but again, reduces the ability to gain skill. 

 

7 hours ago, JakeRivers said:

Decay has been slowed down, which is appreciated as some folks are sitting on tens of thousands of frags they wish to assemble for the skill gain, personally I would love to see a cabinet to hold my favorite parts I am collecting, useful things like statues and tools. (and let me use the space in my lmc for storing the items I normally want to store in the chest)

 

That's an interesting idea and something I will pass on. I've seen a suggestion thread for it and the initial reduction in decay has already gone in, adding anything such as that would require art assets which take a little longer. 

 

7 hours ago, JakeRivers said:

The only useful spell I have seen on anything would be blood thirst, and only if its on a weapon at that. All the other random spells I have seen are worthless due to being 1 power. The runes were a nice surprise but are so random that more often than not its not what you would want on the item to begin with, perhaps it would be cool if you could 'salvage' that rune off the item and apply it to something else.

 

The resulting spell is based on restoration, you won't always get really low results, it's just low rolls. With higher restoration skill you get better results, I've seen casts of 80+ on tools and more, which I haven't seen mentioned around. 

 

7 hours ago, JakeRivers said:

Perhaps the best feature of the whole skill set is the history of the old deeds you find. I knew Exodus is fairly old and have only been a few years on it myself, but I never imagined the scope of the deeds that have come and gone over the time this server has been opened and every time I find a new deed name I never heard of before I amazed.  I wish we had a journal that you could record deed info as you find it and have it saved as pages of a book or something, maybe a new addon for wurm assist is in order.

 

Again an interesting idea, and there's been a few discussion on how to achieve this and it may be something we can look at. 

 

7 hours ago, JakeRivers said:

I have yet to find a mask piece and since the patch went through to change masks from 3 parts to 10 I have not heard of anyone else finding a mask piece, so I suspect the chance of finding these items was reduced at the same time as the amount of parts required was increased, almost like a double nerf. If there is anything else out there worth while finding if the chance is as good as creating a fantastic item or finding a tome on a hatchling, then I would say there is no point to working on these skills other than the novelty of seeing what deed was sitting on whatever hillside you are passing by at the time.

We didnt change any rate at which things can be found, 3 pieces for masks was leading to them being rather common, which wasn't the intention with their addition. 

 

Additionally, this system is built around being expandable too, it's possible that new items could be added and adjusted, but this isnt a "get to 90 and pump out cool stuff" thing, Archaeology is about finding history, and while lower skill will yield a lot of junk, it also means more chances to skill up. 

 

We've already tweaked the difficulty once, and will likely review it again over the coming weeks to ensure what we're getting is what we want, so feedback is always helpful on that, but I've already seen quite a few masks and statues around, if you're looking to collect one of each it would be quite a lot of work, but if you want to collect a specific mask or statue, trading would be a very viable option, given many out there are looking to do the same. 

[JakeRivers 2,921]

6 minutes ago, Retrograde said:

so with higher skill you get less fragments meaning less ticks?  Not finding lower tier stuff wouldnt mean always finding good stuff, it would likely mean finding less items in general, but what you do find is more useful, which has some appeal, but again, reduces the ability to gain skill. 

 

It is why I thought maybe a different way to grind this skill rather than collecting 1000's of useless items, plus the more useless items you find the more useless rare rolls you get.

 

I almost think it may be more desirable to search 100 tiles and find 1 or 2 items and nothing else than to search 100 tiles and find 1 or 2 useful items and 50 useless items.

Edited November 16, 2017 by JakeRivers

[JakeRivers 2,921]

I in no way think finding something cool be no more than searching 12 tiles and saying I did it!

 

It needs to be more, but gathering all this junk seems too realistic to a real world archaeological dig. =p

 

 

Edited November 16, 2017 by JakeRivers

[JakeRivers 2,921]

13 minutes ago, Retrograde said:

The resulting spell is based on restoration, you won't always get really low results, it's just low rolls. With higher restoration skill you get better results, I've seen casts of 80+ on tools and more, which I haven't seen mentioned around. 

 

Might of been good to explain this from the get go instead of keeping so much a mystery, so having my own priests I can understand so many crap cast levels on the tools with my 60 resto skill, lol.

 

Which would be a good reason for someone without easy access to a priest to maybe consider grinding these skill higher, at the same time the resto is far easier to grind than channeling, is this going to put having a good high channeling priest out of business?

 

 

Edited November 16, 2017 by JakeRivers

[rixk 830]

2 minutes ago, JakeRivers said:

I in no way think finding something cool be no more than searching 12 tiles and saying I did it!

 

It needs to be more, but gathering all this junk seems too realistic to a real world archaeological dig. =p

 

 

Well, from real world archaeological dig even pottery fragment holds value. But a lump from Wurms archaeological digs is just lump, like any other lump you get from mining.

That's why I haven't understood it either, why there is so much junk from archaeology in Wurm.. because it IS junk, no matter, that it comes from arch.

[Retrograde 12,013]

41 minutes ago, JakeRivers said:

Might of been good to explain this from the get go instead of keeping so much a mystery, so having my own priests I can understand so many crap cast levels on the tools with my 60 resto skill, lol.

 

there's a fair few mysteries still in restoration, can't go spoiling it all can we? 

[Tristanc 570]

+1 for parts 2 and 4 in particular.

 

The storage container that would have little or no decay for fragments (#2) and some sort of journal or even a seperate log file for identifications of past deeds that the journal could display in-game (#4).

 

[Mclavin 3,704]

My lmc is fine, buy another, no more containers to horde , the idea is to go off deed and get more. 

Edited November 16, 2017 by Mclavin

[JakeRivers 2,921]

8 hours ago, Retrograde said:

there's a fair few mysteries still in restoration, can't go spoiling it all can we? 

 

Uh there is no longer any mystery with wurm offline, once this is released to that anyways, you folks let that cat out of the bag long ago. So there is no point in holding back some details that can make this new feature a success or sink it in misery.

[Mclavin 3,704]

-1, i rather find out by myself, keep it a secret until discovered, don't want this to be easy, i don't have wurm offline.

[elroth 279]

11 hours ago, Retrograde said:

 

 

Additionally, this system is built around being expandable too, it's possible that new items could be added and adjusted, but this isnt a "get to 90 and pump out cool stuff" thing, Archaeology is about finding history, and while lower skill will yield a lot of junk, it also means more chances to skill up. 

 

We've already tweaked the difficulty once, and will likely review it again over the coming weeks to ensure what we're getting is what we want, so feedback is always helpful on that, but I've already seen quite a few masks and statues around, if you're looking to collect one of each it would be quite a lot of work, but if you want to collect a specific mask or statue, trading would be a very viable option, given many out there are looking to do the same. 

 

so please please please at least make it possible to store fragments stopping decay, cause how else can we gather 93 of them for one statue.....

[Keenan 5,539]

10 hours ago, JakeRivers said:

 

Uh there is no longer any mystery with wurm offline, once this is released to that anyways, you folks let that cat out of the bag long ago. So there is no point in holding back some details that can make this new feature a success or sink it in misery.

 

I've got a few algorithms that can make code-diving useless as well. 

[Mordraug 2,542]

36 minutes ago, Keenan said:

 

I've got a few algorithms that can make code-diving useless as well. 

 

Duuuuuuuude let the modders do their thing.  Besides, there'll be stuff you can always adopt from there.  You guys are already adopting some tweaks from mods without compromising the game's balance on WO which I applaud.  More programmers have more ideas than less programmers after all, no?

[Mordraug 2,542]

Postdata:  I still think CodeClub should run a couple of WU servers, kind of a 2x thing knowing you guys' tastes, and a sprinkling of mods like the priests crafting one.  Bet you'd get a good set of subscribers from all those 3 player servers who don't trust player runs.

[Stormblade 617]

On 11/15/2017 at 11:46 PM, Retrograde said:

On 11/15/2017 at 4:37 PM, JakeRivers said:

Decay has been slowed down, which is appreciated as some folks are sitting on tens of thousands of frags they wish to assemble for the skill gain, personally I would love to see a cabinet to hold my favorite parts I am collecting, useful things like statues and tools. (and let me use the space in my lmc for storing the items I normally want to store in the chest)

 

That's an interesting idea and something I will pass on. I've seen a suggestion thread for it and the initial reduction in decay has already gone in, adding anything such as that would require art assets which take a little longer. 

 

 

Not really, you have a Bookcase that well, can't do anything but look nice, just make it a container, hold items, rename it 'Showcase' or something else ( hell i dunno a name for it )

 

 

[Nadroj 3,554]

Honestly my least favourite thing about wurm, always has been Rolf's love of keeping how everything works secret from the players. I can't stand it and it saddens me to see it carry on under new direction. Why is it necessary to put effort into making the players clueless about how everything functions. When Wurm Unlimited came out some of the revelations of things people had spent years wasting their time on were frankly atrocious and completely unnecessary in my opinion. Obviously that's just how i feel about it but it just seems to me like you've got a skill a lot of people feel isn't currently worth the effort...so TELL THEM WHAT THEY CAN GET FROM IT! Surely it would only serve to please people to know more about what they could get and maybe quell some of the grumbling? Surely it's just more effort on your part to put in place "algorithms to stop the code divers". I wish we'd never needed code divers...and i'm one who's benefited massively from being able to look into the WU code to learn about the game, just let everyone know how it all works i say.

[JakeRivers 2,921]

We have another clue about this new skill from retro in another thread and a dev in this one talking about making it even more secret when they dump the code into WU.

 

You know my thoughts on this, ###### it all, it is a huge waste of time, poorly implemented, and all the hype leading up to it is vapor.