Specializations, a way to make new players feel more valuable and for economy to shine again

[Psychelock 9]

Idea:

• Allow players (premium account), to pick one skill, only one,  that they can grind on an accelerated curve.
• Allow a specialized skill to give this person some benefit over the casually grinded player. For example, a specialized miner, other than skilling curve, should have for example faster action times, or a farmer, bigger yields, or a digger faster digging times and so on.

 

Consequences:

• This seems a bit unfair for old accounts as they never had the chance to skill up a certain skill on a curve and their value depercates, but slightly.
• This might downgrade the value of some rare occupations such as swordsmith, but we already have a stagnated market don't we.
• Maybe people will create 50 accounts with a single skill instead of one with 50 skills. I don't think so, not easy to pay for 50 premium accounts.

 

Benefits:

• Bring in new players. Get the stinch out of Wurm Online's name that keeps players away: A game where you have to grind for years to be significant ? Not anymore.
• Keep the new players. Get new players to feel needed and valuable in the game is a good incentive to help them stay in the game after they try it out. Make your first silver coin before three years of grinding.
• Help economy and trade flourish again. Get players out of the "one-account-have-it-all" mentality that keeps trading from happening. Why dig up this huge mine yourself, when you can get a specialized miner to do so faster and cheaper (time is money) ?

 

 

An old player, that doesnt play anymore

but occasionally logs in

to say hi to old pals and

remember the good old times.

 

Edited September 22, 2018 by Psychelock

[Wargasm 1,927]

I'm going to -1 this for three big reasons:

 

1.  This doesn't bring in new players.  New players have no idea about skill curves, how hard it is to grind a skill, and mostly don't even grasp the concept of a need for specialization (of their own talents) in order to succeed.  I didn't realize how grindy this game was until my blacksmithing was in the 30's, and I had played for several weeks.  When I started, I played for about a month before I realized there was no WAY I was going to be a master of these 130+ skills.  I doubt your average casual player will play as much as I did when I first started.

 

2.  If you allow these "specializations" then every single priest out there is going to "specialize" in channeling.  

 

3.  This benefits grinders, not new players.  Those of us that have been around long enough to know the precise science behind skill grinding will run circles around any new player.  I already run circles around new players, which is why they aren't sticking around.

[armyskin 930]

^this

[Psychelock 9]

I have to agree that point 2 makes a lot of sense and counters a lot of what I have said. I had completelly forgotten about channeling hehe. Maybe perhaps to avoid such a situation, certain highly valuable skills such as channeling and weaponsmithing could be excluded from such a feature.

 

Other than that, I don't see how point 1 or 3 have solid ground to serve as a consequence that would harm the game. Care to elaborate ? The scenario I had in mind was for example: A group of 6 friends decide to give wurm online a try. Shouldn't they be able to terraform, mine and build the infrastructure of their deed fast enough, if they specialize in a single skill each ? Wouldn't that make them feel more wanted in the game ? How would this harm the game in long term ?

Edited September 22, 2018 by Psychelock

[Wargasm 1,927]

Even then, for non priests..... everyone and their mother will pick mining, weapon smithing or woodcutting for their specialization.  And I assume your suggestion, if implemented would be switchable... since surely it wouldn't be fair for an account to be stuck doing one skill, right?  Right.

 

Back to the drawing board, I'm sorry.

[Psychelock 9]

Switchable as get one skill to 80+ with the curve then switch to another skill ? Nope. That wouldn't be fair for people who grind multiple skills. The idea is that the skill gets locked to the account. Once you pick it, you can't change it. 

 

In other words: If one decides to be a miner, he gets curve on mining, but all other skills get grinded normally and never can that toon get another specialization.

Edited September 22, 2018 by Psychelock

[Niki 2,278]

It would be better if they just gave everyone a flat 50% increase to skillgain if you want to fix QoL issues and add in some catch up mechanics.

[platinumteef 2,201]

4 minutes ago, Niki said:

It would be better if they just gave everyone a flat 50% increase to skillgain if you want to fix QoL issues and add in some catch up mechanics.

 

even with this, we wont attract new players, but ill +1 this because i want to get more gains per hour when im grinding

 

theres been a billion suggestions on how to attract and retain new players, i've yet to see them implemented. This game doesn't want new players, or it would advertise

(inb4 pr guy comment about "we can't advertise we aren't ready yet", for the 10th year in a row)

Edited September 22, 2018 by platinumteef

[Psychelock 9]

Niki, Initially that's what I had thought myself. But I feel this is solving only one side of the problem, which is getting new players on fast track.

 

It doesn't address the second part which is the lack of trade initiative that I believe specialization will introduce. If one can't have all the skills at maximum efficiency, won't he have the urge to ask someone else for help ? Isn't that what introduces trading and job slots in the game ? Sure I have 80 mining, but wouldn't I be tempted to hire a specialized miner to help me with my new underground city project if he can do triple mining actions at the same time as if it were three different people ? 

 

Platinumteef, I can't see how a profitable company that's on decline wouldn't want new income options ? I just saw your edit. If they are not advertising, maybe they think the current game model and the current state of economy/accounts will stop people from joining and thus render all the advertising campaign useless and the money spent on it even more so. 

Edited September 22, 2018 by Psychelock

[Explora 569]

It might help new players get one skill up more quickly but I don't see how it stops the " Get players out of the "one-account-have-it-all" mentality that keeps trading from happening." if older accounts already have all the skills.

[Psychelock 9]

Well, since specialization will give an extra option other than the skill value, that will make a specialized 80 level miner, faster than a normal 80 level mining account. That's the aspect of the idea aimed towards introducing dependability on other's skills and thus trading. If I can't can't produce or provide the service you can, I'll ask for you to do it for some money

[Oblivionnreaver 5,174]

This games already been getting progressively easier over time, 70 used to mean you've dedicated your life to that craft but its something i can get in 3 days lol. If someones reason for not playing the game is grinding then theyre just never gonna play no matter how much you sugarcoat it.

 

Specializing goes against the "you can do anything you set your mind to" theme that the game is based around so im gonna have to -1

[Psychelock 9]

You're correct on that. But there's a difference between "you can do anything you set your mind to" and "you can do everything you set your mind to". Maybe this approach was good for the first years of the game. But after ten years of continous evolution and the accumulation of so many "established" accounts, one has to wonder if this is still the correct approach.

 

Even if you could be the best in everything in the first years of the game, nobody was the best in everything since it required a lot of time. This kept trade happening. Now that everyone can do everything, perhaps we have to reconsider this mantra. It's not that the game had a flawed design, it's that probably it didn't anticipate to be still running 10 years later.

Edited September 22, 2018 by Psychelock

[Sn00 1,005]

-1

[kochinac 1,395]

-1, beside we already have something like that just not that drastic, and it's rather random than choice it's called affinity that every new player get. The moment you have to put channelling and weaponsmith from equation you can tell idea is crap and no need for trying to scrap remains of it... Also strongly agree with others that this will not have impact on keeping the new players so it's not really needed at all. Specialization is a bad thing in Wurm imo.

[Yiraia 427]

-1 doesn't actually fix anything.

[JakeRivers 2,921]

this does nothing, we already had boosted skills with bringing epic over to freedom

 

wurm was loosing players steady since before the wu came out, wu just accelerated the exodus of players

 

the game is running without a business manager making smart decisions, its been left up to player suggestions and gm's/dev's creating unfocused/unfinished content

 

a lot of things need to change before you see people coming along to play this out dated game

 

 

[Yaga 2,887]

44 minutes ago, JakeRivers said:

and gm's/dev's creating unfocused/unfinished content

 

GMs don't create content!