Sign in to follow this  
Angelklaine

Uniques Rework - Fair for all

Recommended Posts

During my time in Wurm I have seen all kinds of sillyness surounding uniques. People lay their claims, fight over them, argue with each other and even throw tantrums when they don't get their way. I am sure this causes division between players unecesarily, and surely headaches to staff. So here's my suggestion how to fix it.

 

In regards to hatched uniques from eggs, nothing here applies and they work as normal.

 

Make unique spawns similar to Rifts

 

Unique spawns should create an area of influence at their spawn location which prevents terraforming and deed dropping in the affected area. Any off deed buildings present are not able to be repaired during the duration, and no fencing or new construction can be started until the event ends. This would effectively prevent the "penning" of uniques. Furthermore, make it so players have to be inside the area of influence to be able to attack, so archery from complete safety will not be a thing. Participation would be required.

 

Tether uniques to the spawn area of influence

 

Uniques would not be able to be kited outside this area or to a deed. Besides preventing uniques from being penned by skirting the system, this would prevent uniques from wandering and exiting the area of influence, or coming across player deeds where they could cause damage.

 

Allow an unlimited amount of players to attack the unique and increase its total health (but not their health regen)

 

This allows for more participation and time to show up before the unique is killed. It will also make small numbers of players trying to fight it have to stay there a longer time, without requiring an increase to the minimun of players present to kill it. It would also allow for more people to participate, without the unique "melting" to a barrage of damage from a large number of players, yet not increasing the difficulty or danger posed by them.

 

Add a bar to the Mission Progress viewable to the server, similar to rifts

 

The bar should reflect the unique's health. This allows everyone to know an unique has spawned in the server, if its being fought, and how much longer they have to get there. 

 

Make rewards automatically go to fighter's inventory

 

Unique rewards such as bone, hats, and tomes should be randomly distributed to those present who participated significantly in the fight similar to how rifts reward players. Bloods, leather and scale should be rewarded to everyone who succesfully dealt damage to the unique. Amounts rewarded from these global rewards should be proportionate to how much damage the player does to the unique or how much healing was done. Larger participation should reward bigger amounts of scale/drake.

 

Skull, meat and animal parts should be obtained from butchering as normal.

 

Add a general location to the Mission Progress bar

 

Similar to the location of avatars, there should be a general location of where the unique is. Given players won't be rewarded for finding and penning uniques any longer, it should be made clearer where they are so they can be found.

 

---

 

The idea with this suggestion is to make uniques more available to more people and eliminate the arguments surrounding them. Giving everyone a chance at them and their rewards instead of a selected few of players would help accomplish this.

 

Discuss!

 

 

 

Edited by Angelklaine
  • Like 13

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Good on ya for coming up with something that attempts to resolve the issue. Working on your ideas, I'll toss out this idea in:re loot distribution of tomes and bones...

 

Recently I've gone back to EvE to play for a while, there they have something called PLEX. 1 Plex used to be cashed in for a month of playtime. Upon my return there, my one Plex was now 500 Plex bits (500 Plex bits gets you a free month of playtime). You can now earn tiny bits of Plex doing certain things, etc.  Could maybe apply the same idea here to Tomes and Bones.  Go to a Unique kill as you have described, everyone gets a portion of a Bone and Tome. Can sell, collect, what ever. When you have say 100 parts, you can combine them and you have your Bone or Tome.

Edited by Gumbo
  • Like 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
2 minutes ago, Gumbo said:

Good on ya for coming up with something that attempts to resolve the issue. Working on your ideas, I'll toss out this idea in:re loot distribution of tomes and bones...

 

Recently I've gone back to EvE to play for a while, there they have something called PLEX. 1 Plex used to be cashed in for a month of playtime. Upon my return there, my one Plex was now 500 Plex bits (500 Plex bits gets you a free month of playtime). You can now earn tiny bits of Plex doing certain things, etc.  Could maybe apply the same idea here to Tomes and Bones.  Go to a Unique kill as you have described, everyone gets a portion of a Bone and Tome. Can sell, collect, what ever. When you have say 100 parts, you can combine them and you have your Bone or Tome.

Is not a bad idea, but it then would turn the whole event into a "let me hit it once and pull back so I don't risk dying" since the reward would be the same at the end. If you provide incentives to something, you'll get more of it. I think people should be incentivized to participate more so rewarding those more active and who contriute more should be essential. 

 

Also, I am quitting wurm so if you send me silver I'll send you 5 times the amount you sent me. For real. I'm legit. (please no one send me silver, its a joke for Gumbo for crying out loud! He'll get it!)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

More hits on the Unique could mean more "tome bits". Or more time in the "Unique zone" could earn more bits. It doesn't have to be only one bit per kill. And yes, there will likely be exploits on how to get the most. But tossing out ideas, like yourself in an attempt to improve the situation.

 

 

3 minutes ago, Angelklaine said:

Also, I am quitting wurm so if you send me silver I'll send you 5 times the amount you sent me. For real. I'm legit. (please no one send me silver, its a joke for Gumbo for crying out loud! He'll get it!)

 

lols

Edited by Gumbo
  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
2 hours ago, Angelklaine said:

Make unique spawns similar to Rifts

 

Unique spawns should create an area of influence at their spawn location which prevents terraforming and deed dropping in the affected area. Any off deed buildings present are not able to be repaired during the duration, and no fencing or new construction can be started until the event ends. This would effectively prevent the "penning" of uniques. Furthermore, make it so players have to be inside the area of influence to be able to attack, so archery from complete safety will not be a thing. Participation would be required.

 

+1. If nothing else, this means newbies won't get eaten without fair warning.

 

Is archery a thing with uniques, by the way? Thought it was useless. Although, a Rift style unique could involve waves of lesser creatures...

 

2 hours ago, Angelklaine said:

Tether uniques to the spawn area of influence

 

Uniques would not be able to be kited outside this area or to a deed. Besides preventing uniques from being penned by skirting the system, this would prevent uniques from wandering and exiting the area of influence, or coming across player deeds where they could cause damage.

 

+1.

 

2 hours ago, Angelklaine said:

Allow an unlimited amount of players to attack the unique and increase its total health (but not their health regen)

 

This allows for more participation and time to show up before the unique is killed. It will also make small numbers of players trying to fight it have to stay there a longer time, without requiring an increase to the minimun of players present to kill it. It would also allow for more people to participate, without the unique "melting" to a barrage of damage from a large number of players, yet not increasing the difficulty or danger posed by them.

 

Hmm. In my (limited) experience clearing Serenity of uniques, once a unique starts regenning, you're far less likely to kill it, and are better off backing out and letting it fully heal before trying again.

 

In your system, you're far less likely to kill a unique before it starts regenning. I'm not sure I like that. If we're going to make this many changes to uniques, I'd start with making their battles more interesting, and then balance from there.

 

For me, the most interesting PvE battles in Wurm are Uttacha Spawns. They have a number of unique behaviours that you can trigger, and you can employ various strategies to take them down.

 

Imagine a unique-sized Uttacha for an idea of what I mean by an interesting fight. :ph34r:

 

2 hours ago, Angelklaine said:

Add a bar to the Mission Progress viewable to the server, similar to rifts

 

The bar should reflect the unique's health. This allows everyone to know an unique has spawned in the server, if its being fought, and how much longer they have to get there.

 

+1.

 

2 hours ago, Angelklaine said:

Make rewards automatically go to fighter's inventory

 

Unique rewards such as bone, hats, and tomes should be randomly distributed to those present who participated significantly in the fight similar to how rifts reward players. Bloods, leather and scale should be rewarded to everyone who succesfully dealt damage to the unique. Amounts rewarded from these global rewards should be proportionate to how much damage the player does to the unique or how much healing was done. Larger participation should reward bigger amounts of scale/drake.

 

I would give this a big +1, except that RNG has a huge effect on who hits and who doesn't. I don't like that.

 

2 hours ago, Angelklaine said:

Add a general location to the Mission Progress bar

 

Similar to the location of avatars, there should be a general location of where the unique is. Given players won't be rewarded for finding and penning uniques any longer, it should be made clearer where they are so they can be found.

 

+1.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
48 minutes ago, Roccandil said:

Is archery a thing with uniques, by the way? Thought it was useless. Although, a Rift style unique could involve waves of lesser creatures...

Currently no, but I wouldn't put it past people to bring alts to archer the unique from outside the tether range in safety until they get a hit so they can make it to the loot list and get stuff.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm all for a real solution to the uniques issue. It's been going on for so many years, and has definitely caused divisions in the community. Who doesn't have a friend who no longer speaks to another friend because of a dragon? 

 

I like the idea of making unique spawns more of a server-wide "event", rather than just a typical spawn of an extra-strong creature, and randomly dishing out the loot to participant inventory could be a really good idea if it's worked out to be fair (addressing the above issues).

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I've been hoping for something like this, I've discussed it many times with my alliance and many others. A global warning alongside with a designated area would truly bring everyone together instead of making people dislike others just because of greed. Our community is small enough for us to be fighting over the little that is left. +1

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I love this idea. The current penning of uniques system is flawed and just leads to further petty arguments over ownership of something that can't be owned. This would resolve that whole issue while giving opportunities for more players to get involved in more "end game" freedom content.

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Well, if you can't beat them, join them. This would basically automate "penning" and get the drama out of the way.

 

I'd go a step further and outright make "penning" a wholly supported action on a technical level as to better streamline the process.

 

I'm thinking of besieging uniques. They have to be found first as usual - this will preserve their hunting aspect - and a player can decide to start a "siege" on the unique. That is the moment the "Rift" as proposed in the OP spawns, not determined by the server, but by a players action.

The besieger could also set an attack timer for people to rally, or a standard 48h timer is set off, until which the unique cannot be attacked. If a player could decide when the battle starts, they could account for timezones etc. and slaying could basically proceed as they have so far.

 

The idea is rough around the edges for sure, but I think it's a good way to have the best of both worlds and replace penning with something that isn't so hamfisted and prone to drama while being functionally the same as it is now.

  • Like 3

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
3 hours ago, Flubb said:

Well, if you can't beat them, join them. This would basically automate "penning" and get the drama out of the way.

 

I'd go a step further and outright make "penning" a wholly supported action on a technical level as to better streamline the process.

 

I'm thinking of besieging uniques. They have to be found first as usual - this will preserve their hunting aspect - and a player can decide to start a "siege" on the unique. That is the moment the "Rift" as proposed in the OP spawns, not determined by the server, but by a players action.

The besieger could also set an attack timer for people to rally, or a standard 48h timer is set off, until which the unique cannot be attacked. If a player could decide when the battle starts, they could account for timezones etc. and slaying could basically proceed as they have so far.

 

The idea is rough around the edges for sure, but I think it's a good way to have the best of both worlds and replace penning with something that isn't so hamfisted and prone to drama while being functionally the same as it is now.

That is not a bad idea, but it would require a complete rework and a creation and implementation of a whole new system. The reason why I stuck to the rifts idea is because we already have that system in place, which would make the implementation system I imagine. Its within the boundaries of what we know can be done. But I don't think your idea is bad at all. Its a different suggestion, however, and would need to be looked at in more detail.

  • Like 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
4 minutes ago, Angelklaine said:

The reason why I stuck to the rifts idea is because we already have that system in place

 

I get that, but I'm afraid this is also what may break it on a design decision level. Not that I expect the dev team to make a statement on that, and I don't mean this facetiously - it's a tough call because any reply of that sort is usually seen as a commitment to either way, so petty expectations gag their opinions and insights. I can only imagine though, and this is speculation, that Uniques need to be sufficiently distinct from Rifts and/or they have been designed with being hunted down in some way, and they don't want to give up on that. Just trying to strike the balance between that assumption and the suggestion, but you're right, it's probably something that should be viewed as a separate suggestion.

I'm just not on board enough with tossing it all out already. Not that I have a great stake in maintaining the status quo either. If they decided to make them like Rifts I'd probably say "Eh, a bit overkill", but pretty much just accept it.

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

+1  - excellent ideas which I am sure our competent Devs could work on - when they have the time, after fixing lag spikes. ?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Only very few have the time and the skills and the powerful group of players, to be able to locate, catch and "properly" deed and secure the uniques.

If some of those are public, we have all a nice event, but most are private.

For some, uniques are not about how much gold you make with them, some only want to make a jacket over time.

 

The rifts are all public and the system works generally. Some FO priests gain insane amount of points at rift from healing.. but ok they help with the AoE heal.

 

If uniques are changed toward a more public system like the rifts, i think that could be nice public events, everyone who likes to can join.

 

Absue with cheap newly created alts will happen just with rifts local, but everyone who wants to work on a hide or scale jacket will be able to do that with a open system as with the rifts.

 

thus +1 from me

  • Like 3

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah @Flubb, the more I think about it, the more it seems that right answer is in the middle. I was toying with ideas about instances in my head last night but have no idea how that would fit wurm. Give some perks and symbolic rewards to finder like receiving skull in his invetory after beast is killed and ability to set timer on kill to fit his timezone (that way there is still trill of hunt for trophy and bragging rights, who can catch most uniques, we could even have leading board). And upon set timer we could have nice public event where people can get bloods and scale, random bone that goes to someone invetory I guess. Just include dmg done into equation so it can't be abused with alts pls, they lag the hell out of me. 10 someone's alts prevent one regular player with weak machine from participating. Think about it!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
5 hours ago, kochinac said:

10 someone's alts prevent one regular player with weak machine from participating. Think about it!

 

If unique fights happened in a rift-like zone, fights could be designed to be more dangerous for weak toons (dragons summoning drake spirits, for instance, to attack anything in the zone).

  • Like 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 minute ago, Roccandil said:

 

If unique fights happened in a rift-like zone, fights could be designed to be more dangerous for weak toons (dragons summoning drake spirits, for instance, to attack anything in the zone).

To be honest anything that will discourage people from bringing full knarr of freshly premed 2s alts would work for me, reward scaled to the dmg you do, or even just some treshhold you must pass with dmg to get reward that fresh toon can't achieve, making reward receiving area hard to afk in, requirement of 70 fs or requirement of 3 months premium to receive reward, there must be some way to do it and don't ruin expirience for others...

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
7 minutes ago, Roccandil said:

 

If unique fights happened in a rift-like zone, fights could be designed to be more dangerous for weak toons (dragons summoning drake spirits, for instance, to attack anything in the zone).

I thought about this and think would be great.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Whilst I do like the idea, and I personally have never been face to face with a unique, I do ponder whether this could ruin the feeling that they are rare

If they come with a timer and everyone is waiting to get their share of dragonscale/bloods it doesn't feel like it was found in the wild, and there is little to no danger of riding out solo in the wilderness if the worst thing that can jump you is a troll. 

I have never been face to face with a rare, and I would like to one day, but not by "being at this location at 5pm GMT when it spawns" kind of thing. That just ruins it outright. 

 

I am not against your idea, I am just not sure if the implications of making it "too accessible" have been considered. We would see a whole load of bloods etc... crashing markets along with dragonscale which many have invested in, just to crash. 

As side from the markets, I feel having a timer on niarja for the next spawn will just ruin things in terms of how the game feels. 

 

I'd prefer a re-think for some middle ground, where they are still considered "rare" my personal inclination is to side with other suggestions linked to either local "noises" being made, to raise rumors in freedom chat, and get the hunters ready to go, but also some way of preventing them from being lured and kept for later. I previously suggested to link it to tracking but people didn't like the idea of high tracking skill "spawning" a unique, but perhaps giving clues to their location by looting their "officers" along the way.

 

Personally, although I know it would require new implementation, I would urge for a system where the unique still has to be found, and is aggressive, but won't leave a certain area around its spawn location.

Not quite the same as @Flubb 's idea, as I think they should be aggressive and kill the solo player trying his/her luck. 

I actually don't think this would be a difficult one, and would be welcome on all mobs too so they don't all climb to the peaks of mountains.

 

 

 

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On 2/20/2019 at 12:10 AM, Angelklaine said:

Make rewards automatically go to fighter's inventory

 

Unique rewards such as bone, hats, and tomes should be randomly distributed to those present who participated significantly in the fight similar to how rifts reward players. Bloods, leather and scale should be rewarded to everyone who succesfully dealt damage to the unique. Amounts rewarded from these global rewards should be proportionate to how much damage the player does to the unique or how much healing was done. Larger participation should reward bigger amounts of scale/drake.

 

Skull, meat and animal parts should be obtained from butchering as normal.

 

I would (personally) like to see leather/scale linked to Butchering Skill if this suggestion see's uniques no longer being so rare. It would give players a "reason" to skill their butchering (I personally have around 20 skill - so no biased here). 

This would keep some of the rarer things still considerably rare (especially at higher QL - if linked to tool QL/rarity when butchering. Such as higher skill = more chance to get scale/leather & more weight, and tool ql = more chance to get a higher ql yield & more weight. 

 

Not sure how this would tie in with the "rift reward system" being based on how much a player contributes to the kill, I would also make this "everyone can butcher a unique" - which kinda makes sense as they are pretty big so everyone can cut a bit up.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
3 hours ago, Vaelir said:

Whilst I do like the idea, and I personally have never been face to face with a unique, I do ponder whether this could ruin the feeling that they are rare

If they come with a timer and everyone is waiting to get their share of dragonscale/bloods it doesn't feel like it was found in the wild, and there is little to no danger of riding out solo in the wilderness if the worst thing that can jump you is a troll. 

I have never been face to face with a rare, and I would like to one day, but not by "being at this location at 5pm GMT when it spawns" kind of thing. That just ruins it outright. 

 

I am not against your idea, I am just not sure if the implications of making it "too accessible" have been considered. We would see a whole load of bloods etc... crashing markets along with dragonscale which many have invested in, just to crash. 

As side from the markets, I feel having a timer on niarja for the next spawn will just ruin things in terms of how the game feels. 

 

I'd prefer a re-think for some middle ground, where they are still considered "rare" my personal inclination is to side with other suggestions linked to either local "noises" being made, to raise rumors in freedom chat, and get the hunters ready to go, but also some way of preventing them from being lured and kept for later. I previously suggested to link it to tracking but people didn't like the idea of high tracking skill "spawning" a unique, but perhaps giving clues to their location by looting their "officers" along the way.

 

Personally, although I know it would require new implementation, I would urge for a system where the unique still has to be found, and is aggressive, but won't leave a certain area around its spawn location.

Not quite the same as @Flubb 's idea, as I think they should be aggressive and kill the solo player trying his/her luck. 

I actually don't think this would be a difficult one, and would be welcome on all mobs too so they don't all climb to the peaks of mountains.

 

 

 

I never suggested there should be a "next spawn" timer anywhere, so I don't know where your point is coming from. My suggestion doesn't do anything the global message rumors already do, only that it would give a general area of where once it has spawned. If could be limited to be similar as a traitor message (i.e. - northern regions). This is to incentivize people to participate more.

 

3 hours ago, Vaelir said:

 

I would (personally) like to see leather/scale linked to Butchering Skill if this suggestion see's uniques no longer being so rare. It would give players a "reason" to skill their butchering (I personally have around 20 skill - so no biased here). 

This would keep some of the rarer things still considerably rare (especially at higher QL - if linked to tool QL/rarity when butchering. Such as higher skill = more chance to get scale/leather & more weight, and tool ql = more chance to get a higher ql yield & more weight. 

 

Not sure how this would tie in with the "rift reward system" being based on how much a player contributes to the kill, I would also make this "everyone can butcher a unique" - which kinda makes sense as they are pretty big so everyone can cut a bit up.

You seem to be missing the point of the suggestion. Mobs can only be butchered once, but even if that was to change, what stops a killer from scooping the corpse and taking it with them? No, the idea is to stop the drama, not create more. I am sure if the rewards were tied to butchering, someone would scoop it so they could butcher in private with their alts with no one else gaining anything so they could corner the market. The drama steaming from this would be much worse than we currently have.

 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

If penned they should be able to teleport out ...

Not sure if this is possible but .......Have the rifts a chance to spawn the unique instead of them randomly spawning on the map .......

 

That way more players will go to rifts ....

There be no loot on the unique it will be like normal rift mobs corps , any loot will be auto added to players bag ...

No butchering needed for hides and no items on corps ....

This will also stop alts from hanging around for blood and lagging area up for some players...

 

I know this is not a good plan for some or many but at this stage of the game something needs to be done ...

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this