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Nordlys

The new way of uniques!

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There have been many discussions and suggestions about the unique system over the years ive been around, but i feel there is something lacking in the discussion.

Ive even contributed to some of the discussions with a few suggestions in the past. Im making this topic to kinda sum up the way i think it should be, and i ofcourse hope for even more discussion.

Its not my intention to step on anyones toes here, whether youre a unique hunter, a dev or an alt that just hangs out. Please keep this on topic.

 

 

Short version (the suggestion in one line) for those who dont want to read everything:

Dont make a random spawn be the only source of things everyone should be able to get.

 

 

Ok, if youre still here, lets go through this. Here goes!

There are a few flaws to the current unique system, as i see it.

The first and most obvious is that dragons and drakes are the only source of ingredients in scale and hide armor. This makes uniques very attractive ofcourse, and thats also somewhat good. The bad thing is that they are rare, simple to pen and simple to kill for a small group of dedicated people who just can sit back and watch the twitter feed.

This for me is bad game design. A "boss" that spawns pretty randomly, with a message on my phone from twitter - and this "boss" is the only source of the most valuable armor in the game?

To paint an absurd picture for you; how would it be if Goblin Leaders were the only source of iron?

 

It is this that got me thinking. You see, im quite fond of the unique hunt. I like the thrill of seeking out a unique boss roaming about, knowing it could give me something shiny - or kill me if i stumble upon it.

 

 

So how would i like it to be?

Well, this is where the list that summarize this suggestion begins.

 

 

Introduce wurm online shop.

In the shop you can buy stuff, with currency. Simple.

 

 

Introduce more currencies.

There is a reason for why most games have several separate currency systems. It generates revenue to the people who make (or own) the game.

I will put these currencies in two categories - primary and secondary.

 

The primary currencies:

This is the tradeable currencies. Real money spent in web shop, and ingame currency (silver from now on) to spend ingame.

 

The secondary currencies:

This would be something you can earn ingame, but do not have any "physical" form - you cannot trade it to any other player, only use it to buy things. It would require a separate bank account which you cannot withraw from.

 

As of now we can already do all these things.

You can spend real money on game time or silver. You can earn and spend silver ingame. And last you can earn silver ingame and spend on game time.

Now, if we add more ingame currencies that we can spend on the web shop (or even in a trader), this would open a new world.

 

The important thing about these new currencies is that they cannot be traded - its only for you. And you can earn them in different ways. For the sake of the unique suggestion i will only cover some of these currencies.

 

 

Introduce forgotten pages.

This is an example of a currency you can earn ingame, which is pretty relevant to this suggestion.

X amount of forgotten pages in your bank account gives you the option to buy a tome with one charge from the web shop or from a trader.

The forgotten pages can not be bought with real money or silver - it has to be earned ingame. It also cannot be withdrawn from your bank account.

 

Tomes:

The only way tomes can be obtained is through buying them with forgotten pages.

 

 

Uniques:

Remove twitter feed.

Remove tome from loot table.

Add forgotten page to loot table.

 

The way the hide/scale is distributed today is fine, but the grand total should be tweaked down if there are fewer persons slaying the drake/dragon.

A random number could be 0,05kg of hide/scale to all toons that fight the unique.

 

The blood that pops into inventory on slaying should stay the same as it is now. Same goes for the carrion parts like rarity bones, meat and such - keep it the way it is now.

The only thing people who just sits in local get is blood.

 

There can also be added some other no-drop, no-tradeable loot to all of the uniques.

 

Some people suggest X amount of fighting skill to get loot - i dont disagree with this.

 

 

Rifts:

There should be a chance of a random unique spawning in third wave of the rift. This unique has a chance of giving forgotten page to any of the slayers.

It should also have a chance of distributing a slightly smaller portion of hide if it is a drake, or scale if its a dragon.

The same goes for blood, any of the slayers have a chance of getting blood from that unique.

This unique gives normal rift junk from butchering.

People in local dont get anything without contributing, like it is now.

 

 

With this system i dont think there will be as many "private" slayings as it is now, and ofcourse i hope there will be more public slayings.

I will not say its "not for my own personal gain", because ofcourse i like loot! What i also like is when i see knarrs sail into a bay from every angle, people gathering and lighting fires, chatting between hundreds of people in local, and ofcourse the random disconnects here and there.

There should be some thrill when a unique spawns, but that thrill should not be based on who is the first to pen it and keep it as its own - it should be about the hunt itself and the joy of getting loot together!

 

This suggestion is not a finished example - its merely a start. And i hope its something new that the Gods of this game (not you Libila) havent thought about yet.

Lets discuss it, shall we?

 

 

PS: its really, really late where i am, so if i forgot anything vital, i will add it as it comes up. Forgive me, and good night!

 

Keep wurming!

- N

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-1, I have no desire to make wurm a pay to win game any more than it already is. 

   The rift portion I like though. 

I say, make uniques unable to pen. And make creating deeds with a unique in them not possible. 

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28 minutes ago, CrazyDad543 said:

-1, I have no desire to make wurm a pay to win game any more than it already is. 

   The rift portion I like though. 

I say, make uniques unable to pen. And make creating deeds with a unique in them not possible. 

I don't see this suggestion as pay to win, currency that he talks about needs to be earned by playing and it can't be traded with other players for real money but it's rather soul bound, it's quite opposite from pay to win.

As for penning, removing penning maybe seems attractive on paper but it will just create lot of problems. You think you hadn't had chance to attend with penning involved well I fear it could turn out that without penning even greater number of slayings will be done by small group of dedicated players crazy enough to play this game 24/7. Even if they wanted to make public slayings they won't be able without penning. Removing penning will not in anyway increase vialibility for wider range of people it will do quite opposite.

Despite all its flaws I think the rift system is most suitable for pve. For pvp it can stay the way it is now.

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I do like the random chance of a unique spawning at a rift event :)
-would increase participation
-is a well known place throughout a server with enough time ahead to know about it

-makes sense as rifts are sort of our endgame content and already spawn very hard creatures
-rifts are supposed to be invasions, wouldn't mind if the uniques in them would be like corrupted versions of current uniques

Edited by Miretta
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2 hours ago, CrazyDad543 said:

-1, I have no desire to make wurm a pay to win game any more than it already is.  

Me neither. Highfive!

 

Thats why you need to earn the currency ingame from participating, and thats why you cannot sell the item afterwards. :) 

 

Edit:

Just to clarify, the "forgotten page" is something you earn and is a currency that cannot be used other places than the wurm shop (or trader) to purchase an item that is not tradeable.

This way you can with time buy out all the tomes for your self, keep earning forgotten pages, and buy other no-tradeable and no-drop goodies - like a name tag for your item - which also makes the item no-tradeable and no-drop.

 

4 hours ago, Nordlys said:

Introduce wurm online shop.

In the shop you can buy stuff, with currency. Simple.

 

Other currencies may also be added, some of which may even be purchased with real money or silver. I dont want any "game changing" items that can be bought for real money or silver to be sold again ingame. That would welcome the pay to win you talk about.

And some items should straight up be available for real money or silver - like a one time use name change voucher, to be totally crazy.

 

All this however is another discussion. :D 

Edited by Nordlys
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Imho,

 

Uniques need to spawn randomly, not on specific areas (easy to find with the code) allowing anyone with a heat map to easilly find them.

Remove both Twitter and Event messages for a spawn... more chances to stumble on them then... more random, higher chances for the locals to find it, yadda yadda.

Make the uniques relocate every weeks... will allow them to get out of caves or whatever.

 

Potentially making a 'claim' system ongoing for a week preventing anyone but the group tagging in with the person who find it to attack the unique... (also making said unique less agressive).

 

My main trouble however is with the random loot, randomness with loot is working really poorly in Wurm... also why our group use a GDKP system (shamelessly stolen from others MMo and a previous thread in the forum) to allow EVERYONE to get something from the kill.

 

At this point anyway, the devs need to come with a better way to have unique and make it fun for everyone... removing the amount of drama tied to them, the greed, the silyness and ... well... you know the rest.

 

To quote Trump : Make Uniques Great Again!

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Yea, i also think that they should spawn randomly.

 

My problem What i dont like with the current system is that a random spawn is the only source of an armor resource. This makes no sense at all, so i want to make it less attractive to keep the uniques private (there are several positive sides to this). Uniques should spawn as they do, but without a twitter feed.

 

The rifts however is a great source of some pve action for the people who dont have time to spend all day inside of wurm. They can easily make plans with family or whatever to play Wurm at a said time that day and still be able to slowly (very slowly mind you) work their way towards an armor of the shiney kind.

 

In my opinion a random spawn should have random chance at dropping something.

Edited by Nordlys
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9 minutes ago, Odynn said:

Imho,

 

Uniques need to spawn randomly, not on specific areas (easy to find with the code) allowing anyone with a heat map to easilly find them.

Remove both Twitter and Event messages for a spawn... more chances to stumble on them then... more random, higher chances for the locals to find it, yadda yadda.

Make the uniques relocate every weeks... will allow them to get out of caves or whatever.

 

Potentially making a 'claim' system ongoing for a week preventing anyone but the group tagging in with the person who find it to attack the unique... (also making said unique less agressive).

 

My main trouble however is with the random loot, randomness with loot is working really poorly in Wurm... also why our group use a GDKP system (shamelessly stolen from others MMo and a previous thread in the forum) to allow EVERYONE to get something from the kill.

 

At this point anyway, the devs need to come with a better way to have unique and make it fun for everyone... removing the amount of drama tied to them, the greed, the silyness and ... well... you know the rest.

 

To quote Trump : Make Uniques Great Again!

muga_stamp_trucker_hat-r2e303a78849b4102

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Making them at rifts would exclude even more people, I cant remember the last time I could make a rift because of bad timing, maybe 6 months ago. 

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9 minutes ago, LordLouis said:

Making them at rifts would exclude even more people, I cant remember the last time I could make a rift because of bad timing, maybe 6 months ago. 

Well, since the rifts have a known location and time i think that there should be a chance of spawning a, lets call it a "mini unique", in wave three. This will also need to have a lower chance of giving the forgotten page and should give less hide/scale if its a drake/dragon.

Rifts are also more common than uniques, so maybe there should be a 50%-75% chance of a "mini unique" (meh i dont like that name) spawning at a rift?

 

Its been long since i could attend to rifts also, but atleast i can plan way ahead.

Edited by Nordlys
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Anything that makes a rift interesting in a +1 from me. As for the unique part... that might be a hard sale to the private hunters that live off these kills lol.

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55 minutes ago, Legios said:

As for the unique part... that might be a hard sale to the private hunters that live off these kills lol.

Yes, it will ofcourse not fit the ones already benefitting from this. And they will maybe be against it.

I would guess that the current "private hunters" are a minority of the player base tho.

Im not really appealing to the private hunters with this suggestion, more to the devs. If they want a game where a resource for an item is hidden behind a random spawn, well then this suggestion has flaws.

 

My point is that we could also have leather only drop from blue whales. Or that copper only can be mined from veins that spawns randomly once a month with a twitter feed letting everyone know. This wouldnt work out well.

Edited by Nordlys

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having a shot at a random wandering unique is nice... toying with them, penning them, preparing the kill with your buddies is nice... way more nice than the kill itself... removing the feature would be a loss for everyone... and when i say everyone, i want everyone to be able to enjoy that feeling!

 

that being said, having OTHERS options to get hide / scales / tomes / recipes / ex-challenge items would be great... be it through rifts... new journal tasks... or whatever the devs can add.

 

We had suggestions in the past about semi-unique mobs that could be taken down with alone (old timers perks) or with a small group and give limited but still valuable hide/scale/ magical ink or magical paper to create a one charge tome later on.

 

Wurm is a sandbox, more options are good... locking people with poorly designed ones... or giving priviledges to a few is bad as well.

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29 minutes ago, Odynn said:

having a shot at a random wandering unique is nice... toying with them, penning them, preparing the kill with your buddies is nice... way more nice than the kill itself... removing the feature would be a loss for everyone... and when i say everyone, i want everyone to be able to enjoy that feeling!

 

that being said, having OTHERS options to get hide / scales / tomes / recipes / ex-challenge items would be great... be it through rifts... new journal tasks... or whatever the devs can add.

 

We had suggestions in the past about semi-unique mobs that could be taken down with alone (old timers perks) or with a small group and give limited but still valuable hide/scale/ magical ink or magical paper to create a one charge tome later on.

 

Wurm is a sandbox, more options are good... locking people with poorly designed ones... or giving priviledges to a few is bad as well.

It seems that we share the same opinion for the most part then. I still want it to be a fun activity to hunt it down. I keep failing at it, but it really doesnt matter. :D 

 

Thanks for contributing with your thoughts. :) 

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I dont understand what is so exciting about locking down some creature that has predictable patterns. Either make it available to everyone in an event such as rift or make it chaos only and increase their spawn on chaos so people who hunt them go bleed for it and take risk in chaos, it will be far more exciting than findiing and locking them n pve. 

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3 hours ago, Maiev said:

make it chaos only and increase their spawn on chaos so people who hunt them go bleed for it and take risk in chaos, it will be far more exciting than findiing and locking them n pve. 

I fail to see how this would be better than todays solution, as its pretty much the same only there is no uniques on pve..?

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Better if chaos gets the unique and pve gets chance to get uniques on rift. If these 15 guys want the unique the current way, let them go to chaos together on boats and fight whichever kingdom gets in their way and go get their unique if they can. If they cant win, they gotta bring 30 guys. Bring your horses too in animal cages (if it is not allowed to bring those to chaos, it should be allowed to). Or even better go start your own kingdom there with the hunting group. Moon metals which were mostly obtained through hota where people died, lost equipment, skill, affinity etc. are okay to be introduced through rift uniques not? 

 

I am just saying uniques should be available to everyone through rifts etc. as said in both suggestions running atm and if some people want the current way to get uniques remain let it remain in chaos with more spawns than now and let them compete for it over there.

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I dont think the solution for a PVE "random spawn boss" is to make it only accessible on a PVP server. With my suggestion the hope is that the uniques will give more personal loot for each slayer, and less, next to nothing of any monetary value. There will simply be no other reason to make a private slaying than to "just do it". And with the twitter feed gone the hunt itself would be more a suprise, random if you will.

I agree that a chance of a less valuable unique at the rift would be a good start, like i mentioned in the OP. But i dont want a PVE boss only be defeated through PVP.

Edited by Nordlys

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14 hours ago, Nordlys said:

Introduce wurm online shop.

In the shop you can buy stuff, with currency. Simple.

Drake and Dragon armor sets should be sold in the Wurm Shop. Who would this hurt then? Only the Dragon hunters who sell these finished products to others. If anyone else doesn't want to pay for this in the Wurm Shop then they can still go hunt these Dragons for it same as now. Nothing changes then but the profit potential of individual players, who of course will object to this because their RL money income will be reduced. Do they care that the game can profit more with this system instead? Ha, no way.

 

Yes I agree, simple as it has always been when it comes to the ability to make a RL profit from playing the game and those will use it to their advantage with whatever tactics they can get away with. Otherwise everyone should agree that Drake and Dragon scale sets should be available to be purchased in the Wurm Shop. Great idea! Simplicity exemplified and executed.

 

=Ayes=

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45 minutes ago, Ayes said:

Drake and Dragon armor sets should be sold in the Wurm Shop. Who would this hurt then? Only the Dragon hunters who sell these finished products to others. If anyone else doesn't want to pay for this in the Wurm Shop then they can still go hunt these Dragons for it same as now. Nothing changes then but the profit potential of individual players, who of course will object to this because their RL money income will be reduced. Do they care that the game can profit more with this system instead? Ha, no way.

 

Yes I agree, simple as it has always been when it comes to the ability to make a RL profit from playing the game and those will use it to their advantage with whatever tactics they can get away with. Otherwise everyone should agree that Drake and Dragon scale sets should be available to be purchased in the Wurm Shop. Great idea! Simplicity exemplified and executed.

 

=Ayes=

You, sir, speak many words without really adding anything to the discussion - other than "nope". It might be me who doesnt understand the irony, who knows. And i dont think that you should be able to buy drake or scale from a web shop with real money, if you believe that. I suggested that tome charges could be bought from the web shop, and not for real money but from a new ingame currency. Youre pretty unclear of what you think the better solution would be. I simply made a suggestion to how it can be done to make these things more available to the hard working regular player.

And if you took the time to read all of it (yes, i know it was a wall of text), you would see that i also suggest to add other items to the loot table. Both items that can be sold and items that are soulbound to the toon who gets it. The items to be sold should not be armors or weapons of superior class, but rather items that add alittle extra.

Imagine if dragons were the only source of stone chisels. Man i keep repeating my point, was it so unclear in the OP? :P 

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20 minutes ago, Nordlys said:

You, sir, speak many words without really adding anything to the discussion

True enough the words I presented did go off into a different direction than you intended or wished the responses to be; however, they did add something to the discussion in another vein which I took the opportunity to diverge into. Many times commenters will take the opportunity to do this so it is not uncommon but I can see how it may be irritating if you wish to only address what you want in the OP strictly speaking. Even now there is really no need for me to make these additional comments but what tha heck I feel like it at the moment.

 

Beyond this, although I have just above admitted to diverging from your specific points and been a bit facetious in stating that "Yes I agree" with a point that you did not really make in the first place, I am still sticking with the points I did make about selling these items in the Wurm Shop. In the end it was all in good fun for me but seemingly not so for you. What more can I say but have a good day...

 

=Ayes=

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I may have misinterpret you then. I thought you were being sarcastic about me suggesting selling drake/scale in web shop - which i didnt really suggest. :P If you suggest that solution, i welcome that comment although its against what i suggest.

 

More words does not always help the communication. ;) 

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