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Beretel

Newbie Fighting QoL

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Ok, a couple ideas about fighting.  Hopefully nothing radical.

 

1. Fighting at low skill:

It seems to me that even poor leather armor and a sharpened stick would allow me at least even odds to take on a wildcat or mountain lion.  If I've got plate or chain and a halfway decent sword, any normal animal should be a piece of cake (giant scorpions and spiders should be harder, and to a new player they look harder).  I suggest a rebalance of fighting in general, making the starting point in skill much more effective and maybe the skill improvements less important.


2. Fighting in general:

As fight skill and weapon skill improve, I should gain additional skills usable during battle.  Maybe not having shield bash until skill 10, and gaining additional skills to use as my skill goes up.  I don't really have much incentive or notice much difference from the skill increase as it is, except that eventually bears aren't a problem.  ;)  

 

JS

 

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7 hours ago, Beretel said:

It seems to me that even poor leather armor and a sharpened stick would allow me at least even odds to take on a wildcat

 

You can take on a wild cat as newbie with starter gear. Just get a few fighting skills (5 or 6 should be enough) at a training dummy and you're set. 

 

7 hours ago, Beretel said:

As fight skill and weapon skill improve, I should gain additional skills usable during battle. 

 

You already get new battle stances from better weapon skills, see https://www.wurmpedia.com/index.php/Special_move

However, due to damage output of large 2-handed weapons in normal PvE many level-appropriate critters are dead before you can use any special moves.

 

8 hours ago, Beretel said:

... I suggest a rebalance of fighting in general, making ... the skill improvements less important. ... As fight skill and weapon skill improve, I should gain additional skills usable during battle. 

 

Sorry if I misunderstood you, but it seems to me that you suggest to make skill gain both less and more important. :)

Also note that weapon ql and main fighting skill both go into calculation of hit chance.

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17 hours ago, Eobersig said:

You can take on a wild cat as newbie with starter gear. Just get a few fighting skills (5 or 6 should be enough) at a training dummy and you're set. 

 

Yes, but that's with 30ql armor and a 50ql sword.  As a newbie, looking at that, I'd likely be thinking it'll be a long time before I can make better than starter gear.

Ideally, noobs would start with nearly nothing, and yet not die immediately when they encounter something like a wildcat or wolf.

The Journal system should guide the new player through making their own first armor (or second if it must be so) and it should actually be useful to them.

 

of course, I'm talking 'ideally', but if they're looking at the way combat works now, we can hope ;)

 

JS

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To add a bit to this:

 

The additional skills gained are rarely used by most, and very unintuitive, and only show up at medium fighting skill (30 for the first?)

 

And really, why would I start at fight skill 1 with ql 30 armor?  that just suggests a system that is not balanced.

Maybe a permanent vein to mine, a hot forge, some pieces of leather, and whatever else is needed, all at ql 5, and I can make my own pieces of armor while on the noob isle?  If I don't want to, I can skip it, and buy or beg better stuff once I get to mainland...

 

If it's a sandbox game, don't give me equipment, show me how to make it myself.

 

JS

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Is there a way that the crafting screen is not saying how to make armour?

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"Back in the day" you started with 10 QL gear. You were dead before you landed a single hit on a pheasant. It wasn't fun - so much so that they bumped up the starting QL of the sword, shield and armor.

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7 hours ago, Kohle said:

"Back in the day" you started with 10 QL gear. You were dead before you landed a single hit on a pheasant. It wasn't fun - so much so that they bumped up the starting QL of the sword, shield and armor.

 

Yes, very true.  So we gave everyone a ql that will take most noobs weeks if not months to make something better.  I think that bumping the starting gear was the wrong response.. the problem was (and still is) in the combat system.  Improving the starting gear simply gives us the idea that it's less of a sandbox, in my opinion.

 

JS

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On 12/28/2019 at 1:06 AM, Beretel said:

I think that bumping the starting gear was the wrong response

 

I think there's a valid argument to be made that they over-did it. At least they recognized it was a problem and did something. (Insert traumatic flashbacks to a certain early MMO and its dogmatic adherence to an amorphous "Vision"™. Shudder!)

 

What you've proposed is an overhaul of the combat system and a not-insignificant effort to analyze the resulting balance change and adjust. Wurm combat does leave a lot to be desired. With an overhaul, the (generous) starting gear might become unnecessary. 

 

With an anemic staff size and similar budget, my belief - which is only mine and could be 100% wrong - is that Code Club went for a trivial change to move the starting experience from bad to good (or, at least tolerable). 

 

Also, it's worth bearing in mind that - despite the player population vote overwhelmingly preferring PvE over PvP - the Vision™ of this game has been PvP. If rewriting and rebalancing a combat system for PvE is daunting, doing it for PvP is a no-win scenario in its entirety.

 

I'm not meaning to disparage your idea or rain on your parade. I mostly just wanted to clarify why starter gear is a little "OP" these days. At the same time, I have a lot of sympathy for the choices Code Club made. 

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I've killed a bear naked(no armor)... with prem run out... no memory of weapon stats.. but think it was below 50ql 2hand sword.... 20fs..

 

Spiders/scorpions..etc.... these are not starter mobs... you need ~20-30 fighting skill and ~60-70ql armor to play around such.. 

Haven't tried but spider should be maybe killable with current trash starter gear.. ql50 sword/leather armor + shield.... it's way better than what it used to be... no armor and ql10 tools at best... when I started..

 

IDK why baby characters in your book need to become dragon slayers on day 1....

Let them experience the game.. chat a bit.. to learn what to do and not....

 

wurm have no zones.. you do not have separated AR/DR creatures.. to have less aggressive or threatening kind closer to spawn towns.. and stronger ones further...

 

Player in ql80 studded/chain etc.. could skill be killed by a normal troll or hound 1v1, even if you have good gear and 90FS.. not focusing or being active to react can get you killed.. or just an auto focus capped creature... draining your hp enough from the start.. could get lucky and kill you instead..

 

Why is it bad for new players to not fear the creatures?

I'd understand if nothing 1v1 can kill a ql80 or 90 geared person but.. brand new accounts.. why should they be fearless or anything on the map?

* mentioned above 80-90 is not even a thing... and some with 90+ skill and drake/scale sets beg for higher difficulty and threat from mobs as have been seen in other suggestions

Edited by Finnn
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On 12/30/2019 at 1:54 PM, Kohle said:

I'm not meaning to disparage your idea or rain on your parade. I mostly just wanted to clarify why starter gear is a little "OP" these days. At the same time, I have a lot of sympathy for the choices Code Club made. 

 

I understand why they did it.  I remember starting before they gave the 30/50 ql stuff...  I think it was a 'healing cover', and not a good long term solution.

If we want new players to stick around, the many deaths while trying to do some simple newbie learning is not going to make them want to stay.

At the same time, giving out medium ql stuff discourages newbies from crafting their own stuff.

 

It's a tricky balance...

 

JS

 

 

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On 1/2/2020 at 7:28 AM, Beretel said:

If we want new players to stick around, the many deaths while trying to do some simple newbie learning is not going to make them want to stay.

 

As a relative newbie (call it a little under 2 months) I almost packed it in in the first few days, mostly due to the cycle of repeatedly dying while retrieving gear from the last corpse and the endless charging across the landscape trying to get back to where my character took its last gasp without dying yet again.  When, after returning from yet another gear pickup due to a bearkillX3 I was trying to avoid an anaconda and I fell down a steep hill and was ALMOST out of the hole when I got tagged by a champion bear.  I already had experience of the way a bear will stay around the corpse and attack again and again, so I really was about to give up until someone far more skilled came to my aid.  The whole sorry affair prompted me to join a village on a practically deserted island, where I am now largely stuck until I finish building a boat to travel again.  At least I can generally get to a tower or a building when I get into trouble and have only died once since the move, although now my major combat tactic is generally running away all kermit arms calling for the guards.

 

Really, any long handled tool (shovel, rake etc) should be sufficient to deal with a wildcat and any edged tool, or hammer, should be sufficient for a wolf.  The bigger beasties should scale up in danger from there.  That would allow a starter some experience with fighting and develop some rough knowledge of what they can or can't handle.

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We got a fishing tutorial, I'd kinda like a fighting one telling newbies about stance and focus, what they can expect to fight at what skills without dying completely and the like

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9 hours ago, Madnath said:

We got a fishing tutorial, I'd kinda like a fighting one telling newbies about stance and focus, what they can expect to fight at what skills without dying completely and the like

I'd love to see spider dummy, etc.. o.0
That could include a few examples.. of do's and DON'Ts as in.. what your lether ql50 armor and ql50 longsword+shield.. can and can't.... deal against.

A few signs ... with stick figures.. and something showing that .. hound/troll/seals😆/etc.. means -> running.. to survive...

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