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Arimus

Life Transfer - bring back challenge to PVE Combat

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Have you tested Venom, Frostbrand, or Flaming aura . LT is only good if you are already damaged and can hit the target;

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LT is a very polarising spell.

 

As someone who has played and hunted without it, i had to carry around 50 kg of cotton when i started playing just to survive.

 

After hitting 70 FS and getting an LT huge axe, I can take on 5 spiders and a couple of trolls and end the fight with around 70% HP left.

 

Issue with LT is that it removes any challenge from fighting. It's nice if you want to afk fight, which is what I mostly do when hunting nowadays. But that's a general issue I have with wurm (or perhaps my attitude towards wurm?) that I have ended up doing so many things in semi-afk fashion . Move horse 10 tiles to next mob, go afk for 2 mins, LT does the rest.

 

Since Wurm has an autofighting system, I can quite comfortably stay afk for a while and come back to 4-5 dead mobs around me.

 

I find that it's way too powerful for very little cost. LT should perhaps have a Charge value like some items in games. Ex: Sword with 100 LT = 10 charges.

 

Use LT on sword = 1 charge spent, 10 LT points removed from sword. Effect? Next 5 hits heal you when you do damage. It should be a big bonus , but with a limited value. Not a permanent value. To be frank most mmo's veer away from the idea of an overpowered spell that Heals you when you do damage because that's what every player would naturally end up doing if it were implemented. Just like we are doing. I don't want to carry 50 kg of cotton on me. I use LT. But I find that I somewhat forced to use LT.

 

And the idea of "if you want more of a challenge, then simply don't use it..." it's quite contrary to the general attitude of a gamer, which is to figure out what's the best solution to a problem, what would be a good rotation of skills, what would be the most effective items, etc. Issue is pve combat is just too easy. What would be nice instead is if both players and mobs had more resistances coded into them.

 

For example : After 4-5 heals from LT, the player's body simply cannot process anymore magical healing (similar to the Mycelium cooldown Blers have).

 

Would be cool if certain combat oriented spells would be enhanced with pros and cons, for balancing reasons.

 

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6 hours ago, Arimus said:

Introducing other items that are not under discussion is just a red herring argument.

Also Arimus:

6 hours ago, Arimus said:

Imagine if a priest could cast a spell on imping tools that allowed a newish player to imp a weapon to level 70 bypassing the requisite weapon smithing skills.

 

So Fairyshine is "not allowed" (by whatever authority) to introduce analogous examples to illustrate a point about personal freedom and choice, but you can to illustrate a point about personal achievement and progression. Gotcha. 🙄 Come on, don't be so obtuse about her point. She even said herself that hers is an objection that can be applied rather liberally, and you try to just dismiss it because of that. But it's a valid one.

 

I had a massive rant of rather academic nature spelled out but I decided to go with brevity instead. The problem, as it appears to me, is depth vs. breadth. To argue that players need to adapt to some goal and a specific roadmap laid out to get there works for games with depth, but there's no singular goal in Wurm, making it way muddier and vague to make any assumptions about "desired gameplay experience". This is reflected in many posts here, one that you even conceded to (Muse's post). Some will just feel relief having killed that Troll, but not be happy they had to deal with this nuisance to begin with. The sense of achievement you have planned won't come to everyone, the player's interests are too diverse to make that assumption.

 

I share your sentiment that PvE can use some more challenge, but I feel like you're ahead in the thinking progress when scapegoating LT for making everything too easy. Let's take a step back to "PvE needs more challenge", and try a different route from there.

There have been suggestions to make tracking in PvE useful, for instance, making harder encounters more predictably accessible to fighters. This won't affect non-fighters, make high quality gear and skill (and possibly LT to last through such encounters better) a neccessity in this context. I think for a game with as many choices as Wurm has, carving out niches for particular interests like this is more conducive to improving gameplay experience than making whole-sale changes that affect everyone in a playerbase with conflicting and hard to consolidate interests. Mostly. It's a grey area, there has to be some shared core or Wurm might aswell split into different games, sure. It's difficult to delineate the borders of that core, but I usually draw the line where you expect people to enjoy a particular aspect of the game, at least in the case of Wurm, for the reasons stated in the second paragraph.

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For the record: I do not agree with removing LT because too many players now rely on it and would get slaughtered without LT.

 

However: Wurm PvE fighting is much more fun (and yes, also somewhat more challenging) when you do not use LT. Quite some posters here in this thread consider LT to be essential. The truth is it isn't, far from it. It's entirely possible to get to pretty high fighting skills (fs 80+) without ever dying through combat, without LT, without using heavy 2-handers, without carrying tons of cotton. It even makes combat much more interesting that way instead of being near invincible no matter what happens. LT and 2-handers are basically the cheese route to high fighting skills in Wurm. Use it if you want.

 

Don't use it if you want interesting PvE combat. The choice is yours.

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Some interesting ideas raised, Lt is certainly helpful for those who wish to use it and its a choice to use.

 

Personally I decided I wanted to go more rugged and now carry around coc enchanted cotton and fight with non Lt weapons. It's a personal choice I made and I strongly enjoy it. 

 

The beauty of wurm is the choice in things, and I don't think choice needs to be removed from others in order for us to have fun with our choices. If you feel Lt is too powerful, as I did, make your own choice to not use it, and go for damage dealing spells. 

 

Wurm isn't a zero sum game, everyone gets to have fun their way 

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I love LT, as it helps people like me (who are terrible at fighting and not a fan of it most of the time) not die. I like reading the other ideas people have for their weapon spells though. Maybe I'll give some other spells a try now that I am not as bad at fighting as I was. 

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Nope, -1.  As has been pointed out, repeatedly, just because you'd like more challange doesn't mean you have to screw up other peoples' play.  If you don't like it, don't use it - there's no competition, except with yourself in pve.

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I like LT as well for the obvious reasons, but I can't find myself going back to cotton while hunting. Mostly due to weight limitations, horse speed reduction, etc. I once thought WoA could reduce cotton heal timers, boy was I wrong. I still don't get while we're at those timers even now. To give newbies a chance to heal ? 

 

On that note, It's kinda funny how LT works vs some mobs such as ... zombies? Who technically don't have a life. Or spirit templars. Unlife? :)) Scorpions for example have very little soft tissue. What does LT transfer anyway? Blood? General vitality?

 

If first aid got some love to make healing a viable alternative, I could see LT as just an option. Thing is, there is a big difference between choosing A, B, C spell for combat, each having their own pros and cons and just choosing C because it's the most practical spell to have really. Frostbrand is nice, but I'd rather have LT any day. Even RT or Venom is cute, but LT still outweighs the benefits of others.

 

That's my main issue with LT. I just can't see myself taking on longer fights without it. Unlike other games, we don't have healing potions , but we do have healing spells.

 

Not to mention damn trolls are still a pain even at 90 FS :D Gotta hand it, the most hated mob in wurm for me is still the troll. Ruins armors. Dodges a lot. Does high dmg. And regenerates fast even in combat.

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17 hours ago, Arimus said:

The point of a suggestion is to offer up a recommendation or an improvement (as seen in the eyes of the suggester).  Then, ideally there is discussion as to the merit of the idea looking at the pros and cons. We aren't making any decisions. We are just offering up feedback for the Wurm team to hopefully take into consideration. Ultimately, they are going to review the feature/change in light of their vision and then balance it with how they believe it will be received both by the current players as well as the future players. (Not to mention evaluating the technical difficulty, downstream effects, testing, documentation, and scheduling).   

 

As for feedback and discussion, Muse's response is helpful and useful. A developer/product manager would read it and take it into consideration.

 

Fairyshine, your response is not very helpful. It doesn't add anything to the discussion. Introducing other items that are not under discussion is just a red herring argument. If you like Life Transfer as it is today, then please add to the discussion by offering your reasons why. Perhaps you feel that Life Transfer is fine as is and doesn't require any changes. That is certainly fine. It's your opinion and you should feel free to voice it. But a response of 'Don't use it if you don't like it' actually discourages suggestions. That could be applied to almost every suggestion. If you don't like suggestions then I'm not sure why you are in the suggestions forum.

 

I agree that people should play Wurm as they see fit within the allowed confines. For example, I don't kill non-aggressive animals. I only kill hostile mobs. It put me at a little disadvantage at the beginning, but I am ok with that as a personal choice. I wouldn't ever suggest that no one be able to kill non-aggressive mobs (the leather making industry would crumble).

 

However, my stance is that it takes away from the game for a newish player to get a Life Transfer weapon and be able to fight trolls without risk. It takes away from the achievement of working to get high fight and weapon skills. Instead, the player should have to run away and fight that troll at a later time when they have higher combat skills or run it to a guard. Then when they finally get that solo troll kill, it will be an achievement and they will feel good about their skills because they earned them.

 

Imagine if a priest could cast a spell on imping tools that allowed a newish player to imp a weapon to level 70 bypassing the requisite weapon smithing skills. The players would of course use it. They'd be crazy not to. That's why the game doesn't have that item and is why Life Transfer as it works today is currently too powerful. (Again this is my opinion.) 

Problem solved, new players do not have LT or high ql weapons. Why are we still talking?

 

Propose an alternative or light up a fire that brings such suggestions, current thread is just making people light their torches for a different reason that is just not working well for the goal you're after.

I'd like no LT.. if I had non-priest healing ability/ies small but.. something.. to help me a bit or more in combat.. unlocked by FS/body or w/e mechanic... something.. anything.... to replace the barely ok fighting with LT...

 

alchemy.. wont be fun if you have to make 100-1000s of tiny pills/injections/potions or w/e of that kind.. plus you can not heal during combat.. I'd assume..

healing covers - you need some wound to apply.. and they provide no healing over time.. only one time thing.. useless

 

"priest enchant..." Wouldn't be surprised to see last bit come true... some oddly crazy ideas have creeped into the game lately. LT is what it is.. as there is no alternative.. ED didn't make it .. as ppl were too attached to LT anyway..

The way it works is.... you provide something better and that puts the old cool to rest.. not by introducing misery to players.. by removing the cool stuff.. provide replacement for the 1 thing... to see it less often.. progression.. not like the suggested regression and cotton balling in the corner

 

6 hours ago, Retrograde said:

Some interesting ideas raised, Lt is certainly helpful for those who wish to use it and its a choice to use.

Cringy whenever you see retro type that in highly unliked change topics, brings uncertainty into this world.. just with the sole ability to bring the idea on dev table(guessing it's how it works)

 

 

IDK I know only that I DO NOT want to play w/o LT... or very XXXXXXXXX close ALTERNATIVE to that.... it's quite annoying that you can get jumped by 5-10 mobs at once and only fight ONE at a time.... you also get debuffed by the sole number of opponents that jumped you...


Unsure how many times I've suggested improving bunch of other mechanics first before pissing off everybody by suggesting to remove this one.

btw fairy did nothing wrong.. while some wanted to show a specific finger at the idea or shoot you on the spot.. she just provided you with an example of all the things you can miss on and still have fun, while missing on them😀

(pretty sure nobody will read this right, but whatever jokes on me or the person reading it)

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-1

Fo noticed you!

 

There was already some sort of change (if I recall correctly) with healing resistance. If an in-combat healing mechanic was introduced, that’d give some good competition to LT. 

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I don't see the point of removing LT from the game, with or without LT most pve content is not a challenge. All removing LT would do is make le it harder for newer players to start grinding their FS since there are a lot more aggressive mobs then passive. 

 

After a certain point, you don't even need LT. Pretty much every mob except for champ trolls I will end the fight with nearly no damage done to me. 

 

If you want more challenge for pve, they need to add more content for that, rather than removing something that is pretty much beneficial to newer players. 

Edited by Grifo
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I now regret making any suggestions and will refrain from doing so in the future. 

 

The goal for the suggestions forum is constructive discussion for game mechanics as they affect the success of the game and the experience of the players. The Wurm team can then use the posts as they see fit when evaluating the various game features. The forum is useful because it allows people with different play styles to provide input from their perspective that may reveal a side that the original poster hadn't considered.  (For example, something that has popped up several times during the thread is the weight of cotton. That was something that hadn't even crossed my mind when posting the suggestion.)

 

Some people take the time to read the suggestion, read the responses from others, and then take even more time to explain their viewpoint in a respectful manner whether they agree or disagree. I want to say "Thank You" to them. I believe that you are highly valuable to the community and Wurm is fortunate to have you.

 

For many others, it seems that they are unable to read through the entire thread. Instead they make assumptions and lash out with attacks or reply with condescending dismissal. I know that this is the internet and should expect such things, but I really thought the Wurm forum community was better. 

 

Can a mod please lock this thread at this final post? 

 

(For further discussion I'd ask that it be taken to a different thread. I'd rather not participate.)

 

 

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