Patch Notes 10/AUG/20

[bregga 61]

Every other issue like this (Look at archery just a few days ago even) the devs nerf the skill of those that "exploited".   Many of us also spent money on these alt priest accounts and have literally nothing to show for it because we were a few days behind the trend.  We got zero skill gained from it,  our money goes to complete waste since those accounts are essentially worthless now, AND we know there are people out there that are LEAPS AND BOUNDS ahead of us.  And this isn't just oh noes they have 5 more archery skill than everyone else.  No, this means they have great CoC/WoA/BotD casting for faster skilling universally across ALL skillgains and strong casts on weapons for pvp to even further compound on their lead on everyone else.  

 

The only logical explanation I can come up with for not nerfing channeling skill gained from this "extreme exploit" is "extreme favoritism".

 

EDIT:

Because I hate presenting an issue without a suggested solution, here is my proposed fix to all of this:

 

• Step 1:  Nerf channeling skill of players to a level you as devs feel is a rational skill level if this method had not been in place (I can only guess what level that might be.  70? 65? 60? 50?) immediately.
• Step 2:  Limit the amount of linked chars to just 1-2, and have anything more than 2 apply this insane regen debuff etc that is live now.  By making it still beneficial for 1 linked char, and maybe 2 at later skill levels, you can still have a couple legit priests come together to help cast those higher favor spells.  You can also still benefit somewhat for having a battery in this way, and one single linked battery isn't going to give you gamebreaking favor regen for channeling spam.  And for those 300 favor spells, you will just know you have to incur the temporary favor regen penalty etc when you link 3+ priests together and cast it.  

 

 

Hope this helps.  I tried to convey my extreme distaste to the current state of the situation and how it has been handled, while also offering up what I would consider a happy medium to resolve the core of the problem.

 

 

~Bregga

 

Edited August 11, 2020 by bregga
Added suggested solution

[Tor 518]

So what happened to those that exploited the max number? Do they keep the benefits out of this as usual?

[Cargh 1]

Well they are going to lose all my alt batteries subscriptions if this isn't resolved in a fair way. Interesting how something that has been acceptable practise is now over night apparently wrong. Im now left wondering how many people will cease to run their batteries if this is not resolved, and how much of the actual server population, especially on Defiance is made up of bat alts, 20-30% at least right?. 

[wipeout 1,355]

You do know that the gains are normally achieved not by constant casting but by certain spells who when difficulty is increased big time start giving silly gains.

The best way to fix the immediate issue was not to give people who link a debuff that reduces favor gain to ###### and making a entire game mechanic useless as "oh no someone reported it we dont understand this game mechanic lets destroy it" reaction you threw out there instead you should have looked at the spells they used both fo and bl have a spell that bug out when an insane amount of links is used to increase their difficulty FIX THOSE dont ruin linking because you receive a report of a player and see a mechanic that has been used that way for years be used again and freak out because you did not know it existed

Linking priests together back when we had 2s alts was a thing many of us did when the cost of 15 priests was less then the cost of buying the items needed for saccing or there just was no one on the market selling the quantity needed
Now this method always lead to higher energy bill for the person doing it and more things but it was something we have been doing for years

You do know that getting to 70 channeling can be achieved within 2-3 weeks without links too right? Have a look at the amount of open air farmland some of the kingdoms have that amount of crop income will lead to high quality saccables in 2 weeks and will lead to the same thing of 70+ channeling on priests regardless of if they link or not

This right here sorry to say but really screams of a knee jerk reaction to a developer hearing a mechanic being explained to them badly for the first time by a person who is jealous of the process an enemy kingdom made and thus making changes that ruin it for everyone else because of it be it temporary or not

Linking priests is not the issue what is the issue is people being jealous that 1 kingdom is getting ahead in a skill then others and trying to moan to devs to get them punished
Every religion has ways to grind their priests up to 70+ channeling if an entire alliance is backing that priest like bl is doing heck even a 10 man freedom alliance can get 2 priests that far in no time

Mag can do infinite light tokens to 50(mine action light token action mine action so on and on 20+ channeling the day after going priest)
Vyn can do opulence 
Fo has infinite morning fog that only requires you to lead 4 creatures around while you go around and do stuff
Lib has phantasms and the next spammable one is corrupt/dark messenger

Lib arguably has it the worst of the ways to grind without linking or massive amounts of favor saccing so not only did you guys destroy a legit long term gaming mechanic that every kingdom and long term player has heard of or used in the past and present you also took away their only real way for them to grind their channeling early on continuing onwards with the trend of "screw lib we must nerf her into the ground until no one uses her anymore in pvp" and why? why are you guys so obsessed with destroying everything lib? to grind her you already need to invest in atleast 3-4 toons unless you have a massive farm(and i mean massive) from day 1 of priesthood or 1-2 players dedicated to making her other items its hard enough for her to grind it up

Now that they where smart and used a game mechanic to get ahead just like i used sleep bonus to get ahead in my mining doesnt mean that they should get nerved and punished for it EVERYONE has the same chance as they do to get ahead with mag and vyn having the easiest time to get ahead of lib

Lets take mag as an example you might say "oh but light tokens have such low difficulty the channeling ticks disappear" well thats why you link to increase the difficulty and you can keep getting the ticks and this here is done by every religion and has always been the case
If you work together as a group towards a common goal you have enough people who are willing to go and be a priest for a month or 2 before depriesting or throw in a 2 month alt and take the silver from it and anyone can get to 70+ channeling easy


But thats just my opinion on this knee jerk reaction that feels like a "we must nerf bl" just to add on the new cluster im only playing on freedom with no intention to go to the pvp server at all as im happy being a mag miner but this change would even effect me if i was to ever make 1-2 link alts


You want a fix? here is the way to fix it make linking work as intended and i dont mean with a nerf or change to how links work but with fixing the "bug"(intended feature by the big mans words) that lets you link an infinite amount of toons "fix" that part and leave linking alone dont destroy linking because 1 alliance worked together to get an edge over those who jerk around too much and play office politics in their alliance praise bl instead for working together and achieving something that has been in the game since linking was added(and reported it was bugged and told it was an okay feature by the big man himself)

[necroe 696]

Question why not make it so if you walk out of range of the link it just delinks you. Solves that entire problem.

[wipeout 1,355]

3 minutes ago, necroe said:

Question why not make it so if you walk out of range of the link it just delinks you. Solves that entire problem.

This 100% this

[Retrograde 12,013]

45 minutes ago, necroe said:

Question why not make it so if you walk out of range of the link it just delinks you. Solves that entire problem.

That's what the exploit was, it wasn't delinking properly. 

 

This gives us an opportunity to look at it all as a whole, we will be addressing the exploit directly as well as reviewing the larger mechanic of linking and how it affects balance. We'll have more on it very soon

[Nadroj 3,554]

We need a dislike button.

[Ekcin 2,401]

2 hours ago, Cargh said:

 Im now left wondering how many people will cease to run their batteries if this is not resolved, and how much of the actual server population, especially on Defiance is made up of bat alts, 20-30% at least right?. 

 

You are saying that 100+ of the 300-400 Def players are battery alts? Impressive. Yet, if so, I am sure that most if not all of them are 8s/7.99€ creations which will be around for the next 5-7 weeks.

 

Well, it is in the nature of PvP gameplay to press the last bit out of any advantage gain opportunities, so I do not scold the "exploiters". Still that attitude may have discourageing effects on newcomers who still have to learn the ropes. I hope it does not spoil their fun too much.

 

Actually, I feel the debuff punishment to be somewhat too harsh. Never did much linking on my priests though.

[Angelklaine 4,266]

14 minutes ago, Retrograde said:

That's what the exploit was, it wasn't delinking properly. 

 

This gives us an opportunity to look at it all as a whole, we will be addressing the exploit directly as well as reviewing the larger mechanic of linking and how it affects balance. We'll have more on it very soon

"Guys, priests aren't de-linking when walking out of range."

"Oh? What can we do?"

"Nerf links so anyone linking doesn't get passive favor regen."
"Seems like an excellent idea."

 

Thanks for clearing that up. 10/10. Will battery again.

[Arronicus 634]

2019: Priests are casting spells reliably using chopped veggies
favour from chopped veggies has been reduced by half
2020: Priests are casting spells somewhat reliably using links, which it turns out aren't breaking reliably due to range
favour regen while linking has been dunked off a cliff by both a favour regen penalty, and increasing the reserved favour floor
2021: Priests are STILL casting spells*
sacrificing will no longer be possible when in local range of an altar belonging to a different deity

*prediction

[Ekcin 2,401]

4 minutes ago, Angelklaine said:

Thanks for clearing that up. 10/10. Will battery again.

 

Hm. You guys are never thinking about the situation of the team these days? A patch, sometimes more, published every day, number of logins per day somewhere about tenfold, 3 more servers, lots of issues, team struggling not to drown in tickets? I am not aware that the team has been doubled.

 

Maybe this fix was not perfect. But so is the reaction.

[wipeout 1,355]

31 minutes ago, Retrograde said:

That's what the exploit was, it wasn't delinking properly. 

 

This gives us an opportunity to look at it all as a whole, we will be addressing the exploit directly as well as reviewing the larger mechanic of linking and how it affects balance. We'll have more on it very soon

Why look at it? All that needs to happen is make it delink properly linking itself is perfectly fine there is no issue when it comes to balance or anything like that linking is a simple system that gives bonuses and negatives to doing it all that needs to happen is make them delink when you walk out of range of when you can give favor to a person and enforce the cap of "channeling skill / 10) +1" thats all that needs to be enforced no more links then that and its fine it does not require to become more complex or reworked

[Nadroj 3,554]

3 minutes ago, wipeout said:

Why look at it? All that needs to happen is make it delink properly linking itself is perfectly fine there is no issue when it comes to balance or anything like that linking is a simple system that gives bonuses and negatives to doing it all that needs to happen is make them delink when you walk out of range of when you can give favor to a person and enforce the cap of "channeling skill / 10) +1" thats all that needs to be enforced no more links then that and its fine it does not require to become more complex or reworked

 

Its too late dude. They've decided to nuke the feature so itll be nuked. We'll all get told to blame players who "abused the old system" and that doing this is whats best, no matter how many disagree . When does the community becoming outraged over terrible decisions ever result in it getting reversed 😅

[Angelklaine 4,266]

19 minutes ago, Ekcin said:

 

Hm. You guys are never thinking about the situation of the team these days? A patch, sometimes more, published every day, number of logins per day somewhere about tenfold, 3 more servers, lots of issues, team struggling not to drown in tickets? I am not aware that the team has been doubled.

 

Maybe this fix was not perfect. But so is the reaction.

What does this have anything to do with linking?

Who here is bashing the staff? The devs working on the game right now are pretty much to a man community members and some of them are even people I consider friends.
 

Since when disagreeing with the work of devs means that we are bashing them? This is the exact same mentality that gets people banned. If you are not allowed to disagree respectfully but loudly, then how is anything going to change?

 

The fix is not a fix, its a slap in the face to both longtime and new players who are spending money and not getting what they paid for. If this doesn't deserve an outcry, then nothing does.

[TheTrickster 2,279]

21 minutes ago, wipeout said:

Why look at it? All that needs to happen is make it delink properly linking itself is perfectly fine there is no issue when it comes to balance or anything like that linking is a simple system that gives bonuses and negatives to doing it all that needs to happen is make them delink when you walk out of range of when you can give favor to a person and enforce the cap of "channeling skill / 10) +1" thats all that needs to be enforced no more links then that and its fine it does not require to become more complex or reworked

 

I'm not reading that until it has some full stops in it at least.  🙃

[wipeout 1,355]

1 minute ago, TheTrickster said:

 

I'm not reading that until it has some full stops in it at least.  🙃

Then by all means add them while reading them

[Arronicus 634]

8 minutes ago, TheTrickster said:

31 minutes ago, wipeout said:

Why look at it? All that needs to happen, is make it delink properly, linking itself is perfectly fine, there is no issue, when it comes to balance or anything like that, linking is a simple system that gives bonuses, and negatives to doing it, all that needs to happen is make them delink when you walk out of range, of when you can give favor to a person, and enforce the cap of "channeling skill / 10) +1", that's all that needs to be enforced, no more links, then that and its fine, it does not require to become more complex, or reworked

 

I'm not reading that until it has some full stops in it at least.  🙃

 

There, hope that helps you out, I fixed up the punctuation.

[Nadroj 3,554]

1 minute ago, Arronicus said:

 

There, hope that helps you out, I fixed up the punctuation.

Oh you.... Youre evil. 

[Davih 1,340]

I'll write a rework for you, so i'll make sure you do something else instead because it never happened that devs listened to players in the history of this game on crucial matters like this:

- Change from 1+ 1/10 to 1/15  possible links (1 link at 15 channeling 2 links at 30 channeling - 3x at 45 channeling etc... 6x at 90, which is max.)
- All link-giving priests (but not the link-receiving one) receive a 50% favor regen debuff, that lasts 5mins after delinking, the receiver is completely unaffacted by both linking or delinking.
- Leave threshold to 10, cause 20 is too much, the 50% nerf already takes care of that.
- Remove global spell cast requirement from journal (nothing to do with this, but i'll just make sure to post this everywhere) , would also be more difficult with less possible links

(optional?) Halve channeling skill of whoever clearly (not assumingly) abused the mechanic by going over maximum amount of links on purpose and for an extended period of time.

Edited August 11, 2020 by Davih

[Arronicus 634]

1 hour ago, Davih said:

I'll write a rework for you, so i'll make sure you do something else instead because it never happened that devs listened to players in the history of this game on crucial matters like this:

- Change from 1+ 1/10 to 1/15  possible links (1 link at 15 channeling 2 links at 30 channeling - 3x at 45 channeling etc... 6x at 90, which is max.)
- All link-giving priests (but not the link-receiving one) receive a 50% favor regen debuff, that lasts 5mins after delinking, the receiver is completely unaffacted by both linking or delinking.
- Leave threshold to 10, cause 20 is too much, the 50% nerf already takes care of that.
- Remove global spell cast requirement from journal (nothing to do with this, but i'll just make sure to post this everywhere) , would also be more difficult with less possible links

(optional?) Halve channeling skill of whoever clearly (not assumingly) abused the mechanic by going over maximum amount of links on purpose and for an extended period of time.

This would be an enormous nerf to something. The problem was links not breaking when people move far enough out of range. Arguably an issue is links providing a reliable source of favour to gradually grind up channeling. Something people resort to because sacrificing for favour is in such an awful place. The huge nerfs you're suggesting don't improve gameplay, they just punish people for trying to use a not-terrible mechanic in place of the really poorly implemented sacc-for-favour mechanic. Reducing the number of links would be a dramatic reduction to the amount of casts per hour you could do. reducing favour regen of links by 50% on top of that would mean at say 40 channeling, you'd be getting 25% of the link favour compared to now, and at 50, you'd get getting 30%. 

If you want the devs to listen to the players, perhaps make suggestions that reflect what the players would want, because it's not a 70%~ nerf to linked favour gain. Favour linking is a mechanic that we've had for over a decade, without players asking for it to be nerfed. 

[Davih 1,340]

5 minutes ago, Arronicus said:

This would be an enormous nerf to something. The problem was links not breaking when people move far enough out of range. Arguably an issue is links providing a reliable source of favour to gradually grind up channeling. Something people resort to because sacrificing for favour is in such an awful place. The huge nerfs you're suggesting don't improve gameplay, they just punish people for trying to use a not-terrible mechanic in place of the really poorly implemented sacc-for-favour mechanic. Reducing the number of links would be a dramatic reduction to the amount of casts per hour you could do. reducing favour regen of links by 50% on top of that would mean at say 40 channeling, you'd be getting 25% of the link favour compared to now, and at 50, you'd get getting 30%. 

If you want the devs to listen to the players, perhaps make suggestions that reflect what the players would want, because it's not a 70%~ nerf to linked favour gain. Favour linking is a mechanic that we've had for over a decade, without players asking for it to be nerfed. 

This was a suggestion for an at least "acceptable" nerf, do you realize what they just did? lol

[Radircs 76]

So after this calm a bit down why we don't use the opportunity we have to trow out some ideas for the Favor system? If it will be rebalanced anyway this is the best chance to get our voices heard before we just get hit by changes the devs have done because they think this is the best approach but maybe not what the community have hoped for.

So to keep this straight you should always give a reason what you want to archive with your suggestions. Players are terrible at game designer because of lack of perspective of all underling game mechanics so type out what you want to archive with your changes and give reasoning to your suggestions.

Let's begin with a discussion of a better Favor system. Here are my thoughts and suggestions:
The current Linking system was there to archive two things (not sure but this is my guess): Gate strong spells for balance reasons/sense of achievement and increase cross deed player interactions and trade (most deeds don't have the 2-3 Priests of one god to get the good spells)

The current system give you the following advantage (pre nerv):

The possibility to cast the high tier spells with just one or 2 more Priests with barely any Faith and a better passive favor gain saving on sacrificial mats

The Downside:
You need to get the hands on multiple Priests

Getting multiple pistes in a non Alt way is inconsistent and you "redirect" player time of the linking Priests to the one that cast. Cost them time without even making skill gain on their own in channeling so fort for the party that provide linking it is often disadvantage and you need a lot of diplomacy to get hands on multiple Priests. This limitation is somewhat good for the trading and cross deed interaction on paper but because of the nature of humans and the relative cheap price of premium compare to other games this lead more to the creation of alts because it is way more reliable (the playerbase was long time not high enough to get your hands on a second or third priests to your online times) and way less stressful (no discussion who cast for the skill gain, no need to trade for the enchantments, no need to make the travel to an other deed)

While I understand the Idea behind the system, and I am on board with the goals I make clear why this solution is not effective in my opinion. With a bigger palyerbase this would maybe work but I think we all know that this critical mass that is needed for this is quite far off.

So I would slightly change the Goals to: Hihgend spells should still be gated behind Diplomacy/Trade with other deeds OR a high group effort of the community the Priest lives in. On top of that Alts should be not useless but less useful in spacial in a relative short time frame (fresh priests after 2 Weeks just afk praying)

 

With this goals in mind this is how I would redesinge it:
Linking is still a thing and is the most efficient method to get the high-end spells.
Linking works now the following way: Every Prieste look at a fraction of the compleat Favorpool like it is their own for favor generation. The fraction the Priest look at is not linear more exponential so 2 Priests don't look at the pool like they own 50% of it and more like they own 55-60% of it. and with 3 it's the same more as 45-50%.

Building a Link cost 20-30 Favor so stockpiling Favor before the linking (or break the link and rebuild it after everyone has regen favor) is not so efficient.

For the leading Priest to be able to cast a spell every linked Priest have to meet the Faith requirement. And the spell still get the +3 penalty and a Cost increase by 10 for every link (or we keep the 10 minimum Favor and only the additional go to the pool)

Alternative to Linking:
Instant of linking to other Priests there is a new item that considers out of a base and need to be filled with a spacial Item to hold the Favor. A Priest can link them self to one of these Items it will slowly drain Favor if the Favor of the Priest is above the current Favor the Item holds. If linked a spell cast will consider the Favor in the item as Part of the Pool and will drain the Item first. Draining Favor from the item DMG the base and the holding Item. The Base is God specific the Holding item is not (so it can be stolen with its charge on PvP)

I would suggest making the base somewhat expansive like Slate, Marble or Sandstone and the Holding item Jewlesmithing with a need of Gold/Silver + One of every Gem to make it quite hard to get it early one.

The QL of the Base determine the efficiency of the Favor transfer and the QL of the holding item in the Base the maximum it can hold.
Example a QL 50 Base with a QL 30 Holding Item would be able to Hold 30 Favor but the Priest would lose 60 Favor to fill it.

This would give Priests a possibility to cast high end spells solo (except Rituals) but with a lot higher Favor cost. Since there is an inefficiencie in the transfer. On top the Priest have to have at least a favor pool of 50% of the Cast since only if he has more Favor than the holding item it will take Favor from him. The high QL needed could be archived by a small community making Priests not relay on other Deeds then his home so much and strengthen the need Inside a deed.
This should in general reduce the incentive to make alts for high end spells since its now at lest possible to get access to them and alts would still need the faith requirement (look linking change) what make them way more time intensive.


Sacrifices:
Sacrifices a non In demand item is only 1/10 as effective. (1/5 if it's a favorite god material) but each Priest have every Wurm Day some item type that gives 10x the Favor amount of its Value so preparing is way harder but after a while people will have figure out what items are in the cycle and stockpile them. This is making just random Sacs way worse but Value preparation.

So these are my suggestion for a Favor system rework what are yours?

[Pantharin 3]

I am new to the game. 

 

I am a new Priest of Fo.

 

I was not aware of this "exploit".

 

I was praying every day and casting spells 10+ my channeling skill, then praying till it my Favor regenerated, rinse and repeat.

 

I guess this change doesn't really impact me, as I do not have anyone to link with?

 

All I know is this "grind" is painful and arguably, more difficult than say a cook or any other skill I am aware of.

 

This "class" is restricted by 20 - 30 minute to 3 hour cool-downs and limited Faith gains within a 24 hour period...now there is linking nerf...it is almost like the Devs want to get rid of the Priest all together?

 

At lest it seems that way from my brand new, no experience in Wurm gaming glasses.

[Angelklaine 4,266]

6 hours ago, Arronicus said:

If you want the devs to listen to the players, perhaps make suggestions that reflect what the players would want

Oh my dear summer child...

 

There is an entire forum for suggestions that will never get implemented. Instead, we get head bobbing.

Edited August 11, 2020 by Angelklaine