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TheTrickster

Find north - without a compass.

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Direction finding is a pretty basic wilderness skill, and uses a number of features depending on location and environment.  Even without a compass, given a little time every Wurm character should be able to work out a basic orientation to North.

 

A specific "find north" action could be useful and immersive, and certainly has real-world analog.    Select a tile, then "find north" under actions, you get some guff about examining trees/rocks for moss, scrutinizing shadows, etc (similar to investigating and analyzing) and then your character orients to the north and your event log says "THIS is North".

 

Use the Nature parent skill.  The higher the skill, the faster and more precisely you can find North.  At low skill (<20) you might be as much as 45% off.

 

It could even get a subskill for Navigation, and use sextants and stars for naval navigation.

 

With a navigation skill, exploration and sailing could increase that skill, maybe based on tiles travelled that are not highways, deeds or perimeters.

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I would rather see our the natural sights be able to be used for navigation. Say our wonderful night sky in some way or using which way the clouds are moving or the suns position to help people orientate themselves to a  cardinal direction. Ofc that might kill off people making compasses. 

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Just now, BoarHead said:

I would rather see our the natural sights be able to be used for navigation. Say our wonderful night sky in some way or using which way the clouds are moving or the suns position to help people orientate themselves to a  cardinal direction

Well, yes, that is the core of what I am suggesting.

 

The navigation bit was an extra thought, but even with equipment would still be using the natural environment (sun/moons/stars) to navigate.

 

The better you are at navigating, the more obvious the Wurmian pole stars are?

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Drop a log, or a felled tree. It will land N/S oriented every time.

 

Edit: Valrei is rising in the West, and setting in the East, Jackal vice versa. Sol has been mentioned already, rising northwest, and setting southeast.

Edited by Ekcin
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um.. not for me is doesn't

 

On Harmony, the sun rises in the NW.  Just so folks know.  Very strange and takes some getting used to.  Never paid attention to it on other servers, so no idea if it is universal to Wurm.

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and I hate that N facing login.  Really messed with me in the mines when they changed it.

 

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Use terrain association. Like in the real world. You have a map use it. Don't ask for GPS instead of learning a skill.

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1 hour ago, armyskin said:

Use terrain association. Like in the real world. You have a map use it. Don't ask for GPS instead of learning a skill.

 

Not seeking GPS, and I do use terrain association, BUT sometimes when well off the beaten/paved path it is easy to get turned around and this would be a good in-game/immersive way.  At sea, at night, what terrain is there to read?  Currently I only use the compass when sailing or in dark caves and tunnels.

 

In the real world I know what time-of-day it is, which makes a huge difference.  In Wurm, it is very hard to keep track of the time-of-day in any intuitive way, so are those shadows morning shadows or evening shadows?

 

I use the map quite a bit, but it really does not show terrain beyond giving a vague idea.  

 

I am suggesting something lower-tech than the compass; something that does not give a reading but allows you orient yourself very generally from time to time.

 

Much of what a decent real-world location and navigation skill uses is simply not present in Wurm.  The map is not topographical, for starters.  Most landmarks are missing, too, including absolutely any terraforming that has been done.  Requiring players to switch out of the game to access a detailed map is immersion-breaking and disruptive.

 

 

 

 

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The trouble here is that this sounds worse than a compass, but every player starts with a compass.  The only players likely to need this are new players if they somehow lose their compass; but it would be way too inaccurate to be of any real use for them.

 

It's not adding anything new except a button to click by mistake.

 

 

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If there would be auroras that disturb the compass for several nights a year, it would make sense, but if you can determine the direction without a compass, why do we need a compass?

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15 hours ago, Etherdrifter said:

The trouble here is that this sounds worse than a compass, but every player starts with a compass.  The only players likely to need this are new players if they somehow lose their compass; but it would be way too inaccurate to be of any real use for them.

 

It's not adding anything new except a button to click by mistake.

 

 

Given that the Wurm compass is universal, I can't see this suggestion getting anywhere, but I was more looking at a skill than a tool.  Compasses are simply nowhere near as common IRL as in Wurm.  The starter compass is low enough quality that there is a long wait for it to settle (which is not the way compasses work).  Accuracy, and speed, would be a matter of skill.

 

I am IRL a fan of lightweight bushcraft, so I think that plays in my thinking here.  As useful as a compass is, a skilled survivor wouldn't need one.

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On 11/23/2020 at 5:38 PM, TheTrickster said:

 

In the real world I know what time-of-day it is, which makes a huge difference.  In Wurm, it is very hard to keep track of the time-of-day in any intuitive way, so are those shadows morning shadows or evening shadows?

 

/time isn't accurate enough?

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8 hours ago, Kelody said:

/time isn't accurate enough?

not immersive enough.

 

 

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In addition to giving a direction % off actual direction it should also give the level of certainty. e.g. "You are certain north is in that direction." or "You think north might be in that direction however you are not entirely certain."

 

While it is true that new players start with a compass, new players also start with a shovel, axe, carving knife etc. Yet it is still possible to craft the crude variants. I personally found myself in situations where I simply omitted to take my compass with me.

The find north action would be the equivalent of a crude compass. It would also not make it obsolete as it would have some sort of timer maybe 1 minute or more.

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Everquest had a skill that worked like that, it was so hated was one of the first QoL changes made. Most people that actually used it, or just skilled it, did it with macros or keybind merges (every time you moved it tried the skill) or both. We don’t need another skill grind added just to have something to do when sailing that nobody would use anyway.

 

A crude compass isn’t really that hard to make except getting olive season. The difficulty with compasses is getting high quality ones that take 4 high skills. 

Edited by Kelody

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Concerning the time: A sundial makes sense for Wurm.

Concerning finding the way north: use a compass or your surroundings. This needs no skill.

You are a wurmian, you are well capable of using Sol to find your way.

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10 hours ago, Kelody said:

Everquest had a skill that worked like that, it was so hated was one of the first QoL changes made. Most people that actually used it, or just skilled it, did it with macros or keybind merges (every time you moved it tried the skill) or both. We don’t need another skill grind added just to have something to do when sailing that nobody would use anyway.

I was the impression this would be used on-foot, sort of a survival skill. For sailing we should have something different.

Also grinding through macros is illegal as it is. The way someone would grind this skill would be the same as with other WO skills. Getting banned as a result would also be the same as with other skills :).

 

The skill could also encompass other survival aspects in the future. It would be a first step to making travelling more engaging than it is right now.

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