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Retrograde

Prayer Skill Tweaks

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We've spent a bit of time following the prayer skill progress, and while the changes are a step in the right direction, we feel they are too big of a step. 

 

As such, we will be doing a short patch in which we will be adjusting it slightly, making skillgain a little slower to ensure it doesn't become trivial but still remains significantly faster than as it was before. 

 

Faith will still be a huge bonus for skillgain, and even sub-optimal skillgain will be faster than optimal skillgain was before any changes were made.

 

at 100 faith, the original skillgain action time to get to 70 prayer was roughly 70 hours, with the new system it became around 20% of that. With this change it will become roughly 32%, meaning a significant improvement still. 

 

This change is with short notice, not to avoid a rush on prayer skilling, but mostly to ensure our numbers and testing felt right before releasing the patch. 

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Still an improvement of the old system, so thank you for that! 

7 minutes ago, Retrograde said:

at 100 faith, the original skillgain was roughly 70 hours of action time, with the new system it became around 20% of that. With this change it will become roughly 32%

Also, thanks so much for providing some solid numbers so we have a good idea of how the previous change and this change compared to the original. Helps a lot when gauging how much of a buff and nerf these were. 

 

Can I ask what goes into the thinking of what "feels right"? Do you mainly consider how long it will take a skill to get to 100?

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At  74 faith I am currently getting Prayer skill ticks of 0.009 with a prayer affinity meal and sleep bonus at Prayer skill 53, and you plan on slowing that? Do I need to get to 100 faith before I see an increase in Prayer skill from these levels?

Edited by solmark
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i tried it and didn't feel it being THAT amazing compared to the epic shortcut if we are only looking into unlocking the benediction journal task. Prayer skill ticks seems utterly random and that's probably something you want to fix before nerfing it down... (or why the epic consistency with the skill tick is better than the freedom randomness which allows to finish the task faster).

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1 minute ago, Odynn said:

i tried it and didn't feel it being THAT amazing compared to the epic shortcut if we are only looking into unlocking the benediction journal task. Prayer skill ticks seems utterly random and that's probably something you want to fix before nerfing it down... (or why the epic consistency with the skill tick is better than the freedom randomness which allows to finish the task faster).

 

That's due to faith lowering the difficulty on Freedom, whereas any successful action got a tick on epic, you had to get a tick in the 1-40 range on freedom, almost no difficulty = almost no ticks. 

 

Comparing intended mechanics vs unintended ways to abuse a mechanic is not the best way to go about it. 

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 are you considering the fact people used : SB / Food affinities / Affinities / PoK 11 for the faster grinders? 70 hours of grind is what it used to be on epic too... on freedom, you can queue up 8 actions and get a single tick... so not sure how you managed your new thing, but i don't see it being like 22 hours of pure grind...

 

12 minutes ago, Retrograde said:

Comparing intended mechanics vs unintended ways to abuse a mechanic is not the best way to go about it. 

 

Or why you should consideer what I said :

 

16 minutes ago, Odynn said:

Prayer skill ticks seems utterly random and that's probably something you want to fix before nerfing it down

 

If we look into relatively grindy skills, like climbing, foraging, botanising, you have results... prayers... nope... and seeing you say that altars QL no longuer matters, not sure where you want to get the :

 

14 minutes ago, Retrograde said:

you had to get a tick in the 1-40 range on freedom

 

or if the 1 out of 8 prayers giving a skill tick is normal... which i highly doubt... gotta remember that anything relying on wurm RNG is broken and have been since the start.

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Is there any other reason to train prayer skill than benediction? This skill grind comes on top of a already difficult achievement. I do not see why it needs to be harder. I get that Wurm should be hard, and when there is some variety in stuff, it is ok. But this is just boring hours pressing a button for no other reason than benediction, and now it shall be even slower again? Sorry, but I do not see that is brings anything positive to the game. If the reason is purely to make benediction harder, then maybe add some other requirement instead? If the reason is that any skill itself should be hard to get, maybe add some other benefit to it as well (unless there are some that I have missed)?

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Any data on the gain for 30 faith toons (non-priests) that want the 90 title in praying? *hides*

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5 minutes ago, Nordlys said:

Any data on the gain for 30 faith toons (non-priests) that want the 90 title in praying? *hides*

you get shot out of a cannon into the sun

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2 hours ago, Retrograde said:

We've spent a bit of time following the prayer skill progress, and while the changes are a step in the right direction, we feel they are too big of a step. 

 

As such, we will be doing a short patch in which we will be adjusting it slightly, making skillgain a little slower to ensure it doesn't become trivial but still remains significantly faster than as it was before. 

 

Faith will still be a huge bonus for skillgain, and even sub-optimal skillgain will be faster than optimal skillgain was before any changes were made.

 

at 100 faith, the original skillgain was roughly 70 hours of action time, with the new system it became around 20% of that. With this change it will become roughly 32%, meaning a significant improvement still. 

 

This change is with short notice, not to avoid a rush on prayer skilling, but mostly to ensure our numbers and testing felt right before releasing the patch. 

Thanks for keeping up updated, could I query your parameters for the hours is this assuming sb/affinites/food/pok/nutrition I'm just wondering if I'm doing it wrong since I've spent more than 14 hours praying since the patch, my estimate would be closer to 35-40 hours of prayer, similar to the time for the gems.

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The Hours count sounds wrong.  Before the major update it was something disgusting, in the hundreds of hours.

 

After the update I'd estimate it to be at 40-50 with food, SB. After this latest update... not sure.

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The action time counts may not be exactly accurate due to other things that used to be involved in the prayer skillgain calculations (like altar quality - that no longer affects the skillgain), but the percentages that Retrograde presented here are representative of what the change(s) result in. Today's patch notes contain some more details on this.

 

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I can bring up my logs, but I am certain I had hundreds of hours praying and ended up around 56 prayer before the original changes.  Without epic, or praying as a layman, prayer used to be a tall task for an actual priest. (Even at the water, even with food, even with SB)

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40182 instances of "You start to Pray" in my logs.  That's about 280 Hours of prayer. Thats to hit ~56 prayer.  Tell me again how you came to your estimate?

 

8117 Times just in December

 

I have real world data that suggests you numbers are off by an exponential amount.  I can also bring up my old Freedom priest, who after also expending hundreds of hours trying to do it the right way, I cheesed it on epic to finish it off.

Edited by Reverent
Bringing actual proof to my claims.
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Hmmm... just when i figured it may time to get prayer up..

Wurm , if its fun  it's time to nerf....

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28 minutes ago, Samool said:

The action time counts may not be exactly accurate due to other things that used to be involved in the prayer skillgain calculations (like altar quality - that no longer affects the skillgain), but the percentages that Retrograde presented here are representative of what the change(s) result in. Today's patch notes contain some more details on this.

 

Ok thanks, so the higher tickrate remains but the 50% increase in tick size has been reversed. Good to know.

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To track this. Faith 74, Prayer 54, with SB and Prayer Aff Meal

 

Before today's update

[14:07:51] Prayer increased by 0.0095 to 54.2967

After today's update

[14:34:31] Prayer increased by 0.0059 to 54.3262

Edited by solmark
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I got to 100 faith by almost only doing prayer and my prayer ended up being at 54, and that took me hundreds and hundreds of hours, years actually because of how boring it is,  and how useless the skill is, it was never worth investing time until they added it to the benediction goal, in my opinion that was completely unbalanced skill gain. 100 faith and only 54 prayer.

 

After the first rework of the prayer skill I spent around 11 hours just grinding it using sleep bonus and affinity meals to take my skill from 66 to 70, I do not find that an unreasonable amount of skill gained for the time, sleep bonus, affinity meals invested to do so. Any other skill I invested that kind of time and resources to grind would have gained a lot more then 4.00 skill in my opinion.

 

The Prayer skill is a useless skill and to make it harder to accomplish does not make any sense at all. It is a useless skill and we are not gaining anything other then the benediction goal by grinding it to 70. No one is gaining any unfair advantage by leaving it the way it is now.

 

 

Side note:

You keep dumbing down the game for new players by giving them so many advantages none of us long time players had when we started playing and we did just fine and stayed because we loved the game not because it was easy to do and probably because it was hard to do, it was a great accomplishment to achieve all that we did. Adding flashing heat maps and giving them everything they need to play the game is going too far. I think this new player hand holding is getting out of hand and needs to be re-examined . People have more respect for and appreciate the things they had to work hard to get or achieve a lot more then the things just handed to them because they showed up.

 

Just my rant

 

💜 Sun

 

Edited by VelvetSun
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"Slight nerf"

57 prayer skill, 90 faith, skill tick before change was 0.0035, now its [18:06:11] Prayer increased by 0,0022 to 57,2508

without any boosts (being mag priest)

 

question... how the 70 hours was counted to get to 70 prayer?? is that with everything maxed, like 5 affinites + food + SB and PoK? otherwise i smell BS.

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I had 100 faith and 51 prayer before the first update.  Prayer is now 52.  I don't have an opinion on the latest change, because I am not close to Benediction, and I can't find any other suitable use for the Prayer skill.

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5 hours ago, Retrograde said:

at 100 faith, the original skillgain action time to get to 70 prayer was roughly 70 hours

@Retrograde

I'll believe it if you livestream it.  Go on; you could do it in 3 8 hour livestreams (under the new system) according to you!  Only natural sleep bonus and an affinity meal mind ;)

 

 

That said, I've not had the time recently to test this out extensively so I can't draw an accurate comparison between the original change and the new change.  All I can say is any change is better than none.

 

 

However...  Lets take a look and do some maths...  Just for fun.

 

20% of the time means skillgain is 500% the speed (so if it takes 700 hours originally, it would take only 140 hours [or 14 hours according to retro])

36% (not 32%, because that would be faster than 300%) of the time means skillgain is at 300% the speed (so if it takes 700 hours originally, it would only take ~234 hours [or ~23.4 hours according to retro])

 

So we're gaining a full day of play altar chained (or more likely 12ish full 8 hour days of prayer grind, 24 without sleep bonus)

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8 hours ago, Zuelatak said:

Still an improvement of the old system, so thank you for that! 

Also, thanks so much for providing some solid numbers so we have a good idea of how the previous change and this change compared to the original. Helps a lot when gauging how much of a buff and nerf these were. 

 

Can I ask what goes into the thinking of what "feels right"? Do you mainly consider how long it will take a skill to get to 100?

Really would like to know more about that. As there are many skills which need looking at considering the time it takes to level them. *COUGH* weapon smithing *COUGH*

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3 hours ago, VelvetSun said:

Side note:

You keep dumbing down the game for new players by giving them so many advantages none of us long time players had when we started playing and we did just fine and stayed because we loved the game not because it was easy to do and probably because it was hard to do, it was a great accomplishment to achieve all that we did. Adding flashing heat maps and giving them everything they need to play the game is going too far. I think this new player hand holding is getting out of hand and needs to be re-examined . People have more respect for and appreciate the things they had to work hard to get or achieve a lot more then the things just handed to them because they showed up.

 

Just my rant

 

💜 Sun

 

 

This !

I'm far from 70 Prayer but making the game easier to attract new player is not a good idea ... btw if you think it's a good idea, let all game mecanisms as they are and make skillgain X2 or X4 or more on new servers only ... we all know they will never be linked to old cluster so:

 

- Don't change game mecanisms = less dev work to make things easier or newbie attractive = more dev work to focus on key things that NEED to be fixed / improved for EVERY players

- Put higher skillgain ratio on new cluster = things easier for new players as you think it will bring more players (for me no but ...) = let things as they are for long time player we are on old cluster except long time needed fixes (just check Suggestions & Ideas forum and see what is asked for years and approved by a majority of long time players)

 

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So the usual mix of "omg its so hard, please make it easier" and "omg you made it easier, the game is going to ruin"

 

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

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3 hours ago, Syhl said:

I'm far from 70 Prayer but making the game easier to attract new player is not a good idea ... btw if you think it's a good idea, let all game mecanisms as they are and make skillgain X2 or X4 or more on new servers only ... we all know they will never be linked to old cluster so:

This wasn't a change done to attract new players, no one comes into this game and thinks "damn, i'd love that prayer skill if it weren't so hard to grind." This change was necessary as the grind was absolutely ridiculous, not a "challenge."

As long as they don't start touching every skill that gets complained a bit about like weaponsmithing, this is fine.

Fix skills that can really only be trained through creation, too.

Edited by Synjor

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