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Uniques - A New Approach

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My understanding from previous posts made by devs is that unique slayings have been up for "consideration" for over a year now from the last post saying they were being rethought. Has any progress been made @Pandalet?

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4 hours ago, Ekcin said:

There are 14 different legendaries, each one spawning within 2-3 weeks after the demise of the previous one. As far as I understood, a troll king spawns independently from a dragon hatchling or goblin leader or whatever (and I have evidence for, as during a forest giant slaying organized by OR, a dragon hatchling nearby was spot, and slain, too, therefore I assume that they are spawning independently). So, 14 legendary creatures on 7 servers in SFI make 98. What is wrong with that?

 

Oops. I see my mistake, sorry. It is 6 types of legendaries. So it is 42 (maybe 63)  per month in SFI.

spawns arent independent 

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SFI has 7 servers if you exclude Chaos. so.. in reality its something around 10 give or take across all servers.

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1 hour ago, sarahbee said:

spawns arent independent 

How is the dependency, then? As said, I witnessed a forest giant and a dragon hatchling on one server at the same time. So there cannot be only one legendary per server. Also, on Chaos, a hatchling and a dragon were slain lately (3/6) at the same day.

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uniques can spawn multiple at a time as one spawning doesn't close the spawn loop, 1/550 chance or so for two to spawn at the same time, but like a hatchling spawning will reset the timer for any form of unique spawning (each unique runs a 1/500 chance to spawn every 6 hours if there hasn't been a unique spawn in the last 14 days, server reboots have a much higher chance to spawn one) that unique being alive will prevent the exact same type+color of unique spawning, like you cant have 2 natural spawn green hatchlings on a server, but you can have a green and a red. most of the time it's just the unique being somewhere that nobody found it until the next unique spawned, you can often tell because one will be starving/not venerable due to server reboots and the other wont. that forest giant was already starving when i found it, so it was around for a few days, then the slaying was a few days later so most likely the forest giant was around for nearly 14 days before it was found. not having spawn times around makes figuring that stuff out a bit annoying but with the power of probability and metagaming niarja+unique age when it died you can be fairly certain about stuff like spawn windows and such

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Make all uniques much harder.

Make spawn timers a bit more random.

Add mini-uniques to rifts on last wave that drop something semi-cool, an reduce the spawns of the other mobs to half in last wave.

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11 hours ago, Pandalet said:

The unique mechanics are something we're actively looking at.  As is obvious from the various posts here, there's no easy solution, and we're still considering the various possibilities.  As this is less of a suggestion and more a discussion around an upcoming change, it's reasonable to remain in Town Hall.

 

This work doesn't have a fixed schedule as yet, as given we don't know exactly what we're going to do, we don't know how much work it'll be, or how many other mechanics it'll affect.


Publicly rolling the loot of a unique should not require the use of multiple 3rd party tools. Ideally this should be possible to do in-game. I would like to see a solution for this implemented in whatever the rework brings about.

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On 4/11/2021 at 12:10 PM, Pingpong said:

However people need to decide what their aim is in "fixing" the problem, do they want to reward every prem account in local? Do they want a hard fight? etc. Before they can know how to go about providing a good solution

 

I think this is an underrated point and should be taken further. Meaningful discussion that includes the word "should" should always be followed by an "if," if you want that discussion to lead anywhere. Else you're just butting "shoulds" rather than looking at goals, the merit of those goals, and how best to get to those goals.

 

So let's say that one goal of uniques is to get people who wish to engage with that content to go out of their deeds, seeing other deeds, other servers, maybe meeting other people. This is a good goal, since the social aspects of this game are so important.

To that extent, both the old system and the suggested Riftlike system has upsides and downsides - certainly most players aren't exploring much as they come to my slaying site (whereas the Riftlike would force this) - but a good and growing number are exploring, and (very important) are enjoying that exploring that the unique mechanics are driving. The Riftlike system, however, is completely redundant to rifts in regards to this goal. Worse, it removes self-directed exploring in favour of "go here."

 

Now a worthwhile question here is "why aren't more people exploring?" While I can't answer on behalf of those who have no interest (and if you're one of them, perhaps your opinion is desperately needed here!) but given I've been organizing scouts I have particular insights here - the most commonly reported reason is a form of learned helplessness when scouting against the private teams, whose efficiency often results in unfounded claims of cheating. A possible counter here would be to make the spawns less predictable (and hoo boy are they predictable). This itself does present several issues - mostly that if there is a pattern to spawns (and there must be a pattern) there are people that will find that pattern. As such, this would only serve to (possibly only temporarily) spread out the efforts of both groups, allowing those who have more hours to put in the better odds, rather than those with better info. 

 

Conversely, say you decided that public slayings were outside the goals of uniques (perhaps reasoning that the content should be something somewhat inaccessible). An effective way to hit how I operate would be to stop uniques entering mines, and having them leave very quickly when they do. Preventing penning, however, wouldn't stop me making them public; it would change how I do it - having to organize what I dub "sudden slayings" in which I prepare some saccables for summons and throw out messages to Freedom and maybe GL. I wouldn't be thrilled by the change, mind. If the reasoning for removing public slayings is instead to do with server load or the mass-distribution/dilution of items, then we begin The Problem of Alts, as alts are decidedly more of a contributing factor here.

Solving the Problem of Alts takes more brain power than I have available - every attempt at it has been thwarted by simply making the alts meet the bar. Want to give more hide/scale to contributing alts? Decide all priests are likely contributing alts? Boom, every alt that turns up nowadays is a priest (yeah I've been watching y'all). Even pushing me to sudden slayings won't stop a rush of alts, perhaps chaining teleport casts to arrive or simply sailing with haste. The suggestion that merit be based on damage shows some promise, but I'm cautious all the same.

 

If penning is untouched, I would definitely like to see uniques be harder. People want in on this content, but it isn't challenging. We're taking 80+ combatants to content that can be done with a disturbingly little number of people. If a goal is for uniques to be hard content, it's time to review that (sorry Epic).

 

tl;dr: Devs, more than the players, need to decide first what gameplay space uniques should fill, and second where the loot should wind up. And how it fails to fulfil these goals, if indeed it does.

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I agree with Stan in his views of this whole discussion.

 

Also thanks to @Panda for letting us know that the devs are actively looking into this. I appreciate your hard work, and subjects like this only make your work harder.

 

The following is my own opinion on the matter of course:

 

We already have the rifts for that kind of event, so I am personally not much for doing another rift-type event. I for one enjoy the rifts - while I think they can be improved.

I like the hunting part. It makes living in Wurm more exciting too and would miss it if it was removed. However, I only do it on my own server, and could never imagine travelling to another server to go hunting for uniques (unless someone living on that server requested my assistance to which they are the "finder" of the unique).

 

I for one would think bringing alts for gains are a part of keeping the money flow to the game since people are paying for those alts. As Ekcin mentioned, most people with several characters, do not have a clear line between main and alt all the time too. I would not be able to distinguish, who is my alt/main currently between the three characters I use. And as a paying customer, I would expect there to be a benefit for me paying my hard-earned money too - of which I do not have much. Sure it can feel unfair and like a pay-to-win, at times like that if one person brings 500 alts (honestly I have not experienced people bringing more than 2-3 with them, and at events with 200+ in local and 90 slayers the numbers talk for themselves there), but I don't really care what other people spend their money on. My focus is more on having fun with the community.

 

I like public slay and want everyone to get in on the dragons and experience the fun of it. It is an amazing public event, where you get together about it like no other. And seeing someone's reaction to it the first time they realize there are dragons in the game is definitely one of the main reasons for me to have unique slays in the game. I prefer public slay, where everyone has a chance to be a part of it. And that makes Wurm a very unique and wonderful game. It saddens me when those chances are missed. This game is not - to me - about the gear or being better than everyone else at something, but it is about a good community and being the best version of yourself helping others too. 

When that is said, those who found it did put in a lot of work and a lot of hours and I can understand why some people then feel like they deserve something extra for that effort. Getting a full suit of scale/drake hide takes many slays - it always has like so many other things in this game things take time. Impatience is not a good reason to want something to change, in my opinion.

 

Someone mentioned a hunting party monopoly, and locking the end game content from the rest of the player base - but some people search for uniques with the sole goal to host public slays, and I am a huge fan of those groups. I can only encourage everyone else to do the same. On top of that, I am not sure if we can call it end-game content. You can have a perfectly good set of metal outfit that is quite similar to the hide/scale in attributes. You can 'easily' get gear that protects you against the hostile monsters on the server. There are pros and cons of all types of outfits in this game, which I admire.

 

In my opinion, if anything should be changed about the unique event it would be:

  • Only public slays, but the finders get something extra (or at least let it be depending on the server they spawn on whether it is public or not)
  • The uniques are harder so they last longer and you have a greater chance to hit it if it lasts more than a minute or two (maybe based on participants common fighting skill)
  • Favour the locals when it comes to hunting the uniques (so they have priority if they are local to the server)

I don't have much knowledge about the Wurm code, or how they have programmed the functions, so I will not tell the developers what is possible or not in that regard.
But I do know there will be no solution that fits all, and I trust that the WURM crew can analyse and understand the desire of their community, and find a workable result. Maybe there is no need to redo the dragon events but maybe adding another way of getting the loot for those who have a hard time getting it. Or maybe add a third kind of event, for those who need more Boss-like events. I wouldn't mind adding events to the game, but it is dangerous changing too much about something that so many people feel so different about.

 

Also, WURM crew need to find out what the goal of having the events are besides making fun content for their players and then stick to that user experience goal.

 

tl;dr: I like hunting. I like public slays. I have some ideas/suggestions/opinions but in the end, the devs are the ones to make sense of all this chaos.

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What about a new payment model to differentiate between "alts" and mains ?

 

For example when creating a new char in Wurm you can A) Create an alt and the sub price is 50% less than the regular account. This comes with some restrictions. The alt cannot reach more than 50 in any skill, but can be used for the usual things: inventory storage, sermons, getting to a med path like path of love for enchanting grass, etc. In addition the alt cannot be elligible for drops from uniques such as blood, scales or hide. In addition alts cannot cross over to pvp servers. They can only be used for a few things, but that comes at the advantage of less of a sub price.


B ) The main is just how it is right now.

Edited by elentari

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Well, all the specific details about the idea can be ridiscussed/balanced, but the general idea is obviously good and long overdue, it's similar to many suggestions that have been made in the past and have all been ignored, so it would be really nice if something would start changing about uniques.

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Copy/paste here what I wrote elsewhere.

I am absolutely in favor of a change of how the unique system works. For me the best way would be to give to all local players the same amount of hide/scale, such as for the blood, and the person hosting the event and butchering the unique would always find a rare+ bone, a skull and a tome/other fancy item as reward for the effort in finding/penning the unique and organizing the event.

Once every player get the same amount of hide/cale there would be no more reason for make them private.

It wouldn't also kill the hide/scale market; tons of players would like to have their own armour, so people would sell/buy hide/scales anyway; each player would get a little amount of it, so the market wouldn't collapse. Or another way could be to give all the hide scale via butchering, so the host/finder/owner of the unique once butchering it would find a rare+ bone and a tome OR 1kg of hide/scale.

We are on a PVE server, events in here should be an occasion to connect the community, not to create groups who "fight" each other to find the uniques. The unique systes as it actually is could be good on a PVP server, where people are more motivated on fighting each other, trying to steal informations and the uniques. The actual system, on a PVE server, doesn't make sense.

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7 hours ago, Stanlee said:

 

I think this is an underrated point and should be taken further. Meaningful discussion that includes the word "should" should always be followed by an "if," if you want that discussion to lead anywhere. Else you're just butting "shoulds" rather than looking at goals, the merit of those goals, and how best to get to those goals.

 

So let's say that one goal of uniques is to get people who wish to engage with that content to go out of their deeds, seeing other deeds, other servers, maybe meeting other people. This is a good goal, since the social aspects of this game are so important.

To that extent, both the old system and the suggested Riftlike system has upsides and downsides - certainly most players aren't exploring much as they come to my slaying site (whereas the Riftlike would force this) - but a good and growing number are exploring, and (very important) are enjoying that exploring that the unique mechanics are driving. The Riftlike system, however, is completely redundant to rifts in regards to this goal. Worse, it removes self-directed exploring in favour of "go here."

 

Now a worthwhile question here is "why aren't more people exploring?" While I can't answer on behalf of those who have no interest (and if you're one of them, perhaps your opinion is desperately needed here!) but given I've been organizing scouts I have particular insights here - the most commonly reported reason is a form of learned helplessness when scouting against the private teams, whose efficiency often results in unfounded claims of cheating. A possible counter here would be to make the spawns less predictable (and hoo boy are they predictable). This itself does present several issues - mostly that if there is a pattern to spawns (and there must be a pattern) there are people that will find that pattern. As such, this would only serve to (possibly only temporarily) spread out the efforts of both groups, allowing those who have more hours to put in the better odds, rather than those with better info. 

 

Conversely, say you decided that public slayings were outside the goals of uniques (perhaps reasoning that the content should be something somewhat inaccessible). An effective way to hit how I operate would be to stop uniques entering mines, and having them leave very quickly when they do. Preventing penning, however, wouldn't stop me making them public; it would change how I do it - having to organize what I dub "sudden slayings" in which I prepare some saccables for summons and throw out messages to Freedom and maybe GL. I wouldn't be thrilled by the change, mind. If the reasoning for removing public slayings is instead to do with server load or the mass-distribution/dilution of items, then we begin The Problem of Alts, as alts are decidedly more of a contributing factor here.

Solving the Problem of Alts takes more brain power than I have available - every attempt at it has been thwarted by simply making the alts meet the bar. Want to give more hide/scale to contributing alts? Decide all priests are likely contributing alts? Boom, every alt that turns up nowadays is a priest (yeah I've been watching y'all). Even pushing me to sudden slayings won't stop a rush of alts, perhaps chaining teleport casts to arrive or simply sailing with haste. The suggestion that merit be based on damage shows some promise, but I'm cautious all the same.

 

If penning is untouched, I would definitely like to see uniques be harder. People want in on this content, but it isn't challenging. We're taking 80+ combatants to content that can be done with a disturbingly little number of people. If a goal is for uniques to be hard content, it's time to review that (sorry Epic).

 

tl;dr: Devs, more than the players, need to decide first what gameplay space uniques should fill, and second where the loot should wind up. And how it fails to fulfil these goals, if indeed it does.

 

I had an idea which could be addded to my concept. Perhaps it would not be visually announced like a rift, with a huge beam. Rather maybe some kind of special den looking like structure spawning at the epicenter of the next spawn. Or some scorched earth if its a dragon. That way people would still need to go out of their way. Could even add a way to activate the object and have THEN a beam appear. So people could still go and look for it and everyone would be able to find it once located.

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8 minutes ago, Capi said:

 

I had an idea which could be addded to my concept. Perhaps it would not be visually announced like a rift, with a huge beam. Rather maybe some kind of special den looking like structure spawning at the epicenter of the next spawn. Or some scorched earth if its a dragon. That way people would still need to go out of their way. Could even add a way to activate the object and have THEN a beam appear. So people could still go and look for it and everyone would be able to find it once located.

But what is the goal you are trying to achieve? A tough boss fight? A loot pinata? A vending machine? Each of these have vastly different outcomes for solutions which have all been suggested over the years and they range from, things are fine, make penning harder (been tried a lot); to the other extreme of, everyone on server gets the same loot no matter what.

What most people do not understand that is *drama* is good for cc and was even helped along by rolf, especially in the cases of uniques because it gave the community a reason to keep playing. Don't like someone? It's good for cc, because the player now has a reason to log in, form their own group of friends and be at odds with player B who is likely to form their own group of friends. Now you have competing factions with their own agendas who both think that the other group is out to "get them". But both groups of players have reasons to keep their subs going, and sometimes add to more subs because "they won't let the other guys win". On some level it's an ingenious level of internal marketing.

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1 hour ago, Davih said:

Well, all the specific details about the idea can be ridiscussed/balanced, but the general idea is obviously good and long overdue, it's similar to many suggestions that have been made in the past and have all been ignored, so it would be really nice if something would start changing about uniques.

 

So if I understand correctly, your point is as follows:  If a suggestion is made many times, but ignored by devs, it is a good suggestion and should be implemented.

 

I therefore suggest that you must pay 1g to anyone who agrees with this suggestion. 🙂

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4 hours ago, Minnie said:

 

So if I understand correctly, your point is as follows:  If a suggestion is made many times, but ignored by devs, it is a good suggestion and should be implemented.

I see that you like playing with words but... It's kinda different, more like.

If there's a suggestion that is obviously good for the community and has been made an enormous amount of times over the years by a lot of different players, maybe it's about time that the devs stop ignoring it.

which doesn't even mean that they should take it as it is or agree to implement, but at least give some kind of official answer and stop just "ignoring"

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I have been hunting for uniques for a long time now and sadly the only reason i do them anymore is because everything else is too easy in game and still need few tomes. In the decade been playing its always been some drama around them in the forum and global chat what i have seen. For me there has been no drama around them because  i invite the ppl i look for them with when find one. Dont even pen them because always been having those ppl online looking for them too..  Looking for them is one of the best parts even it takes countless of hours. Normal hunting feels pointless whacking same trolls time all over again.  

 

Making them harder would make it that need to pen them again so we can get the amount of online to kill them. But then again they are too easy atm. 

 

I would like to get them all in one location. Take them out from current servers so all will be safe from the beasts and relocate them somewhere ppl can go to die with their own risk and gain. Not like rifts with a time limit so you need to be online in certain time. For ppl less skill gain and knowledge the monster could be easier and for the people that wants challenge a lot harder.

 

Is it a hunting server or a ticket for a portal for a hunt area..it should be earned from playing and available for all. There should be a time limit so cant be farmed.

 

Loot points could be a thing ..but at least i want to see some visual loot from drops..feels always better...feels like have won something. And why does is allways give the same stuff..add some random loots in there for fun. Dragons could be eating some knights on the way of their lifeline.

 

What ever you do dont take the last hunting experience away. i Would love a hunting server even with gear loss upon death. Jackal was a good server..sadly dident wanna start skilling from 0 again.

 

Current hunting has been boring for a long time for me..i would like to see more challenges in the near future and travel to dangers head on with friends.

 

Balancing this will be hard so good luck ^^

 

 

 

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do not make uniques like rifts - rifts need to be repaired, as point system on rift is a completely fail, because it reward just for targeting mobs not need to do any damage...  it should be based on damage done for mobs.

 

when me and couple frinds started that game many years ago we was killing 1 wolf by 5 people - that was for new players, so if new player cry loudly because he see when others killing a dragon, and he not get anything from it, it is silly.

small group will an;t kill a unique if they use crappy weapon and other gear, have gear good enough takes lot of effort.

 

hunting for a unique usually takes a lot of time, sometimes was riding around map for 16 hours and find nothing, by many people in many days, and finally find that one unique mob - and after that some people want to share it with everybody, even if they not moved body from deed?

i think curent system works fine, it allow groups of friends to do some kind of hunting together, and if the group want they make public event (which i not especially like because of global lag when hundrets of people travel at same time).

everybody can join a hunting group but starting relationship with "take me to unique killing group" will not work :) i think everybody have couple friends who might be interested in forming another group and join that fair and nice competition :)

currently there are couple active hunting groups, and we not see others as enemys, we are friends who just compete :)

 

and for those who not understand mechanics of scale/hide distribution:

if someone think dragons just give to everybody 0.02 not matter how many people will be at slaying is completely wrong

drake gives from 0.50 up to 6.00 kilograms of drake hide split in equal pieces between all people in local

dragon gives from 2.00 up to 10.00 kilograms of scale

many times heard from people "why do you make them private? isn't better to make it public to deliver to game 200x 0.02 instead of 15x 0.02?"  <--- calculate again :D

 

 

 

 

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33 minutes ago, kgorski said:

and after that some people want to share it with everybody, even if they not moved body from deed?

 

Yes.

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45 minutes ago, kgorski said:

do not make uniques like rifts - rifts need to be repaired, as point system on rift is a completely fail, because it reward just for targeting mobs not need to do any damage...  it should be based on damage done for mobs.

 

when me and couple frinds started that game many years ago we was killing 1 wolf by 5 people - that was for new players, so if new player cry loudly because he see when others killing a dragon, and he not get anything from it, it is silly.

small group will an;t kill a unique if they use crappy weapon and other gear, have gear good enough takes lot of effort.

 

hunting for a unique usually takes a lot of time, sometimes was riding around map for 16 hours and find nothing, by many people in many days, and finally find that one unique mob - and after that some people want to share it with everybody, even if they not moved body from deed?

i think curent system works fine, it allow groups of friends to do some kind of hunting together, and if the group want they make public event (which i not especially like because of global lag when hundrets of people travel at same time).

everybody can join a hunting group but starting relationship with "take me to unique killing group" will not work :) i think everybody have couple friends who might be interested in forming another group and join that fair and nice competition :)

currently there are couple active hunting groups, and we not see others as enemys, we are friends who just compete :)

 

and for those who not understand mechanics of scale/hide distribution:

if someone think dragons just give to everybody 0.02 not matter how many people will be at slaying is completely wrong

drake gives from 0.50 up to 6.00 kilograms of drake hide split in equal pieces between all people in local

dragon gives from 2.00 up to 10.00 kilograms of scale

many times heard from people "why do you make them private? isn't better to make it public to deliver to game 200x 0.02 instead of 15x 0.02?"  <--- calculate again :D

 

 

 

 

A change in the system doesn't mean to leave it as it is but making any event public. It is obvious that the problem of the actual system is the distribution of the hide/scale loot as it is now, capped to a certain amount of weight. A change in the system should work on this mechanic too, like for example giving everybody the same amount without a cap limit (this would mean that every premium player would get, for example, 0,02 hide/scale, no matter if in local there are 15 or 200 players, or another way could be to obtain the hide/scale by butchering the unique, the same way you get bones and tomes. There are tons of possibilities and suggestion, a rework doesn't mean to take a thing and just make that public without doing anything else.

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in old mechanics(2014 and before) isn't it worked as getting hide/scale from butchering?

 

 

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For me, personally.  I would love to see uniques treated much like Rifts in terms that they're community hunts that the whole community can be a part of without having a side claiming it for themselves.  Maybe give that those who participate and contribute a certain level into the hunt can gain a chance of getting rarer drops out of killing the unique. 

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On 4/13/2021 at 11:52 PM, kgorski said:

in old mechanics(2014 and before) isn't it worked as getting hide/scale from butchering?

 

 

 

I don't know how it worked in 2014, but if something was fixed once it doesn't mean it can't be fixed anymore, and mine are just suggestions, I am not the only one making them and it doesn't mean that they have to add my suggesion as it is; it could be implemented, it could be considered not good compared to other suggestions, they could just work with unsuggested changes, I mean they could rework it with something that was not proposed by any of us but that comes from GMs/Developers ideas. 

As I sayd, there are so many opions that can be considered.

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It seems that there are some topics most agree, some many agree, and some which are not openly outspoken

 

1.  There seems to be widespread agreement that public slaying events are desirable (the usual ranting suspects considering them a clown show aside).

 

  • Private and Public Slayings

But it is not clear how many public slayings are desirable. I want to come back to the count of uniques. As OR explained (thanks to him and Sarahbee for clarifications), the spawn mechanics allow for 2 (plus some random bit ) uniques on average to spawn on any server per month. The weekly server reboot, and some extra reboots due to technical disturbances and hotfixes may increase that somewhat.

 

This is corroborated by the figures given below and further inspection of Niarja. The highest slayings count I found so far was in 10/2020 with 4 legendaries (dragons/drakes) killed on Xanadu (Interestingly, none was starving). But most figures vary between 1 and 2, seldom 3 per month and server.  

 

According to Niarja, 35 uniques have been slain in Q1/21 on South Freedom, and 4 on Chaos. There have been 6 public slayings among them during that period.

 

This might indicate too few public slayings. But really, and how much too few? A public slaying on weekends twice a month is likely to let such events be something special. If all uniques in that period would have been slain publicly, that would have spelled 3 slayings every week. That might lead to much declining numbers of participants, and likely loss of interest in such events. It would then be frustrating for organizers whose effort would remain same but be awarded by less attention. In the end, too many public slayings might do more harm than good.

 

  • Scale and Hide

 

Moreover, with the loot (hide/scale) distribution staying same, a drastic increase of public slayings would lead to increased shortage of hide and scale.
Much of the scattered bits never are redistributed and concentrated so that they may serve for the creation of armour pieces much less full sets. Rather much thereof is rather hoarded, be it in the hope to get more some day, or just as a trophy. Not few of it perishes with players leaving forever.

 

  • SFI/NFI Situation

All that said, it is necessary to point at the different situation in SFI and NFI. On the north south cluster, a solid base stock of drake and scale sets as well as raw hide and scale exists. The mean price may be indicated by Jaz' offers of 50s/kg hide, and 70s/kg for scale. Of course, those prices may be exceeded or undercut given market, and buyer/seller situations. But certainly, it is possible to get a set when willing to pay for.

And assuming 1 set per drake/dragon slaying on average, and 50-60% of the material yielded going into crafting (be it directly, or over the market) , there is a yearly new supply of some 40-60 new armour sets, most probably offsetting the inevitable loss by players leaving without circulating that stuff.  

 

The situation on NFI differs much. From the launch until end of Q1/21, 21 dragons and hatchlings have been slain altogether, 6 of them in public, 9 dragon/drake slayings. 3 public, in Q1 2021. The number of sets resulting therefrom is neglectible compared with the number of players (still about 60% of Wurm players active on NFI). Dragon/drake sets may be the most rare and prestigious item in all of NFI, and virtually inaccessible for nearly everybody.

There are no easy solutions. Creating NFI bandaids may cause a server split which will be utterly hard to fix in the future. A possibility would be a series of GM staged events with public slayings along with dramatically increased amount of scale or hide for everyone ("helicopter" scale/hide). That way, a healthier distribution of these assets could be achieved whithout splitting the clusters, and not preventing a future merge. The latter will of course remove the tense situation to a wide extent (though prolly resulting in skyrocketing prices for the then former SFI). All that has to be planned carefully.

 

2. There seems to be alt least some consensus that legendary fights should be made harder, not the kind of public executions public slayings are now.

 

Just drastically raising health and/or deadliness of legendaries will certainly make fights more challenging and interesting, but also cause problems for all just stumbling over them. Such changes have to be considered with care. Another possibility would be making strength of the creatures scale with the number of attackers (if that is reasonably possible to be coded), probably adding special attacks for the creature, possibly "extra lives" (having to be brought down to health 0 multiply before dying, the multiplicator scaling with the number of fighters).

 

tl;dr : Think what you are wishing for.

Edited by Ekcin
correction
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Why not distribute drake, hide, blood, bones, tomes through archeology and fishing?

 

Put together a bone or tome like you would make a statue or mask.

 

It would definately make these skills more popular. Time based hostings always suck the for the person on the other side of the world.

Edited by Bittereinder

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