Valrei International: Feeding time!

[Josso 156]

Considering the patch is going to hit in two weeks, I wish there was a little less ambiguity. I think I know what happens to current 5-speeds, but Im not sure. They will turn into 3-speeds when riding, and 2-speeds when dragging a cart?

Will this be on the test server, ideally with dramatically improved pregnancy speeds for testing purposes? This is the only real content patch Ive seen since joining the game, and it seems quite ambitious.

The way I see it, hell horses will generally replaces horses, considering they can now be bred to be non-aggressive. This makes breeding without a fo-priest unfeasible. Am I wrong in my assumptions?

[Borstaskor 503]

Quote

The way I see it, hell horses will generally replaces horses, considering they can now be bred to be non-aggressive. This makes breeding without a fo-priest unfeasible. Am I wrong in my assumptions?

 

That probably depends on how rare the rare traits are. It's not like rare tools have replaced normal tools for most people just because rare tools exists. Hell horses also cannot be hitched indefinitely without the use of a bunch of runes, which is not within everybody's budget to continuously dump. If anything, passive hot blooded hell horses will probably end up being the go-to best-in-slot for riding purposes while taking up a care-for slot. I think a lot of people who cried when hell horses got the hitch nerf will be happy now when hell horses gets buffed with a new specific use.

Edited May 18, 2021 by Borstaskor

[Calan 86]

1 hour ago, Borstaskor said:

I hope some consideration will be put in to balancing this properly to possibly address some of the issues a lot of people commenting here have, such as their 50 AH skill can't compete with 90 AH skill anymore.

 

I'm in firm belief that a higher skill should be better than a lower skill. This is how it works for more or less every skill in wurm.

 

(Giskard here. 😉)

 

True, but AH is one of those skills like faith and meditation that you can't simply grind out. Time restrictions are a real thing, as breeding a single foal takes days and you can only have so many animals on your deed. I think AH currently satisfies a different playstyle than many of the other trade skills; it's fairly unique in that a relatively casual player (not based on how much time they play, but how much time they spend of progressing a specific skill) can breed top-speed horses after a few months of play (it's taken me six months, and I've only just gotten 5 speeds). Turning AH into another trade skill for people willing to grind to 90 and taking one of the few trade skills that suits those of us who aren't willing to grind to 90, sits very badly in my stomach.

 

There are other benefits that high AH could bring without nerfing us 50 AH players. E.g., reducing the min/max birth time roll the higher your AH. And with the new split between draft/speed traits, giving a 90+ AH player the ability to breed in both draft and speed, as well as one or two other beneficial traits like spark in eyes would seem give 90+ AH a reasonable advantage without nerfing 50 AH players: 90+ AH players would be able to charge a premium for these pristine horses, but we 50 AH players would still be able to breed full-speed horses -- and they'd still be in demand.

 

But the way this is written - traits costing up to 20 points each, and AH capping the total points - it seems pretty clear they're not intending 50 AH players to be able to breed the fastest horses.

[Borstaskor 503]

8 minutes ago, Calan said:

 

(Giskard here. 😉)

 

True, but AH is one of those skills like faith and meditation that you can't simply grind out. Time restrictions are a real thing, as breeding a single foal takes days and you can only have so many animals on your deed. I think AH currently satisfies a different playstyle than many of the other trade skills; it's fairly unique in that a relatively casual player (not based on how much time they play, but how much time they spend of progressing a specific skill) can breed top-speed horses after a few months of play (it's taken me six months, and I've only just gotten 5 speeds). Turning AH into another trade skill for people willing to grind to 90 and taking one of the few trade skills that suits those of us who aren't willing to grind to 90, sits very badly in my stomach.

 

There are other benefits that high AH could bring without nerfing us 50 AH players. E.g., reducing the min/max birth time roll the higher your AH. And with the new split between draft/speed traits, giving a 90+ AH player the ability to breed in both draft and speed, as well as one or two other beneficial traits like spark in eyes would seem give 90+ AH a reasonable advantage without nerfing 50 AH players: 90+ AH players would be able to charge a premium for these pristine horses, but we 50 AH players would still be able to breed full-speed horses -- and they'd still be in demand.

 

But the way this is written - traits costing up to 20 points each, and AH capping the total points - it seems pretty clear they're not intending 50 AH players to be able to breed the fastest horses.

 

That's why I said that balancing would need to be done properly and also gave an example of that in the post you quoted. The example basically being one of the examples you yourself gave.

Edited May 18, 2021 by Borstaskor

[envoh 19]

14 hours ago, DemonaNightshade said:

These have wonderful effects like making aggressive creatures permanently passive (hello, house cats!)

Does this mean that I can now breed hell horses specifically for people who insist on bringing hell horses to rifts now, and no one can get mad at it because it will stop kicking everyone.

[Malena 2,854]

10 hours ago, Cecci said:

Wonder how high AH Malena and her alts have?

Specially on the new cluster.

 

I have 2 characters with Animal Husbandry. Malena on the old servers, Saphireena on the new servers.

 

Malena started her journey in life in 2013 and once she was finally able to breed 5-speeds in 2015, she opened up her horse market on Xanadu. Everything was hunky dory until her AH skill quickly hit the dreaded 60 skill mark.

 

Every horse breeder is faced with this dilemma before long and many solve it by creating additional alts. I didn't want to burn myself out on Wurm however, so I decided to go a different route and just sell "5-speeds with additional good traits" instead. As many of you know, I've been selling "5-speed + spark" horses on Xanadu for years now and the plan was that when Malena hits 70 (she has 69.63 now) that I'll just add another positive trait like "strong and healthy".

 

Although choosing this path has surely lost me a lot of potential customers who go for pure 5-speeds, it's all worked out in the end because I managed to find my own niche in the horse selling business and have become known as the one selling nice riding horses with "added benefits".

 

When the new servers were released last summer, I started up my character Saphireena and naturally wanted her to be a horse breeder as well. Once she hit the 50 mark, admittedly I did pause to think about what I'm going to do. In the end I decided to stick to the formula that was working so well for me on Xanadu, so I intentionally raised her skills to over 60 as well, so I could get spark in there. I figured that since all other breeders are selling pure 5-speeds, it would probably be wise to stick to my niche over on the new servers as well. Saphireena's current skill is 62.96. 

 

So it's just the two characters with AH. I do have alts, but they're only for digging and mining stuff.

 

I hope you enjoyed that little story and that it that answers your question Cessi 🙂

[Vorticella 958]

Will ebony horses still have an extra speed bonus, and if so will that apply to all blood types?

[Ecrir 887]

31 minutes ago, Calan said:

There are other benefits that high AH could bring without nerfing us 50 AH players. E.g., reducing the min/max birth time roll the higher your AH. And with the new split between draft/speed traits, giving a 90+ AH player the ability to breed in both draft and speed, as well as one or two other beneficial traits like spark in eyes would seem give 90+ AH a reasonable advantage without nerfing 50 AH players: 90+ AH players would be able to charge a premium for these pristine horses, but we 50 AH players would still be able to breed full-speed horses -- and they'd still be in demand.

 

But the way this is written - traits costing up to 20 points each, and AH capping the total points - it seems pretty clear they're not intending 50 AH players to be able to breed the fastest horses.

 

Doesn't sound like breeding a horse with both draft and speed wouldn't actually work that well. If you read the category part you see that the animal gets it's category based on the traits it has, so category wise it would either be a speed or a draft horse, not both. And for breeding it passes along the traits from it's category more easily to it's offspring. Depending on the point cost of the traits you might not even want to make a horse like that, or it would only be possible with a ton of negative traits added in.

 

Looking at the info that's been given so far, perhaps a 50 AH player will be able to make full-speed horses, it would just require a few negative traits in the mix, which might not even have to affect speed and could thus be irrelevant if you're looking to buy a speed horse. Sounds like a 90+ AH player might then be able to breed full speed horses with less or no negative traits. If it works out like that then that sounds really good to me, especially as it's pretty rare that a skill actually allows you to do stuff at higher levels that you cannot do at lower levels (not counting just being able to imp something to a slightly higher number). Though of course this is all guesswork as we don't have the actual point values of traits.

[Borstaskor 503]

14 minutes ago, Ecrir said:

 

Looking at the info that's been given so far, perhaps a 50 AH player will be able to make full-speed horses, it would just require a few negative traits in the mix, which might not even have to affect speed and could thus be irrelevant if you're looking to buy a speed horse.

 

If the breeder is/has a fo priest, then it's probably easy enough to have the negatives on their own breeding pairs and then cleanse the horses that are for sale.

If not, then it's probably (less easy but very possible) up to the buyer to find a friend afterwards to cleanse it for them.

 

There are blacksmiths that also have a vyn priest that can sell enchanted tools (similar to cleansed horses) that is simply buy and use while there are blacksmiths that doesn't have a priest alt that sell tools that you'd then have to get casted by another player.

 

I believe that players will adapt.

Edited May 18, 2021 by Borstaskor

[LionIX 354]

Do the horse shapes actually impact anything? Based on how I read it, it seems like purely a cosmetic thing to show what category the most traits are in. The traits do the actual stats. 

[Grumpled 138]

I know I sound horribly negative (I don't do well with change), but I am honestly glad that AH will no longer be so bland, that there's some love for non-horses within this update, and also troughs and bowls.

 

But I still have concerns, mainly things that will eventually be fine after a horrible transition period from the entirety of current livestock to new improved ones.

 

Deed ratios and care for spots really need tweaked to account for everyone likely needing more livestock now that our all rounders are no longer great at everything, just ok.

 

I feel for those who stopped at 50AH years ago because the game was badly balanced after that point. that they didn't grind AH further isn't really their fault but they will be penalized for it now. Yes, eventually it'll be fine and it's only fair that higher skill has better benefits, but that doesn't help in the immediate aftermath.

 

If current horses are going to be slower come update day, many people would be advised to leave deed with caution until they have bred something that can outrun a mob train while pulling a fully loaded cart or wagon.

 

Are my current 5 speed bison going to become utterly useless for breeding? while someone with little to no AH and three-legged bison has ideal breeding stock for draft bison? This also doesn't seem fair. I know currently bison only need three 'speed' traits to be as fast as they can be, but having 5 speed breeding stock helped breed decent offspring without having to worry about negative traits so much (and needing that darned Fo assistance). If bison operate on a different pool of potential traits than ridden animals, then this is not so much of an issue, but it's a worry until that is known.

 

The thing I'm mostly curious about for ridden creatures is the number of traits in each 'type' pool, and whether having breeding stock with a,b,c speed traits then pass on d,e,f speed traits and whether d,e and f are just as desirable as a,b and c or if you're getting a lucky dip each time and may as well breed any speedy horse and hope for the best.

Edited May 18, 2021 by Grumpled
spaces are good

[validate 598]

I think back to cooking update at first hated it didn’t touch it for years. Now I love it. Just made my first pizza this week. I do think wurm needs skills to have more meaning more complicated things  to keep us engaged.   I still don’t fish really but do plan to. The net is good for me but I’m sure the harder stuff will be worth it later on as animal husbandry will be too in a few months .  
I just hope I’m not waisting time working on my FO priest 

[Delone 215]

More thoughts:

 

• Almost every single current well bred bison will become useless, both for pulling and for breeding - the 3 speed traits that worked will do nothing, and with 3 speed traits and at best 2 current draught traits, will breed for more speed traits via the mechanic stated thus making them utterly useless for working toward the new goals.

• Inbreeding for neg traits will be a desirable action. WTG!

• Breeders with 70 or more ah that bred 5 speeds with spark and healthy plus another non combat trait are going to have a nightmare I think.  3 speed, 3 misc (?) 2 draught - what they get pulling from the pool is going to be all over the place i think. Will having a 7 trait horse with the dominant being speed mean the foals are more inclined to replace existing traits that are currently shared, or will they continue to have majority foals with the same traits as parents?

 

Spent my day wandering round foaling yards looking at new arrivals that I have spent months developing to be 5 speeds straight, and every one that is, is now a sadness to me.

 

To those that say 50 AH breeders shouldn't be able to produce horses as good as 90 breeders, its not so much about that, as the fact that we used the existing mechanic in a different way to work to 5 speed horses, this was not easier than getting more AH and being able to afford spare neutral or neg traits, it's a process of strict selective breeding of clean traited horses, any horse with a neutral is essentially useless to you. In addition, these are only better to other 50 ah breeders, as a general horse they were worse than 5 speed with spark and healthy. Trust me, I could have been breeding and selling 5 speed horses much earlier on the new cluster by not stopping grooming at the points I did. I set out with the specific goal to produce 5 speed horses that others could breed their own 5 speeds from without needing higher AH. A specific niche market so to speak.

 

Now my entire breeding stock has two traits I don't want. Imagine if you affinity food now gave a negative effect as well as a positive one on every one you have pre made, or your weapons and tools you have produced now damage more from use or something... this is where the negativity comes from.  As pointed out above, the more traits you currently have bred for with higher AH, the less free traits you will have on your existing good stock. A 2 traited draught animal with a couple of negatives is now better than your 5 speed or 7/8/9 traited horses for breeding draught horses, or a 3 speed traited horse with any negatives is better for breeding speed ones. New reason to raid fallen deeds asap? To get the previously crap horses that will form the basis of your new breeding lines.

 

Months of breeding lines, all down the drain. I just pulled my 4 speed ebony horses off the merchant - after recently clearing almost all my remaining 4 speeds, they are now my most desirable stock. 

Edited May 18, 2021 by Delone

[Tilda 651]

Wow, looking forward to this for lots of reasons. AH upgrade of course is long overdue, and while it all sounds more complex than I originally expected, I don't personally have a problem with that. I still don't fully understand all the ins and outs of the cooking and fishing updates, but I still manage to use them (combat update had even less effect on me I just turned off all the graphical and audio tweaks and hunt as I always did lol). I do know it will take time to get a herd developed of the horses I want, as it took almost a year to get a good breeding herd with all the new colors when they came in. I must admit though I am more relaxed about it since I am no longer in the horse business, and just do it for myself.

 

I will have to do some rereading, as at this point nothing has sunk in properly for me to be able to understand all of the negative comments and concerns, so I look forward to further details nearer the time to help us all get our heads round it. I am so grateful to finally be able to be tending my animals again though since as I had to turn it all over to alts some years back now as my skill became 'too high'. I also look forward to finally having house cats, but that means I need to get off my lazy bum and skill my taming I guess!

Also thank you guys for the new feed containers, an asked for improvement for many years now!

Edited May 18, 2021 by Tilda

[Wurmhole 3,650]

So I am not sure what the impact will be on the total creature counts, but in the current system, most casual breeders that only care about maintaining a group of 5s horses will have a stock of cared for breeding pairs of each color, then their actual hitched and saddled horses for daily use.  Probably totaling around 20-30 horses.   This count fits well on a small deed and just a few free alts leveled to 20  AH to care for.

 

Suggestion: Double creature ratio for "on deed", so people don't feel like they need to resize their deeds to handle breeding with the new system.

 

New system sounds like it will at a minimum require at least double the number of breeding pairs, since we will now need the riding and draft horses.  What impact will this have on the servers?  I assume it has been looked at for performance?  I imagine it is ok, since the servers are all way under their peak populations now?  This would have been a terrible update to add in near the NFI launch for sure.

 

How about the convenience of riding a cart to a hunt, unhitching one of the horses and using it for the hunt/rift etc?  Will there be huge differences in speeds of draft vs riding horses? Is everyone going to lead extra riding animals to these events now?

 

How much impact will cart/wagon load have on speeds, when rigged up with top draft vs top riding traited horses?  Will we still be able to haul a fully loaded cart around at "escape agro" speeds?  I am imagining how slow my alt gets when carrying 20 rocks and seeing that translate to riding/carting would be one of the worst QoL fails imaginable.  I am sure it isn't that extreme, but it would be great to have some idea.

 

Edit: After dwelling on this for a day, I am looking forward to this update.  It seems like AH will be so much more interesting and honestly, it was terribly broken before.  There should always be a great benefit to advancing a skill to the highest levels possible, rather than being penalized for hitting 60+

 

Edited May 18, 2021 by Wurmhole

[Borstaskor 503]

While we're here, I'd like to propose another suggestion:

 

Please let people who are not mayor rename branded animals via the permissions feature. Possibly as a deed permission.

There are breeders who name their branded animals like "FM, CM" which can be very helpful for many people. The fact that only a mayor can do so can be very frustrating for a villager who is doing the AH stuff and things on the deed. You shouldn't need to call your mayor over every time you want to rename newborn foals.

Edited May 18, 2021 by Borstaskor

[Jaz 2,665]

16 hours ago, Wurmhole said:

So... strategy would be to breed all the good traits AND a bunch of bad traits, then whip out your Fo priest to remove the bad, giving you the mega-awesome horse?

 

Also, in regards to the passive trait:  Can it be used on hell horses and when turned totally passive, will they stay hitched as they grow old?  PLEASE SAY YES!!!!!!  I mean, it would basically eliminate the need for regular horses, other than for looks, but I miss my mostly worry free hell cart days from a few years ago.  I play a few months on and a few off, so it would be great if I could count on my hell carts being intact on my returns.

 

What I currently see is that normal horses will completely die out on the long range if passive trait hellies will be widespread. Also if bison vehicle bonus is not set very carefully they may fully replace any horse/hellhorse driven carts which would be sad. A lot of very careful consideration of many possible scenarios are needed. There is about two weeks until live which seems... hmmm ... too soon?

 

15 hours ago, Muse said:

I see no advantage to negative traits, even if they do have a negative cost, and can allow another 'slot' for a good trait - they are still bound to impact on new players and on breeding.  

 

I don't see how negative traits can add anything to player enjoyment?

 

We have the unique opportunity here to remove all negativity and unnecessary disappointment from animal breeding and husbandry once and for all.  Why are we wasting this chance?

 

Just my opinion.

 

Juggling negative traits to breed top-top products by removing the negative ones from the "end products" seem to be quite bad. I would ask to consider to take this out from the package (yes simply ditching negative traits can work as a dirty fast solution) as if it stays I see another window of opportunity that will be changed later anyway cornering the breeding aspect anyway (something similar inbalance will happen like the pizzagate of cooking).

 

15 hours ago, Wurmhole said:

This is a great point. Add to it all the complications that PvP will encounter with genesis and global casts.  Maybe they should just rethink the system and do away with negatives completely.  With so many traits to choose from, removing the negatives would sure help reduce the extra breeding time needed to get the preferred trait combos.

 

Fo is a true PVP priest now! Genesis storm at enemy deeds! Ruin their breeder herd!

 

So. A lot of scenarios that may bring this otherwise awesome sounding update extremely sideways.

 

TLDR:

- negative traits and using them to make topnotch endproducts seem risky at the current status - do we at all need them nega traits?

- make sure friendly hellhorses will not be superior to horses or horses will die out

- make sure bisons are not superior in vehicles than horses/hellhorses or the landscape will be very boring with bisons in carts only.

 

[Blackbeard 113]

cringe

[Antony 280]

I'd really like it if the text for different traits is coloured so we can easily identify them. Green for speed, blue for draft and red for combat.

 

Quote

 

[14:24:19] The bison are impressive creatures when moving in hordes.

[14:24:19] It has been branded by and belongs to the settlement of Wurmain Truth Force.

[14:24:19] It is being taken care of by Rolf.

[14:24:19] He is very strong and has a good reserve of fat.

[14:24:19] This creature could use some grooming.

[14:24:19] It has fleeter movement than normal. It will fight fiercely. It can carry more than average.

[14:24:19] His mother is a venerable fat bison 'Buddha'. His father is a venerable fat bison 'MrsBuddha'. 

 

 

[Ecrir 887]

30 minutes ago, Jaz said:

Juggling negative traits to breed top-top products by removing the negative ones from the "end products" seem to be quite bad. I would ask to consider to take this out from the package (yes simply ditching negative traits can work as a dirty fast solution) as if it stays I see another window of opportunity that will be changed later anyway cornering the breeding aspect anyway (something similar inbalance will happen like the pizzagate of cooking).

 

TLDR:

- negative traits and using them to make topnotch endproducts seem risky at the current status - do we at all need them nega traits?

 

The way negative traits allow for more positive ones effectively allows players with lower AH skills to at least breed animals with more positive traits in a specific category than they otherwise could. I'd say that makes negative traits pretty useful. If being able to remove negative traits from the end product is an issue then wouldn't the better solution be to remove from the game the ability to remove negative traits?

[Vorticella 958]

I understand that this affects different people in different ways, so I can see why some people are feeling on edge about this update, but a lot of the negativity here is coming from speculation since we don't have all the details yet. I also want to point out that different people will be affected in different ways, since this is a sandbox after all with many diverse play styles and the negativity here certainly does not represent the whole community. For someone like me with a more relaxed play style who enjoys doing a little of everything and loves animal husbandry, the changes coming are incredibly exciting. If my current horses are suddenly not the fastest anymore, well that gives me something new to explore and fresh goals I'm excited to work on. I enjoy grooming the animals as part of my daily routine and look forward to doing that again.

 

There are also a lot of significant changes in this update that have nothing to do with horses. There are some serious quality of life improvements here that a lot of people have been wishing for!

 

Most people don't bother keeping pigs because feeding them is tedious and they eat so much compared to what they produce. Now you can breed pigs that will produce more meat while eating less! 

 

I'm not a fan of the way enchanted grass looks, but feel forced to use it because animals are constantly packing down tiles and it's tedious to keep replanting. A herd of cows on natural grass that are less prone to packing tiles and are also able to produce more, higher quality hides? AWESOME!!! 

 

Cows that produce more milk and don't run away the split second they are unhitched from the milking post? How convenient

 

A pet bear that's actually useful as a hunting companion and can wander freely around the deed without attacking me? Yes please!!!!

 

Any major change is going to be an adjustment and nothing the developers do will ever please everyone. Some aspects of this might suck for a while, but overall this sounds like a massive improvement to a part of the game that definitely needed some attention and I am super excited to explore the new things to come

 

Also, can we maybe be a little kinder to the people who are working hard to build this game we all love? I can't imagine presenting my work to people and getting ripped apart for every little detail that isn't exactly to their liking. It certainly wouldn't make me want to do more for them. Of course we should voice our concerns when we have them but there's no reason to be so hostile.

[Jaz 2,665]

Will ebony black / molten bonus be no more unique? I hope so..--

[Borstaskor 503]

28 minutes ago, Jaz said:

Will ebony black / molten bonus be no more unique? I hope so..--

 

I agree with this, in that I hope it gets removed.

 

The upside of having a rare color give extra performance is fun in certain aspects but it comes at the cost of min-maxers feeling like they can't aesthetically customize by using their favorite color/skin.

 

With the new proposed changes, we will get something that fills the same niche/role/feeling that breeding a specific rare color currently fills; Breeding a specific rare trait.

This is a perfect opportunity to get rid of the bonus to ebony/molten and allow min-maxers to not have to choose between using ebony/moltens to min-max or feeling bad about not using them.

I love the nightshade skin of hell horses but I currently use moltens on my hell cart because, while the 2.5% speed isn't that big of a number, it still makes a difference on something that can reach the kind of speeds that my hell cart does.

Edited May 18, 2021 by Borstaskor

[Wurmhole 3,650]

agreed! I'd rather choose what colors to breed for max speed.

[Stanlee 3,434]

I look forward to all the theorycrafting that negative traits/genesis and ambiguously worded traits will bring.

 

For all those panicking about slowed horses: the draft traits didn't do a lot for speed anyway unless you were carrying a lot, from the sounds of it the traits used for 5 speed horses aren't actually changing at all!

 

For all those worried that their 50AH isn't competitive: show me the other skill that's competitive at 50?

 

What I am scared of is Holy Crop doing unwanted Genesis casts, now that negative traits serve a function!

 

And praying there's a trait that stops hellhorses unhitching at old/venerable!

 

Here's some questions that might put a lot of troubled people at ease:

How do our current generic 5-speed horses/hellhorses/bison measure up when riding/hitched compared to the after the patch?

Is 50 AH enough to breed our current generic 5-speeds?

 

And a personal one:

Will anything be done about the abysmal base body strength (without traits) of all varieties of horses? 25? I've seen stronger newbies than these horses.