Darnok's gameplay and UX suggestions

[Sheffie 1,120]

On 7/26/2021 at 9:41 PM, TheTrickster said:

You could easily demonstrate this.  As I have suggested multiple times, quite seriously, you could set up a WU server that is at least an approximation of the things that you suggest - it has plug in mods galore, and a community that writes more mods.  You could engage someone (I don't mean hire, I mean engage as in get them onboard) with the skills to create the stuff that currently has no WU analog. Launch it. 

 

Funny. I asked about that too.

 

Where is this hypothetical utopian server? Why aren't there a thousand players already there?

[Darnok 200]

Updated OP - Weapon slots 2.0, Further armor balance and rock-paper-scissors-dual-wield

Edited July 31, 2021 by Darnok

[TheTrickster 2,284]

On 7/27/2021 at 6:41 AM, Jore said:

or mod WU if you think your ideas and systems would work so well

@Darnok This is now becoming a chorus.

 

A good way to show a) how and b)that your suggestions would work without irretrievably ruining the game would be to stop insisting you know better than everyone else and show your suggestions in action.

[Darnok 200]

5 minutes ago, TheTrickster said:

@Darnok This is now becoming a chorus.

 

A good way to show a) how and b)that your suggestions would work without irretrievably ruining the game would be to stop insisting you know better than everyone else and show your suggestions in action.

 

I am asking only for balance.

 

Combat is very unbalanced, that is why most of people is using two-handed axe (best dmg) + aggressive style (best dmg and attack speed) + plate (best dmg reduction).

That combination is best and I think there shouldn't be single best combination in balanced game, each choice should have pros and cons.

 

 

[Oblivionnreaver 5,174]

1 minute ago, Darnok said:

 

I am asking only for balance.

 

Combat is very unbalanced, that is why most of people is using two-handed axe (best dmg) + aggressive style (best dmg and attack speed) + plate (best dmg reduction).

That combination is best and I think there shouldn't be single best combination in balanced game, each choice should have pros and cons.

 

 

Your suggestion for a flat attack speed reduction hurts faster weapons more than it hurts slower weapons (a 3s swing weapon would lose 33% dps in plate, a huge axe/other 6s swing speed would lose 16.6%), which would make the huge axe even stronger, so that doesn't seem very thought out. Plate is garbage against trolls which is the only strongish enemy you'll fight on a regular basis so plate isn't the best, it also takes the most ql loss when repairing compared to other armours. When you compare the most common wound types (bite slash and crush) it's leather and chain that are the two best non-dragon armour types for pve, and you can see in any pvp video where people actually bother min-maxing that leather/chain are the most common armor types.

 

everyone just uses huge axe because other people tell them it's the best and big hits look cool, when you get into depth about how combat works you'll find that staff and sickle outclass it hard, again can check pvp videos and see everyone using sickles even when they're not being targeted and requiring a shield.

[Finnn 3,303]

there is balance.. and it's not fun, some of the movement debuff was removed because it creates a 'meta' of not using such armor at all

 

same with your idea, kills half the content and only fraction could be used, realism isn't fun, half of the armors wont be usable, so what's the point if it's proven to fail?

 

combat is far from the future with qte fights, it's turn based.. for some near impossible with the high latency, feedback is still a myth with event messages only, that is with 1 target.. if you have multiple nothing can help you besides writing your own 3rd party software to evaluate combat log and play sounds or something like that to tip you for optimal reactions, which is not even in demand with nearly no pvp and pve rp being damage sponge and fighting creatures 1v1 while they gank you; it's far from ideal but there's only so much you can do with single target combat and turn based attacks

[Ekcin 2,407]

36 minutes ago, Oblivionnreaver said:

.. [good points]

so that doesn't seem very thought out.  ..

A synonyme for any Darnok suggestion.

[TheTrickster 2,284]

52 minutes ago, Darnok said:

I am asking only for balance.

Repetition is not evidence.

1 hour ago, TheTrickster said:

A good way to show [i.e. evidence] ... show your suggestions in action.

Truncated to make it plainer.

[Darnok 200]

5 minutes ago, TheTrickster said:

Repetition is not evidence.

Truncated to make it plainer.

 

Fact that you have to check on wiki damage and attack speed of weapons doesn't encourage me to learn how to mod this game 🙂

[Darnok 200]

2 hours ago, Oblivionnreaver said:

Your suggestion for a flat attack speed reduction hurts faster weapons more than it hurts slower weapons (a 3s swing weapon would lose 33% dps in plate, a huge axe/other 6s swing speed would lose 16.6%), which would make the huge axe even stronger, so that doesn't seem very thought out. Plate is garbage against trolls which is the only strongish enemy you'll fight on a regular basis so plate isn't the best, it also takes the most ql loss when repairing compared to other armours. When you compare the most common wound types (bite slash and crush) it's leather and chain that are the two best non-dragon armour types for pve, and you can see in any pvp video where people actually bother min-maxing that leather/chain are the most common armor types.

 

everyone just uses huge axe because other people tell them it's the best and big hits look cool, when you get into depth about how combat works you'll find that staff and sickle outclass it hard, again can check pvp videos and see everyone using sickles even when they're not being targeted and requiring a shield.

 

That's right, but you would rather use one-handed weapons in dual wielding or with shield, so it should be fine.
Plus, I think the armor works just like that, that it slows down your every move by the same amount and you missed fact that aggressive style would further slow down two-handed weapons.

Therefore, flat number on heavy armor could stay, but to aggressive style you could add a percentage value if it is needed.

 

Of course if this flat number idea would be wrong and unbalanced, converting this value to a percentage is not a terribly difficult task.

Edited July 31, 2021 by Darnok

[Sheffie 1,120]

3 hours ago, Darnok said:

 

Fact that you have to check on wiki damage and attack speed of weapons doesn't encourage me to learn how to mod this game 🙂

 

Translation: I do not want to know what I am talking about.

Edited July 31, 2021 by Sheffie

[TheTrickster 2,284]

13 hours ago, Darnok said:

 

Fact that you have to check on wiki damage and attack speed of weapons doesn't encourage me to learn how to mod this game 🙂

 

10 hours ago, Sheffie said:

 

Translation: I do not want to know what I am talking about.

This

[Darnok 200]

13 hours ago, Sheffie said:

 

Translation: I do not want to know what I am talking about.

 

16 hours ago, TheTrickster said:

Repetition is not evidence.

Truncated to make it plainer.

 

Show me print screen where UI displays such BASIC things like weapon damage, attack speed and armor damage reduction?

Because I play a year and I didn't find such information in game.

 

I wonder what the veterans have been doing here for these 10 years, if there is no such thing? Then do not be surprised that after being out into the world and meeting the expectations of players from normal games, Wurm gets poor reviews.

If you are advanced player, you should pay attention to such issues, same as what is on wiki, as I mentioned in OP about normal fighting style, there is no information on what exactly it gives you.

And it seems to me that the parameters of each fighting style should also be displayed in game UI when you hover over icon of a given style in fight window.

 

I won't even mention special moves, because the game only gives a general description, while wiki page is out of date and no veteran with above-average knowledge of the game was interested in it to suggest to fix it or to do it by himself, so how is average player supposed to find out about the positive aspects of the game?

 

You throw some expectations at me, but you haven't done anything to help new or novice players, veterans community can't even keep wiki in such a state that it has helpful and up-to-date information on basic information.

Edited August 1, 2021 by Darnok

[Oblivionnreaver 5,174]

47 minutes ago, Darnok said:

If you are advanced player, you should pay attention to such issues

that is something you should take up with the devs not the players, they're very insistent on players not knowing anything about the game, as is apparent with their constant patchnotes missing a bunch of stuff added and not giving any real info on how things are supposed to work, and straight up hostility to anyone who finds out things via reading wu code (which is basically the only way to actually know how things work in this game sadly). you're on the money with the fact that it's a massive issue with the game management though. wiki is the same, they'll delete your edits if they think it's from wu datamining because you don't keep a logbook of everything you learn ingame but they'll happily keep misinformation from a decade ago like marsh spreading or whatever trash is on there, so most "vets" don't bother with it and just ask friends instead.

 

it's not really ingame but if you go on the wurm test server it gives you in depth info on combat things like damage armor reduction etc, would be nice to have that ingame

Edited August 1, 2021 by Oblivionnreaver

[Darnok 200]

1 hour ago, Oblivionnreaver said:

that is something you should take up with the devs not the players, they're very insistent on players not knowing anything about the game, as is apparent with their constant patchnotes missing a bunch of stuff added and not giving any real info on how things are supposed to work, and straight up hostility to anyone who finds out things via reading wu code (which is basically the only way to actually know how things work in this game sadly). you're on the money with the fact that it's a massive issue with the game management though. wiki is the same, they'll delete your edits if they think it's from wu datamining because you don't keep a logbook of everything you learn ingame but they'll happily keep misinformation from a decade ago like marsh spreading or whatever trash is on there, so most "vets" don't bother with it and just ask friends instead.

 

it's not really ingame but if you go on the wurm test server it gives you in depth info on combat things like damage armor reduction etc, would be nice to have that ingame

 

But this behavior makes no sense in the modern world... average steam user has 5+ games recommended by steam, fact that Wurm is free makes it that player will install it, run it for an hour or two and if it gets lost (in a sense, get lost in understanding how this game works) or doesn't find basic information where they are in normal games, this will make him uninstall game and he won't come back again.

 

Information like character stats are usually displayed in character window, and here we have some weird list that doesn't distinguish skill from characteristics.
This could be a panel that pulls out on the side of character window, just like we have a panel on the side of crafting window.

There is a skill tracker but not used by default. After all, skills are displayed in it in a better way than on the list of skills. And I would add an option to it that should be enabled by default, on top skill tracker should show last 3 skills that level has changed. Then a novice player would simply see that pressing (even accidentally) a button when he had grass tile selected gave him a level/exp/or whatever.

 

We have 2021 a bit of usability and a player friendly UI would come in handy.

 

Edited August 1, 2021 by Darnok

[Darnok 200]

The addition of New Land, which would be a map that SFI and NFI players can go to best via ships, can transport items to this map and their characters have no limitations on skill limit.
But they can't take anything from this map back to the NFI or SFI except their ship.

 

Being on New land NFI players doing plot course would saw only option of returning to NFI maps, and SFI players could only travel back to themselves.

 

Trading with items would look like:

SFI --> New land <-- NFI

but silver earned would be used by everyone wherever they want.

 

IF the SFI maps can still exist, such a trade would be maintained all the time, but if game would gain anything from closing old servers (savings?), then people from SFI would have some time to transport their belongings to New land and settle there.

If someone from NFI would like to settle there, he could too.
After few months, shut down old servers, but connection NFI-> New land should still stay one way only.

Characters from SFI shouldn't be allowed to come to NFI and no character from NFI would be able to transport items from New land to NFI maps.

 

This is the only server merge that would not bother me, I would like to visit New land and explore it, but I would rather not move there.

 

The New land could be 2 maps, one PvE and other PvP.

Two options:
- there are no starting cities there and it is 100% wild land and you can't create new character on New land.
- either there are starting cities, but new players cannot travel to either NFI or SFI.

Edited August 2, 2021 by Darnok

[bangzuvelis 549]

On 10/8/2020 at 5:28 AM, Samool said:

Since the questions about the status of the Northern and Southern Freedom Isles clusters keep appearing, we do want to reiterate that at this point we do not plan on a merge, and it will be a long time before we will start considering one (it is not guaranteed in any case). We’re happy with how both of the clusters are working out and there seems to be a healthy population on both of them.

 

Its the second or even third post recently written about the merge…

[TheTrickster 2,284]

@bangzuvelis  Notice the date of that Samool quote, and the asserted case of "there seems to be a healthy population on both of them".  Consider the preponderance of suggestions about this a call for the plan - or lack thereof - to be reconsidered.

 

Edit: nevermind the rest

 

 

Edited August 2, 2021 by TheTrickster

[Nelsy 66]

Does not see any opportunity to grow population on NFI in that case, there will be opportunity to only decrease. Also don't want any old characters from SFI come to NFI.

[TheTrickster 2,284]

36 minutes ago, Nelsy said:

Does not see any opportunity to grow population on NFI in that case, there will be opportunity to only decrease. Also don't want any old characters from SFI come to NFI.

Nice.  Well, you are welcome in the SFI any time.

 

Also:  You as good as have old SFI characters on NFI anyway.  

Edited August 2, 2021 by TheTrickster

[TheTrickster 2,284]

6 hours ago, Darnok said:

After few months, shut down old servers, but connection NFI-> New land should still stay one way only.

Characters from SFI shouldn't be allowed to come to NFI and no character from NFI would be able to transport items from New land to NFI maps.

I didn't notice this on my quick first read through.

 

About a million NO on this, then, since what you are proposing is basically permanently booting all the SFI players from the game.  To be clear - your proposal that SFI characters have their entire server cluster shut down and be left to either be locked out or locked onto ONE server if they abandon their homes-from-home can in no way credible way be presented as in the interests of balance or a better game - it is frankly sabotage and it is hard to imagine there is no little helping of malice.

 

So that's it, I am done engaging with your suggestions.  I will be setting ignore - for a sum total of one member.  To me, you have shown a motive to harm not only the game but individuals who play it.  Go light your fires elsewhere.

Edited August 2, 2021 by TheTrickster
pardon the split infinitive

[Darnok 200]

1 hour ago, TheTrickster said:

I didn't notice this on my quick first read through.

 

About a million NO on this, then, since what you are proposing is basically permanently booting all the SFI players from the game.  To be clear - your proposal that SFI characters have their entire server cluster shut down and be left to either be locked out or locked onto ONE server if they abandon their homes-from-home can in no way credible way be presented as in the interests of balance or a better game - it is frankly sabotage and it is hard to imagine there is no little helping of malice.

 

So that's it, I am done engaging with your suggestions.  I will be setting ignore - for a sum total of one member.  To me, you have shown a motive to harm not only the game but individuals who play it.  Go light your fires elsewhere.

 

You missed condition for this option
IF the SFI maps can still exist, such a trade would be maintained all the time, but if game would gain anything from closing old servers...

[Darnok 200]

2 hours ago, Nelsy said:

Does not see any opportunity to grow population on NFI in that case, there will be opportunity to only decrease. Also don't want any old characters from SFI come to NFI.

 

Trade with people from SFI can not be reason for growth?

I think both NFI and SFI would increase their population, because trading and discovering new resources attracts players to Wurm.

But that is just my opinion.

 

[Cecci 1,609]

Just now, Darnok said:

IF the SFI maps can still exist

 

You really are way way off now. To the point I actually logged in to state that fact.
Stop spamming nonsence already.


 

 

[Drayka 485]

When one first creates a game, every user(usually a developer or tester) is playing on god-mode. Every feature implemented places obstacles in the way of playing as-if in god-mode.

Usually the first thing to disappear is the ability to ignore gravity.

Usually the second thing to disappear is the ability to ignore 'simulated' damage.

After that, 'inferior tools' and 'creation logics' are usually implemented, to substitute for the ability to spawn anything, anytime, with any stats that a user whimsically defines.

Every single new feature intrinsically includes a nerf AWAY from god-mode play, just as every single new feature includes artificial prerequisites to obtain merely demi-god-mode abilities.

 

Devs spend a lot of time thinking up how to make a new penalty seem like a 'fun challenge'. And part of those tactics include implementing the artificial mystery of discovery. Thus, every player can correctly, if bizarrely, be viewed as a potential hacker trying to undo everything the devs are doing, faster than they can put restrictions in place to prevent that. It takes longer for the devs to create new and unique content, than it does for a playerbase to descend on it like locusts, completely consume the new content and be clamouring for more. Same deal with the film industry, and the publishing industry.

 

There are a lot more people out there with the bias to consume new challenges as fast as possible, than there are people talented to develop new content for others to consume. (Despite most of us being paid to do exactly that, for our society.) We are hard-wired to be curious and to overcome challenges. Producing engaging, pro-learning content that resists being consumed instantly, yet doesn't cause people to rage-quit, is like trying to hybridise a university mentor with an arms-race security expert. They have to balance completely opposing attitudes in regards to the playerbase, yet make their product appealing enough to earn a decent return for their labour, and weather being constantly seen as the bad-guys for not being omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent deities with a flawless track record of pleasing everyone, all of the time.

 

Walk even 10 metres in someone else's shoes, before biting the hand that feeds you. Don't settle for merely seeing it from the perspective of an insatiable consumer.

Edited August 2, 2021 by Drayka