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Muse

Bind a key for help from guards! please!

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Why don't all new accounts come with the Say Help command pre-bound to a key for new players?  If this is not a thing, then why is this not a thing?

 

It seems every new player who enters Wurm ends up typing "help" in the wrong tab - I know I did - and it's not their fault.

 

...and then every new player has to be taught by other players how to properly call guards for help.

 

Why does arguably the most important command for new players not come pre-bound to a key?

 

Is calling for help or binding a key in the in-game tutorial yet?

 

Just in case you missed it, this is what we try to encourage every new player:

 

Press F1 and then type: bind [key] "say help"

 

This will set the key you choose to call the guards if you have a monster targeted and it is in range of a guard tower!

 

...and welcome to Wurm - you are valued! :)

 

Edited by Muse
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Right click on mob and select from menu "guard tower"->(guard #1, guard #2...) guard who should attack mob.

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I agree it is long overdue and would greatly decrease the stress on new players in first few weeks.

+ 1

"Why does arguably the most important command for new players not come pre-bound to a key?"

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it's not a standard to play with guard towers as defense mechanism... it's not traditional mmo with major towns to travel between, do quests and have checkpoints or towers.. to interact with...

 

tower guards are player content.. we build the towers, we maintain them.. they aren't mechanic that just makes F1 useful key, you still need several details to align to make it work.. being close enough to the tower, not the guard.. have not a creature, but THE creature you want the guards to help with.. and you still need to know not to tank and let a guard take first hit to 'tank' for you, guards are quite squishy and you're usually best to help them..(and they steal most of the fs skillgain)

 

IMO no need.. there just have to be some better way to keybind some specific commands.. saying help in local is more like hardcore Press F1 type this cheat.. or at least it might seem like that for people rarely or never working with any kind of console and text commands, playing games.. does not instantly make you a god server mod, etc..

 

several actions are impossible to quick-keybind.. Examine and Activate are the first examples I can think of..  not all options we have in menus can be quick-binded - known fact..  rest is these extra specific chat macros with bind x "say <something>" which goes to local..(can be used for RP), but all this is explained only at google> wurm wiki keybinds - https://www.wurmpedia.com/index.php/Key_bindings where you have to come up with use for this or that on your own..

 

learning how and when to use the guards is something new players figure with ca-help/wiki/blog/video/guide for the WO gameplay, and there aren't that many or much use for with small playerbase,

Maybe this makes sense to add as manual action for new players in the tutorial, as .. example how guard towers work and how to setup easier way to interact with them instead of typing text in local, how to setup the key manually or with a button to prepare it for the player, even test it on dummy npc?

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9 minutes ago, Finnn said:

IMO no need.. there just have to be some better way to keybind some specific commands.. saying help in local is more like hardcore Press F1 type this cheat.. or at least it might seem like that for people rarely or never working with any kind of console and text commands, playing games.. does not instantly make you a god server mod, etc..

 

 

Honestly man this just highlights how lackluster the tutorial really is and needs more info for new people on how to survive their first few days. Combat in Wurm is honestly the most counterintuitive mechanics I have ever seen in any game ever. The few people I got into Wurm were puzzled they had near zero agency in a fight, they asked "How do I do a special move? How do I block? What's the key to block? How do I do a crit hit? Do I have abilities to use in combat such as impale?". They were all disappointed when they figured out combat was automatic and you were just looking at a combat log passively, which was worse than F2's combat, at least in Fallout 2 you actually make decisions in a fight. In wurm it's mostly automatic, you just pick a fighting stance, focus up a bit and decide to continue the fight or retreat. 

 

When I first started out, my first month of gameplay was hugging the guard tower and starter town to save me from mobs. Anything beyond a wolf was a death sentence for me before I learned that a leather armor was useless and I needed 80 ql chain or plate. 

10 minutes ago, Finnn said:

 

learning how and when to use the guards is something new players figure with ca-help/wiki/blog/video/guide

 

Sorry to contradict you finn, but ANY game that forces you to go to X, Y and Z external sources to learn the game is a piss poor game design when it comes to explaining how to play.

Imagine buying a boardgame and finding out the manual does such a poor job at explaining its rules and mechanics, you're forced to go to 5 different websites and forums to learn the rules of the game. Wurm's tutorial is not so different. 

 

"Oh you want to learn where deeds are? Go to this website. Oh you want to learn how to use different keybindings? Go to this other website. " Any decent game should have a tutorial or the equivalent of a manual. Old games had manuals that explained what the interface did and how some mechanics worked. 

 

While it's good you can ask in CA for help, the fact that the same questions pop up for years on end shows that the tutorial needs a complete rework from a new player's perspective. Hell I'd do a focus group with new people and see what can be improved. 

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Thanks to everyone who has responded thus far, some really interesting and useful points there.

 

I found out today that there is another way to set the binding for 'call for help'

 

Press O or ESC for Options > Settings > Keybindings > Action - then scroll all the way down to 'Call for help' and click in the box and press your chosen key.

 

Still too convoluted for a new player in my opinion.  Why could there not be a suitable hot-key already pre-bound here?

 

SaLoTLZ.jpg?1

 

(It says null there because I pressed my screenshot button instead of entering a key)

 

We have some great icon options on the quickbar, it would be nice to have a quick button icon to call the guards too. :) 

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I agree that having the call for "help" from guards would be a nice quick button icon on the quickbar.  No need to waste a keyboard key with a bind for *all* players, just give them that button to click on the UI.  Much more obvious for new player eyes.

 

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Agree fully with the idea of an icon on quickbar, a big help for new players for sure.

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Back then i had to use the console to bind a key to call the guards and finally i see that on the setting under Actions: call for help. But sadly its not on Unlimited, so i had to bind it from the console. Not many players will know how to set that up unless someone mention it in that server. When i first started playing Unlimited, was completely lost and didnt really stick with the game much.

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This and also fix it so that the key bind actually does stick.  Many times now I've had to rebind the shortcut keys because they keep being forgotten by the game. 

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If you crash or start another client you kill your session persistence and the new settings you've changed wont save - saves happen on normal exit, running multiple copies mess things up when it comes to saving profiles/settings on exit*, manually saving them should be ok.. as long your setting file(keybinds/profile/...) isn't read-only locked.

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2 hours ago, Zexos said:

This and also fix it so that the key bind actually does stick.  Many times now I've had to rebind the shortcut keys because they keep being forgotten by the game. 

I found that (on my system) my keybind file had numerous copies of each key. I think it may have been writing new lines each time I exited or maybe each time I changed something. Anyway, long story short my latest key binding *was* in the file it was just the 5, 6, or 7th entry and of course wasn't loading right. I "fixed" this by renaming the file, firing up the game and setting my keybinds, then exiting. This created a clean file which I then marked as Read-Only so the game cannot adjust without me unsetting the read-only flag. It's a nasty hack and is a bit of a pain when I want to change the bindings, but I rarely do that any longer.

 

Long story short, yes it would be nice if they fixed that bug :)

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-1 on the OP. key binds are easily overwritten so -1 to the argument to have it an icon instead

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+1 for a default keybind and maybe a quickbar or action bar icon, but -1 against dropping keybinds. They are more flexible, and allow to choose between "say help" and "say guards!". Key choice is important too. I first used "h" but hated when I lost chat input line and typed, to unsensibly shout "help" or "guards!", so I changed the key to ctrl+h. Would not like to miss this flexibility.

Edited by Ekcin

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13 hours ago, elentari said:

Sorry to contradict you finn, but ANY game that forces you to go to X, Y and Z external sources to learn the game is a piss poor game design when it comes to explaining how to play.

Imagine buying a boardgame and finding out the manual does such a poor job at explaining its rules and mechanics, you're forced to go to 5 different websites and forums to learn the rules of the game. Wurm's tutorial is not so different. 

I completely agree on this. It has always been an issue with me and I'm betting with many others too!

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On 8/6/2021 at 6:56 PM, Finnn said:

it's not a standard to play with guard towers as defense mechanism..

It's not?  I thought it was THE defense mechanism for newbies.  It certainly was for me.  I was typing it longhand for the first week or so, like I was playing Zork or something.  I nearly quit it in my first week because it felt like all the game offered was corpse runs followed quickly by death-by-bear.  I used it often to clear hostile mobs from my little lonely island.  Aggravated one and then run away yelling - I call it "The Little Sister".  I assumed a lot of people used tower guards for muscle.  Apart from anything else, getting the critter to target a guard allowed me to get some licks in.

 

There are already hot-keys pre-bound (the was one to neutralize camera tilt IIRC).  Yes, these can be readily changed, but in one's first days one wants to play the game, not tinker under the hood (yes, I generalize).

 

It would be great to have a couple of the basic ones, h for help ctrl-d for drop etc, pre-bound.

 

17 hours ago, Ekcin said:

I first used "h" but hated when I lost chat input line and typed, to unsensibly shout "help" or "guards!"

 

I just accept that while I am chatting my character will occasionally yell for help. 🙂  It's no more of a bother than the local wagoner flashing chat all the time.

 

Edited by TheTrickster
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I think I have g='say guards!' .. but that's it .. and it was manual action.. yea, I've used guards at the start.. alternative is not using terrible gear.. having some mount or cart that wont move slow enough to get you bodybagged by a hound/troll even on a hill(here you need some armor.. to tank a few tickles)

 

idk imo it's better to be tutorial, keybind.. wont help at all.. you'll have a keybind spamming 'help', 'help' in local... - why? -> the player have no clue how to use the guard towers.. keybind - FINE, but that alone helps nobody - you need to somehow teach that new player what that is .. and how to use it.. tower guards aren't very clever or helpful when it comes to not filling their demands with range and targeting exactly the creature you want focused first

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i think leave it as is , people get to actually talk to someone for a min, 

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