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Bloodreina

How far can you expect to get by playing the game intuitively

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Hey everyone! :)

I have a question, but since I hope that maybe it can lead to a discussion and not just stop on a straight answer, I posted it here instead of Community Assistance section.

So, my question is how far can you expect to get by playing the game intuitively, without relaying on counter-intuitive mechanics and third party tools / calculator.

And, in order to try to help you understand better what I mean, I will take the mining skill as an example.
- The intuitive way to play the game is to just mine whatever resource you're in need at the moment (and you have access to), so, pretty much, for most (casual) people that would be 95% stone and iron, with the occasional other ones
- The intuitive way to play the game is to upgrade your gear and use a pickaxe of the highest quality you afford to buy or create

- If you have access to enchants, I guess it's intuitive to get a WOA enchant if you care for speed or a COC enchant if you care for skill gains (or BotD, why not)
- if you'd like to "grind" the intuitive way to do it would probably be to follow the difficulties tiers from wurmpedia (rock/zinc 'till 25, iron 'till 35, tin 'till 50, copper/slate/lead 'till 75, silver 'till 90, and gold/marble/sandstone over 90) - that's already not very intuitive because it forces you to relay on external sources, but it's something easy enough to comprehend and follow that probably any player could learn to follow
- on the other hand, using a low QL "skiller" or even more have a variety of pickaxes and adjust the one you used based on your skill level and the vein you're mining, using math formula or third party tools, is definitely counterintuitive

So, taking in example the following three player personas:
- Player A only mines whatever he needs, whenever he needs, using the highest ql pickaxe that he can afford
- Player B mines whatever he needs, whenever he needs, using the highest ql pickaxe that he can afford, but on top of that he also grinds a bit, following the suggested difficulties tiers, but not account for pickaxe ql (or swap between multiple pickaxes)
- Player C that does everything right - having a variety of pickaxes, using the right combination of pickaxe and vein type for his skill when grinding and having top of the line enchants


Questions:
1) Could all three players eventually reach 70 skill? What about 90 skill? What about more? I ask this because what I suspect is that without doing counterintuitive, artificial things (like intentionally lowering your pickaxe's quality in this example) you'd hit a wall where you'll gain (pretty much) no more skills long before.

2) If the answer is yes about how much slower (in terms of effective hours spent mining, not in terms of days of playtime) would player A get to skill 70 than player C? What about player B vs player C?

3) If the answer is yes how much slower (in terms of effective hours spent mining) would player A get to skill 90 than player C? What about player B vs player C?

For 2 and 3: I asked this because I think that something like leveling 50% to 100% faster by min-maxing and optimizing is a fine reward for the dedicated people, but leveling 5, 10, 20 times faster thank the player that just plays the game intuitively definitely feels wrong.



Obviously I know not all skills work the same, but I think you got the idea, so feel free to discuss other skills too. I'm really curious about what your limitations are if you just play the game intuitively and not turn it into a grindfest or a spreadsheet game?
 

Edited by Bloodreina
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This touches on what I see as a fundamental problem with high-tier skillgain. Essentially, you're forced to do what I would call 'useless work' if you ever want to progress your skill above 90. I do feel that even if I'm digging with a good shovel on dirt, that some form of digging skillgain should be possible. However, I can dig all damned night and see no gain. I have to artificially adjust the difficulty using a 1ql shovel, or dig a different material, again with a separate shovel, in order to get anything. As it is, at 91 digging, clay only gives a very rare skillgain return, despite thousands of actions.

Mining is much the same, I am forced to mine slower and product more crap-ql products, or just mine something I don't want to touch (sadstone) in order to advance my skill. Sure, progressing to a higher difficulty material is a case for skillgain, but so is repetition.

I'm not sure I can offer much by way of alternatives, because frankly I feel like my input has as much possibility of changing wurm as taking a leak into a volcano has chance at extinguishing it. Perhaps just allow ticks to occur at a much reduced size if the difficulty is too easy. Idk, I just know I hate doing useless work for skill. It's not fun, and it feels like a waste of time. A waste of time in a game I pay for, feels like a dishonest business practice. Of course, we could all play minesweeper, but I still haven't found a rare shiny sea mine.

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I'm so confused, is this "play the game without asking a single question or reading a single bit of information" or is this "not use third party tools like the grind optimiser"? 

 

Just playing the game absolutely does work, it's not as fast, but it's far more enjoyable. You're forgetting playing the game as is means not taking shortcuts by buying high end gear, bulk mats, or anything like that. 

 

Resource collection is a bit weird and backwards, I like how epic and jackal fix that, but anything focusing on improving is absolutely perfect for "just work at your own pace" 

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I can tell you that I am a Player A. I only use resources when needed and do not grind anything. That being said, I am just shy of 68 Mining and didn't really start mining until about June of this year. Most of my experience came from mining for bridges, buildings, surface mining, and now mining out an underground dock.

 

As far as how long it takes in terms of time spent in game, I couldn't tell you. Some days I can spend 10 hours working on a project, others I'll get 10 minutes.

 

 

Edit: I will say my Carpentry is around level 83 and the majority of that experience came from building on deeds and selling bulk planks/shafts.

Edited by Kellen

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I think folks can play much of what wurm has to offer with mediocre qualities. If someone doesn't like grinding and doesn't want to go around showing off in global it's possible to have fun with lower skills. I say this first because it's the most important.

 

Wurm could inform players about skill gain chance.

1. "Mining rock with the 75 ql pickaxe and 70 mining skills is very easy, and you can expect skill ticks about 9% of the time."

2. "Mining gold with the 20 ql pickaxe and 20 mining skills is difficult, and you can expect skill ticks about 23% of the time."

3. "Mining iron with the 23 ql pickaxe and 30 mining skills is educational, and you can expect skill ticks about 54% of the time."

 

The math is too complicated for me to give exact answers between A, B and C. I can give the following obviations.

 

As far as how much longer player A will take then C. I'd guess player A will never make it to 90, maybe not even 70. This is because if you only do what's needed you'll never do enough skilling to get to the higher levels. It's possible if player A is in a village with other players and player A does all the mining it may happen.

 

Player C will likely have the 50% tick frequency all the way to high 90's. Whereas player A will start off at that 50% chance but as skill goes up the chance falls. Using grinder app 70 mining skill, 70 ql pick on iron is about 10% chance for tick. I don't have the math skills to give an exact answer. But that is 5x less likely to get a skill tick then player C at those levels. Thus, 5x longer to get the same amount of skill. I think there is diminishing returns curve happening here.

 

Generally, Player C will be grinding for many hours a day doing useless tasks (mining crate racks full of ores that may never get used. In some cases, the grinder may even have an alt there to pick up the ore/shards and discard them. Whereas player A only mines maybe an hour (unless your mining ore to make ribbons for supports, one simply doesn't need that much iron). Not only is player C getting ticks more often, but the player is skilling for longer.

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I am not sure i can answer ur question but i will try. I think people have their own definition of intuitive way. For me, this game is pretty much straight into "counter intuitive" when i first started. Because there are lots of mathematics in this game and the skill increased by 0 to X just keep popping.
But when i am a newbie i wonder how to collect resources, i think its intuitive way? I went to find a mine and i saw a mine and saw a pickaxe in the inventory then mine. Saw a tree chop a tree using hatchet. But then i saw numbers, skills increase, logs x2 and ores x2 with numbers. Then i wonder how to make things faster and more to make a house, because the crafting recipes said it require 20 of planks. And of course need at least 5 carpentry to build a house which require 4 wooden walls. lots of mathematics and logic right? Yes, its always about two. 
One day i was surface mining, i have enough of clicking it multiple time, and i remember a guy introduced and used G key method on stream with 0ms without repeat (i checked and its allow to use), let me know if i made a mistake cause i still want to play. I think that's counter intuitive. And i know people just cant stop think things like how to be faster, easier, more. So thats why we had people cheating in this game, aka the dragon slay cheat banned recently. Ban more of these people please. 
So, for me i expect very short.

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@ArchaedYa, i dont wasd move my toons with the method and no delay. I still feel busy of course.

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I play intuitively.  I've never made use of third-party tools, unless you consider the Wurmpedia and looking up recipes and pure info that way to be something other than intuitive.

Then again, I'm certainly not a grinder and I know the way I play means slower skillgain than for someone who is.

 

To me,  the gameplay is based upon what's needed at the time or else stockpiling the harvests of what I enjoy doing anyways.  Wish that Wurm Online wouldn't have any aspects that follow counter-intuitive methods, or 'wogic', but I also understand that's how it is.  There is no 'win the game' for me, there's having fun enjoying my small little hermitage and  my character's life there at my own pace.

Edited by Tristanc
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mining you can more or less get 80 just mining rock/iron/surface mining with 1ql and only be 10-15% slower than someone super optimizing, its not that big of a difference, most skills are the same. difference is usually time spent skilling. its not until 80+ that you need to actually optimize for great gains for most skills

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Your question is counterintuitive :)  Because...

4 hours ago, Bloodreina said:

Could all three players eventually reach 70 skill?

 

 

... if the intuitive player has the resources that he needs, why would he care if his skill is 60 or 70?

For example, I have never done any mining on Harmony, only surface mining for roads. This was all I needed. Now my mining skill is around 43 or 45, but that's just a number. It has no relevance.

 

Of course, with a skill like fine carpentry where you maybe want to be able to unlock certain furniture, then you don't want to disadvantage yourself. But then I will say studying the skill demands is already metagaming, so planning *how* to skill up in fact becomes the intuitive move at that point.

 

Edited by CistaCista
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6 hours ago, Archaed said:

I'm so confused, is this "play the game without asking a single question or reading a single bit of information" or is this "not use third party tools like the grind optimiser"? 

 

I think the issue is the lack of any decent tutorial that explains how skills work and they have very different mechanics. What works for one skill doesn't work for another, that's a given. 

 

Mining is an issue of difficulty of material chosen vs skill (with variables such as coc and pickaxe ql). But the same rule wouldn't apply to skilling a longsword for example. There you want to actually have a higher QL weapon with coc and fight weaker mobs (such as sheep) because damage done is translated into skillgain. 

 

Personally I would add some sort of tutorial for varying skills, after all, wurm is a 15 year old game or more, and we should have by now some decent tutorials for every skill in the game. The game isn't intuitive at all. Combat is probably the most counterintuitive until you figure out how little control you have in combat and everything is automatic. You don't have to "time" blocks like Dark Souls, you don't have to aim for certain body parts for "critical hits" like shooters or some RPGs, you just target and modify a few things in combat if needed ( aggro stance for example) and that's it. 

 

Wurm uses a lot of 3rd party resources that should probably be in the game by now. Remember how almanacs got introduced to replace the online harvest calculator? 

 

If we can't change the current mechanics, they should be explained better to people. There's a different mechanic to cooking difficulty than there is to archery. 

 

Maybe it's my old school views, but every game should do a decent job at conveying to the player how it actually works, otherwise what is the point of having occult systems in place? How does the player even learn without looking at the code? I think it's also an issue of old school game design where you wanted the player to be informed vs modern game design where you just want the player to play and keep the math at a minimum. Wurm unfortunately is a game heavily reliant on math, where you want it or not. 

 

If Wogic has to be part of the game, at least have it conveyed in a tongue in cheek tutorial so a player knows what to expect. 

Edited by elentari

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Tough one to actually answer really. I've always been 'player A' and played intuitively for 8 years now, and yet I have some skills to over 90 at least without grinding them and including breaks from playing. I am close to 99 on some, but trying to force myself to 'grind' one of those for the journal for example is something I keep putting off because I really do hate grinding (other than a bit for helping at impalongs maybe). I do use some things like Wiki of course, Wurm Assistant, especially Granger, and maybe an online recipe maker for affinity meals, but that's about it. I assume those who use all the tools and grind like mad get the skills up faster, just seems logical, but for me a game is fun and relaxation, and math and spreadsheets etc is not that (for me) :D To borrow a hashtag an ally recently created #Never 100!

Edited by Tilda
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As far as I recall, I got to 97 foraging and botanizing before using any sleep powders or affinity foods.  These skills are not currently covered by any grinding guide, as I guess it's assumed players will quickly 'grow out of it' and work on some more intensive method to get food such as farming or forestry.  If you do something long enough you will get the skill.  Numbers keep going up until they reach 100.  Just takes time.

Edited by Muse
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Under ur definition of intuitive player. I think i sound like or look like a player C to other people. 
However, after i am looking to myself repeatedly, aka awareness, i think i am actually doing like a player B. I grind high carp to build nice houses and tools, use only one 90+ botd pickaxe to grind middle mining just to surface mine, no 1ql steel pickaxe with high coc.
But i consider my mentality or attitude towards this game is player A. I have fun and feel relax, no wurm assistant because it makes me feel like i need to keep everything on track like a player C. If it say its inbreed on event chat, i just try another animal. Not eating sleep powers, not even drink a single sip for 10mins sb after the tea update (but will do eventually), i am just chilling. I took breaks when i feel very tight after grinding or playing too much (last one was two months). I think that's why i am having fun and feel relax because i know when to pause.

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C - smart, B - not so, A - rainbow and sunshine believer...  for the obvious reasons.. things work the way they do.. and metas or grind guides are what they are because they WORK

 

how do you play any OLD GAME? there's wiki/guide.. you read, you do the suggested and you progress faster - tested stuff

 

if you just get into a game and you imagine stuff... well.. good for your imagination and your WANT-personality, but that ain't getting you far in short time, as you'll probably fail often and learn from own mistakes instead of adopting the shortcuts achieve what you want..

 

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I can say that I started playing "intuitively", and hardly stopped to do so until the mining imbue and rune nerf. Only then I cared to get to skill 99.86 and beyond as far as I could to regain what a stupid nerf had taken away from me.

 

When I say "playing intuitively", it means just doing what seems necessary or desirable without caring for max stats. Of course I "grinded" ever and again to achieve some goals, such as getting better in cloth tailoring for the sails of my knarrs and caravel, being able to imp my own weapons to ql70 at minimum, in general to be as independent as possible. For the first two years, I sold all my sleep powder on the player market and did not look a lot for enchants other than e.g. life transfer, and some wind of ages on some tools. After participating in impalongs I started to use them bit more.

 

I never felt restricted, particularly as I never felt engaged in a competition to be first or so at high levels. That is just possible, and moreover, relaxing. Not that I hadn't and have ambitious projects. And I learnt after some time to use enchants, to use game mechanics like timers etc. That made much easier everywhere above skill 70, even more around and above skill 90. But reaching such levels systematically is not intuitive playing anymore.

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you can get fairly far in plenty of skills.  I made it to low 80's in mining skill before i thought about skill gain with low ql picks on certain ores. I think the activities you do most you dont need to worry too much about skill gain with most skills. If you are using it alot it will go up, at least until you reach high levels.  for me i would usually grind a skill efficiently only if it was a skill i rarely used but needed a high level in it for something particular.  If you are the type of player who prefers intuitive playing than do it. if you run into some roadblocks then choose between efficient grinding or working out a trade or barter with someone who has.

 

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The thing about mining and digging is that skill = what slope you can work on.  Hence after 13 years of playing my mining is still stuck at about 80 but my digging is well over 99 since I wanted to work 300 slopes. Is kind of the way I play, just play and get whatever skill comes unless need to hit a certain skill level for some reason, then got to sort it out.  Explains why my blacksmithing is also only 80 but my fine carpentry is well over 99. I needed the one, didn't  need the other. So, to answer OP question, just playing the game probably not going to get super high skills unless your "game" is just doing one particular thing a lot. However, you can get along just fine and once you are at the stage you really want to skill something, shouldn't be a real issue figuring out how to do so.  Bottom line, don't see a problem myself.

 

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I am definitely player B myself. mostly just doing what i need at the time, though i do a bit of grind for some things. i will say that for some skills, Like Fine Carpentry, the only way i even got to 50 was to do an actual grind. In some ways it depends on what a person is expecting to get out of a specific skill. 

 

however that all being said, it is relatively well balanced as a system. for those that focus on specific skills as a casual player getting to 90 isn't hard(here's looking @Tilda). Now granted that does mean having to interact with the community a LOT more, but in the end, for some of us, its more then worth it.

 

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as someone who did most of my grinding before there were any automated calculators that you told exactly what you need to do at all times to maximize skillgain i would propose  a player D who wants to get mining skill while mining mostly what he needs so he asks others about their experiences, uses some trial and error and tries to find a use for the ores he mines for skill.

thats what i would call playing intuitively.

i would call player A  someone foolishly ignoring advice just for the hell of it.

Edited by Tpikol

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I play to enjoy the game, there are very few times i've actually 'grinded' something.  Just playing, and doing what i do, if mining, digging, carpentry whatever I happen to do at the time, this is where I am after 9+ years. Stormblade  could I be higher by using grinder, yes, I've recently been told about that, and now I find myself sometimes refering to that ( for mining ). 

 

As far as farming, i've just farmed, difficutly of crop vs my skill comes by word of mouth, for the most part, I farmed bulk tiles, and i mean 2-10k tiles, other than that, I farm what i need or farm what i want to sell.

 

Other skills, they come a they may, 'Intuitively' if i find something gives me a bigger tic on skill gain then I'll continue to do that activity. Such as fine carpentry, I found things give me bigger tics than others, so i'll do those.

 

As far as tools, I generally go with high ql, high woa and coc.  High ql and High woa, cause honestly I don't want to spend 10 hours making 300 planks, when I can spend 1 hour making 1000.  

 

So to answer your question, yes, without 'grinding' or using 3rd party tools, charts, micro-managing every tic gain, you can get there to 90+ even 100 skill level. Just takes time and patience.

 

It comes down to play style, "micro manage your skill gain'' or Just play and have fun.

 

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I'm mostly an mix of A and C and have reached 90 in mining after a very long time using a high ql pickaxe with woa and coc (so the A approach there). But that's purely for mining, I'm definitely a C for woodcutting at the moment, but that's more to do with my woodcutting lagging behind on my wood related crafting skills (thus it's a bottleneck for imping) while my mining has always been ahead of my smithing and masonry skills. Similarly I'm also mostly a C for most crafting skills these days, unless the skill is high enough that I'm satisfied with what I can make (like, 80+ ql blacksmithing stuff. I could probably even get tools to 90ql now, but I can't be arsed).

 

In other words, I don't grind for the sake of it, I always have a goal in mind when I grind (like wanting to imp something to a certain ql, or unlocking something that's hidden behind having X in a certain skill) and when I grind something I try to do it optimally. When I have no such goal for a skill then I just use as fast as possible high ql tools. This effectively means that most of the time I don't grind at all and just use high ql woa+coc / botd tools.

Edited by Ecrir

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It's an interesting question. But is it suggested that playing the game 'unintuitively' is somehow wrong? I don't mean to suggest one way or the other.  But just consider what this might look like in the real world. 

 

There are many skilled professionals and hobbyists alike (irl) that challenge their skills with 'unintuitive' tasks. One I can think of is the 2x4 challenge among woodworkers. The task is to get a basic 2x4 from the hardware store and build some great out of it. But a typical wood worker that has acquired some skill is normally going to work with much higher quality wood. A similar task is when a craftsmen uses more basic tools to complete a task rather than using the many specialized tools in their shop. This is usually to show the viewer that they don't need fancy and expensive tools to do the job. But I'd bet the craftsmen also learns something (although very little) by using the basic tools.

 

I recognize these are not a direct comparisons. I think the question become more fundamental. How close to reality do you want your games to be? If the answer is 'as close as possible' then why play games?

 

Finding 'unintuitive' solution in games can help us find 'unintuitive' solution in life.

I don't mean to criticize your question, please don't take it that way. These are just my thoughts.

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11 hours ago, bigtree said:

I recognize these are not a direct comparisons. I think the question become more fundamental. How close to reality do you want your games to be? If the answer is 'as close as possible' then why play games?

 

Wurm suffers from Wogic, which is pretty prevalent in many of its mechanics. Woodworkers in RL don't suffer from Wogic.

 

Read for example what OR posted about shield bashing. There is absolutely nothing intuitive about that system.  Could probably come up with 20 more examples of what newbies encounter and are strange mechanics they will most likely not figure out if someone doesn't explain it. 

 

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