feature feedback Caffeine Changes

[Gooner 14]

No mention about it in the patch notes! 😕

[elentari 2,660]

Happy holidays!

 

@Keenando you think such a function could be implemented in game ? 

 

 

For those saying it would be "a bot playing for you" we could just as well say that toggling the button for inactive Sleep bonus usage is making Wurm botting your SB timer. Or saying that pressing the autowalk key is botting your ship when sailing.

 

The issue here is that it's just tedious to constantly watch the caffeine timer so you can refresh it without wasting too much liquid in the process. It takes no skill or anything to refresh the timer, but stuff can happen in game or RL that can make a player forget to take a sip and he'll waste a lot of coffee to regain his caffeine power back to 100. 

 

It's just a tedious aspect of the game that's been reported by a few players in chats by now and it could be easily fixed by having a toggled option to "auto sip kahvesi / tea  when caffeine timer is <60 seconds". Those who want their  manual sips can simply not toggle it on. The rest can stay assured their buff won't expire as long as their is coffee in their water skin. 

[Tpikol 1,057]

22 hours ago, elentari said:

Happy holidays!

 

@Keenando you think such a function could be implemented in game ? 

 

 

For those saying it would be "a bot playing for you" we could just as well say that toggling the button for inactive Sleep bonus usage is making Wurm botting your SB timer. Or saying that pressing the autowalk key is botting your ship when sailing.

 

The issue here is that it's just tedious to constantly watch the caffeine timer so you can refresh it without wasting too much liquid in the process. It takes no skill or anything to refresh the timer, but stuff can happen in game or RL that can make a player forget to take a sip and he'll waste a lot of coffee to regain his caffeine power back to 100. 

 

It's just a tedious aspect of the game that's been reported by a few players in chats by now and it could be easily fixed by having a toggled option to "auto sip kahvesi / tea  when caffeine timer is <60 seconds". Those who want their  manual sips can simply not toggle it on. The rest can stay assured their buff won't expire as long as their is coffee in their water skin. 

the changes i suggested would also solve this problem, there would be no need for this.

[elentari 2,660]

Mean drinking coffee / tea not being tied to the water bar? Yeah I can imagine it helps to keep the caffeine buff. My idea was more in like keeping the buff active without the stress of constantly monitoring the caffeine buff timer. 

[Keenan 5,539]

Hi all.

 

We're on a bit of a Holiday break at the moment, responding to emergencies and maintenance as required. We will be finalizing these details early in January.

[Tpikol 1,057]

11 hours ago, elentari said:

Mean drinking coffee / tea not being tied to the water bar? Yeah I can imagine it helps to keep the caffeine buff. My idea was more in like keeping the buff active without the stress of constantly monitoring the caffeine buff timer. 

 that  and also making it use full power all the time and remove the limit on the timers, so the more coffe you drink the longer the timer gets.

Edited December 28, 2021 by Tpikol

[Finnn 3,304]

I'm only curious when we can get rid of the twitchy addiction simulation.. drinking coffee every 20-28minutes(even with 99ql kahvesi and 29 minutes.. we have to sip again earlier before the timer ticks or suffer mild to severe buff penalty).

This is the stupidest mechanic I've encountered in wurm for all these years, normally a chill game but this is insanely high maintenance and penalty and it's for casuals... There's also a bug that allows to skip all that but neither is addressed.

IMO this had to remain with the 1gram sips for the past month instead of what we currently have until the next change.

I'm really not a fan of watching a short timer and rebuffing or playing around, bugging people to fight and force puking, etc

Interesting playstyle that I'd not recommend to anyone with or without alts to do it "with ease". 

[Keenan 5,539]

I'll bring up the timer for discussion after the break this week.

 

When caffeine was introduced, I used it heavily. I did find the timer to be a bit punishing, but I personally felt that the benefit of skill gain sort of negated the tedium of maintaining the buff. The swearing I did whenever I'd miss my timer though...

 

One thing I'm thinking about here is the idea of making things a little less "punishing" at the cost of dropping caffeine from a 2x boost to a 1.5x boost. It'd still be a benefit, but less over-powered means we have more wiggle-room with the negative effects. I consider the timer one of those negative effects, along with the debuff as proposed.

[Joemog 732]

1 hour ago, Keenan said:

I'll bring up the timer for discussion after the break this week.

 

When caffeine was introduced, I used it heavily. I did find the timer to be a bit punishing, but I personally felt that the benefit of skill gain sort of negated the tedium of maintaining the buff. The swearing I did whenever I'd miss my timer though...

 

One thing I'm thinking about here is the idea of making things a little less "punishing" at the cost of dropping caffeine from a 2x boost to a 1.5x boost. It'd still be a benefit, but less over-powered means we have more wiggle-room with the negative effects. I consider the timer one of those negative effects, along with the debuff as proposed.

You were also talking about wanting a caffeine market. How about easier to get timers like they are now, and more complicated and skill required for way longer timers.

 

IMO Wurm is a tedious enough game (still love it) and only benefits from getting easier and getting more QOL.

Edited December 29, 2021 by Joemog

[Vorticella 958]

1 hour ago, Keenan said:

One thing I'm thinking about here is the idea of making things a little less "punishing" at the cost of dropping caffeine from a 2x boost to a 1.5x boost. It'd still be a benefit, but less over-powered means we have more wiggle-room with the negative effects. I consider the timer one of those negative effects, along with the debuff as proposed.

 

What makes the timers feel punishing right now is that it's so difficult to get the bonus to full power, so having the timer run out when your water bar is full is a huge pain. Having caffeinated drinks bypass the water bar and reducing the amount needed to consume to get full power would make the caffeine timer feel similar to food affinity timers, which I think is perfect. When it runs out you just refill it, no stress.

 

This works well for people who have limited time to play, since we can just log on, drink some coffee and get to whatever we want to do. I don't see why it needs further negative effects beyond the link to sleep bonus, the intoxication effect and having to maintain the short buff timer, but as a more casual player there are probably some other parts of the picture I'm not aware of.

 

 

[Madnath 3,113]

1 hour ago, Vorticella said:

What makes the timers feel punishing right now is that it's so difficult to get the bonus to full power, so having the timer run out when your water bar is full is a huge pain. Having caffeinated drinks bypass the water bar and reducing the amount needed to consume to get full power would make the caffeine timer feel similar to food affinity timers, which I think is perfect. When it runs out you just refill it, no stress.

 

Yeah I kinda lean moreso towards this. The timer only really sucks because we can't drink over water limit currently and this is the only really bad part of the system currently. I'd say the timer is pretty comfortable currently, as it'd suck to have to delay doing something for a while with SB if your fatigue is getting low. It feels kinda redundant to worry about this with the system binning fatigue with the next iteration, but I'd seriously just add drinking coffee over water bar limit at the next possible time just to see if any timer complaints remain when we're less unable to get that power back up.

 

In short, please god give us drinking coffee over water bar ASAP, even if its with current system as some people don't have an alt to use to throw up and playing with low water is horrible. At most, maybe add 5 minutes extra to the timer.

 

3 hours ago, Keenan said:

One thing I'm thinking about here is the idea of making things a little less "punishing" at the cost of dropping caffeine from a 2x boost to a 1.5x boost. It'd still be a benefit, but less over-powered means we have more wiggle-room with the negative effects. I consider the timer one of those negative effects, along with the debuff as proposed.

The more I think of it, the more unsure I am. 1.5x really doesn't sound all that good, what people seem to love is the ability to get through all their SB a lot faster and going down to that feels quite a leap.

Edited December 30, 2021 by Madnath

[Coach 196]

I quite like the idea of negative effects, it supposes to be annoying at a lower beverage skill. Higher skill get the benefit of timer close to 30mins so u can maintain the buff without keep drinking. These encourage people to level up their skills. 

 

In a long term, everyone beverage skill will be very high. I rather have 2x skill with 30 mins in the future, than 1.5x with 1hours(for example) now or even 5hours(for example) now. 2x boost is just so good. The 1.5 candy is not enough for me to take it now, i want 2 candy in the future if i just wait, hardworking prepare items and level up skills. 

We are pretty much playing the "Stanford Marshmallow Experiment" now. Good luck.
 

[Finnn 3,304]

Some skills only make sense to use 2x rate, for other maybe smaller rates make more sense to not burn through sb "instantly", dropping from 2x to 1.5x will still be a big penalty and hard-break in some grinds if this is randomly caused by events and hard to manage and recover back to 2x.

If there's toxicity and we're limited to 1 hour a day by the detox rate, why are there further penalties pushing into rates we do not want to use?

 

 

 

 

[Finnn 3,304]

Any chance to get 3) and 3.1) for coffee/cacao/tea? Reason in the spoiler.

 

[Orlaz 243]

instead of removing the caffeine buff from meditating/lockpicking, cant you add "sleep bonus" checks abit in there? like start, 2-3 in middle and one at the end?

[elentari 2,660]

So any news on these proposed changes? Would love to be able to drink coffe without worrying about the water meter. 

[Tpikol 1,057]

call me silly but is there a good reason you didnt turn off caffine use when you decided it needs to be changed? why let people "abuse it" for months if you think its broken while you figure out how to fix? why not just turn it off while you figure out how to fix it?

 

too late to do this now anyway but just wondering.

Edited January 9, 2022 by Tpikol

[Stinboi 363]

1 hour ago, Tpikol said:

call me silly but is there a good reason you didnt turn off caffine use when you decided it needs to be changed? why let people "abuse it" for months if you think its broken while you figure out how to fix? why not just turn it off while you figure out how to fix it?

 

too late to do this now anyway but just wondering.

Why turn it off?, its not broken in that way, its more the you have to lower your water bar to almost 0 to get to 100 power so none is gaining advantages or abuse it in anyway. thats why i think its fine to let it be like this until they are ready with an update

[elentari 2,660]

It's not really fine. It's just an extra chore (added to the pile of chores Wurm has) to take advantage of this new mechanic. It's quite annoying because you have to ask someone to do a Hammerhand on you with a maul or be lucky to have an alt capable of doing that. 

 

Personally what I don't get is why force the water meter to be a mechanic if the next update is to remove that mechanic? I think it should've been left live as it was, then release the new update when ready. This is just 1 step forward, 2 steps back, then waiting to do two steps forward again....

[Keenan 5,539]

We're compiling the final changes for this feature to be posted this week, with the update to bring those changes in tentatively scheduled to be rolled out before the end of January. My aim is next week, but we have a round of testing to do still.

[Gooner 14]

Nice to hear it's in progress! Much anticipated change. My wurm life revolves too much around that ##%&(# water meter now.

 

Just to weigh in a bit in the discussion here - not even the timer would be as much of an issue with caffein abuse allowed by a full water meter, if the consequence of missing to reset it is you'll only have to drink another jar of kahv.

[elentari 2,660]

@Keenanthank you very much for the update. No rush in getting it, test as much as you need. Appreciate the info. 

[Nocturnes 212]

On 12/11/2021 at 3:49 AM, Joemog said:

Huge window of opportunities introduced then... This just seems different and way less useful than before.

 

Lockpicking doesnt work like meditation. You keep going till u get a skill tick, can easily use a few hrs sb in a day. Can't abuse caffeine with it more than anything else except there's no fatigue. No reason to add this.

 

Meditation was always a win-more for veterans. Which always seemed silly in a game like Wurm. Super nerds already have high meditation or will get it any way. Keep caffeine affecting these to make it actually help casual players...

 

For someone that plays PVP on a relatively new server I'd hate to see such a huge window of opportunity introduced (meaning changing all of caffeine this way). I'd rather keep it the way it is except of course fix the QOL things like thirst bar. Otherwise caffeine will have just worked to put newer players way behind lol.

I cant agree more the fatigue system makes it so that grinding with coffe wont be more effective than grinding 12 hours without Coffe/SB combo. Which means it mostly benefits ppl with not many game hours per day currently to catch up to those who can grind 12 hours, keep in mind ppl using the full fatigue without the Coffe/SB combo will get more skills in a day then casuals using the caffiene. 

This made it a great balance between casuals and hardcore grinders, casuals have more of a chance to catch up to hardcore grinders except they still wont get as much which ofc makes sense why should they. But if you remove the fatigue system then coffe is just another straight up bonus to skilling overall in wurm and there is absolutely no reason not to always use it on timer. It will make it so that new casual players will fall behind even more and also for players who cant horde the silver to buy or make their own coffe will also hugely fall behind in their grind.

It doesnt feel wurm to have a 4x exp button with no real penalty to using it over the regular grind.

Edited January 13, 2022 by Nocturnes

[Nocturnes 212]

On 12/17/2021 at 4:33 AM, Keenan said:

So with that said, let me ask this: What do you suggest we can do with this feature to ensure that it meets the following criteria:

• Helps casual players with grinding skills.
• Is easy to use and understand.
• Strikes a balance so it is a more conscious choice to use and less of a new meta to skill grinding.

To start things off, I had my own thought on the matter. I feel caffeine should be balanced to be more of a choice between a quick grind or an efficient grind. Caffeine should make sleep bonus usage less efficient (fats issue notwithstanding as we're looking into that), yet allow you to achieve quicker results. However, choosing to not use caffeine would result in more efficient use of sleep bonus. So the amount of sleep bonus used would have to increase whereas the skill gain itself would stay the same or even decrease slightly relative to the existing bonus given by caffeine. In this way, I might choose to burn through sleep bonus as a casual player in order to gain more skill in a shorter period of time as I sleep in a bed when I'm not online and I'm only online a few days a week. In contrast, someone with more time to play may want to be more efficient with their sleep bonus as they would be gaining less of it over time due to their play style.

 

 

I agree with the way you think coffe should work, but I think the method to reach it is slightly wrong. If the reason to remove fatigue from coffe is due to other factors tied to fatigue itself then I ask we find another way to do this. You therefore stated that sleep bonus should be burned faster (even faster then times 2?) so that you can use less sleep bonus from coffe and therefore miss out on skills in the end compared to a regular grind. This is a good balance between casuals getting a boost vs grinders still gaining more in the end, I agree thus far.

However the problem with this is that getting sleep powder isnt really a big issue for those who played long enough to have a good foothold in the market, most new players sell their precious sleep powder to earn their first few silver in the market and this sleep powder goes straight to the more serious grinders. I feel like this system tries to be something really good but will ultimately just benefit the elite playerbase the most in the end and punish the new. 

A possible solution to this that I see, is if we add so that coffe does indeed maybe drain 2.5x SB for 2x skill gain but once you use 5 hours SB you get a debuff preventing you from consuming more sleep powder instead, meaning you cannot refill your SB after the use of 5 hour coffe for a 24 hour peroid, replacing the intoxication system. This will prevent coffe from being combined with rediculous amounts of SB grind and will also aim to aid the players who can play 5 hours or less daily.

Summerize in theory:
5 Hours grind with Sleep Bonus without Coffe would yield the regular 100% for 300minutes of effective grind.
2,5 Hours with Sleep Bonus and Coffe would yield as comparison 200% for 150 minutes of effective grind but consume "6,25 hours of Sleep bonus from the SB bar" and place a 24 hour lock to SB refill from powder only.

Sorry for being late to giving input hope you still have time to take this into account @Keenan

Edited January 13, 2022 by Nocturnes

[Aleck 316]

Even just making it so that sleep powder can't be eaten once we use x hours of coffee bonus in y time would be a big preventative measure against coffee becoming the new skill grind meta.