Exploration: Part 1 - Public Testing Round 2!

[Tristanc 570]

You know what I don't want to see?

 

A checkerboard of dirt tiles on our live servers in otherwise untouched wilderness from players trying to discover clues by digging.

 

[Synjor 466]

29 minutes ago, Tristanc said:

You know what I don't want to see?

 

A checkerboard of dirt tiles on our live servers in otherwise untouched wilderness from players trying to discover clues by digging.

It's a separate action, no tiles changes are made.

[Aleck 316]

2 hours ago, Synjor said:

It's a separate action, no tiles changes are made.

No, but several people (me among them) have reported packing tiles to keep track of where we've failed the dig for treasure action. That will certainly happen on live without some better means of keeping track of where not to dig.

[Wulfmaer 413]

Think this has been raised before, but just in case...

 

When digging for treasure, and finding a casket you also get the message "You find a piece of parchment." This is before opening the casket, so you don't have the map yet.

[Ostentatio 1,970]

16 hours ago, Aleck said:

Alright, I am finally on the test server testing the latest updates. First clue I got was this one at 31ql:

 

Thanks for the feedback. What's going on here is that the "Libila's Game" is a Libila colossus that had been renamed by a GM or developer, so the text winds up being unclear because it just uses the item's name.

 

This is a situation that will happen less often on the live servers, but just to avoid any confusion, we'll be adding some clarification to the text in situations like these, where the type of item isn't clear from the name due to a custom name being applied. In those cases, especially when it's not an item that could get a custom name through normal play, we'll be adding text saying what type of item it is. In this case, it would end up saying something like "a colossus of Libila named 'Libila's Game'". It's definitely a source of confusion we'd like to avoid.

[Wulfmaer 413]

18 hours ago, Aleck said:

I don't even have dyslexia and I can barely read that font. Also, what the heck is "A Libila's Game" ? I'm not even going to bother trying to find this one if the only thing it'll tell me is I should dig blindly across nine map grids and hope for a sleep powder or an upkeep token. This is WAY worse than the original version of exploration already.

 

If not already solved, the colossus in question is a little to the north of the central steppe.

[Gumbert 45]

Is the Hunting for Treasure reward meant to be something that drops into inventory when claimed or is it something else?

[Tristanc 570]

3 hours ago, Gumbert said:

Is the Hunting for Treasure reward meant to be something that drops into inventory when claimed or is it something else?

 

If it's like archaeology caches, it creates a container that's on the tile where you found it that you can get items from, not immediately in your inventory.

[Ekcin 2,401]

14 hours ago, Aleck said:

No, but several people (me among them) have reported packing tiles to keep track of where we've failed the dig for treasure action. That will certainly happen on live without some better means of keeping track of where not to dig.

This reeks for a lot of landscape disfiguring once exploration goes productive, similar to the loads of fragment piles, or worse.

[Gumbert 45]

43 minutes ago, Tristanc said:

 

If it's like archaeology caches, it creates a container that's on the tile where you found it that you can get items from, not immediately in your inventory.

 

Sorry, I mean the reward from completing the journal.

 

[TheTrickster 2,279]

1 hour ago, Ekcin said:

This reeks for a lot of landscape disfiguring once exploration goes productive, similar to the loads of fragment piles, or worse.

Yep.  Not in a small part this is because the devs have already removed the ONE method of zeroing in on the correct spot that doesn't involved changing tiles or mapping out everything externally (and even then that can lead to accidentally re-doing tiles).

[elentari 2,660]

3 hours ago, Ekcin said:

18 hours ago, Aleck said:

No, but several people (me among them) have reported packing tiles to keep track of where we've failed the dig for treasure action. That will certainly happen on live without some better means of keeping track of where not to dig.

 

 

I've been packing as well to mark the spots where I've dug. And yeah this is due to the fact that the first system, while not perfect, at least gave me a precise area where to dig. This way I feel I am forced to keep track of the "digging radius" so need a visual cue for it. 

[Stanlee 3,434]

open console

type exactly, replacing z with a button of your choice:

bind z "firepillar"

press z instead of packing

???

profit

 

Anyone that sticks to packing come live will find themselves being cannibalized by other people who did the same and not being sure whose packing markers are whose.

 

Also giving us maps that work (seemingly entirely, I can't find -anything- that the darker splotches are meant to represent) from contours and not giving us a topographical map dump is a solid joke, can we get that posted? We've got them for the live servers, want to see how much more reasonable those maps are when we have that reference

 

We definitely need to be thinking, strategizing and not expecting this to just be easy - the feel of this system will undoubtedly change as we collectively get used to it - for instance, rather than digging around randomly, I did this

 

Using 3 reference points (peat, rock, rock) and 3 directions from them (direct east, direct south, 2 tiles west for each tile south) I managed to dig at the correct spot second try.

Edited June 5, 2022 by Stanlee

[Sinnjinn 508]

Gave it another go.

 

dug up an 86ql map.  Found the location almost right away.....then spent TWO HOURS trying to find the correct spot to dig.  This is NOT fun.  I know things will be different on the live servers, and I'll try it again, but if it's not better then I doubt I'll be doing many if any maps.  PLEASE bring back the distance on examine.  Have it work only when you are 'a stone's throw away' or tie it to the dig action so it's not instant.

[elentari 2,660]

2 hours ago, Sinnjinn said:

PLEASE bring back the distance on examine.  Have it work only when you are 'a stone's throw away' or tie it to the dig action so it's not instant.

 

Yeah I agree to this. At least give us this system as Optional. 

 

Those who want to use the current system can simply NOT examine the map. The rest of us who liked the first iteration can examine the map to actually enjoy the content instead of digging randomly. 

[Shydow 540]

Spent a couple hours on the test server today playing with the treasure maps.

 

First the Good:

• I love the ability to show miniature map dumps for the maps, that is really cool that is shows the terrain as it is, instead of what it initially was.
• The rewards are also varied and interesting enough that I would love to get them on Live. I can't wait to see all the new toys revealed.

The Bad:

• The in-game map is completely useless for this task. There is no way to zoom in closely enough to get any sort of meaningful detail, and the "hint" is an absurdly huge area. This lets me focus on the correct part of the out of game map dump, but I dislike requiring alt-tabbing to see that. There are many people who are unable to use the out-of-game wiki pages or community maps due to issues with alt-tabbing; they will wholly be unable to participate in these activities. My suggestion here, if possible, would be allow the ability to zoom in further on the in-game map. Additionally, there should be some alternate way of getting hints. Examine was simply too easy, perhaps as suggested above, have the hint shown each time you dig unsuccessfully, so there is a time cost involved.
• The "hints" that involve a disbanded deed, are worthless. Unless you've lived on a server and meticulously mapped and cataloged every deed that has ever existed, you won't get anything from them. Requiring a player to do archaeology to get a chance at a hint at the direction of an abandoned deed, is far too reliant on RNG to be useful in finding the location. Again, a different method of getting a direction and / or a distance is required.
• Shovel enchants do not seem to affect the "dig up treasure" action timer length. While not a game-breaker, it would be nice to have WoA and runes work for that.

The Ugly:

• Some of the maps shown in this thread lack any recognizable details or are damaged / smudged to the point of unreadability. Even ones that do have those details, having some sort of legend showing     is sand and     is steppe would go a long way in helping decipher the clues. I've also talked with a colorblind player, who is going to have extreme difficulty with any clues that involve multiple similar colors.

[elentari 2,660]

Thinking about this situation more...the big issue atm is the requirement to alt tab in the first place to do an ingame thing.

Now I know Wurm is a slow game and most of us usually listen to music, watch a movie, even read a book while we play. Wurm is slow. 

 

But alt tabbing to a different resource (3rd party maps) in order to complete an in game action (finding clues) is not a good step in the right direction. It's not good design. No game should take you "out of the game" to complete something.

 

* Note: some experiments were done in the past with this concept but they only worked pre-internet era. Nowadays a quick google search gives you all the answers to any stuck gamer. See  the game called "Secret world" puzzles for example*

 

Solution: Implement the current map dumps in Wurm online, at least on PvE. They are anyway accesible to anyone so there's no reason for them to not the the current in game map.

Add a 2x, 4x and 8x zoom and Bob's your uncle suddenly we no longer have to alt tab from wurm to do something in Wurm.   

[Rudie 1,479]

As someone who has zero interest in or time to skill Archaeology, using disbanded deeds should be kept to that and nothing else. 

Edited June 6, 2022 by Rudie

[Katrat 2,296]

9 minutes ago, elentari said:

No game should take you "out of the game" to complete something.

Absolutely true! I could not agree with you more!

[Archaed 2,280]

On 6/1/2022 at 3:35 PM, Budda said:

Just wanted to add in regards to matching treasure maps to the in-game world map - yes we realise it's a bit difficult at the moment, but we have something that will address this slated for a later update. While not a perfect solution, for now the map dumps should have that extra detail needed to help match locations when the world map is missing some details.

 

[Gumbert 45]

Has anyone finished "Hunting for Clues" and "Hunting for Treasure" in the journal and did you get anything or are they bugged?

[Wulfmaer 413]

2 hours ago, Gumbert said:

Has anyone finished "Hunting for Clues" and "Hunting for Treasure" in the journal and did you get anything or are they bugged?

 

"Hunting for Clues" didn't give anything when I completed it, others reported it bugged around that time. Not seen anything to say it's been fixed.

[Tor 518]

So, is this thing hitting live tomorrow?

[Sinnjinn 508]

1 minute ago, Tor said:

So, is this thing hitting live tomorrow?

 

I hope so. It needs to go live before more meaningful critiques can happen

[Spacy 659]

Question:   The treasure maps are obviously generated from the map dumps.  Are these new mini-map dumps generated at the moment of generating the map, or are they just the most recent map dumps?  Based on comments made in the thread, people seam to think both.  As we have all seen deeds come, terraform and pave, then go away 3 months later, I can see it being an issue, abet a rare one.