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christopher

new rifts

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56 minutes ago, gorgian said:

Dps isn’t the solution in the formula for distributing points. This would only negate the needed for tanks. Take WM AOE as an example: The WM tags one person. That person just move around keeping the AOE off the rest of the players.

This person participated in the fight and played a key roll in killing the WM, but did no dps. Why should that person not be rewarded.  This is just one of many examples why dps should not be used as a base line for points reward system.

 

Would be nice if they could add aggro taken/damage blocked to the points formula.

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7 hours ago, gorgian said:

Dps isn’t the solution in the formula for distributing points. This would only negate the needed for tanks. Take WM AOE as an example: The WM tags one person. That person just move around keeping the AOE off the rest of the players.

 

Which is a terrible thing, when a player frantically runs in circles fleeing from AoE keeping damage from the WM. Fight can take endlessly that way til someone loses patience and sacs to shut. Even worse especially now that WM slain gives 20 participation points to each attacker.

 

Good practice is someone with PoP and elemental immunity keeps the WM in place (taunting to keep agro, if none with ele immo there priests concentrating on heal at the tank), and priests gather in one direction dispelling AoE. One tile at the rim is enough for the players to maintain damage pressure without any significant dmg from AoE.

Edited by Ekcin

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Tanking is too abusable to give points for. A meta where 50 alts are running naked into the rift to rack up tank points is not something I want to see. Separating valid tanking from invalid tanking would be a complicated subject and more complicated to write code to implement. I have to go to great lengths to avoid abuse as it is so that's pretty much just off the table imo. Damage and kill points represent progress towards the goal of the rift and have a hard limit of how much is distributed per rift. 

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Damage sounds like a better metric than the current tagging meta. 

 

It might be good to reconsider the rift points per creature or the scaling of rewards, its much harder to hit 500 points now for the best rift mats.

 

On the subject of rift mats, is it reasonable that the turrets can be butchered for a decent quantity of 100ql rift mats, seems to be a bit much and an unfun pickup spam competition.

 

Another issue in my opinion is the ash for ending a rift early, it means there is an incentive to end the rift early for some players. If you want this to be a source of high ql ash maybe add it to the butchering pool of rift creatures. It might even be best if you have to clear the rift before burning hearts.

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16 hours ago, jaytoo said:

Tanking is too abusable to give points for. ..

Fully agree. Btw., when I am "tanking" the Warmaster, it is for team efficiency, not for personal reward. I hope the PoP meta is acceptable. It is not a must, frequent dispelling works perfectly without, but is convenient.

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Tanking can be fully abusable, but than again so are alts doing DPs along with buffing from priest. 
 

As for the coding only solution I can see would be to have a 2nd input from player, like an active status check. Making it impossible to run 50 alts. Sure they could run a few alts, but that would still be on par with the current alts running around at rift and other events.

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On 12/24/2022 at 3:59 AM, jaytoo said:

A meta where 50 alts are running naked into the rift to rack up tank points is not something I want to see.

 

What did you mean by this? Last I checked a new account is gonna suck against a rift mob regardless of loadout because they have bugger all skill. Good luck being a naked alt and praying you actually manage to block junk lmao

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3 minutes ago, gorgian said:

so are alts doing DPs along with buffing from priest

Alternate methods to sorta level the field with priest supports are in the pipeline. As you described, in my mind it is acceptable for a player to run multiple accounts so long as it takes sufficient aps and attention to do it. To that end, some mechanics may be added to make it a little more difficult. The active status check isn't needed because they have to target mobs anyway on each account to get any dps done. Other ideas that come to mind are people getting knocked out of carts/off horses occasionally. Ogres may throw players. However that would happen in the balancing pass.

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4 minutes ago, Madnath said:

What did you mean by this?

Tanking hits doesn't require skill when you're good with continuous dying.

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I think that nerfing priests will not be a good idea. As a consequence, priests may stay away, and therefore, summoning will become rare. Beside that, priests have been heavily nerfed in the years before, with amendments  to those "temporary" measures promised but never done. As someone frequently playing with 2 accounts (fighter and priest) I can say that this an extremely challenging task which leaves me exhausted every time. Maybe different with carts which I hate anyway, obstructing view for others. Throwing from horse would be a pain as it is hard if not impossible to remount infight, while remounting carts is no problem, so this would result in promoting carts.

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I have no plans to make changes to priests. Balances will be realized in other ways. As for alt abuse balances, those are just ideas, nothing planned at the moment. Would need to see how it shakes out after the point distribution changes. If it's getting abused you might just have to deal with increased difficulty to run multiple accounts.

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Well, in a way, the plan (which I find reasonable and interesting anyway) to base a major part of participation points on damage depending on mob strength will already be a nerf of AoE priests, healers (or combat supporters like WoL and mass stamina/tentacles) in particular, as they would collect only the reduced base damage, maybe different with dmg AoE like ice/fire pillar etc. This could then chase away healers not making everyone happy.

 

Another question is what is deemed abuse. Is something in recent combat considered such, or is it just a theoretical assumption? For example, as much as I hate carts at rifts 😎, I do not consider them abuse, though having e.,g, a priest and 3 alts with autofight on board may be considered a cheap way to collect points :) . And as much as "tagging" is hated, me never having been fond of, it certainly is not really abuse. We should stick to the sandbox philosophy and let everyone play her style unless it is really unbalanced.

 

Edit: Btw., thanks a lot for your participation in this thread

Edited by Ekcin
typo

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Correct me if I'm wrong, Damage aoe spells give no or very little points today. So some points would technically be a buff. That said giving priests a kill point based on all the aoe targets would be silly.

 

I'm not trying to get into a debate here but tagging is game mechanic abuse. The point system is being used in a manner it was not intended and in a way that gives players an amount of points not relative to their event objective impact. That latter bit being the important part. That doesn't make it against the rules of Wurm or some GM actionable thing. It does however mean the point system needs revised which is the main purpose of me taking on this project. I'm behind the sandbox playstyle idea, but you should get points relative to how much you forward the collective goal, how you do so within those bounds is left up to your creative measures. Making this change actually allows more variation on playstyle as archery and spells will be more viable as actual strategy.

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To be honest, I am not sure about damage AoE, as I used it only a few times when my Mag priest participated, and the results were unconvincing, so it may well be as you say. Generally, combat AoE outside PvP (where I am not much familiar with) does not play much of a role in Wurm, especially as there is no AoE for melee or ranged fighters (such as circular strike in other games, or even incendiary or explosive arrows or war machine projectiles). And I doubt such is planned in the future 😎.

 

As to tagging, I agree that it is "working the game" in a questionable way, and I am all for getting rid of it. And giving archery a chance again is certainly good and long due. Recently, the only major problem I see is the reduced participation point amount due to the shortening of rifts. I hope that will be fixed before further changes.

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I sympathize that getting less points per rift isn't a happy feeling. However the point output is more per hour of effort now, the event is just shorter. Lower level players are seeing more points per rift where higher level players tend to see a little less. So it's difficult to justify alterations. We gave the 20 point bonus for killing the war master as consolation for that, and lowkey pilot of concept of varied kill points. That said and as you implied, changes to that are neither here nor there all the point output will change with the rework of point distribution. We don't want to make an easy way to muster a large point bank before that That's just to leave us more options in balance of shop point values.

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On 12/25/2022 at 11:59 PM, jaytoo said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, Damage aoe spells give no or very little points today. So some points would technically be a buff. That said giving priests a kill point based on all the aoe targets would be silly.

 

I'm not trying to get into a debate here but tagging is game mechanic abuse. The point system is being used in a manner it was not intended and in a way that gives players an amount of points not relative to their event objective impact. That latter bit being the important part. That doesn't make it against the rules of Wurm or some GM actionable thing. It does however mean the point system needs revised which is the main purpose of me taking on this project. I'm behind the sandbox playstyle idea, but you should get points relative to how much you forward the collective goal, how you do so within those bounds is left up to your creative measures. Making this change actually allows more variation on playstyle as archery and spells will be more viable as actual strategy.

since the start of rifts.. aoe heals were rewarded for a lot of points, sometimes 10x/+ over "normal player's score"

 

tagging was/is the only way to somewhat achieve similar score with a lot of effort, as in.. inefficient fighting and chasing rift goal, while system rewards participation in a fight, and ignores actions, so.. in such terms you're forced to tag if you want higher ql and weightier moonmetal lump and rift points;

 

reworking the tagging will involve nerfing healing points or allow "easier" way to obtain points for non priests

 

the weird meta of only priests rock in wurm is really crazy... since ... priests are the only ones to cast spells and make buffs for themself or other players, only ones to have fun in combat or cheat a bit or by a lot with passive CR buff or truehit, etc

else we're all using same player skill/gear/moves, while before characteristics were nerfed and priests were often with lower body.str/stam/etc that's no longer the case, there was no buff to normal combat and non-priest abilities

 

do you think any of that is balanced and "normal nonpriest" character have anywhere fair ground to get similar points to the mentioned imbalance of combat abilities, do we need alts or to buy casts(buffs) before the start of rifts to somewhat even the ground? 

or running multiple accounts and clients should be mandatory for these events in the future..

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On 12/25/2022 at 7:17 PM, jaytoo said:

Tanking hits doesn't require skill when you're good with continuous dying.

 

I think the main issue here is you're assuming getting hit as tanking too. I'd say the opposite. While yes tanking generally does involve getting hit, I think there's a case to be made for actually blocking hits, rather than blocking and taking hits, to benefit points. Snipping out taking damage included in tanking and the issue you propose goes away, because there'd be no reason for alts to flood a rift in a wave of continuous death. 1 hit blocked by a shield shouldn't equal a point, maybe like 10 hits blocked by a shield would work. If that route is explored I'd suggest parrying not count, since that's after failing to block with a shield.

While not taking damage via shield blocking already has the benefit of you not losing health, in the grand scheme it's beneficial to others because that's aggro not on them.

 

There's absolutely a case to be made for tanking to be added to rift point gain. It just needs to be decided in what form that takes and how to make it happen, if possible. Gonna dive into the above a bit more:

You go to the rift with good shield skill. Your choice is to stay normal fighting, meaning your hitting and blocking some hits. It means you need to keep being focused, as usual so you go mob to mob. Standard rift. But now those blocks you're doing, will slowly, eventually gain you some extra points.

"Oh but it's exploitable because you could tank forever!" Not really, shields damage at an absurd rate so it's already not all that feasable, and rift mobs love to attack you as a group at a time. Making it so 10/15/20 blocks are required for a point makes it already not good for hitting the point reward cap. I think the trick is to make it a small, passive bonus you get, rather than a main way to gain rift points.

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12 hours ago, jaytoo said:

I sympathize that getting less points per rift isn't a happy feeling. However the point output is more per hour of effort now, the event is just shorter. Lower level players are seeing more points per rift where higher level players tend to see a little less. ..

The problem is not so much less rift points. For me, it would not matter so much to get the equivalent of a metallic liqid in 5 or 6 rifts as before, or now in 8-12 rifts. In fact, I have a lot of points, and no need to care a lot about. Btw., the effort to get to and from a rift has not changed, nor the effort to set up a camp and other infrastructure. And the latter is not done by low level players

 

The problem for me and others now is that it is close to impossible, if you are not the top performer (meaning being a healing priest or tagging a lot) to get MM of ql 90+. That is an issue if you are not doing PvP where HOTA seems to give some of them as high ql MM by marks has been nerfed earlier. So high ql MM is practically denied in PvE.

 

 

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taking or blocking hits can hardly be called progression if you just need to kill x amount of rift bunnies/ogres/doges and butcher a few hearts to proceed into the next wave until it's time to end the event

 

at high skill, it's ridiculous easy to just stand and "tank", I tank champs and other without a shield, my "tanking" is often just standing there, focusing and doing nothing more than focus and dodging hits instead of "taking damage" and having any kind of support

 

old as world.. meta of LT sickle and shield to just stand and soak in wounds but not care is what it is.. is that whole class now, lets call it slow damage... it's similarly inefficient

 

blocking is easy to abuse.. run in with a horse, high ql shield, some "decent" amount of skill to somewhat block more often, and you run in, grab aggro, and chill in some corner until 20-30% hp then run out.. boom ez new tagging meta, helping anything, no

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5 hours ago, Finnn said:

taking or blocking hits can hardly be called progression if you just need to kill x amount of rift bunnies/ogres/doges and butcher a few hearts to proceed into the next wave until it's time to end the event

 

at high skill, it's ridiculous easy to just stand and "tank", I tank champs and other without a shield, my "tanking" is often just standing there, focusing and doing nothing more than focus and dodging hits instead of "taking damage" and having any kind of support

 

old as world.. meta of LT sickle and shield to just stand and soak in wounds but not care is what it is.. is that whole class now, lets call it slow damage... it's similarly inefficient

 

blocking is easy to abuse.. run in with a horse, high ql shield, some "decent" amount of skill to somewhat block more often, and you run in, grab aggro, and chill in some corner until 20-30% hp then run out.. boom ez new tagging meta, helping anything, no

 

If you read my post, you'll understand that to prevent that you simply need to make it a lot less efficient so it doesn't become a primary way to gain points.

Again, make it small and passive, but there to give you a few extra points to tick you higher to where you desire to be.

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4 hours ago, Madnath said:

 

If you read my post, you'll understand that to prevent that you simply need to make it a lot less efficient so it doesn't become a primary way to gain points.

Again, make it small and passive, but there to give you a few extra points to tick you higher to where you desire to be.

that's only good if it's useful to the event fight, tanking where you are with other players is one thing, tanking 1-10000 rift bunnies on other side of the rift and actually doing nothing useful is completely different story, but you'll be gaining points with what you suggest, no?

yup... now you get it, easy to cheese

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1 hour ago, Finnn said:

that's only good if it's useful to the event fight, tanking where you are with other players is one thing, tanking 1-10000 rift bunnies on other side of the rift and actually doing nothing useful is completely different story, but you'll be gaining points with what you suggest, no?

yup... now you get it, easy to cheese

 

I don't think that's a realistic point, given what I've tried to put across.

Most people at rifts tend not to be godly accounts. Pretty quickly they'll run out of stamina, assuming for whatever reason they're getting 100% block rate. Shields also get utterly dumpstered at rifts, further removing from the feasibility of a tank system being cheesed. If someone wants to try and abuse the system using what you're pushing on, they're gonna be let down to find themselves far further down on the leaderboard because of a single point being awarded only with 10 to 20 successful damage blocks.

Again, the focus on adding this should be to make it a thing, but inefficient. That alone basically prevents this situation you're trying to put forward. If someone wants to sit in the back of the rift like a goomba to spend 10 minutes for 15 points, I say let them, because a priest gets that easier for casting heals and fighters bringing the rift forwards will get higher than that in the same time.

Again, one last time. The key is for it to be inefficient. The concept is there, it's valid and it makes sense in the context of the rift where you're meant to be a group challenged by tough mobs. The key to making it work is the balance to make it there, but something passive to get you maybe a few more points here and there. If you want to further ensure that this cannot be abused, simply make only full blocks count towards the amount you need for points, not half blocks. At a push, and probably outside of the scale of the work being possible, make it so points are only rewarded for the blocking if the mob dies within 3 to 5 minutes of the blocks.

 

The Warmaster alone is a good example of why giving tanks a reason to be there is a good idea. If I face tank the Warmaster, I'd like some points for the fact I'm sitting there tanking him while others smack him and then bolt away at the first AoE/turret spawn.

I can see why you're hesitant. I just see no reason to bin off the idea when it can be absolutely balanced to work. At least, better balanced than the current priest point farm if someone is so inclined. (And they've already said they wont touch it...)

Edited by Madnath

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I think you, as devs, overestimate how fun rifts are in proportion to the rewards you get for attending them.

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I want to lead your attention to the problem of low participation rifts, especially under the new scheme. The rift shown below is the one 31-Dec 22 to 1-Jan 23. It took the fighters over 2 and a half hour to close it, well done and thanks. I had to guard our alliance's unruly pet at that time and could not come, sorry for that.

q2KrENJ.jpg

 

You can see here that the participation points gained for that brave effort were seriously underwhelming. Such most probably was the quality of rewards. I think something must be done to avoid situations like in 2019 when rift fights by 2 or 3 fighters over many hours were frequent.

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1 hour ago, Ekcin said:

I think something must be done to avoid situations like in 2019 when rift fights by 2 or 3 fighters over many hours were frequent.

They were truly horrid, and not just because they were often in very difficult places to get to, though a few were. I think the worst was the flat top that took a couple of days of mining to reopen a route to the top, only 3 people turned up, one with frequent connection problems, a day or so later the rift was closed - but we did give up and take a 12 hour break in the middle.

 

That rift score doesn't look much different than some of the old rifts were once we had sniped enough mobs to get a reasonable score, and hearts to burn through all the remaining waves that is what we did.

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