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Lovelie

Difficult treasure maps shouldn't lie

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This is in response/continuation from this bug report thread:

 

TL;DR

The 75 QL map showed me this, and I dug at exactly this spot here. I also tried digging all 10 tiles N/S/E/W around it. Treasure not found.

 

4LY8dmC.gif

 

A GM came to investigate and was confused too.

S/he took the map from me, did some GM magic, said "Well, that's dumb", and showed me that the treasure was actually here:

 

GUEk6AE.gif

 

 

GM told me to write a bug report.

I wrote a bug report.

Dev told me it's a feature, not a bug.

 

1 hour ago, Darklords said:

High QL maps may have some inaccuracy built into them but will always be fairly close to the x, low quality maps should always be basically right under it you can dig.

 

 

 

MY THOUGHTS / SUGGESTION:

 

13 minutes ago, Lovelie said:

 

Would there be any room for consideration that, as a player, false information =/= more difficult clue?

It feels good to figure out a challenge, whether it's because of the ink splotches or extreme blurriness obfuscating the map details -- perhaps even some wacky roleplaying ideas like a map that's been drawn upside-down or with inverted/altered color schemes could be interesting challenges too.

It doesn't feel good to spend time and effort deciphering the clue which says "figure this out and dig over here" only for it to essentially turn out as "just kidding, that was a lie".

 

 

Difficult level maps should be difficult. They shouldn't be wrong.

Edited by Lovelie
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Agreed; I can kinda see "oh, the person that drew the map didn't do it exactly right" hold some water as a generic concept behind this sort of thing...but as a gameplay element for a player, it kinda sucks--there's no player skill or knowledge to apply in tracking down a location that's presented incorrectly (even if you know that it can be inaccurate). Nothing you can do other than wildly guess at how far in any given direction you might look, with nothing to indicate whether you're just in the wrong location, if it's bugged, or if it is actually incorrect.

 

So in these cases, you're left expanding your search scope to an arbitrarily wide area? That's just added tedium; and it completely circumvents the system wherein challenge should even be (figuring out where the spot is located based on the clues you're given).

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+1 I agree. I think an "X" should be where the spot actually is. If a map is to be harder, less information being presented might be a more fair way of making it harder.

Edited by Yumi
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Had a few of these and thought they were just buggy. If "person drawing the map didn't mark it exactly" is a thing, it should be specified, such as "location looks good enough to me" or something similar in the hint, or giving a circle instead of an x to mark the area that it could be in (and having an increased dig for treasure radius than exact location maps).

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+1, especially considering difficult maps have shorter dig/find ranges. 

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+1 spent well over an hour a while back with a map, ended up 15 some tiles away from the mark

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I think treasure maps are stupid to begin with and should be removed completely.If you could go to the location marked and dig up a treasure that'd be fine and it would feel like a reward after mining or making bricks.No,it has to make you go to several locations,digging up other maps in multiple steps which is just STUPID.Who thought this was a good idea?I only have a couple hours,if that,to sit and play wurm if i decide to.I'm still not over the AH update they did,i forgave them for it,came back to wurm,but after trying a treasure map...I stopped playing again.I log in occassionally to feed the deed upkeep.

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1 hour ago, Liandal30 said:

I think treasure maps are stupid to begin with and should be removed completely.If you could go to the location marked and dig up a treasure that'd be fine and it would feel like a reward after mining or making bricks.No,it has to make you go to several locations,digging up other maps in multiple steps which is just STUPID.Who thought this was a good idea?I only have a couple hours,if that,to sit and play wurm if i decide to.I'm still not over the AH update they did,i forgave them for it,came back to wurm,but after trying a treasure map...I stopped playing again.I log in occassionally to feed the deed upkeep.

 

yes let's remove content from the game other people enjoy because you personally are unable to commit time to it.

 

have you ever considered selling your maps?

Edited by Merc
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Had one of these recently myself. Spent about 10 minutes or so finding the right spot, which was around the same distance away from the X yours was. +1 treasure map locations shouldn't lie. Finding the locations is already difficult enough for most people, so we shouldn't throw another variable in the mix on top of the mobs that spawn.

Edited by Merc
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I 100% agree the x mark should not be in the wrong spot and that part should be changed imagine going to a newbie area(cele tapdance for example) and being told "oh ya its over here next to this smudge of a road but you have to be within 2 tiles of it" only to spend almost 2 hours roaming around the exact x spot and giving up and only to find it accidently after miss clicking while nearby 😕 I was seriously pissed off on it as this is not a good difficulty curve its already hard enough that a ql 96 map is within 2-3 tiles of the x marker while the whole map is vague as hell and almost impossible to decipher in an area like tap dance let alone the x not even being on the right spot either.

Please just change this so that the x will always mark the spot or by adding the feature of "if digging nearby the x but to far away to get the next clue/treasure tell the player if they are close to it" and make that feature work only on maps like that and only give a general direction of where to go.

As like the example in the op shows that map would be impossible to solve unless we actually know that the x is a rough estimation of the location and not the exact spot like it is on EVERY OTHER map >.> 

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Up to 15 tiles away leaves a 32x32 tiles area to search. That is plain insane. I had a difficult map lately where the spot was 5 tiles off, that already caused me searching for nearly an hour, and doubt whether I was on the right spot altogether (not all maps are conclusive and unequivocal concerning the location).

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+1, this is just... The fact that they can be inaccurate seems to be punishing the player "just because lol". Given how much time and energy those maps cost and how long the player is actively kept in the game due to it, that's just basically telling the player to piss off for investing into the game for no good reason.

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17 hours ago, Liandal30 said:

I think treasure maps are stupid to begin with and should be removed completely.If you could go to the location marked and dig up a treasure that'd be fine and it would feel like a reward after mining or making bricks.No,it has to make you go to several locations,digging up other maps in multiple steps which is just STUPID.Who thought this was a good idea?I only have a couple hours,if that,to sit and play wurm if i decide to.I'm still not over the AH update they did,i forgave them for it,came back to wurm,but after trying a treasure map...I stopped playing again.I log in occassionally to feed the deed upkeep.

 

Well, I personally like treasure maps. I'm fairly happy with most things about them. I don't think you're the only one who hates them, however I think your qualms would go beyond the scope of this post. It might be worth it to write another suggestion thread if you're feeling passionate about it. 

 

I just think purposely making the "X-marks-the-spot" inaccurate doesn't make a map more difficult, it makes it unfair.

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17 hours ago, Liandal30 said:

I think treasure maps are stupid to begin with and should be removed completely.If you could go to the location marked and dig up a treasure that'd be fine and it would feel like a reward after mining or making bricks.No,it has to make you go to several locations,digging up other maps in multiple steps which is just STUPID.Who thought this was a good idea?I only have a couple hours,if that,to sit and play wurm if i decide to.I'm still not over the AH update they did,i forgave them for it,came back to wurm,but after trying a treasure map...I stopped playing again.I log in occassionally to feed the deed upkeep.

 

ehhh you could just, you know, not do them.

 

 

otherwise +1, map should not be incorrect, i havent had this problem with any of my high ql maps yet.

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I just made a blight upon the earth packing a grid due to the "x" being off by a matter of 12 squares east. I had absolute granularity on my position thanks to two squares of exposed rock. 

 

Maybe if the "x" is inaccurate make it slovenly as if an inebriated person wrote it?

 

Maybe make a mercy component?

Search x# of times within n# radius and you get a "gut feeling" the treasure may be east.

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If a player has to dig within +/-5 tiles of a particular spot, then I think the X on the map should have to be within +/-5 tiles also.

 

I mean, sometimes the player has to cover a larger search area, because the maps are a bit vague sometimes. But sometimes they're not. If the X is at a distinctive highway intersection on the north side of the road, then the spot can be determined precisely and the player ought to hit the treasure if they dig there. Introducing a "mapmaker error" that makes them dig on the other side of the road doesn't add anything to the game, and takes away a good deal of player satisfaction from correctly solving the map.

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@Liandal30 : As you may have realized, there are not few players who like the exploration maps a lot (my humble self among them). This is a sandbox game, if you did not realize it yet. You may or may not take some of its offers, such as grinding odd skills (whichever seeming odd to you), practising pvp, archaeology, cooking, dyeing everything, doing rifts, farming, whatever, and of course, treasure hunting.

 

If you did not know, you may sell maps.

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Bump, got this map recently 2452b351d562c03eb24ed21dfccddc71.jpg

 

dug around the whole area, circle is where i finally hit it. on ridable areas it's mildly annoying, when it sends you up the top of mountains with very little to orient yourself on like the bigger servers love to it's infuriating

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On 11/29/2022 at 4:25 PM, Ekcin said:

@Liandal30 : As you may have realized, there are not few players who like the exploration maps a lot (my humble self among them). This is a sandbox game, if you did not realize it yet. You may or may not take some of its offers, such as grinding odd skills (whichever seeming odd to you), practising pvp, archaeology, cooking, dyeing everything, doing rifts, farming, whatever, and of course, treasure hunting.

 

If you did not know, you may sell maps.

It is great that you enjoy the treasure maps.  Honestly, I am glad somebody enjoys them.  However, "exploration map" is kind of the opposite of what these are.  

 

As to the OP - the notion that higher quality maps are less accurate maps is completely counterintuitive and frankly illogical programming.  if they are higher ql, but also need to be harder, than valid dig radius should be smaller but should certainly not be further from the actual X.

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Spent almost 2 hours digging up this map today, 187 attempts 

 

Spoiler

Ysd9qaJ.png6a37Efa.png

 

I also did little areas dotted around this, nothing

 

I find it quite odd that a mapping system can almost punish you for progressing through it by giving you misleading information, make the digging radius small, sure, but moving the actual treasure away from the X that you are meant to follow is, as said above, completely counterintuitive, makes me wonder if next time I get a Guard Tower map clue its going to ask me to dig about 30 tiles away from it too 🤦‍♂️

 

 

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5 hours ago, Blueheart said:

make the digging radius small, sure,

 

The digging area appears to be the same for all qualities. I recently verified a 98 quality map, it was still a 11x11 square. If you blanket an area and dig every ten tiles you should hit it.

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7 hours ago, Lisimba said:

 

The digging area appears to be the same for all qualities. I recently verified a 98 quality map, it was still a 11x11 square. If you blanket an area and dig every ten tiles you should hit it.

 

I was told otherwise by CA Help, so that's good to know that it's always 11x11

 

It ended up being here....

 

kruLOva.png

 

Thank you for the info :)

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14 hours ago, Lisimba said:

If you blanket an area and dig every ten tiles you should hit it.

And this is what the devs call "exploration".  Digging every 10 tiles.

 🤨

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@Army

 Could you please bring up this subject with the developers? I just watched (in Freedom chat) somebody discover this "feature" in real time after hours of looking for their map.

 

Is the feature of "our puzzles lie to you" really the gameplay solution Wurm needs?

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I did not understand that "11x11" bit. My worst map, resolved with GM help only, had the X's center pointing at 2683,2421 while the actual location of the chest was 2688, 2458. While the x coordinate "only" differed by 5, the y differed by 37. Should that mean that a map or chest is found up to 11 in any direction from the X center or the "real location", that was not the case either according to my observations. I frequently dug only 3 or 4 tiles away from the "real" spot and found "nothing interesting". If the X fits, which is the case in most maps, it seems that no more aberration than 4 or 5 in either direction is tolerated. I found clues more "tolerant" on lower ql maps though, but cannot "hard prove" it.

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