2023 Roadmap

[Finnn 3,298]

2 hours ago, Fairyshine said:

If a tool is in inventory, it can automatically select the tool if you choose to make planks by right clicking a log.  If you have more than one saw, it can give the two tools with options to select the one you want to use for that session which can be wiped after you log out.

Imping is horrid as is, especially if you want to imp a ship or something large where you can't (or haven't) put it in a container to sort etc.  You have to continually read messages in events which is a nightmare if someone else is doing something in local, and it distracts from reading alliance chat etc.  No idea how to improve this, but thanks for looking at ways.

 

perfectly fine in a game like runescape with one tool in inventory or equipped tools for the tasks;

it's certainly a good VR experience approach to simplify things, but with current way actions/skillgain etc works in wurm, this is not possible without some strict rules what is used and from where(think rare nails/clay/bricks on you.. and building walls.. rip rare materials) 

 

Here.. we have rare/supreme/normal tools all do their own specific thing, you could have 5 saws, skiller/s, have a supreme imbued for some odd reason to make amazing planks of higher ql boat parts.. but want to use woa hq saw to saw regular planks..

 

Game is a bit more complex...

 

What you suggest could be done by having Inventory group by design.. player made to unlock such functionality and items only from within there to be used for "default" actions, perfectly fine.. but using any random tool mechanic finds on you.. could wreck your ql1 fantastic seryll skiller to make few bricks.. it's certainly not something you want the game client to be doing, right?

 

About last part.. that is a good QoL to have... items bound to event log to improve.. it's a living hell to read next tool.. turns players into living bots, instead of having some sort of easier feedback like improve icon when the item is loaded into "container" and you look at the item in some inventory.. being cart/wagon/boat/etc..  

One option could be adding the item to crafting window.. or something special for just the improving case of one item.. better off.. improve items in vicinity(here we get into a small hell of what the hell is within reach to improve... so that should be considered.. either provide list of items within a tile reach.. and ignore distance for action for items in the populated list.. or list only items within reach to do improving actions, same mechanic and view could be used to work on unfinished "bulk" items)

 

We lack option to queue tend, harvest, sow actions when farming.. we can tend, and harvest.. but harvest tile state changes or w/e client/server mess up queue for sowing action.. that could use QoL update to track tile position when queueing action.. and queue to try sowing on the tile.. once it's dirt.. instead currently that is not a thing.. little QoLs for everyday gameplay.

 

We lack way to track how many actions we have left queued, there's no indication of any sort for this, closest thing is crafting window and queue only from there, but the player could queue before or after this queue other actions.. there's no UI view for that.. also if we mess up and queue action like repair on item which is 0 damage.. we just lost one queue slot, we don't get that until we rotate to this action.. so we wait xxx seconds until we're able to queue something again.

 

little everyday things which might or might not be worth a little thought and update.

Edited February 6, 2023 by Finnn

[Johnston3 73]

22 hours ago, Madnath said:

I see nothing I at all dislike or think is kinda weird or wasted. I dig this.

There was basically no way they didn't have to.

[Chaoshaze 86]

Sounds like some exciting changes. I am really looking forward to the skins and the decoration items. What am I saying? all the ideas sounds great! Thanks for all you do guys!

[DaletheGood 1,073]

Appreciate the Roadmap, there's been a real need to clean up certain aspects of Wurm, and it sounds like we're finally about to do so. Am in favor of pretty much all the items listed on the roadmap, and appreciate you separating the PvP changes from the wider (if less vocal) general population. The Spell Gems sounds interesting, but there are a lot of pitfalls if not implemented correctly, so take your time with that and get it right. You don't want to completely discourage people from grinding channeling and faith in order to get a high cast, so maybe having an absolute cap on spell power of like 50 on the gem would give flexibility for new players to get some low level enchants while maintaining the market for the high casts.

 

All in all, approve of all this.

[Batolemaeus 181]

Please abduct a Shader Magician to redo lighting and a bunch of effects. A talented developer should be able to drastically improve the look and performance of the game for relatively little investment.

 

Regarding Skill QoL: Thatching. One has to produce hundreds (!) of thatch before being able to make a single thatched roof. It's intensely silly. Making a single roof shouldn't require producing more thatch than the entire server will ever need.

[kochinac 1,395]

On 2/5/2023 at 5:32 PM, Darklords said:

Skill QOL Pass

Wurm has many skills, but some of them can feel a bit more like filler or are just way more difficult than they need to be to train, for not much reason. This year we would like to find skills like this and work on rebalancing them, for example allowing using items from containers for taming like planting from containers works. We would love to see suggestions from people on which skills they think could use some attention in this area.

Speaking of containers, i think  currently for sowing although it has satchel activated it doesn't use ql of satchel or enchants to speed up action or increase skill gain, it still uses ql of seed that is consumed. I think it would be much better to use properties of satchel for action, that why we can use woa to speed up sowing, and have reason to imp up satchels.

Also, for harvesting rassberries, blueberries, lingoberies why do it have to consume so much volume, one satchel fits 18 rassberries while it fits 100 walnuts or lemons for example, which is very annoying and you can't go harvesting them without a wagon with fsb... reduce their volume so 100 fits a satchel like other things

For other skills, like someone before said, Animal husbandry is a total mess. we need more predictable results and not playing ruolet at later stages... Cooking isn't much better, most of recepies doesn't make sense in difficulty vs the results(also there is no sense in dificulty for skilling it needs more logical rebalancing in a way that if you put effort to fill more complicated meal you should get more skill, some recepies for dairy food that can use panfilling method for skilling would be nice, currrently there is only chocolate milk with terrible 20 dificulty, it should have atleast 50 diff considering steps needed). Also storing some products that are used for other recepies is nightmare, being able to store saussages, butter, cake, scone mixes and such would be nice... could even open market for them.

foraging and botanizing makes no sense as 2 seperate skills, even as one skill to be honest now that we can plant almost anything, their actions could use nature skill...

Not related to skills, but... Some wornings before we do something stupid would be cool... I destroyed 106 coc seryl rake skiler because i forgot to repair it, consumed countless 100+ coc strings during grinding ropemaking because i didn;t notice i was using last bit, i mended my would with 101 coc rare med rug...

Also system with locks is stupid, i ruined 1k of 100ql cochineals because i put one bad by accident because i couldn't make or buy 100ql lock to secure my bin... would be also nice to be able to define ranges of ql we allow into some bin so accidents like that doesn't happen

Edited February 6, 2023 by kochinac

[raxias 52]

Please add Pineapple & Coconut trees/bushes that only grow on desert tiles.. oh and cactus!

[elentari 2,660]

18 hours ago, Stormcrow said:

Remove gear drop on death on the PvE servers if you want to retain people. I'm willing to bet money that most new player retention issues are due to this. It really only penalizes new players. Again I'll state, only on the PvE servers.

50 0000% this. This literally makes no sense to punish new players for dying. Maybe once they get to 50 or 70 Fight skill this protection can go away.

 

But at the same time let's ask some game design questions related to this:

 

1. Why is gear drop a thing in pve when it only makes sense in pvp? In pve no one can loot your corpse. So why lose gear?

2. In pvp it makes sense since anyone can loot your corpse, there are no protection permissions for pvp servers.

3. Death = losing skill points is punishing enough, how can a 10 FS newbie recover his corpse if he dies to 2 trolls? He waits 1 real life hour to wait for the trolls to leave? Makes no sense. Zero fun, just frustration, this is one of those "uninstall moments" Josh Strife Hayes talked about in his WO review.

 

And let's freaking face it, with wurm's "intuitive" combat system, who hasn't died as a newbie to a random bear or spider? I had dozens of death as a newbie to pretty much everything in the first month of playing many years ago.

 

Wurm has no "mob levels" you don't start out at lvl 1 and see a "Level 10 skull icon" over the head of a spider that warns you it's way above your paygrade if you want to fight it. In fact some of wurm's mobs are deceptively weird when it comes to power level. A spider while being pretty fast and huge is actually a weak foe. However a small hell hound is 3x as deadlier than a spider despite being the size of a regular dog.

 

So yes, please remove punishing new players for dying. Let them keep their gear if they die.

Edited February 6, 2023 by elentari

[Tpikol 1,057]

1 hour ago, elentari said:

In fact some of wurm's mobs are deceptively weird when it comes to power level. A spider while being pretty fast and huge is actually a weak foe. However a small hell hound is 3x as deadlier than a spider despite being the size of a regular dog.

 

So yes, please remove punishing new players for dying. Let them keep their gear if they die.

i remember back when i started we had much less variety of mobs but even then since i was used to other mmos i assumed a little gobling must be easy(it was the easiest mob in many mmos i played before wurm) that may no happen with goblings anymore but i bet it happens with other mobs.

 

 

1 hour ago, elentari said:

1. Why is gear drop a thing in pve when it only makes sense in pvp? In pve no one can loot your corpse. So why lose gear?

if we are honest, this like many other problems come from the fact that rolf never wanted wurm to be a pve game and hated being forced to have pve at all. so all the basic features from this to the kingdom based chat system were designed for a pvp only game.

 

Edited February 6, 2023 by Tpikol
adding

[Lagunasiren 22]

Here are a few traits that should not be as hard as they are:

- Anything body- it's so difficult to raise it to be able to raise it enough to be able to ride a horse! Ditto for mind and soul. Please make them a bit easier to increase. I'm not saying to make it super easy, but so that it's not that difficult to increase it.
-Woodcutting. I have been playing wurm for 2000+ hours and I'm still only at 44 woodchopping skill. Since woodcutting is especially necessary for newbies, I would say, make it easier to gain it. 
-Mining, especially until getting to like 20-30. This would be especially useful for newbies. 

Everything is else is alright with me. 

For retention, I would suggest to make most skills easier to increase for newbies, and then start slightly making harder and harder from like 30 up. Many people complain about the grinding. I don't mind it because I use Wurm to relax while listening to a documentary or an audiobook or a long youtube video. And yes, I play with my sound off even though I like the bird sounds and music in Wurm. 
 

Please add animals! I would really, really appreciate especially more domesticated animals (goats, ducks, geese, rabbits), but also at least 1 predator that only attacks the animals you have on your deed if it can destroy your fence. But really, I will take any animals you decide to add! I'm not that picky! I just want more animals!!

Here are some suggestions:
-New reproductive system for hens.

The current system in Wurm makes it almost impossible to raise more hens, and breed them for traits. Here how you could make it more interesting (and more fun for us!)
In real life, small farmers just allow 1-3 eggs for the hens to sit on until a baby chick comes out. Not all hens are maternal, so in real life, a person needs to put the eggs that need to be sat on under those hens that are maternal.  I learned this from my grandma and my mom when I was little, telling me stories of my grandma's mom's chickens. In the game, the player maybe could only stick the eggs under the butt of the chickens with the maternal trait. In this case, in the wild, you could have some hens with the maternal trait, but most with 0 traits.

Obviously, you need at least 1 rooster around. This would also give us something to do with the roosters since right now they are just decoration in the game. In real life, roosters (or male ducks, or geese) also protect the hens from foxes, wolves, etc. But sometimes, you get funny roosters that can randomly attack a person if they walk by, but not every time. Maybe you could give the roosters a similar response to people as hell horses but a higher likelihood of attack 50-50 if they attack you or they leave you alone. It would be funny! Not all roosters have this behavior, but many do. My mom has stories of her grandma's rooster that was so wacky that every time they wanted to go to the outhouse, they had to carry a giant stick to hit the rooster if it attacked them. Mom still laughs about it!  

-Foxes.
For foxes, you could make then not be aggressive toward the player (since irl foxes don't really go after people) so they would not be stopped on deeds by the guards, but they could attack and eat 1-2 chickens or the eggs (maybe this could be another odds ratio?) if you don't have a strong enough fence and a good rooster or a dog with the right traits. Again, it would make it more fun! You can use the design of a wild cat but elongate it a bit and change the color pattern.

[Tpikol 1,057]

duplicated post by mistake

Edited February 6, 2023 by Tpikol

[Lagunasiren 22]

1 hour ago, elentari said:

50 0000% this. This literally makes no sense to punish new players for dying. Maybe once they get to 50 or 70 Fight skill this protection can go away.

 

But at the same time let's ask some game design questions related to this:

 

1. Why is gear drop a thing in pve when it only makes sense in pvp? In pve no one can loot your corpse. So why lose gear?

2. In pvp it makes sense since anyone can loot your corpse, there are no protection permissions for pvp servers.

3. Death = losing skill points is punishing enough, how can a 10 FS newbie recover his corpse if he dies to 2 trolls? He waits 1 real life hour to wait for the trolls to leave? Makes no sense. Zero fun, just frustration, this is one of those "uninstall moments" Josh Strife Hayes talked about in his WO review.

 

And let's freaking face it, with wurm's "intuitive" combat system, who hasn't died as a newbie to a random bear or spider? I had dozens of death as a newbie to pretty much everything in the first month of playing many years ago.

 

Wurm has no "mob levels" you don't start out at lvl 1 and see a "Level 10 skull icon" over the head of a spider that warns you it's way above your paygrade if you want to fight it. In fact some of wurm's mobs are deceptively weird when it comes to power level. A spider while being pretty fast and huge is actually a weak foe. However a small hell hound is 3x as deadlier than a spider despite being the size of a regular dog.

 

So yes, please remove punishing new players for dying. Let them keep their gear if they die.

YUP! I completely agree

[Lagunasiren 22]

4 hours ago, kochinac said:

Not related to skills, but... Some wornings before we do something stupid would be cool... I destroyed 106 coc seryl rake skiler because i forgot to repair it, consumed countless 100+ coc strings during grinding ropemaking because i didn;t notice i was using last bit, i mended my would with 101 coc rare med rug...

 

100% I lost several items because of this! 

[Lagunasiren 22]

4 hours ago, kochinac said:

Also storing some products that are used for other recepies is nightmare, being able to store sausages, butter, cake, scone mixes and such would be nice... could even open market for them.

foraging and botanizing makes no sense as 2 separate skills, even as one skill to be honest now that we can plant almost anything, their actions could use nature skill...

Cocoa powder and roasted cocoa beans and roasted or ground coffee beans too! So many of them are lost. I like to make batches of these things!

[Lagunasiren 22]

22 hours ago, Syhl said:

First i'm totally against "regular" auction house system like on AAA other MMOs like you open a UI, select what you want to sell/buy and click and have it.

Second i'm totally for the actual way to travel to go to the ingame Merchant NPC to buy things from or to make deliveries/pickup to/from other players etc ...

 

BUT i think there are things to change because the current system is just a spam every X minutes a WTB/WTS offer on Trade channel ... that's non-sense.

 

The idea is to improve the current system but keeping what makes Wurm particular and nice (from my point of view).

 

For example, we could have an item to see WTB/WTS ads but those should be written (with papyrus + reed pen?) and stay active for X days before getting automatically deleted.

You will have to craft this "Market board" to post an ad or read existing ads. I think something similar to the Village Recruitment Board https://www.wurmpedia.com/index.php/Village_recruitment_board but for WTS/WTB ads.

 

This is an idea for "live" trading, like on Trade channel actually ingame where players are seeking for something to buy/sell, you will still have to contact the player to chat, discuss, negotiate, as today.

In fact, it's just a different way to post WTB/WTS ads via an item ingame with more persistency of the ads than spamming every X minutes a Trade channel.

 

Second idea is for Merchants NPC, could be displayed with the Market Board idea or something entirely different (cartography + stamps?) but the idea is to be able to automatically display merchants goods, with prices and search to find an item we are seeking for.

Once we find the wanted item, you will still have to go to the Merchant NPC ingame, traveling to buy it at Merchant NPC place as today.

For those using Merchants NPC as private storage for example, we could have an option on Merchant NPC admin to set it Private (invisible from the Merchants Goods database) or Public (displayed).

 

To sum up, nothing will really change you will still have to chat with other players, negotiate, deliver / pickup for "online" trading, travel to the Merchant NPC to buy for "offline" Trading.

 

It's just the way to post ads that differs.

 

Don't know if it's the right place to post it and sorry for my bad english ^^

Additionally, it would be nice to be able to send messages to offline players. So many times I wanted to buy horses and sheep, but I always get a hold of my favorite person to get horses and sheep with nice traits. But he is offline. It would be nice to be able to leave a message saying- hey, I'm interested in animal X and I'm willing to pay the amount listed in the forum. Then, when the guy gets online, he can tell me yay or nay and after we agree on price, he can just mail me the key to one stall that has the animals I want to get. I pay via the mailbox action. 

[Lagunasiren 22]

On 2/5/2023 at 9:18 AM, DADLER said:

 

This would be awesome

OMG this would totally save me a lot of time when I can't remember in which container I put something. 

[Tpikol 1,057]

23 hours ago, Syhl said:

BUT i think there are things to change because the current system is just a spam every X minutes a WTB/WTS offer on Trade channel ... that's non-sense.

 

The idea is to improve the current system but keeping what makes Wurm particular and nice (from my point of view).

 

For example, we could have an item to see WTB/WTS ads but those should be written (with papyrus + reed pen?) and stay active for X days before getting automatically deleted.

You will have to craft this "Market board" to post an ad or read existing ads. I think something similar to the Village Recruitment Board https://www.wurmpedia.com/index.php/Village_recruitment_board but for WTS/WTB ads.

 

This is an idea for "live" trading, like on Trade channel actually ingame where players are seeking for something to buy/sell, you will still have to contact the player to chat, discuss, negotiate, as today.

In fact, it's just a different way to post WTB/WTS ads via an item ingame with more persistency of the ads than spamming every X minutes a Trade channel.

 

Second idea is for Merchants NPC, could be displayed with the Market Board idea or something entirely different (cartography + stamps?) but the idea is to be able to automatically display merchants goods, with prices and search to find an item we are seeking for.

Once we find the wanted item, you will still have to go to the Merchant NPC ingame, traveling to buy it at Merchant NPC place as today.

For those using Merchants NPC as private storage for example, we could have an option on Merchant NPC admin to set it Private (invisible from the Merchants Goods database) or Public (displayed).

but the problem with both of this ideas is that they would have the same issues that make recruitment boards useless and some new ones.

if im looking to buy something now i would have to read trough hundreds of ads of people who are offline or stopped playing a month and a half ago, or just dont sell that anymore but forgot to change or delete their ad.

the good thing about the trade chat is that you know the person posting in it is online right now and you can talk to them now and figure things out. with your system you get the worst of both worlds, you have to read trough lots of ads but you cannot talk to most of them until they are back online and you cannot buy directly from the ads.

[Fairyshine 3,183]

3 hours ago, raxias said:

Please add Pineapple & Coconut trees/bushes that only grow on desert tiles.. oh and cactus!

Water holes in the desert!!! Or just new trees for our beach houses. Yes. +1

[Madnath 3,113]

7 hours ago, kochinac said:

Speaking of containers, i think  currently for sowing although it has satchel activated it doesn't use ql of satchel or enchants to speed up action or increase skill gain, it still uses ql of seed that is consumed. I think it would be much better to use properties of satchel for action, that why we can use woa to speed up sowing, and have reason to imp up satchels.

 

My good god yes please Holy smokes

[azuleslight 87]

On 2/5/2023 at 10:32 AM, Darklords said:

 

Spell Gems

 

Spell gems will be a new item we are introducing later this year to make enchants more accessible to newer players and add some QOL for players selling enchants to players. These gems will allow you to cast an item enchant onto them, recording your channelling level and any faith bonuses you had at the time and locking it into a gem. Another player can then use one of these to cast on an item as if they were you; this will function like a normal enchant with the same chance to shatter an item as the casting priest and will roll the spell power when using the gem not when creating it. We also plan to have versions of these capped at 30 power enchants drop/come from sources in the game to give newer players a chance to get some basic enchants while still leaving the market open for good enchants needing to come from priests. This one may be a little controversial and we would love to hear some feedback on it.

 

 

does this mean a fo priest can sell mass heals for rift's?

edit question: will the power of the cast show after the cast?

Edited February 7, 2023 by azuleslight

[Ekcin 2,401]

10 hours ago, kochinac said:

foraging and botanizing makes no sense as 2 seperate skills, even as one skill to be honest now that we can plant almost anything, their actions could use nature skill...

Terrible idea. Foraging provides mainly foodstuffs and resources, botanizing herbs and seeds. Keeping that apart makes well sense.

Moreover: Crippling these skills means doubling the territory a player has to check for the same amount of experience, material, and last not least, chance to get coins. That way it not only dispossesses and disenfranchises starter and medium level players, but also increases the chances of inter player conflicts, and, even more, the chance to be killed by mobs during search.

Also, players in bit higher skill range would have to double the effort when searching for resources in the wild, for example when cotton has run out and they need to heal up.

 

And as to mobs: It would be a shame to nerf the helllhound. It is one of the most interesting and best balanced hostile creatures for medium range players in the game. Yes it is deadly for lower skilled and poorly equipped ones unless they find a guard tower soon (part of learning the game), but it is a high damage and poor defense creature. Range and speed are similar to wolves, but it justifies its dangerous look. Moreover, it is a tameable creature. Please do not touch it.

Edited February 7, 2023 by Ekcin

[kochinac 1,395]

the more i read comments and more think about it, yeah i tend to agree. removing loss of gear on pve death would be good boost to player retention. It literally serves no purpose but to torment new players and artificially prolongs their playtime to things they  don't wanna do or make them quit...

[Finnn 3,298]

If it's going to be temporary.. extend to a week or so..

If it's going back any time later, let them get used to the "normal" sooner than "reach 70FS".

Probably most players lack 70fs.. meaning, you'll put noob protection or w/e.. and still hit 80% of the player base.. but not intend that.. yet.. you'll later mostly deal with complaints how one can keep it's gear and another have to go spend time picking it up from somewhere far, etc..

 

This works well in other games with respawning close, but not exactly where you died.. at entrance(out or inside dungeon instance), or at closest "checkpoint" to respawn on the map instance you're playing.

Where here.. we have priest with high chance to keep items if it's favor is high.. while other have to go spend 3k karma/3 euro/3silver/or w/e value of time and effort you put to that action, or spend time to reach the place where you died to get your body.. in some cases this involves social interaction and poking priests to help you or pay to find your body, and still have to spend the time to reach it.

 

Maybe whole experience for new/old players should be considered when changing that?

 

[Syhl 215]

9 hours ago, Lagunasiren said:

Additionally, it would be nice to be able to send messages to offline players. So many times I wanted to buy horses and sheep, but I always get a hold of my favorite person to get horses and sheep with nice traits. But he is offline. It would be nice to be able to leave a message saying- hey, I'm interested in animal X and I'm willing to pay the amount listed in the forum. Then, when the guy gets online, he can tell me yay or nay and after we agree on price, he can just mail me the key to one stall that has the animals I want to get. I pay via the mailbox action. 

 

I think we really need an offline /addfriend feature yes. For offline messaging there is already the ability to do it via ingame mailbox but yes not really used 😕

 

9 hours ago, Tpikol said:

but the problem with both of this ideas is that they would have the same issues that make recruitment boards useless and some new ones.

if im looking to buy something now i would have to read trough hundreds of ads of people who are offline or stopped playing a month and a half ago, or just dont sell that anymore but forgot to change or delete their ad.

the good thing about the trade chat is that you know the person posting in it is online right now and you can talk to them now and figure things out. with your system you get the worst of both worlds, you have to read trough lots of ads but you cannot talk to most of them until they are back online and you cannot buy directly from the ads.

 

Bold answer: Yes this could be an issue but could be solved by few improvements, auto deleting an ad after X weeks or displaying the activity status of the ad owner like we have on our friendlists (offline, online, last activity X days ago).

If they don't sell it anymore yes i don't have solution for that one, maybe limit to 1 ad per player so the player will be forced to update his ad with new stuff he is selling, deleting the old ad ?

 

Underline answer: As answered to @Lagunasireni think we really need an offline /addfriend feature so you can track the ad owner to come online.

[Ekcin 2,401]

5 minutes ago, Syhl said:

 

I think we really need an offline /addfriend feature yes. For offline messaging there is already the ability to do it via ingame mailbox but yes not really used 😕

 

While I agree that to be sensible, mind that you always may write a letter to a player (ok somewhat tedious due to limited char count depending on skill, ql, and ink vs. dye). That will cost 1i (affordable to everyone), and will come back within 2 weeks in case the player is gone or was offline all that time.