2023 Roadmap

[Tukodama 315]

42 minutes ago, Finnn said:

if somebody scam you and do not return your item/s, report it and get them warned/banned.. it's ToS to not scam/steal,

 

Thanks for the info, I did not know that.  There have been some questionable ethics on NFI from some players regarding item transfer.  

 

43 minutes ago, Finnn said:

If it's a spell cast action, and not spell transfer.. you're in for some lotto play of your life with even change to shatter your own tool on your own, even better if you have no clue what's good and bad gem setup with priest stats, even then - you can always shatter an item

 

This is way too complicated and the main reason I never bothered with priests.  I have no intention of buying a cast and then gambling to get the desired cast I want.  When I send an item to get cast, I get my desired cast.  Why would I buy a gem expecting a 100 cast and "rolling RNG" to end up with a 45 or 65 cast?  My cast could end costing 10x or 20x more to get a 100 cast than if I just send the item.

 

It should be 100% transfer, if they wish to create a viable market for selling cast by mail.  At 99 or 100 channeling, how many items actually shatter?  Is this what we need to protect by using RNG, the 0.02%?

 

1QL: shatter 1 of 51 casts (1.96353077%)

10QL: 1 of 112  (0.89561183%)

30QL: 1 of 771  (0.12956765%)

50QL: 1 of 3319 (0.03012512%)

70QL: 1 of 4588 (0.02179130%)

90QL: 1 of 4686 (0.02133788%)

 

Please just keep it simple.

[DADLER 172]

On 2/7/2023 at 7:19 AM, gnomegates said:

The road map looks good, thank you for the update!

 

My only concern is the new enchant gem idea. Enchants are such RNG even with high channeling, it can take dozens of attempts to get a 90+ enchant and the odds are still very high that you will get a sub 50 enchant. I cannot see how anyone would want to purchase or trade for an enchant that is a pure gamble. Unless there is a way that the enchant can be guaranteed to be for example a 70+ power enchant with smaller odds of going to the max limit. Its to much like a loot box/gamble and I think it needs some real fleshing out to be of any real use. I know I would not feel right selling someone a gem for a chance to get an enchant, when I can just sell them the enchant itself. I don't like wasting my coin in game and I don't like to waste new players coin either.

 

Happy Wurming!

It’s a matter of perspective.  The Gem enchants could be considered gambling for casts but it can go both ways.  Imagine a new player that doesn’t have 5s to pay for a decent LT cast, but they want LT.  They can pay 50c to roll the dice and possibly get a giga cast or a mediocre/poor one.  If I’m a new player, having LT is better than no LT.  It’s a good way to open that lane up for new players that lack funds or don’t have priest access.  People complain about population retention, and I think this is a good measure to help with that.

Edited February 8, 2023 by DADLER

[Nordlys 1,425]

Spell gems:

Will the settings (skill, bonus etc) be saved from the priest even if:

- The priest switches faith

- The priest go un-premium

 

Being able to cast up a lot of gems as one diety, then switch faith and do the same as another. That would leave me with as many spell gems as i want from all dieties - with only one priest. What solution could be added here?

Being able to store alot of gems that also work after going non-premium is also not favorable, i assume? Should the gems be set as not working if the priest who casted the gem goes non-premium?

[Ecrir 887]

44 minutes ago, DADLER said:

It’s a matter of perspective.  The Gem enchants could be considered gambling for casts but it can go both ways.  Imagine a new player that doesn’t have 5s to pay for a decent LT cast, but they want LT.  They can pay 50c to roll the dice and possibly get a giga cast or a mediocre/poor one.  If I’m a new player, having LT is better than no LT.  It’s a good way to open that lane up for new players that lack funds or don’t have priest access.  People complain about population retention, and I think this is a good measure to help with that.

 

Even then the new player can end up with some seriously bad luck, like a 0 power LT cast. Is that really what a new player with a lack of funds would want to receive by spending the little bit of money he/she has? I could easily see some rage quitting from an outcome like that and even my near 90 channeling priest occasionally gets such casts. Meanwhile there are merchant threads where you can get a guaranteed 75+ LT cast for 20c....

 

So yeah, such rng gambling is nothing but a trap for new players, especially when taking current market prices into account (I looked at the south prices since that's where I play).

 

Take into account gem prices and with the above cast price example from south freedom islands I really don't see where these spell gems would even fit in the market. Due to the rng you'd have to price them below the cost of blank gems just to compete with the pricing for guaranteed casts...

Edited February 8, 2023 by Ecrir

[Finnn 3,303]

9 minutes ago, Nordlys said:

Spell gems:

Will the settings (skill, bonus etc) be saved from the priest even if:

- The priest switches faith

- The priest go un-premium

 

Being able to cast up a lot of gems as one diety, then switch faith and do the same as another. That would leave me with as many spell gems as i want from all dieties - with only one priest. What solution could be added here?

Being able to store alot of gems that also work after going non-premium is also not favorable, i assume? Should the gems be set as not working if the priest who casted the gem goes non-premium?

what about the cost of loyalty points to switch.. that will tax you..

[phennexion 170]

 

I made this concept years ago, still think they should do this to improve new player experience as well. lol

 

Imagine walking up to a tree, and just clicking chop and it auto-equiping your axe and start chopping without the tedium of equiping it first?! lol

Edited February 8, 2023 by phennexion

[Oblivionnreaver 5,174]

for spell gems, they seem kinda useless outside of one-shot courier casts and stuff unless they can store multiple casts depending on gem ql or something. the whole "cast as if you were them" thing is kind of meh, because you could just you know, buy the enchant. would be gather gems - sacc - cast - send to user - cast again instead of just sacc - cast so it just seems like it's wasting two peoples time instead of one alongside massive material cost in gems

 

imo would be better to just store a cast power up to say (gem ql + 100) / 2 or something, with star gems having like +15 to max power. gives star gems value for trade as they can store high end enchants and they're rare enough that they won't have an overbearing presence in enchanting (only kinda common/cheap currently because there's not really any use for them outside of a journal goal and maybe making a sorcery staff one time), low/mid ql gems are still good for giving away 70 enchants to your newbie friends or courier or whatever. even with this it'd be a 80ql gem to store a 90 cast which is still pretty expensive but not exorbitant and would have some use, i really doubt someones gonna buy a few dozen gems to get a good cast on the current suggested system and gems have *some* value so newer players probably won't want to pay a premium for them either

[Finnn 3,303]

imagine walking to a tree and seeing stuff you don't want to do;

 

in a way I have what you suggest.. but in my own way... Z = Repair; E = Take; H = Examine, G = guards(currently does nothing and equals ""); Q/E often shifting into improve/repair actions... farm/harvest; cut_down/chop_up for woodcutting, R = Open usually but could be Take if Q/E do something else, etc..

Wurm's not your typical mmorpg where you ride on a horse.. go out of town murder 5 or 500 sheep and return home to toss 5000 wool, etc.. a few more daily chores/actions rotate through your day, depending on what you want to do and what you can do, what tools you have, etc; also have in mind.. we all do things differently, some will get nauseous from the way I use my keybinds.. while I'll probably facepalm looking at how other do simple tasks

 

some people hate huge UI elements or UI showing at all, there's a trend for minimalistic UI also..(show least needed to get important feedback, but nothing excessive at all, no big toolbelt or spell bar, no huge hp bar, etc..)

 

1 route to better ux could be interaction key to modify world and interaction key for mount/vehicles, as you either terraform or move with something.. another could be for crafting; depends how you catagorize your actions and how you group the possible activities;

1 big issue is the big amount of actions we have.. and based on activated tool we can do more or less also;

 

maybe the game "just" needs to unlock modding for client UI themes so people with ideas could go wild about where's what menu and how it looks and works

Edited February 8, 2023 by Finnn
1 of many typos

[Smilingcat 442]

"...and will roll the spell power when using the gem not when creating it..."

- maybe you can reconsider this, and here is my reasoning of the suggestion:

If it was rolled when creating, and one can apply the cast value of the gem to the item of choice, it would be a much more safe and useful item for everyone because then they see upfront what cast strength they would be obtaining.

Even with 99 casting skill and 65 soul depth i still get casts like 0, 1, etc..., so this may not help the buyer alot if luck is still involved while applying it,

maybe except from those spells that do not have a cast strength like demise, genesis, a basic mailbox enchant etc.

For example if anyone wanted a 70+ coc cast on their axe, and they buy a gem of a priest with all those good values, and then apply it and it turns out 0, that would be frustrating.

In general, I really like the idea behind the spell gems. Being able to put a prepared cast power on an item would even be really helpful to cut down on the amount of stock that merchants need to have laying around.

 

[Darklords 2,238]

1 hour ago, Nordlys said:

Spell gems:

Will the settings (skill, bonus etc) be saved from the priest even if:

- The priest switches faith

- The priest go un-premium

 

Being able to cast up a lot of gems as one diety, then switch faith and do the same as another. That would leave me with as many spell gems as i want from all dieties - with only one priest. What solution could be added here?

Being able to store alot of gems that also work after going non-premium is also not favorable, i assume? Should the gems be set as not working if the priest who casted the gem goes non-premium?

The plan is it records a snapshot of everything it needs to cast that spell as if it where you at that exact moment. So anything that changes about the priest after has no effect on a gem that has already been made.

 

The reason its not just directly transferring enchants to those comments is that would make tailoring a perfectly enchanted weapon far to easy as you just pick 2 of the best enchants and add them to an item. A low quality item that would normally shatter extremely easily trying to get multiple or even single 100 casts would now be trivial.

 

This will also only be for item enchants not any other spells for those who voiced concerns there.

[Timoca 154]

Why would I buy these gems instead of just mailing the item to a priest and paying for a 90+ enchant? It could be that these gems end up being a lot cheaper when being sold by players, but it could take 1 gem or 5, or 10 to get the enchanting power I want.  

When you get a priest to cast it on the item I'm sure that I'll have the enchant for a specific price.

I'm not sure if this new system will be used all that much.

[Smilingcat 442]

23 hours ago, Darklords said:

The plan is it records a snapshot of everything it needs to cast that spell as if it where you at that exact moment. So anything that changes about the priest after has no effect on a gem that has already been made.

 

The reason its not just directly transferring enchants to those comments is that would make tailoring a perfectly enchanted weapon far to easy as you just pick 2 of the best enchants and add them to an item. A low quality item that would normally shatter extremely easily trying to get multiple or even single 100 casts would now be trivial.

 

This will also only be for item enchants not any other spells for those who voiced concerns there.

 

Trivial, really? With all due respect, but I tend to disagree a little and have a different maybe also considerable idea for solving the "too easy" part.

 Getting any 100+ cast at all is still alot work after years of preparation to even be able to do that. I am in wurm since 12 years playing this priest character. 99 channeling, 65 Soul depth. Sometimes I cast a whole evening without seeing even one of those 100+ casts that you call trivial. And  I have all the other things that influence cast strength set up correctly.  It seems to me, it would be the exact same amount of work and material involved to apply 100 casts to, say, a weapon, than on a gem. And it really is not that much more work to pump out a few low ql items and put a 100 cast on them, than on a 90 ql item. The lower ql ones shatter alot, yeah, but who cares? Non rare low ql items are easily replaced, and rare ones you do not need low ql anyways, or am I missing something? Maybe to factor in the shattering of low ql items, make it so gems can shatter too, with more likelyhood of shattering at lower ql. How is that for a solution? Surely someone can figure out the maths behind the "too easy" part to make it work so the "luck" part can happen during casting, not applying the spell in a gem on an item.

Edited February 9, 2023 by Smilingcat

[Nordlys 1,425]

22 minutes ago, Darklords said:

The plan is it records a snapshot of everything it needs to cast that spell as if it where you at that exact moment. So anything that changes about the priest after has no effect on a gem that has already been made.

This means, in theory, that i can use my one 99 channeling priest to stock up on casts from one diety, then switch diety and do the same. One top channeling priest needed, instead of 4 - and i can then go non-prem, as i have stocked up with a large bounty of gems?

Compared to now, where i have to keep 4 toons premium, all with high channeling, if im gonna supply enchants from all dieties, whenever the buyer requires my services.

Edited February 8, 2023 by Nordlys

[Smilingcat 442]

Oh and ... VR capability would be huge. Wurm is so beautiful, if we could experience it with our VR goggles, that'd so rock! Maybe fix the horses head bobbing while galopping though. its still too hectic which causes travelling nausia for me.

[Oblivionnreaver 5,174]

33 minutes ago, Darklords said:

A low quality item that would normally shatter extremely easily trying to get multiple or even single 100 casts would now be trivial.

only takes ~50ql before shatter chance is nonexistant outside the flat 1% to shatter on fail casts which ignores item ql. even a 20ql item will get 4x 100 casts before it shatters on average assuming a 99 channeling bene priest, and for everyone else its a three minute imp job to hit "basically wont shatter" or spam out more tools for "idc if it shatters". i guess if youre talking way lower chann priests maybe it matters slightly but theyre not gonna have bags of gems to waste

 

shatter is a bad mechanic that shouldn't be balanced around regardless lol, but its already completely ignorable. i shatter like two or three things a year and i cast low ql stuff to 95+ all the time

[Spacy 659]

Thinking of the spell gems:

 

Drops only, not player made.  No healing / combat spells - or if so keep in mind pvp balance (which is horribly unbalanced right now so as not to make it any worse).

Max QL of cast should be 70-75 or so - keep player priests a viable option.  If a spell is higher cast (i.e. summon soul) then they can be gem fragments that 4 of them make into a castible form.  Should be a system similar to cartography, with a skill of gemcutting (or similar name, doesn't really matter what it is called), with a jewelry table, and a few new tools like cartography has (brush, ink well, etc).  Like a brass hammer, gem chisel, fine polisher, metal wire, etc.  

 

Spell gems are found in the world, drops off humanoid mobs (gobs, trolls, etc) as well as things like treasure chests and unique's.  Casts on found gems should be low - 1-20 on regular, 20-40 rare, etc.  Gems can be combined into a disposable "casting seal" or something made with clay at the table.  Must be the same spell on the gems to be combined together (i.e. all the gems are BOTD gems).  Combining 2 x 20ql gems should give you a range of 21-40 for the new gems, so some luck along with skill involved with creating.  Kinda like dragon bloods and imbues.  The thing to remember is that this is supposed to be a new player friendly system - so skill gain and reasonable (60+ql) casts should fairly easy to get.  The toon with multiple 100 skills shouldn't be interested in this system, and should be discouraged from doing more than the basics to just try out the new thing as they shouldn't have value for them.    

 

The concerns I have which I am sure others have mentioned already:  A) priest viability (and the obvious loss of income from accounts coming off premium), unbalanced spells and their use particularly in pvp, C) a system that is complicated, messy and hard to use that doesn't really benefit new players but instead caters to older developed accounts and players D) amounts of ready materials (gems) if it uses them instead of a new item, E) Decay rates so that someone finds an old deed with hundreds of gems...  F) Should be comparable to Archaeology in terms of rewards - just finding a pick with a rune or two on it that an experienced player will often just smelt may be a significant boon for a newer player, G) super common, so that the phrase "use em or loose em" should be a real concern.  2 weeks whether on deed, off deed,  in a magic chest, etc.  Perhaps last a month or two if in the special "magic gem container" that is part of the Gemcutting desk or whatever.  I want older players finding them and abandoning them all the time as they are not worth the effort for them.  H)  I wouldn't be opposed to an existing priest player being able to cast on a spell gem to "repair it".  Like vessel that if on a regular gem puts spell energy into it, but if put into a spell gem would repair any damage and push it up to its max possible charge. 

[Darklords 2,238]

26 minutes ago, Nordlys said:

This means, in theory, that i can use my one 99 channeling priest to stock up on casts from one diety, then switch diety and do the same. One top channeling priest needed, instead of 4 - and i can then go non-prem, as i have stocked up with a large bounty of gems?

Compared to now, where i have to keep 4 toons premium, all with high channeling, if im gonna supply enchants from all dieties, whenever the buyer requires my services.

Sure but it takes a long time to switch deity and get their faith up, then you have a limited stock of those going forward dependent on how many gems you had/spells you cast. Quality of the gem will likely be capping the max channeling skill it can store or something along those lines so you need lots of really good quality gems also. This is also only for item enchants so any other spells they have/we may release would not be available from this ever.

 

 

On the mechanics in general, the main issue is we don't want to make this change let you pick and choose the best enchants you cast during a day and put them on a few selected items as that will greatly increase the rate those tools come into the game. It's tough to just throw something like that out there and its a balance we do need to consider with changes like that as they can get out of control quickly and can be near impossible to revert by the time the issues become apparent.

[ChampagneDragon 971]

10 hours ago, Darklords said:

The plan is it records a snapshot of everything it needs to cast that spell as if it where you at that exact moment. So anything that changes about the priest after has no effect on a gem that has already been made.

 

The reason its not just directly transferring enchants to those comments is that would make tailoring a perfectly enchanted weapon far to easy as you just pick 2 of the best enchants and add them to an item. A low quality item that would normally shatter extremely easily trying to get multiple or even single 100 casts would now be trivial.

 

This will also only be for item enchants not any other spells for those who voiced concerns there.

Ok, so I currently have three priests: vyn at 99.76 channeling, fo at 97ish and mag at 92. All three 100 faith, with high other stats. My Fo and Mag just became worthless IMO. Why? My Vyn casts up a lot of gems with teh various spells. Switches faith, now is Fo. Attends sermon circle for a monthish... casts up Fo.. switches to Lib... repeat. Covers all four faiths in a year, and I save two premiums and I sell the skills of one of the highest priests in the game. 

 

~OR~

Cast Vyn gems up one month.

Cast Mag gems up one month.

Cast Fo gems up one month.

repeat as needed.

 

Again, saves me from having to premium up toons. Makes perfect business sense from a customer's perspective. I don't care that now instead of showing 76 other players on  Indy it now shows 74. And assuming that *guesstimating* 1/4 of the players online at any given time are priest alts, you're looking at a population decrease to 50 or so players. Yep, gems fit in well with increasing player population.

 

And, let's not forget that impalongs provide free casts to anyone who wants to travel to them. I know, I provide favor for almost all the SFI ones, and those same priests mentioned above who do the casting. So a new player already has options, even if they have to wait a month or two. I won't speak for SFI (editted.. meant NFI) on that since i"m currently not active there. Ohh, and not to mention the fact that there are many priests who will do decent casts for next to no cost. I can land 80+ casts in one or two casts pretty reliably, but nobody really buys those. Why? Because they can get them for pretty much free already. 

 

TLDR: the gem idea might seem great, but will reduce perceived player populations and income to WO. Gems might sound good, but people want high casts, not a gamble.

Edited February 9, 2023 by ChampagneDragon

[ChampagneDragon 971]

Oh, and to add...

 

I'd MUCH rather see time invested in fixing some of the current systems (look at AH, Meditating, Ropemaking).

 

Why does my 80AH toon who is careful with breeding, only breeding PERFECTLY matched pairs (4draft with USH, 4sp with USH and spark) have have half the offspring be garbage, 1-3 speeds, a ton of misc traits, etc? Or my 97 ropemaking priest using a supreme, 95ql fully imbued ropetool have half the cordage made be under 70ql? Meditation,, well... not as bad, but a big complaint. Or why does my 92 channeling priest hit as many 100s as my 99.... and a 70 channeling priest have the ability to hit as good of casts as my 99? You want to fix the casting system make casts actually tied to skill somehow not a card shuffler.

[GUNNULFHEDNAR 15]

What about being able to make certain precious metals into decorative bars/coins? So we can decorate with gold/silver and make it look like a dragons hoard? For example, so many lumps will make a pile of gold/silver coins or bars that can be placed/

[Rocklobster 298]

4 hours ago, Darklords said:

On the mechanics in general, the main issue is we don't want to make this change let you pick and choose the best enchants you cast during a day and put them on a few selected items as that will greatly increase the rate those tools come into the game. It's tough to just throw something like that out there and its a balance we do need to consider with changes like that as they can get out of control quickly and can be near impossible to revert by the time the issues become apparent.

 

If you can't give us what we, the players who pay to keep wurm running, want...then why bother with this change at all? Like CD is saying, there are so many more important areas to spend time on rather then a new feature that no one will care about.

[Legios 496]

Oh man, some of these sounds like amazing ideas. I'm excited for the Spell gems, Rift loot rework and the Karma uses.

[gnomegates 1,429]

2 hours ago, Rocklobster said:

 

If you can't give us what we, the players who pay to keep wurm running, want...then why bother with this change at all? Like CD is saying, there are so many more important areas to spend time on rather then a new feature that no one will care about

 

I can say that if the new gems go live the way that it appears the current design is, I won't be using them. There is no reason for me to precast on gems just to sell to players, especially new players that this is being targeted to, just to have those new players feel scammed by not understanding that they can pay 1-2s for guaranteed 90+ enchants instead of taking this gamble. The lack of understanding of how priests and enchants work is already very low for many players, especially new players. I know if I was a new player and I was sold a gem enchant from someone telling me that there is a chance for a 100+ enchant, just to get a 25 enchant, not knowing that the 100+ enchant is actually a less then 1% chance to even get, I would feel scammed. It is RNG loot box garbage that I will not support.

 

One thing that I think that would be a possibility concerning the gem enchant idea, is if it is to target new players as you have clearly stated, to have the gems drop off of mobs, or the goblin camps with the enchant power possible being equal to the gem quality level. Cap that gem quality level if you like, or just make 100ql gems super rare, but if a 50ql gem drops from a mob, then you can use it to have a chance for a 50 enchant on your item. Each tool/weapon enchant can be put into the pool to be drawn from when the gem drops. So you may get a WoA enchant gem, or you may get a Bloodthirst enchant. It would be random from the pool of possible enchants that is chosen to be allowed. Go further and add the gems to treasure maps, or the mobs that spawn during treasure maps, that way players of all levels have the chance for them.

 

[SmeJack 5,800]

On 2/6/2023 at 4:40 AM, Borstaskor said:

Not sure if we have enough gems around to make spell gems too useful.

 

An idea.. How about making it so the gems lose 10-20ql when the spell gem effect is used and it'll crumble to dust if the gem is less than 10-20 ql? Would make the gems a bit reuseable and would put value on the ql of the gem.

 

I feel like I'm drowning in gems that i have no use for from treasure chests.

 

On 2/8/2023 at 1:05 AM, Ecrir said:

I quite like what I see in the roadmap, though the spell gems sound horrible to me. As to why? Well, the outcome of using such a gem would be way too random (just as with the cast). You'd be better off just hiring a priest to enchant your item with an enchant of a specific strength than to gamble by buying those gems. I think it would be better to get rid of that gamble aspect for the most part by putting the strength of the cast spell in the gem instead of the channeling level and faith bonus of the caster, just leaving a shatter chance. Then let the gem ql act as the upper limit for the enchant it can contain.

As it's described now it just feels too much like a trap, especially for newer players whom don't know that those gems are one big gamble. There's nothing worse than a new player burning through their hard earned money and getting nothing worthwhile for it in return, that outcome seriously should be avoided unless you want new player retention to potentially take another hit.

 

This is exactly what smacked me in the face when i read the road map, isn't gambling illegal? Buy a gem and get a 0 cast? Casting is so ridiculously random even with great skill so why would it matter what snapshot of skills was locked into a gem, a noob priest can get a lucky roll just as much as an uber priest can fail hard, so why would you waste gems for this or for that matter expect people to waste money buying this service, its a borderline scam. "coc gem cast by 99 chan priest" >buys gem and uses "hell yeah 9 power what a bargain" if you had to buy as many gems as it takes for a priest to get a good cast on something there's really no point.

Edited February 9, 2023 by SmeJack

[ChampagneDragon 971]

2 hours ago, Legios said:

Oh man, some of these sounds like amazing ideas. I'm excited for the Spell gems, Rift loot rework and the Karma uses.

You do realize that even as a 99.75 channeling priest I often cast below 50 power spells right? And to do a high cast I dispel as much or sometimes more than I cast. So say you want a 90 power cast on an item. You'll be paying for that priest's expertise (I meam, I spent years grinding her up to the level she's at) plus the cost of the gem/s (getting a high cast in one shot is amazingly lucky) plus gems for dispels. So you've got the cost of the gem it'self, plus the cost of the priest's ability who cast that gem, plus ohh, roughly 10 gems cast with whatever you're aiming for, plus not sure how they'll handle dispelling, but it *should* be another gem, since it's a spell cast by priests. So 20ish gems to get that 90 power cast... IF the rng is cooperating. So figure 20 gems avg quality of 50.. current market prices (low, if they go through with this prices will go up on gems I can almost guarantee it) 20i per quality, 1000 quality, that's 2s IN JUST GEMS ALONE for a 90 power cast. On SFI I'll cast you 90+ coc for half that price, all day any day. And your'e guaranteed to get a 90+ power, and not gamble with RNG.

 

It may sound enticing, but it's a gamble... and and more expensive than current market prices.