Resource Nodes Update Improvements

[Army 1,134]

Since the launch of the Resource Nodes update, we have been paying attention to feedback and would like to address some concerns that have been raised, answer some questions, and announce some upcoming changes.

 

Spirit Templars and Resource Nodes

There has been significant negative feedback concerning the requirement to have a spirit templar hired at a settlement in order to disable resource node spawning. We know village aesthetics are important to many players, and some have expressed frustration that they need to hire a spirit templar they did not previously need to maintain theirs.

We will be removing the requirement to have a spirit templar in order to disable resource node spawning on-deed. The feature to disable on-deed resource node spawning was a late addition to the Resource Nodes update, intended to give players a convenient option, and we felt that tying it to spirit templars was a reasonable way to make spirit templars more useful in a PvE environment. We saw this as an additional convenience feature of spirit templars, but given how this has been received, that requirement will be removed entirely.

 

Foraging while riding

Some players have found it inconvenient during testing to dismount from a horse (or disembark from a vehicle) every time they want to collect items from resource nodes, especially since resource nodes naturally involve more travel than the old foraging and botanizing mechanics.

We will be removing the requirement to be on solid ground in order to collect from resource nodes. This will make foraging and botanizing more consistent with similar actions allowed from vehicles, such as harvesting fruit and picking sprouts. We also have plans to make the process of mounting, dismounting, and leading a horse more convenient with the upcoming actions rework, which is currently in development. This will result in much smoother gameplay when traveling while performing actions that require standing on solid ground.

 

Snowballs

Some players have reported difficulty in finding enough snowballs to fill their larders, given the scarcity of snow piles.

We will be making a number of adjustments to improve the situation here:

• Snowball count per snow pile was increased during public testing, but we will be increasing it again in a more substantial fashion.
• We will be increasing the average quality level of snowballs found when collecting multiple from one snow pile, since the quality tends to drop off the higher the amount. This was also the case in the old system, but is felt more in the new system since you tend to get more snowballs per action.
• We will be granting food items in inventory a significant grace period before they begin to take damage from decay. This is similar to the grace period items outside the inventory have, but shorter. In other words, newly created food, including foraged items and snowballs, will have a significantly longer time in your inventory before they start decaying. This should give you a much longer time to get snowballs or foraged food back to your larder and bins.
• We will be making snowball collecting actions themselves slightly faster, lowering the amount of action time per snowball gathered.

 

Hover Outlines

We have received reports regarding the new hover outlines, citing concerns such as their thinness, difficulty in visibility, visual artifacts, or incorrect color.

The change was implemented in the first place to support semi-transparent objects, such as the new resource nodes. This updated rendering method is also a lot more performant.

Your concerns are taken seriously however, and we agree that more work is needed in this area. Therefore, additional efforts will be dedicated to improving the new outlines again.

[Anglomango 116]

39 minutes ago, Army said:

Foraging while riding

Some players have found it inconvenient during testing to dismount from a horse (or disembark from a vehicle) every time they want to collect items from resource nodes, especially since resource nodes naturally involve more travel than the old foraging and botanizing mechanics.

We will be removing the requirement to be on solid ground in order to collect from resource nodes. This will make foraging and botanizing more consistent with similar actions allowed from vehicles, such as harvesting fruit and picking sprouts. We also have plans to make the process of mounting, dismounting, and leading a horse more convenient with the upcoming actions rework, which is currently in development. This will result in much smoother gameplay when traveling while performing actions that require standing on solid ground.

 

I think this is a great way to improve the current system, having to constantly mount and dismount has definitely been one of the biggest reasons for me to not like the new system compared to the old one. 

[Wrecker 15]

I also agree it was wise to remove the requirement of a templar. However the look of nodes everywhere I thought was a nice touch and the artwork looked great! I personally like knowing where to look to botanize and/or forage now, as opposed to selecting the action for every single tile only to repetitively get the "the area has been picked clean" over and over, very annoying. A lot of people don't like change, no matter what and this has been the case for virtually every change since the beginning. So don't be in too big a rush to back peddle some changes. People will adapt over time.

You guys keep up the good work! Def. making it easier to mount a horse would be nice, I think if you have a saddle and the horse "belongs" to you you shouldn't have to "lead" the horse 1st. And you don't want to tame it to have such a convenience. As this is the number one killer of horses in a fight.

[Xagru 431]

Is that correct when nodes are visible (like sunflowers) on enchanted grass?

Edited December 9, 2023 by Xagru

[Lisimba 779]

9 minutes ago, Xagru said:

Is that correct when nodes are visible (like sunflowers) on enchanted grass?

 

You can use "lore" on a tile to see what nodes can spawn there.

[Arronicus 642]

This is really nice to see. I've been a big fan of this patch, and it's really nice to see that some of the biggest issues raised are being seriously addressed. The foraging/botanizing while mounted one comes as a little bit of a surprise to me, but very welcome. The snow tweak was badly needed though, so thank you.

[Wulfmaer 413]

1 hour ago, Army said:

Hover Outlines

We have received reports regarding the new hover outlines, citing concerns such as their thinness, difficulty in visibility, visual artifacts, or incorrect color.

The change was implemented in the first place to support semi-transparent objects, such as the new resource nodes. This updated rendering method is also a lot more performant.

Your concerns are taken seriously however, and we agree that more work is needed in this area. Therefore, additional efforts will be dedicated to improving the new outlines again.

 

My only real issue with the hover outlines is the distance they become visible is far too close, only 4 tiles! It would be nice if the outline appeared at a slightly longer distance. Add an extra setting alongside the tree, item & creature, and structure render distance custom graphics settings - something that could also be tuned via a console `setoption` command without needing a client restart would be even better.

[Spolmit 627]

Thank you for listening to your players.

 

These modifications added to the already beautiful artwork should improve the playing experience of many more citizens in Wurm. 

[Tristanc 571]

Thank you, Army and developers, for the changes you've posted in this thread.

 

They'll all make great additions to the new resource node player ease of use!

I know the only drawbacks I'd felt were needed are all covered by these changes and so they'll be very welcome.

 

[kordethbludscythe 762]

this was a good idea(resource nodes) in my opinion and like any change there will always be difficulties that arise. I am glad that you are looking at the feedback and trying to smooth out those difficulties. Keep up the good work

[Damascus 381]

Thank you for the upcoming changes .

Is it possible to let you prospect from horse or cart also ??

[DannyUK 212]

Lessons have been learned I'm glad to see, it is good that you listen to the community and adjust things accordingly. I'm glad you took away the need to have a spirit guard, I didn't like the messy look on deed with things scattered all over the place. Thank you for listening to us all.

[Simyaci 423]

I'm glad to see the much needed changes were done. 

 

I'd still prefer keeping the old system alongside the new system and these changes. However, it is great to see that the Devs are listening to the playerbase and making the necessary changes. 

 

Edit: Please make them visually optional if that is not much of a hassle. 

Edited December 9, 2023 by Simyaci

[Tor 531]

Nice improvements.

What about placing the high dificulty nodes as clusters into the deserts/steppes more frequently?

[topkos 504]

Thank you ! 

[Muse 2,232]

These are all positive changes to the nodes system. 

[Leilue 35]

It's still needless clutter making the game feel like some cheap phone game.

[Moteandbailey 72]

Thank for your listening and taking concerns seriously - as a dev (although not of games) I know how difficult it can be to please everyone.

[Simyaci 423]

20 minutes ago, Leilue said:

It's still needless clutter making the game feel like some cheap phone game.

 

It is actually similar to World of Warcraft Herbalism. 

 

I'd still like the old system to return and both forage/botanize systems to remain. Right now there is no reason for me to go out and do forage/botanizing by itself with the new system. I'd only do it while I am already out hunting. 

[Jaz 2,666]

Thank you for the updates - the option to do the action when mounted is a big QoL change.

Looking forward to the highlight changes as well, I think if there is an option introduced to remove the glow effect from the highlight it might almost fully solve the concerns.

 

On the other hand I'm also with the group who would like to see adding back the old system too...

[Finnn 3,321]

2 hours ago, Tor said:

Nice improvements.

What about placing the high dificulty nodes as clusters into the deserts/steppes more frequently?

What about no-biome locked content for skillgain, why is something locked to specific location of the map?

What about.. options to cover missing functionality from the previous system, it's impossible to target acorn/woad now?

Clusters were hinted but only single nodes spawn?

Is there a reason for the old system to be removed, besides a whim?

@Army

[Ekcin 2,422]

Yes thanks for these updates which are indeed significant improvements. Still the issues for the higher skill levels remain. As explained in

 

https://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/199883-new-node-system-skilling-efficiency/&do=findComment&comment=1982859

I consider forcing heavy drunkenness as a playstyle ethically unacceptable besides being ugly an tedious. At least alternatives should be considered. Simyaca raised the idea of armours as difficulty modifiers similarly as already the case for casting and archery. That could be a good starting point for difficulty adaptation, starting with cloth up to heavy, maybe even modified by metals where applicable.

[Finnn 3,321]

Besides running around and pressing wasd all day long from tile to tile, managing stamina, fighting the random creatures around etc to get to a node.. heal etc.. maybe I just want to get 0.02 or 0.05 skillgain for the day and feel a goal is accomplished, instead the new only possibility is .. spend 2-3x more time, fight numerous enemies, travel a lot more, spend more time in combat/healing.. seek and destroy.. vegan foliage.. all that is a lot move eye/finger/time taxing compared to the old chill system where if you need it, it's there, it's not annoying anybody with any visuals, and all it takes is to do the action to see what you'll get, if somebody decides to return it.. and buff the loot or feedback by adding lore, "glance" or w/e action to check what some players call annoying "empty tile", which is rare to see in unpopulated areas, complaint must be mostly only from nfi or villages where several players do similar activities daily, which is not what majority does or did. Very small minority dictated a big change which doesn't cover functionality and base mechanic outcomes from previous system, why were two skills changed in such a rush without covering what previous had as perks? 

 

Edited December 9, 2023 by Finnn

[Finnn 3,321]

3 minutes ago, Ekcin said:

Yes thanks for these updates which are indeed significant improvements. Still the issues for the higher skill levels remain. As explained in

 

https://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/199883-new-node-system-skilling-efficiency/&do=findComment&comment=1982859

I consider forcing heavy drunkenness as a playstyle ethically unacceptable besides being ugly an tedious. At least alternatives should be considered. Simyaca raised the idea of armours as difficulty modifiers similarly as already the case for casting and archery. That could be a good starting point for difficulty adaptation, starting with cloth up to heavy, maybe even modified by metals where applicable.

Crafting costumes seem dumb.. next thing will be carpentry, blacksmithing, etc.. "crafter suits".

 

Lets say it's not completely awful idea.. but I'd rather see a bit more brain put into it...and if we go heavy rpg, RP, etc.. mode.. things will be wild... a lot of annoyance will be added to switching suits etc... it will be best to add "virtual wardrobe" to store them all.. way to apply/change into one/, etc.. I don't think we're ever getting proper qol into something convenient of the sort...

The one skill killing two other already did implement a fair bit of few "alien" to the game mechanics which no other skill uses.

[Lisimba 779]

3 minutes ago, Ekcin said:

I consider forcing heavy drunkenness as a playstyle ethically unacceptable besides being ugly an tedious. At least alternatives should be considered. Simyaca raised the idea of armours as difficulty modifiers similarly as already the case for casting and archery. That could be a good starting point for difficulty adaptation, starting with cloth up to heavy, maybe even modified by metals where applicable.

 

Finally.

 

Yeah, armor could work. I'd strongly prefer if only the armor on your hands matters though, it seems a bit much to make people swap entire sets on their grinding journey.

 

If you can mix and match armor types and it averages, like the enchants, you can get a pretty good spread of potential difficulty handicaps.

 

Actually taking glove quality into account could help a lot as well, same as with tool quality of other skills.

 

A similar but slightly different route, could we perhaps introduce an enchant that does this? Maybe a jewelry enchant, and the power of the enchant would be how much difficulty it adds. Since there are three jewelry slots, it should probably add up the powers of each, that way you can have a bag of jewelry with a bunch of different values and mix-and-match exactly what you need. It would also be funny to have an enchant where people would favor low values.