(A suggestion) Getting rid of "activate:"

[Zcul 303]

Hi,

I would like to know your opinion on getting rid of the "activate:" feature of Wurm. It's something that is confusing newbies; - It took me a good while when I first tried out wurm to understand what was going on with that Activate: thing!

Basically, I'm thinking of always have whatever is in your right hand as your active item, and along those lines we would also add bindable keys for wield_right_hand, wield_left_hand, equip_as_shield which would be very nice for the pvp crowd I think.

Things that need to be considered for this is

- How to handle liquids like water, when using water on something (Examples?)

- How to handle stacks of items, and containers with contents (seeds)

- How to handle pottery, equipping your own hand.

- Toolbelt; Activating an item from there would actually move it to your hand.

Your feedback is greatly appreciated on this.

[CubeMan 2]

No, Any form of binding stuff to right hand as active will make people able to switch weapons instantly. We don't want people switching weapons instantly. This would totally require a pvp revamp of having a set timer to requip items or delay on equiping items.

This idea imo, is a terrible one for PVP'ers. All would happen is people could switch from bow to shield and sword or w/e there weapon is of choice. This idea would only suit one group of people

freedomers,

I and many others started this game with No tutorial, Only a wiki to guide with and others to ask.

If these newbies can't learn how to use the activation system with a tutorial then there is something wrong with the tutorial.

[GiuseppeP 194]

Things that need to be considered for this is

- How to handle liquids like water, when using water on something (Examples?)

- How to handle stacks of items, and containers with contents (seeds)

- How to handle pottery, equipping your own hand.

- In liquid and for all items that need a container, he can activate water but equip the container

[vinius 1,493]

I don't think this would be very good for PVP, most noobs would be panicking, trying to swing a shovel or hatchet at you, not realizing their sword is unequipped.

[Wulfgar 1,119]

How can someone be confused about having to activate an item to use it?

I don't think this needs changing at all, spend your time on something thats actually worth it instead of changing something thats not broken.

[bdew 2,462]

+1 on the change, if switching is comfortable enough (make double-click on an item equip it too please!)

- How to handle liquids like water, when using water on something (Examples?)

- How to handle stacks of items, and containers with contents (seeds)

Equip the container, activate first item inside. For seeds activate the next item once you plant the first one, so that you can plant a whole field without equipping/activating every seed.

How to handle pottery, equipping your own hand.

No idea. Could those actions be moved to some other tool? Or require no tool (just show up when you click on clay)

Toolbelt; Activating an item from there would actually move it to your hand.

I'd like the toolbelt to be a proper container, able to hold the tools inside it. Then when you activate a slot, the item is moved into your hand while the previous item (if any) replaces it in the toolbelt.

[Darkren 15]

Hi,

I would like to know your opinion on getting rid of the "activate:" feature of Wurm. It's something that is confusing newbies; - It took me a good while when I first tried out wurm to understand what was going on with that Activate: thing!

It's easy enough to explain to newbies, at least in my experience. It's explained in the tutorial, and in terms of explaining it it's synonymous with simply telling someone to double-click the item. It may be such an ingrained method of doing things in Wurm that I'm so used to it, but I've simply never had much trouble explaining it to anyone yet.

Basically, I'm thinking of always have whatever is in your right hand as your active item, and along those lines we would also add bindable keys for wield_right_hand, wield_left_hand, equip_as_shield which would be very nice for the pvp crowd I think.

I find this will make it even more of a hassle, having to find which item is equipped where, having to bind extra keys to utilize this fully (I'm assuming unequip keybindings will be possible as well). While equip keybinds would be a nice addition on their own, a fair amount of people, ESPECIALLY newbies, would need to regularly equip and unequip things manually, and that would seem like far worse of a system for a player to start out with, though it would indeed make a bit more sense.

Things that need to be considered for this is

- How to handle liquids like water, when using water on something (Examples?)

- How to handle stacks of items, and containers with contents (seeds)

- How to handle pottery, equipping your own hand.

- Carry the container of liquid. You're not going to be crafting while holding a 45kg water barrel in any imaginable circumstance.

- Typical stackitems could automatically reequip themselves in your hand(s) when they're used up and you have more available. I forsee this as a bit of an issue, considering the used item will no longer exist and thus any queued actions will, at least in the current system, cancel. Satchels could be a workaround for this, simply using up the seeds inside whilst only the satchel is in use.

- No need to equip your own hand - either make pottery possible in any circumstance, or at least require a hand (or two) to be free.

[Martynas5 435]

Bad idea. It will take much more time crafting items..

[bdew 2,462]

How can someone be confused about having to activate an item to use it?

It's pretty counter-intuitive... you hold a sword in your hand, and at the same time "weild" a shovel to dig? makes no sense.

[CubeMan 2]

How can someone be confused about having to activate an item to use it?

It's pretty counter-intuitive... you hold a sword in your hand, and at the same time "weild" a shovel to dig? makes no sense.

This is because of how the fighting system works.

Tbh, This activate system and the equip system is the best feature in the game.

Don't change anything.

[bdew 2,462]

Make changing weapons while in active combat invoke a timer, solves PVP issues, i think

[Zcul 303]

Not a good idea IMO. Imagine building a guard tower when you have to move every brick to your right hand first before you can attach them.

It would be exactly the same, you would Double click brick (bound to wield_right_hand) then attach it.

[vinius 1,493]

Make changing weapons while in active combat invoke a timer, solves PVP issues, i think

I don't think this would be very good for PVP, most noobs would be panicking, trying to swing a shovel or hatchet at you, not realizing their sword is unequipped.

Will anybody even go outside their deed?

[Zeds 0]

simple fix, if you have said item in inventory it is able to be used without activation like double clicking or "moving" to the right hand.

unless there is a complete re-write of how the client is and how the gui is then this imo is the only way to improve on crafting abilities of wurm

[Marley 7]

simple fix, if you have said item in inventory it is able to be used without activation like double clicking or "moving" to the right hand.

unless there is a complete re-write of how the client is and how the gui is then this imo is the only way to improve on crafting abilities of wurm

Problem that this entails is what if I have say 2 hatchets, one high ql, one low ql with high coc and I want to use a different hatchet at different times? The client has no way of knowing what I want to do and would always choose a certain tool everytime.

I think the suggestion itself is a good one, but perhaps needs a little bit more thought in how it would be executed. Things such as building towers etc could be changed without needing activation, perhaps the order you place items in your inventory is the order they are used in? Would only require a quick search on the inv arraylist to find the appropriate tool and use it? To automate as many things as possible would be best imo. Zcul, if you want any help devising a system that uses what I have suggested, just let me know and I can think what I can come up with

[Enola 53]

simple fix, if you have said item in inventory it is able to be used without activation like double clicking or "moving" to the right hand.

unless there is a complete re-write of how the client is and how the gui is then this imo is the only way to improve on crafting abilities of wurm

Problem that this entails is what if I have say 2 hatchets, one high ql, one low ql with high coc and I want to use a different hatchet at different times? The client has no way of knowing what I want to do and would always choose a certain tool everytime.

I think the suggestion itself is a good one, but perhaps needs a little bit more thought in how it would be executed. Things such as building towers etc could be changed without needing activation, perhaps the order you place items in your inventory is the order they are used in? Would only require a quick search on the inv arraylist to find the appropriate tool and use it? To automate as many things as possible would be best imo. Zcul, if you want any help devising a system that uses what I have suggested, just let me know and I can think what I can come up with

Actually, for the decision, we could use the toolbelt. What's in there gets priority.

[CubeMan 2]

So you'd turn it into a complex system where right now it's just double click what you want to use.

What.

[Zeds 0]

to answer both, a toolbelt would be fine if we all start out with at the very least a 5 slot one

to answer the other question, have a back pack or similar to move stuff into that way only the inventory item is used, but have it so that we can have like many other mmo's a certain slot bag or similar, then can hold up to x amount of said bags or make high capacity ones. 

Then we would need to do without this stamina drain on walking but maybe leave it so speed is reduced, but then, what happens in pvp, we're screwed no matter what is done so leave it alone unless everything is re-written to accommodate this suggestion of change to activate

Unless we have no weight restriction on how fast we move to how much we are carrying, then said suggestions are not worth implementing

you want this game to succeed or just keep forcing people deeper into not moving off deed or just moving to freedom cause it breaks all other mechanics for pvp

I use to be a big big fan of pvp before gold 1, this is another story i wont even start with.

edit: cubeman posted too quickly so adjust my comments accordingly

[Redd 4,281]

Sounds too complicated to me.

[Noizhead 622]

I have worked with and around plenty of newbies over the years, and they've never had a problem grasping the "activation" system.

If I am attacked while out digging, or chopping wood, or farming, or sprouting, or doing almost anything at all, I do not want to have to remember to open up my inventory and hunt for my sword every single time.  I do not see the advantage to making players develop a "is my weapon equipped?  better check and double check and triple check and check one more time anyway" tic.  If I want to wield and fight with my sword, then I should put it in my hand and it should still be there when a spider leaps out of the bushes and attacks.  It is not unreasonable to expect it to be anywhere except where I put it last.

If you want to change something, then start with something that sucks, like how the display for your body, and everything on it, is a complete mess of nested entries.  Trying to discern the nature and location of that fresh wound, or equipping and unequipping armor, shouldn't be like fishing around for an errant file in my windows system directory.

A lot of things in Wurm need to be fixed.  A newbie's momentary confusion with the difference between "wielded in your hand" and "activated" is somewhere at the bottom of the list.  Fixing this one minor problem, especially in such a flawed manner, would only create many more.

[Redd 4,281]

Id also like to add, in pvp this will be very annoying. Pvpers have to dig, mine, bash, you name it, so one might forget to wield their wep and end up fighting with a shovel.

Just keep it the way it is imo.

[Devean 51]

Generally, TERRIBLE idea. We keep weapons in the right hand, why, instead of simplifying, you want to add more micro-management and **** people off?

It would be exactly the same, you would Double click brick (bound to wield_right_hand) then attach it.

So, because it is hard to Activate by simply double-clicking, you want to MOVE it to right hand AND ACTIVATE by double clicking, forcing people to perform one action at a time? You know that this makes queuing improving actions on a pile of items requiring different tools (if you did improving even once, you'd know what I'm talking about) impossible?

TERRIBLE IDEA! One of the worst I've seen on these forums. Should be scrapped before you posted about it, honestly.

[Facesofmu 4]

I wonder if any difficulties in understanding, learning, and remembering the activation system comes primarily from the UI? As it is, the only cues we have about this absolutely vital system is some font colouring and a repeat of the inventory listing at the bottom of the inventory window.

Is there something that can be done to make Activated items, or the system itself, more apparent to players?

[syncaidius 159]

It would be exactly the same, you would Double click brick (bound to wield_right_hand) then attach it.

I wouldn't mind this if we could queue stacks of items up, like you equip a brick in your right hand, attach it, then if you have another brick in your inventory it'll automatically equip that brick for you. You'd still have to attach manually of course but it'd cut out a lot of the clickyness in-between attaching lots of parts.

[Klaa 4,872]

I can understand the reasons for changing activate. I do recal some initial confusion as a newb over equiping and activating.

However, any means of replacing activate should not enable insta-switching of weapons and shields. At the very least a slight equip timer for anything that parries and blocks.