Another One Of Rain's Terrible 5Am Suggestions.

[RainRain 591]

Incoming wordwall(s)

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So; i've hyped myself over about how stale combat is in wurm (being the reason i've essentially stopped playing and began lurking.)

Now, an easy argument is to say "Wurm isn't your game", which you're right, it isn't. I don't like grind, you all seem to like it (or at least be able to endure it). I don't like static combat which is almost the exact same, until someone finds something new (and abusable), abuses it, and gets it nerfed (you know who i'm talking about, and i don't just mean one event.) I don't like the fact that combat isn't specialized, you're either good at everything, or you're terrible at everything (hello required high body stats, required high archery, required high shield, even if you prefer to 2h) But the big thing is; i don't like impossibly large power gaps (old members> new members forever, assuming both are active equally), and i don't like RNG- based combat..

I like fun games, where it's easy to catch up, without huge power differences in gear, or games that are based on experience playing, rather than time spent grinding and wasting cash on gear, I also love games with huge class diversity

Which is why, to summarize, i came up with these suggestions.

First before first; referring to one of my still favorite suggestions, which has been archived.

And now to the main points.

1. Reduce combat staleness; add differentiation

No, this doesn't mean adding buffs/nerfs to weapons, no, not special attacks (Not in wurm's definition, anyways). Having a different weapon into combat doesn't make anything better.

The hard part here is the current combat system; it's text based, which is fine, but it limits everything. So we want a solution that retains our normal combat (so it's not so penalizing to all those that love it, while also pleasing those "anti-change" extremists (pr..pr...cough))

Another difficulty point is it's not reaction based, it's automated. You simply engage combat and hope rng is on your side, or enter combat knowing your modifiers (stats) are good enough to get you through without anything terrible happening.

So, what do i suggest? Make it considerably more reaction based, while retaining your normal automated vombat, this adapts as runescape did during it's EoC update, but on a much much smaller scale, this would mean allowing things such as an overpowering blow to be delivered, and this could be reacted upon by the enemy by lowering their defense, or taking the blow, but capitalizing on effort by attacking them while they have their guard down (OF course, no ###### of special attacks, plain misses and whatever you call it when huge axes manage to "glance" off leather armor), it's a simple engaging attack, where you WILL hit for stronger than normal, while your defenses are down.

More suggestions are to make it action-based (but that's a given considering it needs to be reaction based), since this is a major area where wurm lacks (what's the point of doing x when you know they will just y?). Allow interesting attacks, some sort of lance-charge with mounts, or simple all-ins while on foot (run at max speed to get a very nice attack bonus, but losing defensive characteristics), allowing more archetypes (Perhaps a priest will empower a spell before casting? maybe a more thieflike character will attempt to bypass enemy defenses and deliver an unseen attack, while the archers hail arrows?). This is all to add strategization that ISN'T "attack, or run into caves/gates!", it's OFFENSIVE strategization, that doesn't allow wait-time, hesitation, nor the like. It requires action, and immediately. This also points towards my second suggestion.

2. Allow more classless archetypes.(yeah the game isn't really that great, but what they did for combat is one of the best systems i've ever seen)

This means add viability to wearing something that's NOT chain/plate, and also adding penalties for wearing them when you probably shouldn't.

This means reworking stealth into a matter of undetectability, and knowing you're not detected, but having the risks based off yourself, and not off a spell that can locate you server-wide, nor guards instantly finding you for touching the ground. This means having priests work off a system that isn't meant to counteract enchanting to the point you NEED gems to cast anything more than once. this also means slotting priests, and making libila have two different types, this also means nerfing enchants as a whole, and having them be minor scale effects based off what real spells do (makes so much sense having offensive based spells deal less damage than enchants (i mean single-target, of course, i love the aoe spells as they currently are).

To specify, Right now there are two types of pvpers. 1. Warriors, who do everything but cast spells, 2. Priests, who cope with their pvp restrictions (fo/vynora, lack of archery), and use their god's spells, or have everything and excel at pvp at such an immense level, but still basically serve as zone-controllers more than 1v1ers.

This should be changed moreso into having JOATS as always, for members who like to kick ass with everything, Warriors who excel at using their plate/chain to fight in all close combat, and defending well against ranged, Archers who need their leather/studded or else suffer ranged attack penalties, but excel at shooting down the priests and spotting the rogues, Rogues, who sneak around combat using their silent leather/cloth armor, and being much swifter than anyone else, undetected by mobs, enemies and guards alike. but each run a danger being so deep into combat with low combat power when not attacking in surprise, and priests, with their cloth-plate armor, either focused on showing the law of their god (or un-law?) with their mighty hammer/axe/sword, or staying at a distance with archers, providing excellent single-person based ranged attacks that unnaturally cannot be dodged, zone control, or buffs and debuffs to enemies.

To elaborate on priests, i picture priests as the one type able to take on the role of other types, with augmented abilities.

Warrior priests would be able to cast spells that buff their armor (oakshell), enhance their weapons greatly for a short time (Truestrike, but more spells that can act as FB/FA/RT, but at a MUCH stronger scale, since it's timed), but lacking the use of them, due to penalties in casting (higher favor costs? faith debuffs?) because of their armor.

Ranged priests, who focus on those massive AOE spells, buffing themselves and others even more greatly (with the use of the same spells as other priests, but magnified due to cloth armor), and even have the ability to nit-pick low health stragglers that other people are too busy to focus, and finish them off (Actual use to single-target spells so they don't deal a meager 5 damage for 40 favor!)

And rogue priests, who use their spells to conceal themselves even more greatly (nolocate), and buff themselves right before the big backstab onto an enemy, to ensure a swift, easy kill on those they can kill.

3. Motivation and unification.

Right now, i'd say the largest problem in pvp (elevation anyways), is the lack of a proper unified place where anyone can go to safety. A central marketplace where people may setup, without the fear for bandits/raids anywhere near as often as other places (deeds that have been, flattened, destroyed, pulverized, you know who you are.) This is what i feel home servers should be. While elevation could have minor forts set up everywhere, but no major place to live, the home servers in respect could have the biggest city seen, bigger than those carebears who stay home all day doing nothing but fortifying on freedumb.

That's what it lacks, and while this is easily done, it won't be, because of one of the greatest systems that i hate, even as needed they be. Deeds.

People view deeds as an absolute must, or have their places be destroyed, and this is needed however, since without deeds rolf has a much lower income (probably enough to make the game inable to be hosted at that point). But i'll suggest it for the sake of continuity.

Deeds should be only for those insanely, over-fortified places. They should have a high BASE cost, but a cheap expansion cost, making it easy to span over a city with not much more than what you spent buying the deed, and being able to expand it as much as you wish without forking over an extra 50 dollars. They should have a stable, even static upkeep, with only minor changes depending on how huge the deed is. Everything else, is to stay undeeded. but with nerfs to how decay works.

Decay should work much more rapidly on old buildings, which they do, but to be specific, lone structures without much around them should suffer a much higher decay than anything else, while structures with more around should reduce the decay. A village set up with many homes should decay much slower than a single house out in the wilderness, which right now they would both decay at the same speed (assuming same ql). This would encourage more outposts and small villages to be created, even unddeeded. but with support of tower guards.

TO expand onto tower guards, in order to save those who spend time creating a small village from having it be destroyed overnight by a single overzealous magranon priest, Tower guards should be placeable much closer together, but the closer they are, the less guards per tower, allowing a simple 10x10 to have a tower in each corner, but each tower is reduced by each tower nearby, meaning that with 1 tower, you would have 5, but with 4, you would have say, 8. Along with that, upgrades to the tower should be available.

Rather than a simple reoccuring payment, a play can choose to say, "train" the guards, having their combat abilities generally improved, coordinate how they attack (pets first? horses first? players first?) And supply them weapons at a bank inside the tower (which, would be lootable once destroyed, or when converted used by the new guards.). This would also allow archers to be guard-types, with limited arrow supply before they would refill. The idea is to have a base silver cost, accompanied by time, and if needed, resources. Such as training guards to be archer types, it would need bows, many arrows, and time/silver.

At no point should guards be able to overpower templars/shadows however. And along with that, all shadows should have the same benefits. But trained one by one, rather than as a group.

I'd go on, but i'll leave this to be updated. Now i can already foresee the same comment of "this game isn't for you" And i know, it's not, these are nothing but words of suggestion to make it into a game that would appeal a larger audience, which happens to include me. I'm not saying i want the game to be custom-fit for me, otherwise i would suggest many more changes that many of you wouldn't like (hello permadeath for everyone and everything). But even as i listen to veteran players, they are also very sick and bored as to how this game works. It's not a surprise i come back year after year, ever since GV, only to quit again after attempted months to get back "into" the game.

I hope you read this with proper insight and judgement, and thanks for reading all (Or at least most) of it.

And in a nutshell: rain get the ###### to sleep

Edited April 14, 2013 by RainRain

[Wulfgar 1,165]

-1. I gave up reading after " i don't like RNG- based combat.." and "I like fun games, where it's easy to catch up, without huge power differences in gear," I guess Prudis is your in-game name?

[Protunia 735]

actually a lot of this sounds interesting.

[Elen 1,013]

TL:DR ~ move combat to twitch and it will never be stale.

[ReaverKane 363]

Class Archetypes won't work on Wurm. So after that i stopped reading. Plus Comparing vindictus to Wurm... Next thing you'll be asking for GunZ, or S4League levels of combat.

[JackBurton 903]

Your major roadblock here Rain, is that too many retards on these forums will just tell you they stopped reading after a certain point. In their own warped world this allows them to become the experts they'll claim to be in their replies. However, at this time, most people already know who the morons are and tend to ignore them anyway.

The only problem I have with your suggestion is that reaction based combat bit. I can see how this might draw in more people, but I can only ask, how feasible is it to implement? People already have a hard enough time adjusting their inventory when switching from bow to melee. Will a system where you have to interact with a "combat" window be any better, or less complicated, than what we have now?

I think the system that is in place has the ability to foster more choices for PvP. It's just poorly implemented. When everyone uses a longsword and plate armor, then you know you have a situation where you've got to adjust the already existing system. If the different armors and weapons allowed for different evading, blocking, swinging, and damage rates, that were definitely discernible, then you'd see people wearing an assortment of stuff, but this just isn't happening. If that was the intent, then again, it is poorly implemented and needs to be looked at, which is something people have been asking for ages.

I'm all for adding a reaction based element to the combat system, but I'd like to see fixes made to the already existing matrix used to define the materials used in the combat system before we just implement action based stuff to something that I, and many others, believe is broken. In the long run, that won't help a damned thing.

Edited April 14, 2013 by JackBurton

[shadowblasta 143]

Rolf did say on the Q&A that combat is getting worked to be kinda more player skill than character skill based

[RainRain 591]

-1. I gave up reading after " i don't like RNG- based combat.." and "I like fun games, where it's easy to catch up, without huge power differences in gear," I guess Prudis is your in-game name?

Who?

Class Archetypes won't work on Wurm. So after that i stopped reading. Plus Comparing vindictus to Wurm... Next thing you'll be asking for GunZ, or S4League levels of combat.

It's not a comparing any game to wurm, i'm stating that these are the types of games i enjoy, so expect my suggestion to have a considerable amount of influence from these games.

Your major roadblock here Rain, is that too many retards on these forums will just tell you they stopped reading after a certain point. In their own warped world this allows them to become the experts they'll claim to be in their replies. However, at this time, most people already know who the morons are and tend to ignore them anyway.

Yeah, i saw this coming already, but there's no point in not suggesting this, i just got bored, decided to vent out my opinions.

The only problem I have with your suggestion is that reaction based combat bit. I can see how this might draw in more people, but I can only ask, how feasible is it to implement? People already have a hard enough time adjusting their inventory when switching from bow to melee. Will a system where you have to interact with a "combat" window be any better, or less complicated, than what we have now?

Part of what my suggestion works to remove is how people function as a "archer/warrior" type, if you're going into combat switching weapons constantly, you should have a nice penalty, same for using a bow while in plate. I don't see any balance nor realism in the ability to take off armor in the midst of running from 10 enemies, either. I also feel like horses should mitigate combat ability, rather than enhance it. The only switches i foresee will be an archer rushing to get out his weapon in order to fend off warriors getting near, or using a shortbow. However in cases like that, it should be rather easy to switch. The combat window wouldn't really be that big of a new thing, but rather a few extra buttons incoming, and letting you choose how you deal with it. It doesn't even have to be "instance" based, it could be just switching to aggressive after the enemy preforms the power attack.

I think the system that is in place has the ability to foster more choices for PvP. It's just poorly implemented. When everyone uses a longsword and plate armor, then you know you have a situation where you've got to adjust the already existing system. If the different armors and weapons allowed for different evading, blocking, swinging, and damage rates, that were definitely discernible, then you'd see people wearing an assortment of stuff, but this just isn't happening. If that was the intent, then again, it is poorly implemented and needs to be looked at, which is something people have been asking for ages.

I completely agree with you here, i've tried so many different things experimenting combat in wurm over time, but it always feels the same. It feels as if i'll fail eventually if i don't use a shield or sword/maul. I don't have the "ability" to overcome my enemy by trying to do some sort of barrage of attacks and hopefully get through their defenses, it's a simple "hit, or miss/glance/parried/blocked", which never feels good at all. But there is definitely space to expand.

I'm all for adding a reaction based element to the combat system, but I'd like to see fixes made to the already existing matrix used to define the materials used in the combat system before we just implement action based stuff to something that I, and many others, believe is broken. In the long run, that won't help a damned thing.

I could agree with having the current combat be changed first, i would love to see how it would work if everything was balanced fine.

I always feel like combat should work in a case of R/P/S, with 30 more options, and chosen in a fragment of a second.

[Jenshiye 146]

Yeah, this doesn't look like it would fit at all. There are so many fundamental changes to the game, which would upset a lot of people.

Now if you saw where you were being hit by others and could focus blocking attacks there or use your shield more when all that is being done is arrows fired at you, simple key instructions that go into that RNG you hate so much ...

[Redd 4,281]

-1 i like the system, otherwise i'd go play wow or minecraft.

[Shiraek 486]

I agree with fixing the current system first before trying to go reaction based.

There is currently a clear "best" setup and that means there's no balance. Balance is central to combat based games.

That said, I think wurm's combat is fine, for a terraforming and crafting game. I'd focus on developing wurm's strengths rather than trying to make it great at everything. I can't see the twitchy combat loving crowd ever being wurm fans.

[silakka 2,360]

+1 to be a more player skill skill