Compass behavior

[spellcast 983]

While it seems that with the test client the compasses are more or less accurate based on QL, i've foundt hat if i have a compass thats badly innacurate i can drop it on the ground and pick it back up to "reset" it. about 2 times out of 3 this seems to give me a better accuracy than i had previously.

[Dashiva 13]

If you can establish that the compass is badly inaccurate, you don't actually need the compass in the first place.

[spellcast 983]

what i mean is that my 3QL compass was off by 150 degrees or so, i dropped it on the ground and picked it back up, and it was only off by about 35 degrees.  Another player was also able to make this work for her.

[Guest Ephemeral]

That's bloody ridiculous

<10ql compasses having a 150 degree offset?

They're effectively useless then

[Danar 0]

If you can establish that the compass is badly inaccurate, you don't actually need the compass in the first place.

I don't trust my compass anymore, and I've been dropping it periodically when I'm out and I want a reading, just in case it's inaccurate.

Until I realized that we're not on the test client anymore.

[Wollschaf 17]

If you can establish that the compass is badly inaccurate, you don't actually need the compass in the first place.

Have you ever been out to sea on a boat, surrounded by fog so you can barely see your own feet?

In my opinion compasses should never be off more than around 45 degrees when above 20 ql, but everything of low ql should take a long time to settle. Needing to wait a minute after turning around for an accurate reading is still encouraging to make a higher-ql compass, while not rendering compasses in general rather useless.

[Dashiva 13]

what i mean is that my 3QL compass was off by 150 degrees or so, i dropped it on the ground and picked it back up, and it was only off by about 35 degrees.  Another player was also able to make this work for her.

And when you drop it again, maybe it's 90 degrees. Yes, it changes every time you drop it. But unless you can tell which change makes it more accurate and which makes it less accurate, you won't when to stop. And that knowledge is equivalent to knowing which way north is already.

[Wollschaf 17]

what i mean is that my 3QL compass was off by 150 degrees or so, i dropped it on the ground and picked it back up, and it was only off by about 35 degrees.  Another player was also able to make this work for her.

And when you drop it again, maybe it's 90 degrees. Yes, it changes every time you drop it. But unless you can tell which change makes it more accurate and which makes it less accurate, you won't when to stop. And that knowledge is equivalent to knowing which way north is already.

So if you can see a landmark before going into a forest, you can drop the compass until it is accurate and still benefit from the change afterwards, when orientation would otherwise be much more difficult.

[Guest Ashyja]

To be honest, I think it's bad... I could easily settle with a compass that I need to stand still for a moment to be able to reliably use it, but a compass that's off by 90-180° at 28 or so ql? Sorry, that makes the compass totally useless.

[EliasTheCrimson 348]

As long as the compasses sense of direction is consistent, it doesn't really matter what side it displays as "north". If you knew your direction at some point then there's nothing else you need to know really.

In all honesty though, compasses should be changed a little towards this purpose. Rather than having the purpose of displaying "North" (which it fails at in most aspects as shown by this thread), it should be used for "zeroing in" on a specific direction. Maybe we could add an option to the compass called "Zero heading", and a red like/marker will appear on the compass dish, making players able to easier track relative changes to their orientation.

[Dashiva 13]

what i mean is that my 3QL compass was off by 150 degrees or so, i dropped it on the ground and picked it back up, and it was only off by about 35 degrees.  Another player was also able to make this work for her.

And when you drop it again, maybe it's 90 degrees. Yes, it changes every time you drop it. But unless you can tell which change makes it more accurate and which makes it less accurate, you won't when to stop. And that knowledge is equivalent to knowing which way north is already.

So if you can see a landmark before going into a forest, you can drop the compass until it is accurate and still benefit from the change afterwards, when orientation would otherwise be much more difficult.

That's basically how the old compass worked. It wasn't accurate, but never changed, so you could just record the offset once and then any QL was 100% reliable.

The new compass makes the sync part easier, as you can drop until it looks accurate, but on the flip side it doesn't stay accurate forever.

[tealc 149]

If this change is implemented I would suggest compasses be at least imp'able. Currently I think there are only about 5% of wurmians can make a decent ql compass that would be useable in the new system.

[Guest Siege]

If this change is implemented I would suggest compasses be at least imp'able. Currently I think there are only about 5% of wurmians can make a decent ql compass that would be useable in the new system.

Why ruin the market then?

[Arcanist 0]

hmm. Compasses are broke. They need to be nerfed.

[Robfox 1]

I dropped my compass in a trashbin, its no use having one now.

[SwedishPhoenix 12]

I dropped my compass in a trashbin, its no use having one now.

+1

I've not used compasses for months, the system is just not good enough.

Maybe make all compasses 100% accurate, but QL would determine decay rate and chance to keep it on death. 1 QL = 1% unit.

Would make the effort worth it, and still reward the people with 70 QL compasses.