Followers and the Merm King

[Mysterious box]

I figured it would be interesting to see where people stand on this these days also explain why you feel that way if you feel like it.

[pyroisshy]

The main buff the merm king needs is to be able to give him more food during his chewing animation

[ArubaroBeefalo]

20 minutes ago, pyroisshy said:

The main buff the merm king needs is to be able to give him more food during his chewing animation

this and having better loot depending of which fish you give to him, other than that (and bugfixes or merms getting stuck) wurt is perfect

[Mysterious box]

I do think giving different loot based on different fish would be a interesting idea however I think the best way to go would be the more it weighs the higher the amount of rewards for example a medium fish would count as 3-4 tributes and a large one would count as 5-6 considering you have to go out of your way to get bigger fish most of the time.

As for the feeding Merm king thing the only reason I'd want that change is to help Wurts and Merms in general be less unintentionally griefy.

[Ohan]

Someone else suggested making it so that only wurt’s/merms stat increases disappear when the merm king is hungry instead of the merm king just straight up being able to starve to death and i really like that idea. 

Merm king buff should also transcend shards... i still cant believe this hasnt been the case from the beginning. 

With regards to loot i would love to see the merm king receive a Yaarctopus style trading system and become a source of renewable plantables like berry bushes, bull kelp stalks, spiky bushes, spiky tree seeds and plantable reeds as the most valuable reward. Type/weight of fish would determine reward. 

[ArubaroBeefalo]

That the king dies is good becausw you get like 3 fish to trade with the next one. Also you only need to feed like 5 kelp to raise another king

[Mysterious box]

4 hours ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

That the king dies is good becausw you get like 3 fish to trade with the next one. Also you only need to feed like 5 kelp to raise another king

It was more so for the sake of Merms being friendly as it stands Wurt by design puts more hazards on the map with little benefit to the team unless they want to go out of their way to ask to be allowed to share her followers and even then the follower system isn't very popular when cheap/free and easier to manage followers exist.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

18 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

It was more so for the sake of Merms being friendly as it stands Wurt by design puts more hazards on the map with little benefit to the team unless they want to go out of their way to ask to be allowed to share her followers and even then the follower system isn't very popular when cheap/free and easier to manage followers exist.

I see

I didnt notice it because i play with friends and fence merm houses but is a good idea to make wurt more team friendly

[GuyNamedChris]

15 hours ago, Ohan said:

Someone else suggested making it so that only wurt’s/merms stat increases disappear when the merm king is hungry instead of the merm king just straight up being able to starve to death and i really like that idea. 

Merm king buff should also transcend shards... i still cant believe this hasnt been the case from the beginning. 

With regards to loot i would love to see the merm king receive a Yaarctopus style trading system and become a source of renewable plantables like berry bushes, bull kelp stalks, spiky bushes, spiky tree seeds and plantable reeds as the most valuable reward. Type/weight of fish would determine reward. 

I'm a fan of all these ideas! Having to build a second merm king in the caves is just annoying an inefficient, on top of the fact that he'll just straight up die after enough neglect. I agree he should stay alive but just refuse to buff Wurt and the merms if not fed.
Or, it'd be nice if there were some way to streamline the feeding process if he were to still starve to death. Maybe a new "Merm Farmer" structure for a new type of passive Merm that you could provide seeds to for them to plant veggies on farmable ground in the area, and harvest/offer tribute to the Merm King automatically when he's hungry?

AND I'd absolutely LOVE to be able to get better loot from him in exchange for better fish. Personally, I feel that kelp, seeds, rot and trinkets is a bit... lackluster? It feels like his main purpose is to just buff/pacify the merms. I mean absolutely other players could bring the trinkets to PK in exchange for gold, but becoming a unique source of plants in exchange for valuable ocean fish is a really good deal! I may even just main Wurt for that change in the Merm King's loot table alone!

[Mysterious box]

Where I am with it is I feel like Wurt should keep the stat buff even if the king is neglected since tying it to feeding a stationary mob means she may as well not have it at all considering it's not like the stats are insanely high and boosted hunger is pointless if it's tied to feeding another mob but the Merm and Merm guard damage and hp buff should be maintained by keeping the king fed/other thing since Merm Guardians are too strong of a force otherwise. But again even if that doesn't happen he should at minimum stay alive and keep all Merms on the map peaceful unless he's killed through combat that way even if Wurt leaves the server her crafts don't negatively effect those left behind.

[Stonetribe]

I haven't really played Wurt very much, but the fact that the merm king's buff doesn't effect both the surface and caves has always been a huge turn off for me.

If they did ever fix that, I think it'd be cool if they gave Wurt some kind of merm dumbwaiter structure that you could use to feed the merm king on the surface while in the caves. It could cost some combination of rope, boards and cut stone and work like every other feedable mob, only you know, it'd be a structure lol.

[Mysterious box]

14 minutes ago, Stonetribe said:

I haven't really played Wurt very much, but the fact that the merm king's buff doesn't effect both the surface and caves has always been a huge turn off for me.

If they did ever fix that, I think it'd be cool if they gave Wurt some kind of merm dumbwaiter structure that you could use to feed the merm king on the surface while in the caves. It could cost some combination of rope, boards and cut stone and work like every other feedable mob, only you know, it'd be a structure lol.

Being able to setup feeding outposts throughout the world would actually be a amazing idea.

Edit: actually they could kill 2 birds with one stone and add a recall function that returns all wandering merms home on the structure for a food cost.

[Stonetribe]

35 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

Being able to setup feeding outposts throughout the world would actually be a amazing idea.

Edit: actually they could kill 2 birds with one stone and add a recall function that returns all wandering merms home on the structure for a food cost.

Huh, I was thinking that it would only be used for feeding a surface merm king while in the caves and vice versa. I hadn't considered building more than one in different convenient locations.

[Mysterious box]

I figured but it seems like it'd be a great idea

[Kur0u]

I was writing down a list of updates I wish would come to dst and one of them would be making the Merm King a guaranteed swamp spawn and no longer a Wurt only construction. It seems fair to have him like we have pig king. You would still need to be Wurt (Or have her merm guise) to feed him whatever he craved to buff all merms in the world for a period of time, he would give rewards for sea trinkets and fish. If you want the buff, he would always be there waiting for a snack.

[Harrowick]

Knowing when Merms/Pigs/etc. will stop following would be really useful to prevent, say, Merms from randomly punching someone before disbanding.

[Cowboy Maxwell]

It would be nice to know when I'm about to lose loyalty on pigs, etc. Also the fact that the Merm King can starve to death like an adopted critter is absurd. Especially considering the trouble you go through for a king. That needs to be changed.