suggestion Craftsmerms that can till with their claws and other Merm smartifications

[Ohan]

This was one of my wishlist additions when Wurt tweaks were still just a dream 

i thought id mention this again although i realize this will most likely just remain a pipe dream. 

Other merm smartifications could be merm guards wielding spears and potentially the addition of fishermerms that could be taken out on sailing trips with you. 

Wurt’s entire thing is all about the advancement of mermkind so it would be awesome i think if through Wurt’s involvement merms really did start learning new tricks and advancing technologically. 

[ALCRD]

Daamn i would be so pissed if my Merms started tilling my farmland at random.

[Ohan]

15 minutes ago, ALCRD said:

Daamn i would be so pissed if my Merms started tilling my farmland at random.

These types of reactions to suggestions are always so funny..

Im putting forward an idea not a detailed proposal on how it would all exactly function in practice. Farmer craftsmerms could be appointed with a hat or by any other number of possibilities. And their tilling activities could be further gated as well somehow. Or there could literally just be a new farmer’s house that spawns specifically farmer merms, and employing them with a fish or feeding makes them start tilling nearby soil. Etc etc etc. 

Wurt developing merm civilization is the central theme of her character. Merms learning how to farm and do other “jobs” flows naturally from that theme. 

[Hornete]

I adore this idea a lot! Merms def need something a bit more to set themselves apart from other mobs, and no other mob in the game is able to help with tilling and planting yet.

Something else I'd like to see is mobs like pigmen and merms helping with boat actions. Stuff like heaving masts, raising anchors, or even rowing (Merms in specific could be able to "row" with their arms with Wurt). It kinda stinks that currently you need other players to help with boat actions, so having mobs to help with this would be really cool.

Spoiler

This idea is a bit far-fetched and not realistic, but if there's something that I've always kinda wanted to see is if Wurt could push her kingdom to a point where its self-sustaining, being able to farm on it's own and feed the king on their own and potentially other such things. Again super unrealistic idea, and poses lots of design problems, but the idea of a character leaving a permanent mark on the world and essentially "upgrading" an entire biome forever sounds so out there but also so cool to me as a character concept. But I'm getting off track, hence why I put this in a spoiler, hehe. Consider this a rant I suppose.

 

[flamboyant wolf]

i always dreamt of fishermerm addition into dst, especially now that fishing is more intresting and complex and even more so after this update releases, considering Wurt now has a use for ocean fish. 

[Ohan]

6 minutes ago, Hornete said:

Something else I'd like to see is mobs like pigmen and merms helping with boat actions.

This would be so cooool! Would be cute if this ability was unlocked by giving them little sailor hats or something . 

New and interesting and intricate mob behaviors have so much untapped potential to realllly enrich the game i think! 

22 minutes ago, Hornete said:

This idea is a bit far-fetched and not realistic, but if there's something that I've always kinda wanted to see is if Wurt could push her kingdom to a point where its self-sustaining

Before RWYS i would have never guessed DST would get a farming mechanic so interesting and deep that it could rival dedicated stand-alone farming games! 
Developing a “city building” feature almost doesnt seem as far fetched with that in mind .

Especially considering how it actually always has been part of the game with the pig civilization which literally did get its city builder expansion with Hamlet . Wurt and merms are DST’s fantastic opportunity to explore this. 

Some of the merm ai advancement leaking into pigs then like u suggested with the sailors would enrich the game for non Wurt players as well! 

[reallychina]

Considering how labor intensive it is to set them up and hire them, helping you till would be a rewarding perk.

 

Tilling is the worst and slowest part of farming.

[Mysterious box]

1 hour ago, ALCRD said:

Daamn i would be so pissed if my Merms started tilling my farmland at random.

I just pictured someone setting up a their perfect crop combination slots and suddenly a horde of merms come over and re arrange it and start doing proper farming all while the original survivor shoots Wurt a death glare and she looks away slightly with a nervous shrug.

That being said I do feel like Merms are already in a good spot already but I won't say no to adding more stuff.

[Mike23Ua]

I’m hoping this is the direction Klei plans to take Wurt in to be honest, such as in a future update a new distant sea biome is added that has a new type of Merm (with a new look, such as maybe these evolved on their own and learned to fish & wear clothes..) 

Or maybe crazy Lunar Moon Magic Mutated them to look even more weird with weird abilities- (I just want to see a Merm that can do a shattered spider like attack OK?)

I don’t think making regular swamp Merms more intelligent is the way to go though.. Because there still has to be some unevolved Animal like behavior for the Pig vs Merm war.

So TL:DR- Don’t make all Merms smart, but defiantly do add new types in new biomes.

[pyroisshy]

My proposal would be Royal Decree's. Craftable items that cause merms to behave differently when handed to the Merm King.

A few concepts I have:

Decree of the Sea- Merms can use fishing rods and ocean fishing rods to catch fish. Merms with ocean fishing rods can be given floats and lures, and will never break them. Fish caught will be stored in any nearby Fishing Bins, or kept in their inventory until a player is nearby that they can gift fish to.

Decree of the Land- Merms will remove garden weeds, talk to plants, and replant crop seeds. If given watering cans they will also water farm soil and refill watering cans at the closest pond.

Decree of the seasons- Different effect each season

Spoiler

Autumn- Merms will Gift players resources (twigs, flint, grass, logs, rocks, berries)    At a cooldown of 2-3 days.

Winter- Craftsmerm huts will spawn merms during winter, and merms will periodically refuel firepits they are near

Spring- Merms will periodically build Pig Heads on sticks around their huts.

 Summer- Merms will use water balloons on nearby smoldering/burning structures

Decree of War- Merms and Merm Guards are hostile towards Non-Wurt players and mobs again. (For PvP servers)

Decree of Peace- Disables the Decree of War if it had been given to the Merm King previously.

Only one Decree could be active at a time, with the exception of the Decree of War and the Decree of Peace.

[Creatorofswamps]

Let the merms just plow the soil

[Memetan]

Something that I'd like to see are merms  talking to plants as another work that they will do if they see you doing it. (Like chopping and minning)

[minespatch]

8 minutes ago, Memetan said:

Something that I'd like to see are merms  talking to plants as another work that they will do if they see you doing it. (Like chopping and minning)

Taking what Jimmy did in the newest update? "see and learn" ai?

[Owlrust]

Honestly at this point there should just be an update dedicated exclusively to tweaking refreshed/dlc characters that need it.

[Masked Koopa]

I don't think it's realistic for the current update, but I gotta say I think it's great that there's so much enthusiasm for further additions to wurt's ability set, and I hope we see that funneled into not only her, but characters with more sparse ability pools like wortox or woodie.

One thing that stands out to me about wurt is that some changes could be made to improve her experience that also benefit other survivors, namely in relation to pigs and merms. As far as I see it, pigs are well overdue on a rework that makes them desirable beyond just as sources of flesh. And any new features given to pigs could be transferred directly to merms as well, with the possibility of merms doing them faster/more efficiently as is currently the case. Things like letting them wear backpacks, hold tools/weapons and the ability to gather twigs/grass or items on the ground come to mind. I think it would be great if pigs were considered more helpful alive than as meat, as it would make webber/wortox's downside more meaningful, as well as make the clever disguise an even better boon.

[Creatorofswamps]

[Trevindo]

- I would like King Merm to give salt instead of toys as the demand for gold has already been resolved with the update.

- I would like more items that use tentacle skin, such as helmets, weapons, etc.

- I would like a profession system for mobs like merm and pigs (Example: Lumberjack, Lake Fisherman, Grass and Twig Collector) and that could define the profession of each one by the helmet you put on it.

- A 1% chance for the merm king to give the trident recipe in exchange for a fish.

- King merm now accepts swapping cornfish and popcorn fish instead of eating them.

- King merm now also has a chance to give pomegranate seeds.

- Merm are naturally aggressive towards dogs when the merm king is alive.

15 hours ago, ALCRD said:

Daamn i would be so pissed if my Merms started tilling my farmland at random.

They would only bother you if you gave the farmer's hat, but with that you could automate some repetitive DST tasks like watering the plants, but you still need the fly to talk to the plants.

11 hours ago, pyroisshy said:

My proposal would be Royal Decree's. Craftable items that cause merms to behave differently when handed to the Merm King.

A few concepts I have:

Decree of the Sea- Merms can use fishing rods and ocean fishing rods to catch fish. Merms with ocean fishing rods can be given floats and lures, and will never break them. Fish caught will be stored in any nearby Fishing Bins, or kept in their inventory until a player is nearby that they can gift fish to.

Decree of the Land- Merms will remove garden weeds, talk to plants, and replant crop seeds. If given watering cans they will also water farm soil and refill watering cans at the closest pond.

Decree of the seasons- Different effect each season

  Reveal hidden contents

Autumn- Merms will Gift players resources (twigs, flint, grass, logs, rocks, berries)    At a cooldown of 2-3 days.

Winter- Craftsmerm huts will spawn merms during winter, and merms will periodically refuel firepits they are near

Spring- Merms will periodically build Pig Heads on sticks around their huts.

 Summer- Merms will use water balloons on nearby smoldering/burning structures

Decree of War- Merms and Merm Guards are hostile towards Non-Wurt players and mobs again. (For PvP servers)

Decree of Peace- Disables the Decree of War if it had been given to the Merm King previously.

Only one Decree could be active at a time, with the exception of the Decree of War and the Decree of Peace.

 

[Pig Princess]

16 hours ago, Ohan said:

there could literally just be a new farmer’s house that spawns specifically farmer merms

Better question is: how could you control pattern in which those merms would till soil? You may want 3*3, 4*4(for maximum density), 10 (hexagon grid), or even irregular shape for different set of plants.

The only thing that comes to mind is Wurt tilling herself in the presence of such farmer, and farmer tilling last pattern he saw.

About spears. Right now buffed merms deal more than 34 damage as far as I know. Are you suggesting this as purely decorative feature or with gameplay relevant improvement in mind?

Trinkets technically can be traded to Antlion for desert stones, but problem is lazy deserter itself needs rework, so I get your point. I like an idea with swamp-related items, but MK specific seeds loot table should be adjusted as well, so one could bring specific resource to trade for one type of seeds with decent chance to get it. At least then that way to start a farm could compete with general method of obtaining specific seeds from planting a lot of random ones.

There also should be a way to do something useful with large amount of frazzled wires as well, since right now they are useless for Wurt, but keep accumulating with every ruins clearing unless non-Wurt player helps/one switches Wurt for somebody else.

[Ohan]

2 hours ago, Pig Princess said:

how could you control pattern in which those merms would till soil?

Just 3x3 i dont think theres much benefit to making it more complicated than that. If u want intricate specialty tilling u can still do it urself. 

2 hours ago, Pig Princess said:

Are you suggesting this as purely decorative feature or with gameplay relevant improvement in mind?

Spear wielding merms would be upgrades to regular merm guards. More damage, infinite loyalty time maybe so they function like Wurt’s bodyguards, different protective behavior like automatically aggressive towards hounds etc. Regular merm guards could be given an expensive contract to achieve this or whatever. Im imagining spear wielders as an elite minority within merm army. But thats just my idea, the guards in the EotS trailer just look so cool with spear in hand 

[Flip Face]

I'm not alone!
 

Spoiler

14 hours ago, pyroisshy said:

Royal Decree's

You went beyond, I just thought of blueprints.

"I would like the Fisher Merms to be added to the game. When Wurt gave the king a specific item, he would give her a blueprint of them."

"Which is still a passive creature that fishes with you in the sea or ponds, but since he fishes with a trident, he considerably reduces the freshness of the fish like a poisoned spear, but they still live.(Maybe she doesn't like these methods).Or maybe he should fish with a net?"

"About the war between pigs and mermaids, heads on stakes should scare them and vice versa, making them run in the opposite direction, every time."

"There would be fishermen, farmers, merchants, and a private cook for the king."

 

[Mysterious box]

2 hours ago, Pig Princess said:

About spears. Right now buffed merms deal more than 34 damage as far as I know. Are you suggesting this as purely decorative feature or with gameplay relevant improvement in mind?

I feel like this is the big reason holding kiel back from giving merms weapons currently buffed normal merms deal 40 damage and buffed guard merms deal 50 which considering the recruitment changes and how much easier it is to maintain both the king and a horde your average wurt post king is likely going to be escorted by 6 guards which is 300 damage per attack wave

[Szczuku]

I think the role of 'advanced primal humanoid species' should go to pigmen not merms

[Ohan]

40 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

 

Then they shouldnt have teased us with spear wielding merms . Even if it was just purely for decoration i think it would be a cool addition to the guards.  

Although the reason they dont get to hold spears might also be because they can still chop and mine. I guess they could temporarily hide them in their inventories when doing those activities though. 

Im sure they actually considered it though since guard posts require spears and the appearance of guards wielding spears in the EotS trailer. Im assuming the need for new animations etc played a deciding factor as well. 

34 minutes ago, Szczuku said:

I think the role of 'advanced primal humanoid species' should go to pigmen not merms

Theres no catalyst for the same kind of features discussed here to be implemented for pigs in DST though. That would require something like Wilba. And the pig civilization already has been expanded upon in Hamlet. 

DST has Wurt, if these kind of mechanics were to be added to DST at all id be silly to ignore Wurt and her entire character motivation/design. 

Smarter merm AI and new behaviors could certainly leak into pigs to an extent though as has been mentioned above. 

[Mike23Ua]

I don’t think people are fully thinking this idea through, or for that matter how many auto-mated farms would be broken if AI was made smarter.

If let’s just say for example Klei updates the A.I. for Rabbits to hop into your Gardens and eat all your Berries & Veggies.. can you imagine how horrible that would be?

I don’t want Merms to randomly start digging & tilling & farming or anything else.. That just sounds annoying.

[Rainteke]

Perhaps a better approach would be to make tilling something that the Merms can do while they are loyal to you, just like chopping down trees and mining boulders. While I'm all for the idea of adding new things to the merms tilling's something that never really bothered me that much to begin with.