The grinding has reached new levels I can't bear anymore

[Wizal the Fox]

So in 2011 we had the Gargoyle Queen quest chain where after countless hours all you ended with were 3 useless books. Well at least the quest was a bit challenging, pointless but challenging.

But now we have reached new levels: After the awful Honesty virtue implementation and as if maintaining the decaying city loyalty was not enough, at the same time we now have the Juka/Meer artifacts grind, which is beating everything we had before:

- It doesn't require any skill, and yet the only way is to cast RC over and over and over and over for dozen of hours, because every damage you do is reflected, be it direct or indirect, without any way to avoid it. Talk about something repetitive...

- A simple but reliable extrapolation shows that getting all 4 statues requires at least 50 hours of grinding, and yet the quest, which started March 1, seem to be due to be over with publish 75 (the Juka & Meer chests are not on TC1 anymore), less than 2 weeks later. Since it is such a pain, I was planning to do it over time, but it looks like this is not an option, so I'm not counting anymore on getting even a single statue.

Yet the quest started well: the Purifying Blood Elemental was kinda fun, everything else was ok and I actually had fun for a few hours until I reached the Grave Robbers.

My patience has its limits. In 15 years I haven't seen something as boring and annoying as this, and yet I DO have finished all the Tier Quests, this is telling something I think...

 

[Mesanna]

These quests are not time sensitive. We plan on continuing them to you can continue to get town loyality. Here is a little hint for everyone, we have just begun. You are going to see more in the future. More reasons for loyality, more reasons to get these heirlooms, so good luck

 

[Frarc]

Its what i been trying to say for all these kinda quests. There is no reason to try to get it on the first day its availble. Just do a little when you feel like doing it.

Some people just have no patience.

 

[Wizal the Fox]

I am not talking about Town loyalty but about the Meer and Juka one.
The Meer and Juka boxes (where you drop the artifacts) and the rewards are not on TC1 (pub75) anymore.
Good luck killing 600+ Grave Robbers before the publish reaches prod shards.

 

[SinDee]

I'm just very greatful the UO team is still able to add game content. I will hate to see that day when EA pulls out everything and just leaves the game to run on its own

 

[Sevin0oo0]

maybe they didn't need any more testing and took that part off TC to prepare for something else? or maybe it was just a code omission that made the boxes poof since the patch?

 

[Frarc]

I am not talking about Town loyalty but about the Meer and Juka one.
The Meer and Juka boxes (where you drop the artifacts) and the rewards are not on TC1 (pub75) anymore.
Good luck killing 600+ Grave Robbers before the publish reaches prod shards.

I'm Sure Mesanna also speaks about Juka and Meer Loyalty when she mentions heirlooms.

 

[Meatbread]

I just don't bother with junk like this. It's never worthwhile. There's some ridiculous grind, and six months later you find out the reward is some deco item that will sit on vendors unsold for 200k for the rest of eternity.

 

[Coldren]

I just wish that they'd put more numbers into the game.. The days are long gone where doing things and not knowing how far you have come or have to go is a bit antiquated. With any rep, or any progressive system, really, I want to know how much each action really benefits me, and how to make better use of my time to reach my goals.

That's what drives me nuts about the new City Loyalty rating. I don't know if what I AM doing to gain loyalty is worth the time or not, since there is absolutely no indicator.

 

[SinDee]

To help you out Coldren it does seem that aresting roiters is the best bang for your buck I'm adored in trinsic and thats all I do is arest 3-5 a day.

 

[Jade of Sonoma]

Same .. I don't know why I do it, but I do it and also, I have characters loyal to different cities, one city for each character as I find time. Right now I am being hit hard with the new Patch problems and don't dare log in to UO because I hear there are problems with downloading the patch, I use the Classic Client and no UOAssist so only have a problem with the TIME it takes to download. High Winds (*gales*) power outages for the past two days have prevented me from even trying to log in. I mention this because the LOYALTY St atus for the cities my characters are Venerated or adored will take a beating thus working to get them all back up to venerated will take so much time. *sigh* Oh well .. so be it.

 

[Coldren]

To help you out Coldren it does seem that aresting roiters is the best bang for your buck I'm adored in trinsic and thats all I do is arest 3-5 a day.

I've been doing that as well as giving the maximum gold to every angry protestor, and putting out every fire and picking up every pile of garbage. The only thing I haven't done is subduing raiders, because I do this on my crafter and not my warrior. And I once did it for about 4 hours one day, running around Trinsic (Which repops pretty slowly, at least I feel like it does), but not quite as often after that.

I'm at the second tier, which I think is respected. Probably donated close to or over 100k (Which is a lot for me).

And I have no idea how much more I have to grind, and how much I lose to decay. No numbers means I'm lost, and since I don't know how far I'm progressing or need to progress, I have almost no motivation to continue.

Thanks for the suggestion though!

 

[SinDee]

Coldren dont even wastes your gold just give them 25-30 loafs of bread and keep hunting for roiters

 

[Coldren]

Coldren dont even wastes your gold just give them 25-30 loafs of bread and keep hunting for roiters

Is that cheaper? Because you can only give them 1000 gold.. What does bread run these days? I'll look into it. Thanks!

 

[SinDee]

I buy a stack of 200 for a few hundered and each blue takes about 25-30

 

[ShadowTrauma]

A lot of people I know (myself included) agree with Coldren in regards to there being a better indicator of progress. Its a little disheartening to not know if you are making progress.

 

[Jade of Sonoma]

I've been doing that as well as giving the maximum gold to every angry protestor, and putting out every fire and picking up every pile of garbage. The only thing I haven't done is subduing raiders, because I do this on my crafter and not my warrior. And I once did it for about 4 hours one day, running around Trinsic (Which repops pretty slowly, at least I feel like it does), but not quite as often after that.

I'm at the second tier, which I think is respected. Probably donated close to or over 100k (Which is a lot for me).

And I have no idea how much more I have to grind, and how much I lose to decay. No numbers means I'm lost, and since I don't know how far I'm progressing or need to progress, I have almost no motivation to continue.

Thanks for the suggestion though!

COLDREN: The highest Loyalty Status I have found to date is VENERATED which comes after ADORED.

BY only ARRESTING RIOTERS and PUTTING OUT FIRES and PICKING UP GARBAGE, my characters have all managed to reach VENERATED STATUS *LOYALTY (*each individual character loyal to ONE city only)

ALSO the SIZE of the CITY your Character is working in to gain loyalty status EFFECTS HOW FAST YOU CAN FIND AND ARREST THE RIOTERS and FIND THE ANGRY PROTESTERS.

It takes LONGER to reach VENERATED in BRITAIN than in SCARA BRAE.

SCARE BRAE IS A SMALL COMPACT CITY WITH NUMEROUS RIOTERS THUS EASIER TO GAIN LOYALTY TO VENERATED STATUS.
BRITAIN, on the other hand is TOO BIG!

SO BRITIAIN IS VERY SLOW TO ACHIEVE VENERATED but ... if you can gate, you can achieve venerated quicker than by escorting on foot...
I finally have a character loyal to BRITAIN and VENERATED STATUS BUT BUT but, wow, BRITAIN IS SO BIG .. you must run from one end of the country to the other to cover the possible places that a RIOTER can be found who is setting fires to be extinquished and with garbage to be cleaned up. I had to use "GATES" to move around fast and arrest prisoners, turn them into the Capt of the Guard and return to the scene to arrest another rioter or put out the fires and pick up garbage.

As for paying the angry protesters, I stopped doing that because I found arresting prisoners more entertaining. When I paid the angry protesters I would also escort the NPC's to their various destinations to earn 500 gold pieces so I could pay the angry protesters .. but that gets so boring. lol

Enjoy

 

[Coldren]

Thank you for the tip, SinDee, and the additional explanation, Jade.

I am at a bit of a handicap in terms of turning in Rioters in that I have no magery or gating ability on my crafter, so it can make some things a big sluggish. But essentially what you describe is what I have been doing in, and only in, Trinsic.

So I guess I'll just have to keep grinding up. As stated before, just wish I knew how much it was moving, or how much it was losing due to degrading.

 

[Jade of Sonoma]

Thank you for the tip, SinDee, and the additional explanation, Jade.

I am at a bit of a handicap in terms of turning in Rioters in that I have no magery or gating ability on my crafter.

I ran into the same problem using a gargoyle character who has no magery but overcame the GATE problem by giving him 100 Gate Scrolls which my scribe made. If you were on Sonoma I would gladly supply you with the same. Maybe a friend on the shard you play could help with gate scrolls, if you don't have a scribe. Those scrolls will work for any character who needs to cast gate without having magery ior reagents.

Also, if you need gold to buy gate scrolls, your character can also gate NPC's to their destinations to earn 500 gp per escort service or just go to HAVEN and escort by foot some NPC's who are quest givers asking for escort to destinations in the city. Easy.

Anything that works! enjoy !

 

[Crysta]

Y'know at the start of the heirloom thing I decided i'd calculate out how long it would take me to get anything. I came up with about 30 hours of work for one of the lesser statues. I decided it wasn't worth my time immediately. Had it been more of but less annoying monsters to kill for less points, i'd probably do it. But 30 hours of killing one monster every ten minutes...?

 

[SinDee]

? what are you useing to take down the grave robbers? I only ask because on my tamer mu GD can take one down in 3 mins.

 

[SinDee]

If your able to get to a group togeather and split the drops you will reach your goal in no time I'm hoping to start a public event for this

 

[Tina Small]

I just wish that they'd put more numbers into the game.. The days are long gone where doing things and not knowing how far you have come or have to go is a bit antiquated. With any rep, or any progressive system, really, I want to know how much each action really benefits me, and how to make better use of my time to reach my goals.

That's what drives me nuts about the new City Loyalty rating. I don't know if what I AM doing to gain loyalty is worth the time or not, since there is absolutely no indicator.

Coldren, I spent a while running around in Trinsic, trying to recover from clobbering the one rioter that wouldn't get off the roof until I poisoned her (she died). I learned that if I gave a tiny amount of gold (e.g., 3 or 4 coins only) to any blue NPC I ran across that wasn't one asking to be escorted or that was a noble, next time I came around that direction, the NPC I insulted with the tiny amount of gold would be protesting, if not already at the rioting stage. It seemed like it was helping a bit to decrease the number of rioters spawning in inaccessible locations because I was of course only dropping gold coins on NPCs I could easily reach. Also, I noticed that some protestors would seem to stop their protesting after giving them gold, but the next time I came around, they were on to rioting. So, definitely make a mental note of ANY non-noble, non-quest NPCs as you run around, because sooner or later they are likely to be protesting. There also seem to be some locations that seem to be more favored for rioting than others. And don't forget, with Trinsic, to check the island that used to have the gypsies and brigands. The very north end of it has a tiny area that is within the town limits and you will sometimes find a rioter there. It also pays to occasionally run all the way around the outside of the town walls looking for rioters. My character is just esteemed in Trinsic after about 3-4 hours of solid running around (which included recovering from killing a rioter). Don't really know how much more work it will take to get her to adored (or higher) and maintain it. Hoping it isn't too much because it was certainly not an activity I would consider much fun, especially when there's no good way to gauge your progress.

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

I just don't bother with junk like this. It's never worthwhile. There's some ridiculous grind, and six months later you find out the reward is some deco item that will sit on vendors unsold for 200k for the rest of eternity.

The Jukan/Meer loyalty grind "rewards" are 4 statues that are seriously NOT worth the time, and the Juka still attack you when you are an "Ally" loyalty-wise. Someone completely dropped the ball on this part of the arc.

 

[Bobar]

When the town loyalty event started there were repeated requests for some kind of numeric indicator and for decay to be reduced to slow down the endless grind every day to keep loyalty up. As ever nothing happened, no responses at all, so this just reminds me that if you '.... into the wind' all you get is wet feet'

 

[ShadowTrauma]

I understand your skepticism, but I prefer to request change/speak up on the matter than say nothing. All it takes is a few mins to type up some feedback, maybe we get lucky and someone reads it. A numeric indicator makes too much sense not to bring to their attention every chance we get. It reminds me of a story I read about a robbery that happened in a crowded neighborhood and no one called the cops because they all figured someone else would do it. *PG version*

 

[SinDee]

I think your best bet would be to make a poll Pretty sure the devs would notice that.

 

[OvenBird]

Y'know at the start of the heirloom thing I decided i'd calculate out how long it would take me to get anything. I came up with about 30 hours of work for one of the lesser statues. I decided it wasn't worth my time immediately. Had it been more of but less annoying monsters to kill for less points, i'd probably do it. But 30 hours of killing one monster every ten minutes...?

The Grave Robbers take me ten minutes a pop too, on both swords sampire and throwing whammy. Reflected, (or counter attack, don't know how to tell?) damage on sampire is like 70%, and on whammy it's almost always a perfect 50% in Wraith form with max resist. Killed myself more than once with a perfect AI. HLA and HLL are pretty much worthless I've found. I tried lower damage, quicker weps and the same thing resulted. Anyone have any good melee tactics for these guys? Anyone have success with damage/kinetic eater?

 

[Nyses]

As SinDee stated above, use a tamer with a Greater Dragon. With 120 vet it is easy to keep up on the bandaging, and they take out the grave robbers pretty quick. Another little tidbit, if you are a Discord bard, like I am, the Tribulation song causes extra damage to the grave robbers, but does not reflect damage back onto you.

 

[Wizal the Fox]

With GD or RC you take them down in 5 mins, but that's still over 50 hours to get the 4 statues. And it is extremely boring.

 

[Arrgh]

Regarding the juka/meer content, is this on T.C. only or is it live on all shards and does anyone have pics of the statues?

 

[keel]

It's live on all shards and the statues are on display at their respective heirloom turn-in boxes.

 

[Arrgh]

It's live on all shards and the statues are on display at their respective heirloom turn-in boxes.

Thanks!

 

[Wizal the Fox]

Regarding the juka/meer content, is this on T.C. only or is it live on all shards and does anyone have pics of the statues?

Not only is it live on all shards since Mar 1st, but precisely it isn't on TC1 anymore since pub75

 

[Tina Small]

Not only is it live on all shards since Mar 1st, but precisely it isn't on TC1 anymore since pub75

The spoiler thread from yesterday had some information in it that made it sound like there may be an alternate method (perhaps a very tedious/expensive one?) for getting the items to turn in for the statues in the next publish.

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

Yay! More tedium added to UO!

/sarcasm

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

The spoiler thread from yesterday had some information in it that made it sound like there may be an alternate method (perhaps a very tedious/expensive one?) for getting the items to turn in for the statues in the next publish.

I read that more along the lines to be ways of getting the heirlooms (Meer and Juka) to keep. Kind of like the ones we turn in now but without timers. *shrugs* Reckon time will tell though.

 

[Swordsman]

The quest is quite interesting, but the rewards is poor. The deco type of reward cannot make people exciting. We definitely need better design on the rewards.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

The quest is quite interesting, but the rewards is poor.

I guess that depends on your perspective. I have been grinding out Grave Robber kills every chance I get since it launched. I have 13,750 Meer loyalty and 12,850 Juka loyalty. Then again, I have a slight thing for statues *shrugs*... Those that know me... STOP laughing.. it's slight.. not an overbearing addiction *twitches*

 

[the 4th man]

These quests are not time sensitive. We plan on continuing them to you can continue to get town loyality. Here is a little hint for everyone, we have just begun. You are going to see more in the future. More reasons for loyality, more reasons to get these heirlooms, so good luck

What about having to score 10 million points for a ship?? Rather excessive, isn't it?

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Yay! More tedium added to UO!

This grind done!! Bring on the next one......




*edit*
To head off any others from having to pm and ask about the green statue, it's the 10th year Efreet Statue. Devs did a GREAT job on it huh?

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Taylor - even though the question is gone, here is the answer. I guess Stratics ate it


Thanks.

For all 4 statues I had to kill 600 Grave Robbers total, and took (my best guess) 25-26 hours of actual killing. With a sw/tamer temp you can down 20-25 an hour pretty easily, including a few paragon ones (no chests ) in that amount. So it is a grind, but imho, a worthwhile grind. If you like your pixels that is *twitches*

Best detail on the how and quest to get there is by Frarc:

http://community.stratics.com/index.php?threads/news-catastrophe.262497/