How Do You Rate the Invasion?

[Vallend]

I was just wondering what all of you thought of the invasions so far? Have you taken part? Does the invasions keep you from visiting your favorite towns? Are you part of factions and dislike that stealing sigils is tied into the Trammel side? Do you like the loot that are being given out by the invasion spawns?

I know myself I enjoy fighting the invasions in most of the cities. Its something fun and a bit different in game. Though I do hate going to Moonglow to fight because the Void spawn is just such a pain to engage in combat. I love the Vespers Ophidian Spawn, Trinsic Orc spawn and Yew Daemon spawns because they tend to remind of some the great events in the past. Plus I love getting the weapons and spellbooks off of ranked members of the "Army of Shadows". Some of those weapons and spellbooks are very very nice. Plus even though the resists on the armor you can recover sucks you got to like some of those colors.

I am giving this event 4 stars out of 5 for the fun factor. The only draw backs are that it takes a while to kill ranked members of the army. That it is tied into factions and its up to the members of the Minex or Shadowlords faction members to start the invasions. (I know some of them are tired of always having to steal the sigil only to have it yanked out from under them. Tends to be a bit of a grind for their part.) The Crimson Dragons loot after you kill it is not really worth the trouble it takes to slay it. Thats my opinion whats yours?

 

[Nystul]

It's an okay attempt by the dev team, and was fun for a bit. But I don't understand why something that happens in trammel can take away from a system that is (was) exclusively in felucca.

The only other thing is that there is also no real advantage of owning the towns, which is why i don't bother caring to help steal/corrupt sigils and/or defending the base.

It's good a bunch of players can now obtain mildly overpowered items for little to no cost at all now, which gives them fair opportunity to compete in pvp. But it don't look like it's really brought new players there.

I still think the faction system needs a better reasoning behind owning towns and all. Also kinda lame to work for 4 hours on something and to know that when you goto sleep and/or work that it all gets taken ;P. UO don't have the playerbase/activity as it had back in the day for this system lol.


But the invasions them selves are cool in a sense. Easy to farm gold. But the rewards get old fast. Not to mention the crimson dragon has been a disappointment as far as having a motive to kill it when it's up since it drops nothing good at all.

 

[Farsight]

Factors for my judgement:
1. The loot: There should be at least some reason to kill the crimson dragon. As it is now, the loot isn't even peerless quality from what I've seen. That means that I can fight the invasion for an hour, kill the dragon and come out with less than what I'd have if I chained Mel or Travesty for two hours. The extra gold is nice (1k gold for a slime!), but I don't see most people doing the spawns for gold. That leaves the general's books and weapons, which I went after for a week before it got boring and my house filled up.
2. The spawns: In some cases, the spawns are great, but what I don't like is that the loot is only tied up with one creature in the spawn. This leads to cases where I'm fighting several monsters and a captain or general, and someone comes in, kills the general while I'm busy trying to survive, and runs away, leaving me nearly dead without so much as a how-do-you-do. Would it be too much trouble to take a second to cast a heal or two seconds to apply a bandage? But when I get a good group there, we have a lot of fun. So alone = no fun. With a group = fun, but rather easy.
3. The Tram-Fel interaction: I just don't see the point and believe that they could decouple the causes of the spawn and just time them for once or twice a day and make things more consistent.
4. The plot - I'd have liked to have seen some evil NPC's or interactions with the crimson dragons that enhances the long-term plot line, but it seems I'll have to wait for actual EMs to take care of that job.

So those are my criticisms. Truth is, I had loads of fun in the event and am simply tired of invaders. So now I'm back to my old routine and am practicing spawning for the next big change.

I have no opinion on the faction changes as the changes didn't bring me into factions at all.

 

[CatLord]

Factors for my judgement:
1. The loot:
Great loot from the crimson dragon. Crimson Cinture, Assassin Armor, Evocaricus Sword... but I am that lucky.
The general's books and weapons, fun stuff.

2. The spawns:
So alone = no fun. With a group = fun, but rather easy... I agree there Farsight.

3. The Tram-Fel interaction:
We hold the Sigils in Felluca... We have fun in Trammel... We're EBIL but our wickedness provides Invasions to everyone...

4. The plot:
We write the future of UO... many times the Devs read and assimilate our wishes into the next patch... GO DEVS!


I would rate this Invasion a 6/10...


Missing:
- Long Term effects that would create different Shards.
- EMs.
- NPCs that would explain "in game" what is going on all around us.
- A formidable foe that would "RAZE" anyone in a few miliseconds.

(sorry for using your template Farsight...)

 

[GirlPower]

The invasion is really fun when it happens. On Cats anyways, there is no one in Minax so we have to hope the SL's steal the sigs and then wait for them to corrupt. Now the faction system needs a boost. With the small amount of people that are involved in factions 20 minutes is kind of a long time to be in stat loss. And even worse when you run into a town with factions guards and an NPC can put u in stat loss...Usually people just log out and find something else to do. The shorter corrupt time is nice, but there needs to be some more benefit to "owning" a town. Seems like the novelty has worn off and our faction is begging SL's to steal the sigs to get an invasion going. (If we join SL ourselves there would be only one and a half active factions on Cats) Then to wait... Once it starts its great but people usually just leave when the Crimson dragon spawns. I know its already been said, but the loot does suck. I don't know anyone that has gotten anything better than what you get off an orc from this thing and I have asked a TON of people.

 

[Marcus Blackwell]

I'd have to rate it a 6 out of 10. Overall great event.. I like that its geared towards group fun and agree with Farsight and Catlord its just not fun unless with a great group..One thing I wish they would have done was make the Crimson Dragon loot abit better, Ive heard it drops Peerless type loot but the only thing Ive seen on it when Ive been in on killing one is materials that Peerless bosses drop. Another thing is the factions angle of the invasion kind of in the midle on this sometimes I think its great but sometimes dilike it worth a passion. Its just for some shards who have alot of people in the Council of Mages or True Brits are missing out on this event, so wish they would have kind of did this differently. Lastly the storyline is good but it can be alot better hopefully we'll see more of a storyline with the next phase of the story arc..

 

[hawkeye_pike]

While the invasion was well done and is a good thing, it always boils down to one simple problem:

UO has turned into an item-based game. Skill, valor and commnuity have beomc secondary. This means, on the one hand monsters are not challenging enough for uber-equipped players, on the other hand medium players haven't even a chance to participate. Players are crying for more and more items, but what the game needs most is LESS powerful items and MORE community. People even complain about Crimson Dragon loot, although fighting and slaying this dragon per se is the fun part. Not the loot.

But, the Devs seem to have decided to push UO even more into the item-based pixel crack corner. We'll see whether this will really help UO to attract more players. To my opinion: It will fail. The recent events haven't brought a single new player to the game, nor have they managed to increase player activity.

 

[Vallend]

Players are crying for more and more items, but what the game needs most is LESS powerful items and MORE community. People even complain about Crimson Dragon loot, although fighting and slaying this dragon per se is the fun part. Not the loot.

I too do hate how UO has become item based and every new event has to add the latest super weapon or item for the players. The Shadow Army items though are not named and really are not that far over the top like some items I have seen.

I just do not agree on your opinion on the ongoing events and the community. I feel these events do build community on the shard. I know I have gained many new friends from working together to repelling these invasions. (Yes there are many there who just are there to farm items for themselves or their vendors. I just find this group to be the minority.) The vast majority are players whom I do see there are players enjoying something different then their normal everyday UO life.
Events tend to bring out the best and the worst in UO players. Such as the teamwork I have seen to take down the tougher foes in the invasion. I know personally I have targeted and slain the spawn around other players so they could engage a ranked army member with out the fear of being swamped. On the other hand I have seen players use what is referred to as the "Drag and Drop" to clear a area of all other spawn but the ones they want. (The "Drag and Drop" is when a player gets all the spawn but the one he/she wants to target them. Then runs to the far side of another player or his/ her pet, and then hides. So that all the spawn now re-targets on the other player or his/ her pet. Leaving the first player clear to go back and attack the ranked spawn he wanted.)
Still I look at the good in most players. Players who band together in small groups even though they are not in the same guild and work together to defeat the spawn. Most players doing the invasion are willing to ress any strangers that run up to them dead. Also I have noticed more polite players during this event who ask before jumping in to help kill a ranked army member, or who stand back and heal others they don't even know just because their health bars are low. To me this helps build a community on the shard, of course thats just my opinion.

 

[Bob_the_fart_guy]

I can agree with that Vallend. I have been rezzed more during this event. heh.

 

[Moreeg]

Its hard to rate... I think they had the best of intentions and made a commendable effort in it, but...

I think having to rely so heavily on the Fel occurances to trigger the Tram invasions was a mistake. From what I have heard a lot of people say, the faction system itself is not operating well, so it would seem to me that placing the backbone of this event on such a thing was... misguided.

I also heard that the invasions that were supposed to launch without a Fel trigger were not going off as planned. So maybe if they had it would have been different? I dont know.

Items wise... well, there isnt much to say really. Being so much of an item based game now, it only follows course that an opprotunity for items results in people farming for said item. I would imagine that a lot of people didnt even get to see some o the spawn that drop those items, or maybe they saw the spawn but couldnt cut through the people farming to have a chance at it.
Im not complaining or pointing fingers though, its just as much the fault o the system as the people farming. Supply and demand But I think item lust may have hurt the overall scenario, since it was looking like people who got poison sacs were selling them instead of using them on the poles (but i could be mistaken). But again, this is the pitfalls of an item based game.

I guess Im saying that it was a good effort on the developers part, wasnt without its high points, but still suffered from some flaws that brought down the overall experience...

 

[Vallend]

I have noticed its basically the same people fighting the invasion every time, and they can be for the most part be thrown into 4 types. Tamers, Drag and drop players, Followers and Scavengers.
Tamers with normally Greater Dragons tend to do most of the invasion combat. You will find them fighting all the monster types and Ranked army members.
Drag and Drop players will try to get all the spawn but their chosen General or Captain to follow them to a tamers pet, who is already engaged in combat. There they will run past the pet and invisible themselves. Waiting for all the monsters that were following them to re-target on the Tamers pet. Once the Monsters have re-targeted on the pet and the tamer has a giant mess they run off the engage the general or captain without having other spawn to worry about.
Followers are players who follow or look for tamed pets that are engaged in combat with a spawn. Once they make sure the spawn is engaged with the pet they rush in to also attack without much worry about being killed. That way they can get easy gold or share in dropped items.
Scavengers are almost like followers in that they will follow tamers too. The difference is they don't want combat but the gold off of the slain creatures and ranked army members. Most of the time the tamers will fill up fast on the gold and can not run to the bank with a pet behind them so they leave the gold behind on the creatures they have slain. The scavengers are not tied to a pet and can make as many fast bank runs as they can. One player I spoke to stated he loves the invasions because the monsters have double gold and in one spawn just picking up behind tamers he collected over 100 thousand in gold.
Now by no means are these the only types of players but the types I have noticed mostly. So over all I would say that this is a tamersa event and thats a shame.

 

[Gildar]

Why bother drag a general to a pet?They don't hit that hard and miss often - the only challenge with them is how much health they have.

 

[Farsight]

When on my tamer, I switched over to a cu sidhe on account of the drag-and-droppers. Easy to anticipate their moves, jump on my pup and take the spawn they were trying to free up to myself.

I don't like fighting generals though. They're terribly dull.

But I haven't noticed the whole "tamer's event" thing. In fact, I see more archers among the invasion regulars than tamers. If I see an invasion, I go once with my tamer, once with my warrior, and once with my weaver-mage (then repeat the cycle). All three have done very well in collecting useless artifacts.

On the dragon himself, I usually switch to my tamer since I'm one of the few people I know who can actually keep the doggie alive, giving the mage's EV's the ability to damage the CD and keeping the CD close to one place.