Update on your feelings on the new T-Hunter System

[UOKaiser]

Ok I guess i gave it enough time for the system to set in. So how is everyone feeling on the new system? Is it still enjoyable? Or do you do it not so often? Is it annoying or the best thing ever? Miss the previous system or prefer this one? Whats your thoughts?

 

[T-Hunt]

Keep the randome part in but go back to old loot in chests..
A mongbat has beter loot...

And with a lvl 7 being no beter and yet rare to find..whats the reason to do them....

I enjoy doing maps, dont get me wrong...but i did like the chance of a relic frag or 2..
And maybe some good jewls to imbue adds to....

 

[Basara]

1. random location idea is good, but the Invalid location problem is still going strong... I just got a brand new map in the last 48 hours, that was in one of the Underworld Entrance lava mountain areas (an area that would have been sea, before SA, so it's not a matter of a previous clear spot getting blocked).

2. Mining STILL has no reason to be a player in finding a chest. If any skill should give a bonus, it should be Cartography. Now, once the map is located, I would agree that dig distance should have the mining bonus.

3. Something needs to be done about Treasure Soulstoners (those that only keep one skill at a time on their character). It was deleterious to Treasure hunting when there were just two skills being swapped, and now most of these posers swap 3 skills. Apparently, several of the Devs who worked on the changes had no clue that people were doing the Cart/LP swap before the changes, as it seemed to shock them when I brought it up away from the meeting room. They actually thought people would be permanently adding mining to a template that already had both skills permanently on them.

4. I'd rather have the old (3 piles per level) regs back instead of the new 1 pile per level, while having 1/4 the amount of junk in the chest. At least regs can be used for alchemy and scrolls.

5. The 6-property items need to be imbuable. I also suggested that T-map and SOS loot made to be "exceptional, without exceptional bonuses", as that would allow items from them to be imbued to 500 (instead of 450), giving a few of the items potential use for imbuing (imagine being able to finally go to 500% weight without losing a property to Damage increase).

6. I'd still like to see ML Mining gems and the non-boss-specific ML recipe ingredients in the chest, as part of the same drop consideration for the SA ingredients. All the people who flamed and ridiculed me for it on U.Hall can suck it. Note that almost TWO MONTHS later, there has STILL not been EVEN ONE Taint show up on a vendor on my shard in Luna, and I go around about 2-3 times a week shopping. If there are individual people with hundreds of taint for sale on other shards, for the love of God PLEASE shard transfer some of it over to Lake Austin. The only peerless apparently being done on LA currently by people who stock vendors are the SA ones, as I'm seeing LOTS of the stuff from those, the renowneds, and the Primeval lich's lockdowns showing up.

7. Still waiting for the alternate sources for the Wanderer music Gear and the Redeemer paladin sword that were promised in the Book of Truth event. Maps would be a good place (stick in the rotation for Marties), and maps would also benefit if the ToT minors were added as well. Frankly, I have enough gold bricks and Arctic Death Dealers.

8. The worst thing, so far, is that my main Treasure hunter, that I refuse to soulstone skills on, can no longer do maps. I'm now stuck with a secondary T-hunter digging on my 3rd account, and fighting the guardians and looting with my primary account's Tamer/Bard, with the two partied, using 2 clients. As all my combat heavy-hitters are on my main account, that means I can't pull this trick using my main (ironically, he's the GM of THB on the shard).

 

[Old Man of UO]

Very good post, Basara.

3. Something needs to be done about Treasure Soulstoners (those that only keep one skill at a time on their character).
This one really bothers me. I know, everyone has their own play style, but it seems to me you should have to have Cartography and Lockpicking on your character to be able to loot anything out of a chest once you dig it up. This is one of the unintended consequences of removing the 24 hour timer from soulstones.

Something needs to be done with the loot in general. What's the point in having 86 items in a level 6 chest if they are all junk? Let the 6 mod items be imbuable, reduce the number of items, increase intensity based on chest level, and give us a rare chance at higher level artifacts - Doom, Abyss, and Tokuno Majors including the dyes.

Otherwise, everyone will lose interest in treasure hunting and it will die out once again.

 

[UOKaiser]

Good points Basara. I don't agree with 3 just because I beleive players should be able to solo treasure hunting without always using tamer to do it too many firends willing to do what you want at the same time are leaving so there usually no choice. I also don't like fixed templates that wouldn't be UO. And I don't enjoy any moves made into that direction.

 

[mandosa-nice]

Just use mystic and RC + Invi and the lvl 6 are easy...

 

[Vertigo]

Just use mystic and RC + Invi and the lvl 6 are easy...

Bingo.

My t-hunter has:

120 Mystic
120 Focus
100 LP
100 Cart
100 Mining
100 Mage
80 Med

I'd almost say the guardians are too easy with this temp.

 

[Old Man of UO]

Bingo.

My t-hunter has:

120 Mystic
120 Focus
100 LP
100 Cart
100 Mining
100 Mage
80 Med

I'd almost say the guardians are too easy with this temp.

I have Eval Int instead of mining. Quite a few ways to adjust that template and never had to stone off any skills to solo through level 6 maps. I haven't tried level 7's yet.

 

[Mattress Mary]

Well...I have to put mining on this acct...bit of a pain but I'm doing it...got to 86...I've tried to find a dozen 'new locations'...all Tram...used UOAM, UOCart, the radar and the map...failed every one...I checked 100's of tiles and have come up dry...2 recent examples...Jehlom, northern part, in around and thru the barn yard...the map loc is obvious..it just isnt there...the other Magincia...NE...just east of a square indentation...I checked half the isle...the only problem I see, is the locations...I put mining on my permanent T-Hunter but only to make a new library.
Loot is okay...so what if you have to sift thru 86 items...it's a 'hunt' after all. Always fun to get that rare item that's better than most. Of course, just like every other item in the game...how long before the shards are saturated with clinging vines and every crafter will have every recipe with out ever having to make a million (literally) each of bows, spyglasses and heater shields. Yay...I'll put those in the box next to my two full sets of aclarity scrolls from an event a few years back...oh well...9-10 years ago my rare piece of volcanic ash became a piece of grave dust. Point is...make rare drops...RARE! I'd rather do 1000 maps for the chance of a rare item than get sick of maps after 30-40 of 'em because I got all the vines and scrolls I can use and so does everyone else.

 

[UOKaiser]

I have Eval Int instead of mining. Quite a few ways to adjust that template and never had to stone off any skills to solo through level 6 maps. I haven't tried level 7's yet.

Interesting. not to get of my own topic but found any templates without the use of mysticism or even non mage templates that work just as well other than taming?

 

[UOKaiser]

Is the excitement of hunting in this new system still there? Or has it passed?

 

[Basara]

I still get excited - I just have to find someone to help me with the guardian spawn, or dual-client my tamer.

I just wish I could still do maps with my main, without help - even though doing so would be a magnitude or two greater difficulty than using my tamer and my alt t-hunter that just digs then hides), as in more deaths, and a lot longer time per map.

 

[Petra Fyde]

I'm having a lovely time. Each chest is a 'surprise package' I can wonder what will be in it. I'm not worried about the junk, I just consider that 'monster spawning content'. I've worked out my own method of finding the chest, it's working well for me and I usually find it within half a dozen tries. It's a little more 'work' than recalling to a rune and involves zooming a screenshot, but doable within a very few minutes.

 

[NullByte]

Being an old player just returning, I have to say I am enjoying Treasure Hunting. I played for 10 years and then took a 2 1/2 year break.

I always collected my maps, but never did them. So have now got a treasure hunter up and running. Cart is at 99.6 and closing in on 100.

I am a Bard TH, and I soulstone cart off for mining. I did find maps where not that hard without mining to find, just painfully time consuming if you are slightly out.

I dont get the comments about soulstoning, how is it impacting other peoples ability to TH?

I mean Ill never give my maps away and the ability to soulstone off cart for mining just means I am having more fun. Restricting it just sounds plain mean in that it has no impact on you and your fun whether I soul off cart for mining or not.

The loot really is becoming monotonous and it appears there dosn't seem to much fun in the surprise factor after doing 20-30 maps.

So the loot suggestions I agree with, give us a chance for a decent rare.

 

[mandosa-nice]

The most difficult guardian spawn for me, is the greater dragon guardian, because the gd eat my colossus easy...

 

[unified]

I am finding it a little difficult, but fun. It is more difficult finding the maps, but it is fun. I really don't care too much about the loot, because you can find some interesting things in the chest. My mother goes just to get the 5k gold per level.

@Basara - I think it is both ironic and laughable that you criticize the fact that others use Soulstones because you "...refuse to soulstone skills on..." your main, but you are "...using 2 clients..." to achieve basically a greater thing. To me, how someone else achieves their goals is their business and it neither adds anything to nor takes anything from me. GL is practically a ghost town at times, and my main can't solo. I soulstone Cart/LP to add Stealth and Eval. Really no longer a true T-hunter since I actually have him doing other things like overland hunting and dungeons, but it is the way I have fun. I don't really have a lot of time to play, and I refuse to use the time I have to train additional skills. Stealth and Eval takes little time to train up since you can do it without much effort as you play the game.

I struggled a little with finding chests at first, but I took some tips from others, especially Petra Fyde, and was able to find some chests with minimal frustration.

I took up T-hunting five years ago because the dungeons were often crowded and it was my way of creating my own spawn.

 

[Basara]

I
@Basara - I think it is both ironic and laughable that you criticize the fact that others use Soulstones because you "...refuse to soulstone skills on..." your main, but you are "...using 2 clients..." to achieve basically a greater thing.

And I think you don't have a frickin clue what I'm talking about....

I consider it to be a LESSER thing - a CRIPPLING of my ability, because I'm having to use two characters, because my only character that can find a map is one that was designed to be a "for hire" T-hunter, that lets the client kill the spawn and loot everything.

I don't see what you're seeing in your mockery of me. One character has all three skills on permanently, but as a result has no ability to fight AW or Balrons. What is ironic about that? It's no different than digging up a map for someone else, for a fee or a share of the loot. In fact, multi-clienting HURTS, as it causes MASSIVE lag, even on a machine with 3 GB memory.

My "Challenging" profession is now an IMPOSSIBLE one, for my main T-hunter, as without mining, I CAN'T find maps. I spent over a half-hour unsuccessfully trying to dig a map that my other T-hunter found with mining, at a spot that, logically, I should have found a dozen times, had it been functioning properly (and when I changed characters, I found that the spot where I was standing on it, was the spot I'd been digging with my main character all along).

I'm beginning to suspect that there might be a targeting issue based on the position of the classic client game window, much as some other targeting issues occur for other things, if you move the game window from its hard-top-left position.

And, perhaps you weren't aware of it, the charter of Treasure Hunters of Britannia (the multi-shard guild, of which I am a shard guildmaster for) specifically states that a member has to have both Cartography and Lockpicking. I've been complaining about the soulstoning since it was discovered that you didn't need to have Carto to dig up maps that you were the first decoder for - and I'm not the only one. That stone stunt cheapens the skill set, and marked the real decline of the profession, much more than the predictable loot and fixed positions. IT also makes the characters using that method, to NOT be Treasure Hunters, but another template masquerading as one.

I only resort to digging level 6 maps on my own, now, with my Tamer in the CC while my 3rd account's T-hunter finds and digs, when I can't find 1-2 more people to go with me and help fight the spawn.

 

[unified]

Yes, I do have a clue. The entirety of your response proves it.

It matters not what you call it, nor the reason. It is still another method other than using the skills of Cart/LP to dig up that chest and complete that hunt. You use two clients because you can't do the chests on your own, and have no one else to help at the time. I stone the skills because I can't do the chests on my own, and have no one else to help at the time. When my mother goes out with me I don't stone the skills because it's easier to keep them on and decode, etc. while we're out.

There is absolutely nothing wrong in what you are doing. I may look into doing the same myself. What is wrong is the criticism of another person's method to achieve the same goal, coupled with the fact that you mentioned it to Devs as obviously a means of influencing a change in the game that will certainly affect my playstyle.

 

[weins201]

Enjoying it immensly

6 property items should NOT be imbuable as they are already ove the limits.

Stoning of skills is now an intergral part of the game, nothing should be done to alter this, but if oyu find the locations using mining i.e. dig it once you locate it recall out satone off mining for another skill then - Once you leave the area the map should reset to another random location. If mining is needed it shold be needed from start to fininsh. but i fell that it shouldn't, CARTO should and would help not mining.

Skills that should be required to have ON you char to dig a chest and open it are CARTO and Lockpicking if oyu dont have these two active on your char you shouldn't be able to dig / open a chest.

If the digger leaves the map area or digs up the chest then thnks he/she can leave to stone of a skill to get LP should have the chest permantly locked out or removed.

 

[mandosa-nice]

You don't need anymore carto for dig after decoded the map, or i don't understand your english ?

 

[Minerva Foxglove]

T-hunter bard here. I like the random locations and the 30 day reset is very good. If a map is out of reach I just have to wait max 30 days.

I have no prob to swap skills but it feels a bit weird and unrealistic..I thought mining was about finding minerals and gems..and carto about finding the right spots for treasure maps.

I like the alacrity scrolls, recipies, maps and mibs alot! The other new loot is fine and the weps and armour I hardly check any longer. It would be nice with more ingredients all sorts, and some total surprice now and then. But tbh I enjoy treasure hunting more than ever. If I remember right my T-hunter is 10+ years but has never been this busy before

 

[Coppelia]

I really like it.
I find them with a couple local maps, without mining skill. (and no there's no problem with the classic client game windows)
The loot is great even for low level maps, which means I can have lots of fun with my weak t-hunter and still get nice stuff (increased amount of gold coins, recipes, special ingredients in addition to the usual reagents and jewels). Finally a system where you don't need to be 120 everywhere and kill a few gods to get anything worth it.

 

[Mehelenya]

3. Something needs to be done about Treasure Soulstoners (those that only keep one skill at a time on their character). It was deleterious to Treasure hunting when there were just two skills being swapped, and now most of these posers swap 3 skills. Apparently, several of the Devs who worked on the changes had no clue that people were doing the Cart/LP swap before the changes, as it seemed to shock them when I brought it up away from the meeting room. They actually thought people would be permanently adding mining to a template that already had both skills permanently on them.

First of all which of the Devs was shocked about that? Can we have here names, since you just wrote it here. Why should we not Stone off Skills that we don't need on our Chars? I mean Carto has 0 Bonus, you gain that Skill to "Decode" T-Maps. That's all. No big Deal. Do you really think that the Devs are so stupid, not to know how T-Hunters works? It is nothing new that T-Hunters stones off Skills they don't need.

6. I'd still like to see ML Mining gems and the non-boss-specific ML recipe ingredients in the chest, as part of the same drop consideration for the SA ingredients. All the people who flamed and ridiculed me for it on U.Hall can suck it. Note that almost TWO MONTHS later, there has STILL not been EVEN ONE Taint show up on a vendor on my shard in Luna, and I go around about 2-3 times a week shopping.

Well it is you, who wants Taint, how about doing then Peerless, insteed of waiting that others will do the job for you? On Europa we have Resource problems too, so everyone who needs Boards / Iron / Peerless Stuff, has to go out and get it by his- / herself.

7. Still waiting for the alternate sources for the Wanderer music Gear and the Redeemer paladin sword that were promised in the Book of Truth event. Maps would be a good place (stick in the rotation for Marties), and maps would also benefit if the ToT minors were added as well. Frankly, I have enough gold bricks and Arctic Death Dealers.

No thank you, what should T-Hunters do with 1 Billion Wanderer Music Gear, Redeemer Paladin Swords & Tot's? We have already enough of that. I startet to use Minor / Major Arties for Relic Fragments.

8. The worst thing, so far, is that my main Treasure hunter, that I refuse to soulstone skills on, can no longer do maps. I'm now stuck with a secondary T-hunter digging on my 3rd account, and fighting the guardians and looting with my primary account's Tamer/Bard, with the two partied, using 2 clients. As all my combat heavy-hitters are on my main account, that means I can't pull this trick using my main (ironically, he's the GM of THB on the shard).

Well i guess that is your own fault and alone your problem. All i can see right now is, that you refuse to play UO on the easy way, so all other T-Hunters must do it the same way like you do it, to satisfie you. Pretty lame of you.

 

[Lokida]

I'm posting as Lokida but I'm Hunt on Catskills. Heres my only beef. The loot is seriously crap I mean how many vines can I actually use? If you do maps that are lv 5 on down your not going to get anything but essence to imbue and possibly some vines or lock picks and the occasional surge shield *twirls finger in the air* I have no issues with my template I'm a Provo/Peace/Mage and I never try to solo a lv 6 so that's mute for me. I actually like doing lv 5 chest and up with a friend or my RL brother. I'm very disapointed from the input so far on lv 7 maps, are they seriously the same thing or worse? I know for a while T-Hunter were the flavor of the month but for us guys/gals that have been playing this class for years give us something to look forward too please.

Pinkies are nice though and SoT's just need some more random things.

Hunt of Catskills.

 

[Monty Burns]

I am enjoying the new system although I would like to see a little more diversity in the chests, I think I managed to collect all the arti's in the first 10 T6 chests I did which I found a little disappointing.

 

[archiv]

I'm enjoying the new system while at the same time completely frustrated with it.
I agree with many that stoning the skills should not be a requirement for anything. It should give an advantage in some situations but to build a system around the stoning of skills (whether that was the intent or not) is wrong. previously my template involved magery and disco but no mining. Soloing all level maps was possible, a little more frustrating when they changed AW's, but still doable. They were always more enjoyable with friends and from my point of view a lot less to worry about, I just cleaned the box and kept EV's up while they dealt with the spawn. Currently, my once workable template is now useless for level 6's. While I can accept the basics behind it (level 6 maps should require a group effort of some sort), it's frustrating to suddenly lose the template you learned to play so well. In comparison, imagine waking in the morning to go to work, jumping in the shower and suddenly the knobs no longer worked the way they have your entire life. Jump into your car to drive away only to discover that not only have all the gears changed position but getting the car into the right gear also requires random knob turning, button pushing, lever pulling to simply get it to move.
The random locations do add a little bit of enjoyment. As much as I love my library it did get a little stale to open the map and pretty much have them all memorized, this one is 103. that one is 32. and never have to reference a website (a whole other ball of wax that I didnt agree with but doesnt matter anymore). Finding the dig location should not require mining. Give any miner a picture map of a location and ask him where to find coal or silver or gold. Cartography really doesnt make much sense with finding locations in the wild (if you think about it). Hate to even suggest it, but another skill should really be required when it comes to actually finding the dig site, perhaps tracking. Mining has no place in treasure maps.
With all of that said, I do enjoy the new loot but also agree that the majority of the junk armor could be removed without much complaint. And I miss all the scrolls, regs and gems. I kept my t-hunters fortune separate from the rest of my toons just to see what he could do. more gold is nice but I feel at a loss not getting the change from all that! And the regs were fun to save too.

So there's another long time treasure hunters opinion, take it or leave it but have fun either way.

 

[hawkeye_pike]

I'm enjoying the new system while at the same time completely frustrated with it.
I agree with many that stoning the skills should not be a requirement for anything.[...]
So there's another long time treasure hunters opinion, take it or leave it but have fun either way.

I am a long time treasure hunter as well, and I do not understand your complaint. The only thing that changed is that mining gives you the advantage of finding the chest a little faster. You don't NEED it. Anyway, my TH template works very well with Lockpicking, Mining, Cartography and 50 Magery (for Telekinesis), and I do NOT use soulstones (it feels wrong, as if I would cheat myself). I can finish level 5 treasures without any problem, and I could do level 6 treasures all by myself as well, but it would take a while. Level 6 treasures are not meant for soloing.
I fail to understand why so many players complain about certain content being too difficult to solo. This is a MMORPG, not a single-player game.

To my opinion, the treasure hunting changes are a very big improvement. I always hated those extensive rune libraries that had no other purpose than destroying the adventure of treasure hunting.

P.S.: My treasure hunter is an archer.

 

[archiv]

I am a long time treasure hunter as well, and I do not understand your complaint. The only thing that changed is that mining gives you the advantage of finding the chest a little faster. You don't NEED it. Anyway, my TH template works very well with Lockpicking, Mining, Cartography and 50 Magery (for Telekinesis), and I do NOT use soulstones (it feels wrong, as if I would cheat myself). I can finish level 5 treasures without any problem, and I could do level 6 treasures all by myself as well, but it would take a while. Level 6 treasures are not meant for soloing.
I fail to understand why so many players complain about certain content being too difficult to solo. This is a MMORPG, not a single-player game.

To my opinion, the treasure hunting changes are a very big improvement. I always hated those extensive rune libraries that had no other purpose than destroying the adventure of treasure hunting.

P.S.: My treasure hunter is an archer.

I actually did add in my post that I agree 6's should not be soloable, simply that they used to be much easier. I never complained that I couldnt solo them anymore.
Until the changes I didnt have mining on my t-hunter, of course it wasnt needed with all of the rune libraries and again, I agree that they really did take some of the experience away. I did add mining and fell into the soulstone trap mainly because click, target, step, click, target, step is even less fun to me then recall dig. Running around finding the new locations is part that I do enjoy, however spending 30 minutes randomly clicking to find that right location is not fun. Which is why I stole mining from my crafter, 5 minutes of random clicking is much less painful (and I've tried all the methods I've seen posted to help find them, some work for me to get me close, some dont.). It is a huge step in the right direction but there are still things that need to be addressed.

 

[hawkeye_pike]

I understand. However, even with GM Mining on the treasure hunter character there's still enough room for skillpoints to solo a level 5 or even level 6 map.

With my treasure hunter I usually need 1-10 digging attempts to find the location. Not too much I think.