Question: Dyes and charges

[hawkeye_pike]

This is my first Treasures of Tokuno event, and I enjoy it very much (scripters can't spoil my fun). I have gathered half a dozen of dyes already, and I noticed that they have only one charge. As I assume from other postings, in previous ToT events dyes had more charges.

Is there a reason of why there's only one charge? Especially since dyes cannot unbalance anything, it would be great to have maybe 5 charges per dye, so you can at least dye a set of armor. The dyes are hard to find, especially if you are looking for a certain color. (Unfortunately I seem to be getting mostly pink dyes, darnit!) After many hours of slaying monsters, you are lucky if you get 1 or 2 of them.

[P.S.: I don't know how people, who claim to get "50+ drops a day", do it. I killed Succubi for 3 hours yesterday and got 2 rewards. Even if I'd play 24 hours a day (which you cannot unless you are unattended), I'd only get about 16 rewards a day. And I have a life outside of UO, too.]

 

[Bomb Bloke]

You'll only see conjecture here, methinks. This might be better sent in as a FoF.

I can tell you that previously dyes were majors, not minors. Five charges per dye, while dropping under the current system, would soon flood the game with the things. Also note that people would use them until they only had one charge left, then turn them in for major artis.

 

[hawkeye_pike]

You'll only see conjecture here, methinks. This might be better sent in as a FoF.

I can tell you that previously dyes were majors, not minors. Five charges per dye, while dropping under the current system, would soon flood the game with the things. Also note that people would use them until they only had one charge left, then turn them in for major artis.

I didn't know you could turn in dyes.
And I didn't know that the previous dyes were "turn-in rewards".
Interesting.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

There were minor and major dyes before, and the minor dyes had 10 charges, you could turn in 10 minor arties (the dyes included) to get 1 major, you can still do this but in the past there were major dyes as rewards with 50 charges, this time it is not so. I think the charges on the dyes are either for future plannings or a miscoding, of course we don't know but maybe you will get lucky and one of the devs will answer >.>

 

[Harlequin]

A bit of info:

TOT1 : No minor arty dyes. Only the 10 majors that you need to turn in minor arties for. 50 charges each. These were the neon dyes.

There was however a minor dye-type thingy - the pigment of tokuno (revert items back to un-dyed colours)

TOT2 : Minor arty dyes were added. 1 charge each. Comes in questionably earthen colours, light black, black, dark black, light brown, brown, dark brown etc etc you get the picture... But no labels, and because several of the colours are very close, it was a nightmare to sort. Major dyes were changed. No more neons. Only earth colours as well. These majors had 10 charges each. Pigments of Tokuno still spawn, 10 charges as before.

TOT3 : Minor arty dyes still spawn, but have a different set of colours now. Still 1 charge. Though they are labeled. Pigments of Tokuno still spawn, 10 charges as before (edit, pigments are single charge now).

 

[Bomb Bloke]

Pigments of Tokuno still spawn, 10 charges as before.

Nope - one charge now. Unless they've changed that over the last couple of days - I haven't received one since nearer to the start of the event.

 

[Harlequin]

Nope - one charge now. Unless they've changed that over the last couple of days - I haven't received one since nearer to the start of the event.

You are right, even the pigments are single charge now...

 

[Stupid Miner]

The reason they're one dye is because in ToT 1 the un-dye pigments had 10 charges, so people would use 9 of them and turn them in with 1 charge left. Apparently the devs didn't know how to fix it so that they could only be turned in with 10 charges, so they made them all 1 charge.

... you know it's really for the best, people who were using those 9 charges were destroying PvP, and creating completely over powered PvM templates too. the 9 charges of bleach they were using threw all the previous balance UO had completely out of whack, seriously, this fix was more important than all the PvP balances combined. Studies show that if the trend of people using dyes to color their armor had continued, the Guardian would have been loosed once again on Britannia, Exodus, Mondain and Blackthorne would have been resurrected, and the Avatar would have spontaneously combusted. It really was the only thing the devs could have done to prevent the total annihilation of Britannia.

 

[hawkeye_pike]

... you know it's really for the best, people who were using those 9 charges were destroying PvP, and creating completely over powered PvM templates too. the 9 charges of bleach they were using threw all the previous balance UO had completely out of whack, seriously, this fix was more important than all the PvP balances combined. Studies show that if the trend of people using dyes to color their armor had continued, the Guardian would have been loosed once again on Britannia, Exodus, Mondain and Blackthorne would have been resurrected, and the Avatar would have spontaneously combusted. It really was the only thing the devs could have done to prevent the total annihilation of Britannia.

Hehe, that one was good!

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

The reason they're one dye is because in ToT 1 the un-dye pigments had 10 charges, so people would use 9 of them and turn them in with 1 charge left. Apparently the devs didn't know how to fix it so that they could only be turned in with 10 charges, so they made them all 1 charge.

So they let it happen the first time, and the second time and you think this time its because of that? Of course in the ToT information is explicitly says you can use the items before turning them in except for the chest, that to me would mean it was not a fix....it is possible that 1, they changed it from 10 to 1 on accident because they made all the other pigments 1 Or the 1 charge pigments were not intended in the first place. Could also of course be in preparation for something in the future *shrugs*.


The rest of your post however, was hilarious =p

 

[Bomb Bloke]

Studies show that if the trend of people using dyes to color their armor had continued, the Guardian would have been loosed once again on Britannia, Exodus, Mondain and Blackthorne would have been resurrected, and the Avatar would have spontaneously combusted.

Hey, at least something would've been happening in the game.

 

[Stupid Miner]

Are we sure the bleach came with 10 charges during ToT 2?

Either way they put the minor dyes down to 1 charge to prevent people from using them and turning them in. Was around for all 3 ToTs; I remember this.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

Pretty sure, But anything is possible. I do not recall them ever stating why they made them 1 charge, they just did it.

Edit: again I refer to the fact that the ToT information says you can use items and then turn them in

Q: If I've used any of the minor artifacts, can I still return them?

A: Yes, with the exception of the Chest of Heirlooms. Don't attempt to unlock it if you wish to return it to the Empress.

 

[Bomb Bloke]

Are we sure the bleach came with 10 charges during ToT 2?

Yes.

For what it's worth, there is another 10 charge bleach item that's available at any time, albeit once per character. But 50 - 70 un-dye charges are probably more then enough for most people, and they can always be bought off other players.

http://www.uoguide.com/Emilio_the_Tortured_Artist

This is, of course, assuming the devs haven't accidentally changed that to a 1 charge item as well. Haven't tried the quest since ToT3 started.

 

[Prince Caspian]

[P.S.: I don't know how people, who claim to get "50+ drops a day", do it. I killed Succubi for 3 hours yesterday and got 2 rewards. Even if I'd play 24 hours a day (which you cannot unless you are unattended), I'd only get about 16 rewards a day. And I have a life outside of UO, too.]

The people who are getting so many drops are playing all day (attended or not). It sounds like you are a casual gamer like me, so chances are your rate is going to be around 3-10 a night.

There's two approaches: attack tough, powerful monsters (which it sounds like you are doing) and get the greater chance for the drop there, or just wipe out huge amounts of weak monsters and the sheer volume will get you a drop after a while.

I find the latter way to be tedious, and I'm having a great time fighting the rune beetles -- they are challenging when they group attack you, and they carry nifty loot besides.

Everyone's mileage varies, naturally. Again a lot depends on the type of monsters you are fighting and the speed you are dispatching them. But overall, it seems to me the legit players (ie the ones who dont set up unattended, via tamer, dexxer, mage macro or whatever) usually report about a drop every 15-20 minutes of constant fighting. That's about what I get as well, although dry spells and gold rushes do turn up.

But 3 hours for 2 drops does seem awful low. Try your luck somewhere else. Some people swear by the half-and-half -- fight high fame monsters up to a point and then just wipe out death watch beetles to "force" the artie drop, but I don't think this method works any better than the other ways.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

The reason the half and half method works is because of how quickly you can kill the lower end monsters (ie one hit) now this works Because of the way the system works, you gain points up to a certain point. Basically each time you roll to not get an artie you get a point and the next time you roll you can no longer roll below that point you gained, when you fail again you get another point and now when you roll can no longer roll below this new point, this continues untill you "top out" but topping out does not mean you get an artie, so at this top out point it is only important to get fast kills and no longer matters how many points you get. Example would be lets say this works on a 50 point scale, you start off with 0 points and a high fame monster gets you 5 points per kill, and low level gets you 1. Now when you kill the high fame monster and fail you now have 5 points at which point when you roll the die you can never roll below a 5, now you continue this till you get to 35 at which point you no longer will gain any points and can never roll below a 35. Now you just kill the one hit monsters continually always with a chance from 35-50 to get an artie instead of the 1-50 chance you started out with. Obviously the scale is different and the system is a bit more complicated but that is basically how it would work.

 

[Harlequin]

The reason the half and half method works is because of how quickly you can kill the lower end monsters (ie one hit) now this works Because of the way the system works, you gain points up to a certain point. Basically each time you roll to not get an artie you get a point and the next time you roll you can no longer roll below that point you gained, when you fail again you get another point and now when you roll can no longer roll below this new point, this continues untill you "top out" but topping out does not mean you get an artie, so at this top out point it is only important to get fast kills and no longer matters how many points you get. Example would be lets say this works on a 50 point scale, you start off with 0 points and a high fame monster gets you 5 points per kill, and low level gets you 1. Now when you kill the high fame monster and fail you now have 5 points at which point when you roll the die you can never roll below a 5, now you continue this till you get to 35 at which point you no longer will gain any points and can never roll below a 35. Now you just kill the one hit monsters continually always with a chance from 35-50 to get an artie instead of the 1-50 chance you started out with. Obviously the scale is different and the system is a bit more complicated but that is basically how it would work.

Yup, that's what I thought!