We've talked about rebalancing all monsters to match the current state of UO

[EnigmaMaitreya]

Why is it that formerly high-level creatures, like reapers and gargoyles are no longer a challenge to a high-level mage, when before they were considerably challeinging?

Since UO was launched, the overall power of the average player has increased compared to the original monsters. We've talked about rebalancing all monsters to match the current state of UO, but one downside to that would be that it would change many player's favorite hunting spots. That could be perceived as a nerf, so it is something we would have to think about beforehand. Do you think that the older monsters and creatures should be buffed up to make them more challenging? We'd like to hear why or why not.

-Wilki

I believe that a rebalance as your suggesting would potentially have a greater negative affect on New Players, either Old Players Returning and starting from scratch or True New Players.

Now having said the above I am some what unclear what above question -> Issue -> Suggestion really is all about.

As the power of the Template has increased, so has the power of new / introduced MoB's as far as I can tell. So I guess the Questioner may be suggesting they would like to fight a Reaper and get a Real Challenge while at Magery 120, Meditation 120, EvalInt at 120?

Also I am fairly certain that some MoB's are now involved in lower level quest. Spell Weaving comes to mind and Killing Reapers is on one of the Quest Chains. I would feel fairly shaky about toughening them up unless it is going to be a given that to complete the task the character may be required to kill 20(?) level 120 Mobs.

I will think on this and if I can come up with a pro, other than nostalgia, I will edit this post.

 

[Omnius]

Ummmm have you ever done the discipline quest to obtain spellweaving? it's not something a newbie char just does. Reapers make for a bad example of what should be easy. In the old days a reaper was simply harder to kill because they had substantial damage output. that damage output is miniscule now with resists as they are.

 

[Basara]

Creature rebalancing would be one thing - how about just giving us overland spawn, like in the old days (before I played, but I've heard lots about it)?

That in and of itself would make creatures more challenging, as you would start running into more stuff near your home.

 

[UOKaiser]

Forget the rebalancing those creatures there made for lower level characters. Concentrate on fixing the Loot!! And if you want more monsters that are capable of fighting our advance characters then make them from scratch.

 

[UOKaiser]

Creature rebalancing would be one thing - how about just giving us overland spawn, like in the old days (before I played, but I've heard lots about it)?

That in and of itself would make creatures more challenging, as you would start running into more stuff near your home.

That would be bad. Many people run around with there mules, non combat characters and role play. Don't think dying all of a sudden when you've bought a no spawn area home and losing youre packy filled with valuable equipment sounds like fun.

 

[Hunters' Moon]

Creature rebalancing would be one thing - how about just giving us overland spawn, like in the old days (before I played, but I've heard lots about it)?

That in and of itself would make creatures more challenging, as you would start running into more stuff near your home.

The reason that the overland spawn was toned down was because people would get attacked when recalling to their house,which would force them to wait out the "timeout" so they could log onto another character.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

Forget the rebalancing those creatures there made for lower level characters. Concentrate on fixing the Loot!! And if you want more monsters that are capable of fighting our advance characters then make them from scratch.

They are not made for lower level chars....AOS just ruined the way damage was calculated and made players exceptionally more powerful. In turn this made monsters seem weaker, this does not mean they were made for less powerful chars it means chars have gotten a substantial boost in power while monsters did not, it is as if the players evolved but the monsters remained the same. I would not mind some of the monsters being more powerful again, such as Balrons and Ancient wyrms (these are things that just should not be soloable) but maybe not so much the reapers and gargoyles. If they could figure out a good balance of bringing all monsters up to the way they were before aos that would leave things a bit balances, but then they have added a lot of monsters since then also and it would diminish their power (by making them closer to power of other monsters that would have been weaker prior to the change) or it would make them sort of ridiculously hard (try fighting some crystal hydra's lately?) Not really sure what to do about the monsters over all, but I do feel some need to be brought back to a point where you can not solo everything in game.

 

[Mayadevi]

I believe that a rebalance as your suggesting would potentially have a greater negative affect on New Players, either Old Players Returning and starting from scratch or True New Players.

Oh please, no re-balancing or buffing creatures !

Right now, most people know, how strong a mongbat is, or how strong a reaper is, or how strong and ettin is. I don't want to learn that all over again for every critter in the game !

It would totally bork the poor newbies ! I outfit newbies all the time and believe me we do get them. Aside from having to fight and die to stronger monsters, how would the vet players know where to send them to help them out ? The frustration level and the learning curve in UO is bad enough as it is, let's not make it any worse.

Anyone who thinks the old monsters aren't a challenge can always create a brand new character, on another shard, and work it up to GM without any help from any other characters. If that gets boring, they can work a character without buying anything from vendors, or make a naked macer.

How about we just add brand NEW monsters, far far away from newbie land... maybe say, somewhere in the Stygian Abyss ?

'nuff said
Mayadevi

 

[JC the Builder]

Now having said the above I am some what unclear what above question -> Issue -> Suggestion really is all about.

What it boils down to is there are many monsters in the game that literally can't kill a well equiped player. You can have a troll/orge/harpy etc. beat on you for hours without worrying about death. Hit point regeneration and resistances have completely negated the attack power of creatures you should be worried about. Even a headless could kill you if you were AFK pre-AOS.

There was a complete screw up with Age of Shadows balancing in regards to monsters. All monsters should be at least 2x stronger than they are now.

Creature rebalancing would be one thing - how about just giving us overland spawn, like in the old days (before I played, but I've heard lots about it)?

I started in mid 1999 so maybe it was different prior, but I don't see much difference in overload spawn today compared to 10 years ago. It is just all the monsters that spawn (Orcs, Trolls, Orges, etc) are useless against players today.

 

[UOKaiser]

They are not made for lower level chars....AOS just ruined the way damage was calculated and made players exceptionally more powerful. In turn this made monsters seem weaker, this does not mean they were made for less powerful chars it means chars have gotten a substantial boost in power while monsters did not, it is as if the players evolved but the monsters remained the same. I would not mind some of the monsters being more powerful again, such as Balrons and Ancient wyrms (these are things that just should not be soloable) but maybe not so much the reapers and gargoyles. If they could figure out a good balance of bringing all monsters up to the way they were before aos that would leave things a bit balances, but then they have added a lot of monsters since then also and it would diminish their power (by making them closer to power of other monsters that would have been weaker prior to the change) or it would make them sort of ridiculously hard (try fighting some crystal hydra's lately?) Not really sure what to do about the monsters over all, but I do feel some need to be brought back to a point where you can not solo everything in game.

We moved forward from that remmeber when a group of silver serpents and mongbats riped your gm armor player apart. Times changed. Reapers and the such creatures will still rip any low armor player apart till this day. I remmeber a year ago I was doing the spellweaver quest on a mid range character. I can't remmeber how many times it died to the imps and reapers in the area.

We all just got better characters cause well we've being around for 11 years!!. If we took any of our advance characters and decided to do anything but higher end creatures we gonna find it easy. Not like we would unless there was something in it for us to do it.

With the solo thing with such a declining spread out player base I believe everything should be solo if a player is skilled enough and dedicated to be able to do it. It allows players challenging themselves for greater reward and only when you mastered youre self can 1 player fight like 10. Other players will need some sort of group cause they have not mastered there equipment ,skills and tactics to be able to do or prefer to make it easier for that round etc... Got to remmeber everything in game is a RNG grind. You will need to kill things 1000's of times to just get something worthwhile.

 

[Bomb Bloke]

Who cares if a Reaper is easy to kill? Their loot is low-end also; I haven't bothered to ransack them in... quite some time.

Of course, they'd be a bit more of a threat if the monster's Teleport spell was turned back on. A bit. Those branches actually pack a punch at melee range, and that spell was the only way it could use them (realistically speaking).

But who cares? Such monsters are not high level. Go fight a Yamandon one-on-one and tell me that's too easy, and then maybe the issue can be taken seriously!

 

[Harb]

I'm glad the dev folks are discussing it, but aren't sure where we as players can really enter the discussion with any degree of value in terms of input. We don't know what's on the slate following the SA release, or what else may be in the mix on the near and mid-term dev agenda. A few things do come to mind.

1) Experienced players tend to migrate toward the higher end of the spawn spectrum, leaving most creatures and locations to their own devices or of little use. With the player population where it is today, this doesn't seem a problem, as there is enough spawn and adequate locations to support player desires. But still, there's a lot of "waste" out there.

2) UOKaiser already mentioned that loot needs more attention than spawn. Add luck to that observation. And the RNG. But broader concerns don't address the issue at hand.

3) Hawkeye Pike has mentioned opening up and expanding the seas, and randomizing spawn across the boards. All are valid ideas, and probably are best reviewed prior to revamping creatures.

4) Tim "Mr. Tact" Keating had a concept he floated that I believe was referred to publically as "diminishing returns," conceptually part of his proposal would have increased creature capability and/ or diminished player effectiveness in a camping scenario. Personally, I thought the world of Tim but hated the idea.

5) A couple spots that were once player favorites were the liches north of the solem hive and Shadow Wyrms. Add necro and well, they aren't crowded anymore. A good change - I really don't think so, if folks don't like it, they don't play it, and this one is as clear as any evidence might be.

6) It does seem the home team has all but given up on any effort to surge new subscriptions, and while dev themselves may not have and we all wish otherwise, Mythic as our spokespeople and marketing as a separate branch of EA certainly seem to have given up. If we never intend to bait an influx, then yep, it wouldn't hurt to relook all spawn. Whether it's better to buff or replace creatures is a judgement call. But if the expansion to follow SA is an Ilshenaur type world, why bother, just enhance what's to come.

7) Events have proven themselves to provide lengthy periods of player satisfaction.

8) If creatures are buffed and loot revamped, Haven could be modified possibly to include a dungeon to offset new player needs, but doing so consumes resources that may be better utilized elsewhere.

So frankly, I feel unequipped to really offer any recommendations or insights. Too much is unknown regarding the parameters of the conversation or where we're headed following the SA release. Not much help here Enigma- many apologies!

 

[Wilde1]

I would not be in favor of an overall revamp.


I'd rather see some specific areas revamped that no one visits anymore...make them relevant again. some of the older dungeons, or the overland spawn areas that were popular once upon a time. spice up city of dead for example.

 

[JC the Builder]

I would not be in favor of an overall revamp.


I'd rather see some specific areas revamped that no one visits anymore...make them relevant again. some of the older dungeons, or the overland spawn areas that were popular once upon a time. spice up city of dead for example.

Those locations are dead specifically because most monsters are not worth killing. This is all tied into the economy, crafting, player's being overpowered, etc. The only way to fix it is a complete revamp affecting all these systems.

 

[EnigmaMaitreya]

...I started in mid 1999 so maybe it was different prior, but I don't see much difference in overload spawn today compared to 10 years ago. It is just all the monsters that spawn (Orcs, Trolls, Orges, etc) are useless against players today.

It was really bad back then, with the servers of the day etc, the spawn created such lag that one could not realistically move.

Some areas could have a creature in every tile for many many square screens worth.

Zone lines could become extremly congested.

It was a good thing when they toned it down.

 

[UOKaiser]

Just look at it like this. If they beefed up these forgotten creatures will you hunt them? Nope not at all because it's not worth it. If they had a very easy monster with very good loot will you hunt them? Yep for obvious reason. Remmeber Dread spiders they were easy and were high in the loot table those were camped all day. Now will you hunt a monster extremly powerful but crappy loot? Nope because it's not worth it. Now will you Hunt a extemly powerful monster for high end loot when there is a easy to moderate monster spawning with the same loot? Sure once in a blue moon you might take up the challenge for youre self or as a group activity with friends just to say you did it but the rest of the time you be at the easy to moderate monster with the same loot.
Lastly will you hunt a powerful monster with loot like a mongbat? Absolutly not and you will avoid the area like a plague.

Me and a friend took up a challenge 5 months ago to hunt and kill a paragon ancient wyrm together without dying and we did and were happy and felt accomplish while the paragoin had us on our ropes close to death but we did it. But is this something we want to do regulary nope loot not worth it it's just for the fun and challenge and we haven't being there since.

 

[Black Majick]

Loot and MOBs need rebalancing. Plain and simple...you should not be able to 4 shot kill a dragon...make things a challenge. Dont make it too where need 20 people to kill a ancient worm, but make it too where you actually have to use some tactics too kill the monster not....War Mode...Enemy of One, Conc Wep, Divine Fury...shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot...dead...not challenging.

But...with adding difficulty to monsters...give higher end monsters some okay stuff. With imbueing...wont be as bad a deal. Can take chance of getting nice peice off monster or can take some mid too upper intensity stuff from dragon that has mis matched mods and use for imbueing...that way stuff has a purpose..rather than being left on the monster.

Now as far as beefing up...dont just beef up HP and damage...add something special to creatures...paralyzing stare (cannot move for x amount of seconds)...something like that. Upper end monsters...make ettins do more than 10 HP...give it a nice 15-25 HP shot...something that is 2x as tall as me and arms that are as big around as my head should wallop me good when he hits me...you know?

Just some rambling hear...running off of about 5 hours of sleep in the last 2 days...so tired as all get out. But some ideas if nothing else. Give me a challenge with monster bashing..I might do it...if not...PvP I go.

Now with monster changes...dont dosomething that is going to destroy champ spawns...about the only thing left worth PvPing over in felluca. If you you give us some good PvP systems do whatever to champs...scrolls are meh anyways now.

Main thing with monsters...give us a challenge back, but dont make it just doing the same thing for longer for the same crappy ass loot!

 

[UOKaiser]

Loot and MOBs need rebalancing. Plain and simple...you should not be able to 4 shot kill a dragon...make things a challenge. Dont make it too where need 20 people to kill a ancient worm, but make it too where you actually have to use some tactics too kill the monster not....War Mode...Enemy of One, Conc Wep, Divine Fury...shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot...dead...not challenging.

But...with adding difficulty to monsters...give higher end monsters some okay stuff. With imbueing...wont be as bad a deal. Can take chance of getting nice peice off monster or can take some mid too upper intensity stuff from dragon that has mis matched mods and use for imbueing...that way stuff has a purpose..rather than being left on the monster.

Now as far as beefing up...dont just beef up HP and damage...add something special to creatures...paralyzing stare (cannot move for x amount of seconds)...something like that. Upper end monsters...make ettins do more than 10 HP...give it a nice 15-25 HP shot...something that is 2x as tall as me and arms that are as big around as my head should wallop me good when he hits me...you know?

Just some rambling hear...running off of about 5 hours of sleep in the last 2 days...so tired as all get out. But some ideas if nothing else. Give me a challenge with monster bashing..I might do it...if not...PvP I go.

Now with monster changes...dont dosomething that is going to destroy champ spawns...about the only thing left worth PvPing over in felluca. If you you give us some good PvP systems do whatever to champs...scrolls are meh anyways now.

Main thing with monsters...give us a challenge back, but dont make it just doing the same thing for longer for the same crappy ass loot!

See thats the thing. While there are players that can get close to a greater dragon and fight it there are many more that will get 1 hit killed by them. There's great challenge out there. Try to collect the keys and solo peerless can everyone do that nope only the best can. Can everyone kill a lich lord you be surprised many characters can't others have np. It all has to do with templates and abilities.
I went on break before they gave lich lords necro so I came saying np but guess what got my poor build up character got wooped in no time. After tweaking him I was able to take them on again.

I never consider getting 1 hit killed fun. You never have a chance so beefing up creatures in that regard is horrible. Making them smarter like pvp players but not allowing them to 1 hit kill you will be a good way. Though just making them smarter and still allow to 1 hit kill would be a waste. It's like taking on another player with 500-100k hp all skills and stats god mode.

If they make them smart they have to reduce there power. If they increase there power they have to reduce there abilities. Either way without loot worth it there will be nobody doing them just like named creatures when they reduced there loot and increased there power.

 

[EnigmaMaitreya]

... Making them smarter like pvp players but not allowing them to 1 hit kill you will be a good way......

Now that is the system I am waiting for.

For years I have proposed (keeping it simple) a Shard/World Wide Battle Learning and Management System.

It started when DD decided to give Orc Mages the ability to teleport on to the Boats that people were using to fight from. That one action almost turned the PvM world of UO upside down. No beefing up the Orc Mages nothing, just add one simple little characteristic. By the way he had to turn that change off, it caused to many problems for players ......

I think it is well within the computing power and design abilities for MMOG's to build a psudo learning system and direct every MoB according to what it has learned.

As some one pointed out elsewhere, why in hades does a simple Lizard Man go running up to a Greater Dragon and challenge it? That is so 1995..1997

 

[Rogal]

They did something like this with Dread Spiders and what happened? People stopped hunting there and went to other spawns.

I think if you buff most monsters what you'll get is people gravitating to the "easier" spawns and you'll get more severe camping while the buffed monsters and left sitting idle.

Just my 2c

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

They did something like this with Dread Spiders and what happened? People stopped hunting there and went to other spawns.

I think if you buff most monsters what you'll get is people gravitating to the "easier" spawns and you'll get more severe camping while the buffed monsters and left sitting idle.

Just my 2c

Unless you buff everything equally, then the spawn they are fighting would still be "easier" than the other spawn, unless they plan to go to easier less profitable spawn.

 

[Stupid Miner]

why buff players? just nerf certain skills such as necromancy: vamp form, wraith form, curse weapon, and wither (to a lesser degree)
barding: pretty much all of it's overpowered.
taming (i.e. the pets)
archery
chivalry: make it require more skill perhaps? nerf EoO damage increase
nerf Perfection a bit.
Beef macing and fencing a little too (fencing moreso)

 

[Petra Fyde]

I'm not sure it would work.
Greater dragons was an attempt to restore dragons to what they were. I remember when a warrior could just barely joust a dragon, with at least 'fortification' and preferably 'invul' armour, lots of tr pots and a great deal of care - at that time tamers could ride around with a whole herd of these powerful creatures. Now a tamer can have just one, and must remain on foot as a penalty, yet people scream of how over powered they are, completely forgetting how they dealt with them in the past.

Buffing the rest of the old spawn will have a similiar effect, lots of crying players who only think of 'tactics' as an attribute of the character, not a necessary ability in the player.

I remember, as a newbie who hadn't yet learned of runebooks, staying stuck in Yew for 3 days because I was scared to run past the lich to get back to Brit. (I can't forget, Terry reminds me at every opportunity ) What newbies now are afraid of a lich?

 

[hawkeye_pike]

I would rebalance spawn as follows:

Monster behavior is predictable and static. Monsters spawn always in the same place. You slay one, a new one spawns and attacks you again. You can stand in the same spot all day long and kill monsters, and you wouldn't even have to touch the keyboard once. Monsters always behave in the same way. They carry always the same loot. This encourages item/gold farming and makes it easy for players to automate their characters. It also kills adventuring. No need to explore and discover, just use a recall rune to your favorite spawn location. Monsters should spawn in alternating areas, which would encourage adventuring and exploring. Monster behavior (AI) should be improved a little. If a number of monsters is slain, monsters should react accordingly (flee or move elsewhere), or call for reinforcements (stronger versions of their kin). Monsters should change their combat tactics, and probably cooperate to defeat the intruders. Monsters could become more powerful the more players they have killed.

 

[UOKaiser]

I would rebalance spawn as follows:

Monster behavior is predictable and static. Monsters spawn always in the same place. You slay one, a new one spawns and attacks you again. You can stand in the same spot all day long and kill monsters, and you wouldn't even have to touch the keyboard once. Monsters always behave in the same way. They carry always the same loot. This encourages item/gold farming and makes it easy for players to automate their characters. It also kills adventuring. No need to explore and discover, just use a recall rune to your favorite spawn location. Monsters should spawn in alternating areas, which would encourage adventuring and exploring. Monster behavior (AI) should be improved a little. If a number of monsters is slain, monsters should react accordingly (flee or move elsewhere), or call for reinforcements (stronger versions of their kin). Monsters should change their combat tactics, and probably cooperate to defeat the intruders. Monsters could become more powerful the more players they have killed.

Unfortunetly Farming is a neccesity unless they plan to have the monster you run into always have the exact same loot no more RNG. Imagine you want to kill just lich lords good luck trying to find them. Even worse you enjoy leather hunting and you need 10k spine barbed or horned by the end of the week to fill youre bods. Imagine How long that will take trying to find the creatures " even worse if you have just 3 hours a day to play UO"
To make that idea work you need like lizard men give 1-3k spined hide each. Dragons give 5-10k horne-barbed each and every other creature gold reagents enhanced.
Explorartion is a hassle and not a goal for most only new players that never seen anything. Want to know the ogre lord spawns I can tell you the artic Ogre loard for youre spellweaving np. Want white wyrm , Greater dragon,cu,etc I gate you to the location in 1 min. Want to hunt for Spine leather quicky wheres my rune. Want to try to find the perfect pet well just kill here.
Alternating spawns for this game is not feasible unless they erase UO and make UO2

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

O.K. I thought I had a plan on how Hawkeye's idea could be feasible, but after rereading it and the opposition I see that most of his idea is already sound. I am not sure I agree with alternating the spawn completely, But I am not opposed to having them no longer spawn in that location when many have been slain, or perhaps stronger monster/s appearing as a result of the same. AI improvements are welcome as well, and while monsters do get stronger the more players they kill, the improvement is not great enough for any player to notice (they should also learn from previous fights) of course the AI improvement would be a very large over haul of the current system but I do not have any of my own ideas to fix it.

I do not believe having randomized spawn would matter much, in fact it should help everything. It would help the economy as gold would not be coming in as fast due to no more farming. it might hurt Tailoring but I can not be sure of this. It would help, at the very least, to ease the current afk farming that happens. Forcing things to be dynamic would not be that big of a down turn, sure no one would know where things are but that is not a big deal, in fact it could be fun to have to search for them. Now if you made the spawn dynamic maybe it should be, not so "insta-dynamic" but more of an "over time dynamic" this way spawn would stay in one spot for an amount of time, or untill x criteria is met and then it would change.

Many ways to look at this idea, and many ways to implement it that are not to broken, just have to think about it a bit.

 

[Bomb Bloke]

Look at some of the most farmed monsters: Take Miasma, for example, or the stuff in Bedlam. Where could you move that sort of critter without breaking the game?

 

[Petra Fyde]

Miasma? I'd alternate it with Pyre. So miasma would spawn in the usual place for x number of times, then pyre would spawn there and miasma would spawn in pyre's usual spot. I'd move the rest of that dungeon spawn around a bit too if I had my choice.

 

[hawkeye_pike]

Imagine you want to kill just lich lords good luck trying to find them. Even worse you enjoy leather hunting and you need 10k spine barbed or horned by the end of the week to fill youre bods.[...]

You still would find Dragons in Destard, Lizardmen in Despise and Undead in Deceit or in the Ankh Dungeon. However, they would behave more intelligently.

Farming and the current BOD system are an issue, which should be solved, too. UO is more than just an item farming game. It should be a game of adventure and exploration. I'm sad that item farming (and items in general) have become the center of Ultima Online, which was not the case during the Early Days.

Why not be courageous for the first time and change the system of mindless repetitive tasks?

By the way, making ressources more difficult to acquire would not be a disadvantage, as it would affect every player in the same way. Probably prices for certain items would go up.

 

[Beer_Cayse]

Ummm, folks were using crafters when the spawn was heavier. I was one of them. And the rule was you had a way of defending yourself or you could recall out. Just about the same as today I believe.

I also want the overland spawns back ... or ramped up some. It was fun on Candelabra Point to all of a sudden have an Orc camp spawn on top of you just as you downed a Reaper. Or 2-4 Dire Wolves come at you outside of Shame.

 

[Beer_Cayse]

awwww, and it still happens to this day. My son was attacked by a vampire bat at his place ... hadda wait out the timer. Oh well.

But how about the root cause gets fixed? The flagging. It has been an issue for quite some time now. Then what excuse will homeowners use?

 

[Llwyd]

I believe that a rebalance as your suggesting would potentially have a greater negative affect on New Players, either Old Players Returning and starting from scratch or True New Players.

I agree. Making lower level monsters more powerful is the best way I can think of to discourage new players.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

I agree. Making lower level monsters more powerful is the best way I can think of to discourage new players.

Except they wouldn't know any better?

To those who are against making them more powerful, if you were not around before aos then you obviously would not remember how much "harder" things were. If you were, do you not remember? I have made a char, brand new on a shard I do not play (play it now tho obviously) Just recently starting from scratch, never do char. transfers always just new char go hit things. With that in mind it is much easier now to kill things, survive, and just the over all "hardness" of the game has been lowered the most popular time in UO was prior to this new difficulty level, so if when monsters were "harder" the game was more popular, why would it be discouraging today if the same applied?

But they are talking about balance anyway, so if it was done right it would not matter as it would get progressively harder as you work your char up, in this way monsters would always be equal to you unless you were fighting things above or below your "level"

 

[Crysta]

Monsters and loot need to be rebalanced badly. And mind you when it comes to loot I mean that it needs to be cut to a third or less of what we get now... monsters give too much, at way too high of levels. Getting high-end items should be an achievement, not something that happens so often that people consistently leave them on monsters' corpses.

 

[Llwyd]

Except they wouldn't know any better?

To those who are against making them more powerful, if you were not around before aos then you obviously would not remember how much "harder" things were. If you were, do you not remember? I have made a char, brand new on a shard I do not play (play it now tho obviously) Just recently starting from scratch, never do char. transfers always just new char go hit things. With that in mind it is much easier now to kill things, survive, and just the over all "hardness" of the game has been lowered the most popular time in UO was prior to this new difficulty level, so if when monsters were "harder" the game was more popular, why would it be discouraging today if the same applied?

But they are talking about balance anyway, so if it was done right it would not matter as it would get progressively harder as you work your char up, in this way monsters would always be equal to you unless you were fighting things above or below your "level"

Things were "harder" pre-AOS (yes, I was around then) only because items and player characters were not overpowered in those days. I tend to assume that a genuinely new player is not likely to join the ranks of overpowered vets for some time (as long as he moves up without cheating). So, for the new player, the lower level monsters are a decent challenge in the beginning. Why take that away?

It's just my opinion, but I think there are other things in UO that truly need attention, and this sort of "rebalancing" isn't one of them.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

Things were "harder" pre-AOS (yes, I was around then) only because items and player characters were not overpowered in those days. I tend to assume that a genuinely new player is not likely to join the ranks of overpowered vets for some time (as long as he moves up without cheating). So, for the new player, the lower level monsters are a decent challenge in the beginning. Why take that away?

It's just my opinion, but I think there are other things in UO that truly need attention, and this sort of "rebalancing" isn't one of them.

But that is the point, players have gotten stronger and monsters have not. But I would agree there are things that need more attention than this particular discussion. I only chime in with my opinion on the matter as the question was asked. But how do you define "genuinely new player" one with out knowledge? As I stated I have started completely fresh on any shard I decide to play, recently I did this as well, and while I find things to be very easy I can admit I know how hard they use to be and also know how to play the game fairly well. But in terms of difficulty I would not say the monsters offer this really, to new or old players, But if you do not know how to play it might be more challenging? Of course most new players just ask for assistance and guidance, or on some of the more populated shards they get this with out asking.

 

[MalagAste]

All monsters and their loot seriously need to be overhauled. With the advent of all the slayer weapons and super resist suits most monsters are way too easy. Also several of them spawn extremely slow... take the Ancient Wyrm for example.... you take a guild there to hunt them and one spawns ever 5 or 6 min? What's everyone to do for 5 min? Certainly not loot the monster... not that I think they should have THAT much loot... but a bit more frequent spawn would be nice. Otherwise everyone gets bored and wanders away.

Also.... I LOVE being able to "blackrock infect" creatures... this made many of them worth fighting. After taking the guild Ancient Wyrm hunting and "accidently" infecting it... we had a great time!...

Things like that make it fun. I'd like to see something similar and as others have said ..... make the monsters smarter if you can.... One HUGE improvement would be let the number of people in the area determine the amount of spawn... more people around then the creatures should spawn faster and more abundantly.

I love the rewards for 10th anniversary that spawn in the Anti-virtue dungeons but what about Wind, Ice and Fire? I mean Doom has Arties, but Wind, Ice and Fire have been mostly forgotten.

While your at revisiting monsters... please consider an overhaul of Treasure Hunting and MIB loot. I'd like to see some new treasures made for that.

I know there had been a thread about those before where someone suggested that perhaps we could get things like "a pile of treasure" that looks like many of the piles of treasure found in many of the dungeons. Perhaps we could get stuff like "cannon balls" and other deco type items. Some new paintings and things for MIB's would be nice too. New sunken treasure... I don't know about anyone else but I'm getting a bit tired of the usual. I'd like to see T-Maps added to tokuno and Malas. (Though putting wandering healers into Malas would then be a must as there are currently NONE though that could be a "Risk" of doing them there)

Many of the "old" systems are no longer in line with new content and seriously need updating. Like old monsters and old dungeons.

 

[Warpig Inc]

There are already the tools in the game to help PVM. One turn the black rock back on if want a jolt. Other is the game has a way to track your killing spree. Relic drop / champ area / paragon spawn / BR infesting are all methods in game that track a players fighting at the time. During a server rotation the killing of a character can be tallied and a creture type can take offence to an offender. Hit a peak and that race gets a chance to spawn a boss in your area of camp. Want to camp Miasma for hours and then your creature RNG pops out the Scorpion king for you to play with.

Instead of a pop up just have creatures spawn with a bad egg version of its type. If you kill it then its DADDY type comes to fix your little wagon. The bad egg would be same creature just special colored like a BR infected appears. This would fix the AFK farming real fast.

Just like you earn titles for killing in an area there could be for the day (till server refresh) titles earned for killing a type. Title earned gets you Boss / Paragon / Infected / Protector version to spawn. Fight hours one thing and earn the Aracnid Bane day title and be on their hit list. Killing anything in the slayer group has a chance to spawn their protector till the day title is gone.

As a reward for killing a protector you get a race based color cloth dye. Color type and adds 200 Luck to an item that last till server refresh. Color, luck and title will have to rework the next day.

 

[Jesara]

Lots of good ideas here. I like overland spawns, but perhaps not near normal housing areas. There are acres and acres of non-housing land that could be used and explored. Do keep low level monsters as they are for newer players and crafters. It's so nice now being able to send players from Haven to Despise then Shame to train. With some random spawn and higher skilled monsters, it could be sending them to instant death. New players need to have fun and keep learning so they'll stay.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

Lots of good ideas here. I like overland spawns, but perhaps not near normal housing areas. There are acres and acres of non-housing land that could be used and explored. Do keep low level monsters as they are for newer players and crafters. It's so nice now being able to send players from Haven to Despise then Shame to train. With some random spawn and higher skilled monsters, it could be sending them to instant death. New players need to have fun and keep learning so they'll stay.

Training has always been "graveyard (aka Haven)" then Despise, then Shame for as long as I can remember, so buffing the monsters would not change this, as I stated this would be a "balancing" so the buff would be proportionate to how things were before they made players near invincible.

I want to restate my only real opinion on this matter is that I do not think everything should be soloable, sure lots of things should be but I feel they should try to promote player interaction a bit more by making some of the more "profitable" monsters considerably harder, I do not know how to balance things enough to make it so monsters don't just one hit you and your team can keep you alive and making the monsters not so easy to kill that you can heal through anything they dish out (again such as balrons and ancient wyrms come to mind as monsters that should really pack a punch and not be as easy as they are these days)

 

[Llwyd]

But that is the point, players have gotten stronger and monsters have not. But I would agree there are things that need more attention than this particular discussion. I only chime in with my opinion on the matter as the question was asked. But how do you define "genuinely new player" one with out knowledge? As I stated I have started completely fresh on any shard I decide to play, recently I did this as well, and while I find things to be very easy I can admit I know how hard they use to be and also know how to play the game fairly well. But in terms of difficulty I would not say the monsters offer this really, to new or old players, But if you do not know how to play it might be more challenging? Of course most new players just ask for assistance and guidance, or on some of the more populated shards they get this with out asking.

I can appreciate your point regarding new characters created by old players vs. the new character created by someone truly new to the game. There is a world of difference between the two.

That said, I think the difficulty and challenge is quite real for someone without prior knowledge and experience in UO. I also think the old low-level monsters should remain as they are for the benefit of that very rare but valuable "new" player. An ettin or troll encountered in the wilderness can still make a lone (and genuine) "newbie" shake in his shoes.

Heck, my very first character got killed by a mongbat. The little rascals scared me! *blushes*

 

[Stupid Miner]

One way to buff monsters is give more of them pack instinct. And make it so that monsters with pack instinct actually fight in packs.

Say, if you go to the lizardman village in ilshennar: If you attack one, they all come running to help. Soon you're surrounded by 20 of them (pack instinct maxed at 5 creatures for +100% damage).

Lizardmen, Ratmen, Orcs, Savages, Juka, Meer, Evil Mages and Mage Lords. Pretty much every monster type could use this.

Ooo, just think how tough the outside of Exodus dungeon would be if all those demons were actually competent!

Then champ spawns especially wouldn't be a pushover anymore .

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

One way to buff monsters is give more of them pack instinct. And make it so that monsters with pack instinct actually fight in packs.

Say, if you go to the lizardman village in ilshennar: If you attack one, they all come running to help. Soon you're surrounded by 20 of them (pack instinct maxed at 5 creatures for +100% damage).

Lizardmen, Ratmen, Orcs, Savages, Juka, Meer, Evil Mages and Mage Lords. Pretty much every monster type could use this.

Then champ spawns especially wouldn't be a pushover anymore .

Holy crackers, I like this idea tho it is a bit scary xD

 

[Kiminality]

Rather than just making monsters more powerful, they should improve the AI.
Things like the Juka mages (at least used to) heal lords that were under attack.

Then, give them loot relative to their level and/or apply the properties of the loot they hold to their properties (for non-animals, at least).

Make each spawn similar to a champ spawn, in that if they are farmed extensively, the spawn is upped in number or strength.

 

[Beer_Cayse]

my very first char was killed by a gang of rabbits. <shrug>

Someone mentioned chopping loot to 1/3 or so of the current levels. For low-end mobs that reasonably new characters would tackle, I would say no to that. I mean, 10gp or less from a Mongbat will not allow any gains in gold to afford the Crimmy in a shop (or something). So, perhaps no gold drop change to Fame/Karma level 3 and lower? <shrug>

I leave the vast majority of items on the corpses when I loot. I have no use for the lousy jewelry, weapons and armor - even as a new character. Who needs a ring with Taming +2? C'mon!

Take all that stuff out of the drops ... period.
===
but back to the topic ... balancing. Part of the issue is also the knowledgebase of the players (either "tribal" or on the Web) has grown. We older ones can show the new folks how to best tackle a monster. It is our knowledge that has made us more powerful - we've developed solo or group tactics - making hunting a very easy chore now.

So, "balance" things and we'll adjust. I think overhauling a fair portion of the monster-base is needed.

 

[Cyrah]

Sir Wilki,

Missed ya and hope you are doing well! You are still one of my dev type heroes!

Don't you remember the super reapers and gargys that one hit killed players?

Am I the only one who remembers this? Running in my door with 13 hits left.

Please do not mess with this. There are tons of mean things to kill as it is.

 

[Warpig Inc]

It did impress me the AI in the Juka mage healing the Lord. Then the Ophid invasion having to kill a certain ophid in the area to get any real damage to the rest of the spawn. Some new inventive AI code could make for more game flavor. As annoying as it was the NPCs stealing items was fun. Or more the races need a barding spawn type with the satyr/drayd effect AI.

 

[Beer_Cayse]

I like this and the pack instinct one from Stupid Miner! Between these two a lot of the issues in todays combat would sort of dissolve for a bit.

 

[Kaleb]

I would like to see lvl 1-2 critters remain where they are they are great for noobs but lvl's 3+ should get a boost in everything from AI, resistance,damage to loot. pre aos a blood elemental would hurt ya badly even a dragon, today they can be killed way too easy even blood ele/dragon paragons are too easy. One of the reasons I strictly PvP is the fact nothing is a real challenge with the right template and gear.

 

[Maplestone]

Should blackrock infection sweep the world?

A few assorted thoughts on this question:

There's more than just character-power at play here, there's player experience. Over the years, we've learned how to play the game - even if everything was rescaled numbers-wise to the same difficulty, we still wouldn't have that same initial experience of jousting ettins because we as players know better now.

Simultaneously, new players (when we have them) are just as green when they enter the world. Yes, the various expansions have been an across-the-board-buff to players, but people are still pretty clueless. I started (aside from a one-month-trial) playing after AoS and it was still a white-knuckle experience to be jousting a lone ettin in my first month. If people don't get accelerated by joining a guild, the low end of the game is still challenging for a long long time (although ML has pumped up the power of starting characters).

There are still many areas of the game I don't dare to tread in because I know if I die there, it's a long, long trek to get healed and my odds of getting back to my corpse are not great (this includes most of the ML dungeons and even parts of the classic dungeons except on very specialized characters). Buffing the monsters would mean that there are going to more areas I'll be scared of. (this isn't automatically bad, just that I play the game to my confort level, not to where I have defeated every possible challenge)

Scaling loot is hard - because making monsters more difficult will mean the value of already-accumulated wealth will be much higher. IDOCs will be even more valuable. It's also no fun when you're neighbourhood goes to pieces and you discover its too dangerous to visit your own house (I feel a deep, deep sympathy for the people who had houses on Magincia beach).

As much as I like just naturally allowing new, harder, more rewarding lands to be added so that everyone can rise to their natural level of challenge at their own pace, it leaves the ratio of "new player lands" to "veteran player lands" is out of whack which seems a little wasteful and forces people to leave behind areas they are attached to.

The "bright paths" concept (of which I assume New Haven was just the first stage?) is a nice way to keep players focused on challenges appropriate to their stage of development. I think it also allows lands off the bright path more freedom to be made more challenging.

I think monsters deserve expansion packs too. It's interesting to me that the orc and gypsy camp mechanic has never been revisited to create more "dynamic minilairs". I think monsters could use AI personalities (randomly make some orcs berzerkers who run, some aggro against people who speak words, etc) and leaders (you! you! stop running in circles and flank that archer from opposite sides!)

But adding more umph! to monsters isn't enough, even if their loot is scaled up - there is also the problem that there are simply many, many places to get loot. Think of all the orc camps in the land. What would make you want to visit one and not another? If they kept the same graphics but were quietly upgraded to ogres or even slow-spawning troglodytes, would that make them any more appealing to challenge? Or would the novelty quickly wear off?

UO feels like it's overlands spawn needs new systems, not just a power boost.

I'm a fan of Delgor-like triggered encounters (either randomly triggered by a person walking into the area or by some more complex circumstance like casting a spell, or having an unwelcome pet at your side).

Or, using the collector's quest as a guide, have quests where you need to visit 4 random spawn sites throughout the facet you're on, provoking a minibosses to spawn or have treasures to steal and assemble the pieces for a reward/key

Another possibility is to give incentives for people to play "classic" characters. What if there were special rewards or alternative loot which might drop for monsters defeated with only a certain subset of skills/equipment or who travelled only on foot? (we have some of the mechanics for detecting/filtering between the Magincia spawn and Richardo trial). Say, old-fashioned "power/mystic/vanquishing"-labled weapons would drop if you were fighting equipped with only similar gear? Systems like this would allow you to use the same monsters, but have them offer a greater difficulty by encourging players to nerf themselves.