[Feedback] Combat Game Balance

[Kayne.]

I don't think it will be more than a 10% cap increase

40% would make any template ********.

I think this change will be good.

Poison will bring a ton more viable templates back.
Made remove curse methods a tad weaker brings back necro some.
both give chiv a higher priority etc.

 

[mon2000]

About Focus Skill Spec (PVP):

The cap of 40% is too high to keep combat game balance.
I think the cap is at most 20%.
Extreme changes will destroy game balance.


About Enchanted Apples:

I am opposite to the plan to which the cooldown of Enchanted Apples extends at 45 seconds.
If the plan is adopted, "Sleep" of Mysticism will be greater
and PvP players can't enjoy the battles.
Though you say the cooldown was 120 seconds in old times,
the situation is different from that time.
"Mysticism" and "Gargoyle" had not been adopted yet at that time.

 

[John Galt]

45 second apple timer is good, 60 seconds would be better.

 

[mon2000]

About Enchanted Apples:

I am opposite to the plan to which the cooldown of Enchanted Apples extends at 45 seconds.
If the plan is adopted, "Sleep" of Mysticism will be greater
and PvP players can't enjoy the battles.
Though you say the cooldown was 120 seconds in old times,
the situation is different from that time.
"Mysticism" and "Gargoyle" had not been adopted yet at that time.

If the cooldown of Enchanted Apples extends at 45 seconds,
the complexity of PvP battles is lost in the strategy, and the flow of the combat becomes simple and trivial awfully.
Most of PvP players will get tired at once.
What we need is the game system that gives the strategy the extension and improves degree of freedom.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

If the cooldown of Enchanted Apples extends at 45 seconds,
the complexity of PvP battles is lost in the strategy, and the flow of the combat becomes simple and trivial awfully.
Most of PvP players will get tired at once.
What we need is the game system that gives the strategy the extension and improves degree of freedom.

Except your idea has no complexity or extension, mind as well just remove the ability to curse or poison or do specials. The way it is now on TC actually creates the strategy and extension that you so promptly promote and you still maintain the same level of freedom as you have since...I dunno SE maybe even AoS?

Apples were introduced long after the Magery Spell circles, Long after the Necromancy Spell circles. PvP did not go on during these periods? Lets not mention that when apples were introduced their timer was something like 3 times the proposed length? PvP still was not happening? Did PvP only start when they lowered the apple timer to a ridiculously low level?

The only reason there is a lack of complexity or Strategy or Freedom is solely based on the players, if you get cursed and run away you have no one to blame but yourself for running away and getting "bored" or for the people you are fighting getting "bored". I am not saying you do, but stating examples. Only blood oath and Mortal seem to be a problem right now, and both can be addressed by adding either a timer for immunity or some other item to remove only those two "curses" or some other method of causing them to not be a continuous....ailment.

 

[Nexus]

Let me address the new new player experience quickly.

The reason that's worth it, even without a lot of new players, is that UO's future lies in retention.

For my part, in terms of health of the game and potential health of the game, I would consider a mere 2 new players a month who stayed for a couple of years to be worth the effort of revising the new player experience.

Not from an actuarial perspective, perhaps, but from a cultural/relevance perspective.

-Galen's player

Let me give you my perspective on things. You, myself and all the other posters here, along with all the UO players that aren't members of the Stratics community, we are not the future of UO. We never can be, at best we will always be the past and present. EA already gets or has gotten our money, and justifying a revamped New Player experience based on the concept of retention makes absolutely no sense. If retention is the consideration what we have now works perfectly well, accelerated skill gains in New/Old Haven combined with access to existing characters (we're talking retention here not fresh newbies) to pass over equipment and items works perfectly.

They have already said this "revamped" NPE will be isolated from the rest of the game. The only advantage this gives is it will allow them to create a background installer for UO. Install the NPE and the rest downloads behind the scenes while you are playing through it. This still doesn't justify a complete overhaul, switching to an installer similar to the EC's is more efficient and practical if you are looking at established players re-installing after a Format or on a new PC, even when looking at established players who are opening a new account. If they had a substantial amount of honest-to-goodness-never-played-UO-before players opening accounts I could see it to a point but still wouldn't agree with.....

The complete isolation of new players from the established player base. Right now armor, equipment, and weapons from New Haven really isn't up to scratch with what most of us consider cheap throw away training suits. You know the stuff that's fine while we're working up skill, but never plan to use for any long term period. The reason I mention this is because I know, I for one enjoy helping get new players set up with Equipment, and start them on the right path towards being able to sustain their characters. I pass on knowledge, as well as gear, I donate 110-115 scrolls in mass to the guild on Chessy, I'm associated with that works on helping new players and returning vets who have been away from the game for very long periods. Isolating new players from folks like myself and my peers does them a disservice, it makes them harder for us to locate and offer assistance to them that in UO they really need.

In non-sandbox games this isn't nearly as big a deal, the games generally guide you through a semi-linear route and you pick up, while not always the best, suitable equipment as your character progresses, this is not the case with UO. All the people that scream and complain about lack of positive player to player interaction have only themselves to blame not the developers. Yet here we stand where they are working on measures to make it so that it becomes harder for players who do wish to help nurture a more positive player to player environment to set the tone to provide that immediate positive aspect that can help form a players expectations and lead them towards adopting similar attitudes.

I'm also not saying a NPE revamp isn't something that should be done, ever, just that now is not the right time for them to be looking on it, or on things like these combat changes that are being proposed out of the blue. If they want to make the game better and a place where they can attempt to draw and retain new players they need to buckle down and focus on the real issues that are hurting the game first, then work on balancing and implementing improvements targeted towards the new player.

How many of us would rather they focused on :

1. Making Scripting so risky or difficult it is irrelevant, while not punishing honest players
2. Closing up Exploits
3. Speed hacking
4. Bug fixes

I would, I'd rather they get all of that under control before they start focusing on things that no one is complaining about. Those issues are critical to the survival of UO, they are largely a portion of what is responsible for it's decline. I rarely ever see comments to posts (and sometimes the posts themselves) on other Gaming News sites where UO is brought up that at least one of those issues isn't brought up immediately. Fixing those issues has to take priority before any long term efforts to make UO more attractive to new players can happen.

Even a new Client will only take UO so far, you can only put on so much polish, eventually it will come down to the substance. Right now UO has reached a point where it's negative substance is teetering on the edge of overshadowing it's positive aspects. Honestly no matter how good a game looks, would you play it filled with bugs, and cheats that never seem to be resolved, can you honestly say you feel good about paying for UO when you think about that?

And that last sentence is the difference between UO and most MMO's. Yes all have cheaters, all have bugs, but most MMO's are consistent and persistent about combating these issues.

And like I said before I don't blame our Devs I blame EA, they've neglected and torn down our games Dev Team. They'll do it to their other Online titles in the future. It's part of the reason why I wish EA would sell off it's online division to someone like Activision (who owns Blizzard), or even SOE, yes SOE. EQ is in no better shape subscription wise as UO but they still had over 100 developers on their last expansion.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

Let me give you my perspective on things. You, myself and all the other posters here, along with all the UO players that aren't members of the Stratics community, we are not the future of UO. We never can be, at best we will always be the past and present. EA already gets or has gotten our money, and justifying a revamped New Player experience based on the concept of retention makes absolutely no sense. If retention is the consideration what we have now works perfectly well, accelerated skill gains in New/Old Haven combined with access to existing characters (we're talking retention here not fresh newbies) to pass over equipment and items works perfectly.
How many of us would rather they focused on :

1. Making Scripting so risky or difficult it is irrelevant, while not punishing honest players
2. Closing up Exploits
3. Speed hacking
4. Bug fixes

I believe his "retention" was the retention of new players. UO as a whole gets new players on...at least a weekly basis, but how many of them stay? I think that was his point.

As for your other items....2:4 are basically the same thing.

1:3 essentially the same thing (cheating) but 1 is not as easy as most make it sound (although I will grant that most of the idea's they have come up with seem more like the promotion of scripting than the stopping of it) and 3...well proof or it never happened, ya know? They do tamper with that often enough for me to personally believe people are just crying wolf. On the other hand, there are a ton of "boys" out there in that case, either way us assuming that those things are not on their mind does not mean it is not, them not having a reasonable way to fix such things on the other hand...well I personally can not think of anything (well for 1 I could think of the forced removal of the classic client....but I generally do not advocate that) but then again I do not have the server code available to me or the "actual" client code.

 

[Squeax]

...sampire, be aware that the primary strengths of that class come from the ability to combine the high damage of the samurai, defensive capabilities of the samurai, and leaches of vampire form from necromancy. These changes scarcely touch those.

Bushido only keeps up with Chivalry under the most obscenely favorable conditions and only if the Bushido user invests infinitely more effort. I'm perfectly willing to argue this if you really want to dispute it, but I'd rather not since it's basically irrelevant to the conversation.

Nevertheless you are correct in one regard, and that's the fact that Necromancy leeching needs to be decoupled from extraordinarily high melee damage. It needs to be decoupled from Chivalry in my opinion, not necessarily Bushido, but which one does more damage is irrelevant because it's Necromancy that needs to be tinkered with.

Give Necromancy forms a continuous Karma-depleting effect ala the Cloak of Corruption. Maybe have casting a form instantly drop you to neutral karma if you weren't below neutral to begin with. Hell maybe make Chivalry spells burn vampires (and the other forms, for good measure) the way garlic-based Magery spells do.

Make it non-viable for someone to be both a shining paragon of virtue and a bloodthirsty undead monster simultaneously, and the standard Chiv/Bush/Necro Sampire goes poof overnight. Furthermore, and more importantly, no one who is not a standard Sampire is affected whatsoever.

Alternatively, have Necromancy forms require Spirit Speak to be effective. Leave the relative merits of Chivalry, Bushido, Necro, Parrying, Camping, whatever to the judgement of individual players who have to decide what to drop. Necro is currently the only primary skill where actually having the secondary on your template is considered suboptimal.

 

[Nexus]

I believe his "retention" was the retention of new players. UO as a whole gets new players on...at least a weekly basis, but how many of them stay? I think that was his point.

As for your other items....2:4 are basically the same thing.

1:3 essentially the same thing (cheating) but 1 is not as easy as most make it sound (although I will grant that most of the idea's they have come up with seem more like the promotion of scripting than the stopping of it) and 3...well proof or it never happened, ya know? They do tamper with that often enough for me to personally believe people are just crying wolf. On the other hand, there are a ton of "boys" out there in that case, either way us assuming that those things are not on their mind does not mean it is not, them not having a reasonable way to fix such things on the other hand...well I personally can not think of anything (well for 1 I could think of the forced removal of the classic client....but I generally do not advocate that) but then again I do not have the server code available to me or the "actual" client code.

Speedhacks have been confirmed by Cal no less he's mentioned them before, and said they were being addressed, yet....

I know of people discussing using them recently, not in game but over Ventrilo and through IM's.

Cheating isn't as difficult to "Fix" in my opinion as they'd have us imagine.

Dim procs As Process() = Process.GetProcessesByName("CheatA" OrElse "CheatB")
' don't use .exe extension here
If procs.Length > 1 Then
	MessageBox.Show("Illegal Program detected the Client will now close!")

	Me.Close()
End If

Build something like that into the client, have the server call for it at a random time after login and random times while logged in, what this will do is check for "CheatA" or "CheatB", or how every many they add to the list, running. Not by scanning your hard drive, not by digging through and reading files, but by doing a check of active processes running in your system memory, by NAME only. If one is found it kills the client, a quick patch to update this once a week, and you've almost killed all forms of 3rd party cheats. Sure they might get 5 minutes here, 15 minutes there, but it is all client side other than the trigger coming from the server, and a verification check of Pass or Fail back to the server.

 

[mon2000]

What I want to say is a threat of "Sleep".
It is likely to become a dull situation only on the casting of "Sleep".
On this occasion, it is great that the method of releasing "Sleep" can be made release by not only Enchanted Apples but also a little damage.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

Speedhacks have been confirmed by Cal no less he's mentioned them before, and said they were being addressed, yet....

I know of people discussing using them recently, not in game but over Ventrilo and through IM's.

Cheating isn't as difficult to "Fix" in my opinion as they'd have us imagine.

Dim procs As Process() = Process.GetProcessesByName("CheatA" OrElse "CheatB")
' don't use .exe extension here
If procs.Length > 1 Then
    MessageBox.Show("Illegal Program detected the Client will now close!")

    Me.Close()
End If

Build something like that into the client, have the server call for it at a random time after login and random times while logged in, what this will do is check for "CheatA" or "CheatB", or how every many they add to the list, running. Not by scanning your hard drive, not by digging through and reading files, but by doing a check of active processes running in your system memory, by NAME only. If one is found it kills the client, a quick patch to update this once a week, and you've almost killed all forms of 3rd party cheats. Sure they might get 5 minutes here, 15 minutes there, but it is all client side other than the trigger coming from the server, and a verification check of Pass or Fail back to the server.

Yes He did mention it, and again they tweak and look at that area of coding enough for me to say what I did. A Developer dropping a mention of something only really shows he hears the complaints, or the in game GM reports, does not mean they have found it.

Your fix for cheating does not actually work. That is the way most cheat detection works and well, I can think of more than one way to get around that and I am not even putting any effort into it.

The only way to even attempt to combat this is to instantly ban anyone who is assumed to be caught cheating (I say it like this because whatever method they use could end up giving a false positive maybe not every time but once in awhile it could mess up) But then if anyone is banned the moment they try to cheat, would anyone know about it? If we assume "no" then there is a good possibility more people will be banned than the game can afford (not entirely saying that's how rampant it is, but I am saying our sub rate is low). If we assume "yes" then would it be enough people to prevent the outcome in the no assumption?

I strongly believe in banning everyone who cheats, strong punishment for strong offenses and such, but anything short of that and well there is no perfect way to combat the cheating.

 

[RL'S pker]

Well I've done some testing.

45 second Apple timer- I fought a couple necro mages, and even mortal dexxers/ necro dexxers. While it's rough at times, 45 seconds seems perfect. People will just need to learn NOT to rely on their back pack to fight.

Poisoning- I have a very good feeling we will see a lot of DP templates out again. at 50 EP, I would still fail some on curring the poison, and every now and then I failed Arch cure. I'm fine with this change. Poison should not be easy to cure, and they made it that way. ALTHOUGH, I'm not for the better chance to resist poison after curing it without a potion. This completely ends dueling as we know it.

40 SDI- This is a rough one for me. On one hand I like being able to do a lot of damage on a pure mage again. It's fun being able to compete with the hard hitting dexxers. On the other hand though it's a little to much damage output. I'ma HUGE mage fan, it's really all i play are mages. But, when you get 3 scribe mages paired up dumping someone....there's almost no chance to survive. It doesn't matter how bad the scribe mages are either. Aslong as one of them gets the curse off, and then they all FS, the target will go down. I just don't know if I like the idea of all the zergs running around with Flamestrikes up.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

Well I've done some testing.

40 SDI- This is a rough one for me. On one hand I like being able to do a lot of damage on a pure mage again. It's fun being able to compete with the hard hitting dexxers. On the other hand though it's a little to much damage output. I'ma HUGE mage fan, it's really all i play are mages. But, when you get 3 scribe mages paired up dumping someone....there's almost no chance to survive. It doesn't matter how bad the scribe mages are either. Aslong as one of them gets the curse off, and then they all FS, the target will go down. I just don't know if I like the idea of all the zergs running around with Flamestrikes up.

What do you feel would be good here? Personally I don't really see a way to combat the zergs, a good group of zergs should still be able to down anyone with a curse fs combo (assuming there are 5 of them I really do not see the survival rate for a single person being high if above 0 at all) on the other hand 2v1 should still be survivable.

I am honestly asking your opinion and giving my feelings on the matter. Most people are complaining about it being to high but none of the ones I have seen have said they tested it, just read it and it is to high, you sound like you are testing this stuff and thus I ask what the sdi cap should be in light of your findings so far.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Bushido only keeps up with Chivalry under the most obscenely favorable conditions and only if the Bushido user invests infinitely more effort. I'm perfectly willing to argue this if you really want to dispute it, but I'd rather not since it's basically irrelevant to the conversation.

Nevertheless you are correct in one regard, and that's the fact that Necromancy leeching needs to be decoupled from extraordinarily high melee damage. It needs to be decoupled from Chivalry in my opinion, not necessarily Bushido, but which one does more damage is irrelevant because it's Necromancy that needs to be tinkered with.

Give Necromancy forms a continuous Karma-depleting effect ala the Cloak of Corruption. Maybe have casting a form instantly drop you to neutral karma if you weren't below neutral to begin with. Hell maybe make Chivalry spells burn vampires (and the other forms, for good measure) the way garlic-based Magery spells do.

Make it non-viable for someone to be both a shining paragon of virtue and a bloodthirsty undead monster simultaneously, and the standard Chiv/Bush/Necro Sampire goes poof overnight. Furthermore, and more importantly, no one who is not a standard Sampire is affected whatsoever.

Alternatively, have Necromancy forms require Spirit Speak to be effective. Leave the relative merits of Chivalry, Bushido, Necro, Parrying, Camping, whatever to the judgement of individual players who have to decide what to drop. Necro is currently the only primary skill where actually having the secondary on your template is considered suboptimal.

In my experience it's been the opposite; Bushido only does not keep up with Chivalry, or exceed it, only under the most unfavorable conditions.

Of course the ideal damage output comes from a clever combination of both.

As you may or may not recall others have disputed your dovetailing notions that Chivalry is the key to the Sampire template and that Chivalry exceeds Bushido in damage output. We have had this discussion before.

The real story is that Bushido offers you the potential for great damage; Chivalry offers you the certainty of really good, but not great, damage.

Miss once with Perfection, and your damage goes down. But Enemy of One gives you steady damage throughout.

Consecrate Weapon doesn't show its true potential unless you encounter one of the comparatively few monsters with one resist that vastly overshoots the other. Have a Lightning Strike streak with the RNG, which is absurdly easy to do, and even that advantage washes out. (Of course, this goes back easily to the potential versus certainty issue. Have a bad LS streak with the RNG and the difference becomes obvious. Of course in my experience, due presumably in part to the HCI properties of LS, a good streak is easier to have than a bad streak.)

This is at least tangentially related to the discussion because the devs appear to have bought into your argument: That Chivalry is the driver of what's perceived as imbalances.

I'll live with the changes they have mandated but I disagree with what appears to be one of their key premises.

Most of the changes you propose, I find little wrong with per se, but again they are based on the flawed premise that Chivalry is the problem. As are the changes being mandated.

Remember that the defensive capabilities of Bushido and the leaches of the Necromancy forms would happen whether a template has Chivalry or not. As others have pointed out the last time we had this discussion, Chivalry isn't necessary if you're using your Sampire as a tank. That is because to be a tank, all you need is the leaches and the defense.

Chivalry has never been the issue.

There is little wrong with the changes per se, basically it requires you to have more Chivalry to get the benefits, which is arguable on its own merits, without trying to make the case that it's the driver of the imbalances in and of itself. I have higher Chivalry than most anyway, so I'm well-positioned. Perhaps people will stop making fun of me for having high Chivalry now. Or, in some cases, for having it at all.

Look at it this way: If you were right, that Chivalry was the driver of the imbalances, specifically the combination of Necromancy and Chivalry? Then we'd have way more Necro-Paladins without Bushido than we do. As it stands I can think of one off-hand; I'm sure I've read of 1 or 2 more than that. The one I know of personally was a very effective character but not at Sampire level. Nowhere near. And her unique skill combination had a very well-thought out and logical RP basis.

-Galen's player

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Let me give you my perspective on things. You, myself and all the other posters here, along with all the UO players that aren't members of the Stratics community, we are not the future of UO. We never can be, at best we will always be the past and present. EA already gets or has gotten our money, and justifying a revamped New Player experience based on the concept of retention makes absolutely no sense.

*coughs*

I don't know if you misunderstood me or mis-stated me intentionally, but what I was referring to was retention of the few new players we get.

Keeping them playing past the trial phase.

-Galen's player

 

[KevinBrightstar]

Chiv has allways been "the good guys spell book" If you change it mostly to skill you open it then to thoese of negtive karma to use it. Enmey of 1 vs player nice,but how do the devs plan to treat the other negtive affect of the spell? For instance if you enmey of one on a player is it to humans? or XfRedDaKilleaX ?
I think it the karma to skill change is to balance some one being able to make a super template May I recomed that the devs look for ither both skill and karma extra bones for being the good guys on all spells? No reason to hurt nice Pvmers (is there a realy a plura for PvM?I hope if not I just coined it!)

Thank YOu
Rex

 

[Jonathan Baron]

I think Nexus knew what you meant, Galen. My hunch is that he used the ambiguous wording as a diving board is all. You boys are on the same side of the issue.

For some of us the word, retention, is loaded. It means serving the old guard. And the old guard should be served.

Yet for every player like Nexus who outfits and mentors new players there is some guy camping on the help channel with the sole purpose of belittling new players. Some see experience as an obligation. Some see it as a privilege: as a license and the power to make other people feel small.

And coming into the game with so many unnecessary disadvantages, the only new players we will retain are those with the gumption to ask questions on chat channels and somehow see the value contained in the game early enough and fervently enough to thicken their skins enough to ignore the bullies who seek to crush them under the weight of history.
-

 

[Squeax]

Hey Galen, why don't you link some of those past conversations? Last time I saw you have a debate on this topic, you got schooled so hard you deleted all your own posts.

In my experience it's been the opposite; Bushido only does not keep up with Chivalry, or exceed it, only under the most unfavorable conditions.

Only if the Bushido guy spent ten times as much on gear getting different elemental/slayer combinations to replace Consecrate Weapon, the mob doesn't buff, nobody else hits it first, he doesn't get a random miss streak, nobody else Honors the target first, and he has enough HCI (or mana leech to sustain Lightning Strike endlessly) plus HLD to maintain a 75% or greater connect rate, or else he'll never get far up the Perfection scale.

More importantly still, if there's more than one Bushido user present at any given encounter, Honor only exists for one of them. If two Sampires and two ABC Archers go to do a peerless together, three out of the four don't get to use Honor at all.

Consecrate Weapon doesn't show its true potential unless you encounter one of the comparatively few monsters with one resist that vastly overshoots the other.

Doesn't need to be vast. Even if something is 60/60/60/50/60 Consecrate is a straight 20% damage multiplier. If a target has resists of 90/90/80/90/90 then Consecrate Weapon is a straight 100% increase in damage, subject to no cap or limitation whatsoever. Unless of course you went over to your giant Batman wall of a thousand weapons you bought specifically because you don't have Consecrate, and selected the perfect combination of elemental and slayer type for just this fight in particular.

This is at least tangentially related to the discussion because the devs appear to have bought into your argument: That Chivalry is the driver of what's perceived as imbalances.

I'll live with the changes they have mandated but I disagree with what appears to be one of their key premises.

It's not about power, it's about how much space on a template something takes up. Chivalry hasn't been the driver of imbalance because it does too much damage, it's been the driver of imbalance because you only needed like 65 points of it. Thankfully the developers have had sense enough to fix that without actually nerfing the damage output at high skill.

Remember that the defensive capabilities of Bushido and the leaches of the Necromancy forms would happen whether a template has Chivalry or not. As others have pointed out the last time we had this discussion, Chivalry isn't necessary if you're using your Sampire as a tank. That is because to be a tank, all you need is the leaches and the defense.

That's fine, since a low-damage tank is making an actual trade-off. Furthermore there's a limit to how much he'll leech with his lower damage. Other people will stack Bushido and Chivalry because they don't care about being a tank, they just want to keep doing as much damage as possible. That's also fine.

Look at it this way: If you were right, that Chivalry was the driver of the imbalances, specifically the combination of Necromancy and Chivalry? Then we'd have way more Necro-Paladins without Bushido than we do.

Why should we see that? Since no one needs Spirit Speak, everyone and their dog has room for Bushido so they're going to take it. Again, Necromancy, Bushido, and Chivalry are all pretty much okay in terms of performance taken individually. What's out of whack is that people have room to pile all three onto one template. Out of the three, the only one that has a secondary skill people actually take (namely Parrying) is Bushido.

I can't think of a way to decouple Necro from Bushido without horribly breaking one of them, and can't think of a reason (thematic or mechanical) why we should, other than because Galen the Pure Paladin Roleplayer is afraid he might catch a nerf down the road otherwise. Plus even if you did so, that would have the effect of making Necro Paladins the kings of the world, and that's frankly always been a silly combination.

On the other hand, the Karma mechanics of Necro and Chiv give a pretty easy and thematically logical means of separating the two.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Only if the Bushido guy spent ten times as much on gear getting different elemental/slayer combinations to replace Consecrate Weapon, the mob doesn't buff, nobody else hits it first, he doesn't get a random miss streak, nobody else Honors the target first, and he has enough HCI (or mana leech to sustain Lightning Strike endlessly) plus HLD to maintain a 75% or greater connect rate, or else he'll never get far up the Perfection scale.

As I stated, the tradeoff is between certainty of good damage (Chivalry) versus the potential for great damage (Bushido).

And the highest damage templates use both skills and don't have to choose.

I also, outlined another scenario wherein a Samurai can lose his damage edge quickly: Stringing a few misses together.

I actually do know of sampires who collect 100% damage weapons just so they do not have to rely on consecrate weapon.

Doesn't need to be vast. Even if something is 60/60/60/50/60 Consecrate is a straight 20% damage multiplier. If a target has resists of 90/90/80/90/90 then Consecrate Weapon is a straight 100% increase in damage, subject to no cap or limitation whatsoever. Unless of course you went over to your giant Batman wall of a thousand weapons you bought specifically because you don't have Consecrate, and selected the perfect combination of elemental and slayer type for just this fight in particular.

Firstly, most sampires exist to fight one creature (Peerlesses) or one type of creature (Champ Spawns) at a time. The point isn't to wander the realm and run into things.

You also don't need elemental damages as much because Lightning Strike's Critical hits are direct damage, which bypasses resists, equivalent to an armor ignore. I was just fighting a Minion in the new event earlier tonight, and landed three critical hits in a row for a total of over 360 damage.

Granted, you could also miss a lot....But, again, as I've continued to state, it's about certainty versus potential. Chivalry gives you certainty, hence why I personally prefer it.

It's not about power, it's about how much space on a template something takes up.

Clearly it's about power, because if it weren't, then it wouldn't matter at all how much or how little room something takes up. 40 Spellweaving on a template is nearly pointless. 40 Chivalry, the argument goes, means something.

Chivalry hasn't been the driver of imbalance because it does too much damage, it's been the driver of imbalance because you only needed like 65 points of it. Thankfully the developers have had sense enough to fix that without actually nerfing the damage output at high skill.

And, again, if you thought Chivalry had no power then it wouldn't matter how much or how little points it took. The argument, clearly, can only be that Chivalry itself is the driver of the damage.

As someone who's played characters with Chivalry and with Bushido and with both, I disagree.

That's fine, since a low-damage tank is making an actual trade-off.

No one said anything about a "low damage tank." Tanks IRL do high damage and, for that matter, so did the Knights of the Middle ages, who were analogous to tanks in many but not all respects.

Furthermore there's a limit to how much he'll leech with his lower damage.

You greatly exaggerate how much less damage he will do.

Or, rather, how much damage he can do. Because, again the trade-off is between certainty and potential.

Why should we see that?

For the reason suggested above. If Chivalry were really the damage driver, as opposed to Bushido? As the argument in essence requires (note how many times you above assert that without Bushido the damage input is lower? By definition that means you are arguing Chiv is the damage driver), even if it's not specifically admitted as such, then we would see more people experimenting with Chivalry and Necromancy in combination.

We aren't, we are seeing very little.

I can't think of a way to decouple Necro from Bushido without horribly breaking one of them,

You don't have to de-couple anything, just find ways to nerf the vamp form itself; several ideas have been proposed in this thread.

Now, I don't think the purpose of the changes is necessarily to nerf the sampire.

And they won't, so it's good that such is not likely their purpose.

They will, however, need to make sampires rethink themselves and work harder.

Overall a good thing.

-Galen's player

 

[Nexus]

*coughs*

I don't know if you misunderstood me or mis-stated me intentionally, but what I was referring to was retention of the few new players we get.

Keeping them playing past the trial phase.

-Galen's player

Still a NPE won't help the retention of new players if it isolates them, or provides non-realistic expectations for the rest of the game, and does nothing for retention of existing players.

I've seen a lot of new folks not make it far past the Trail phase, and I've asked many why, and they are the same reasons ..

1. Economy
2. Bugs
3. Cheating
4. Poor Customer Support
5. Too much separation between vets and newbies

Those were the top reasons. None of those can be addressed by us as players. They are the subjects always "discussed" by the Devs and Us alike, but it seems rare that anything ever happens to address them. Even when they are addressed the actions do not go far enough.

If UO has reached a point, as many have suggested, that Banning all the cheaters would kill the game then it's time for the game to end, EA has lost control of it. If that's not true then why are they allowed to constantly allowed to continue doing what they do?

Poor Customer Support the Devs have no control over this lies squarely on the shoulders of EA trying to be cheap.

The Economy can be partly address by removing cheaters, it can be further improved by going back and working on balancing supply and demand.

The separation between Vets and Newbies. The +5 skill per year til 720 Idea needs abolished to start with. You are asking new players to compete on a field that for years they will always be out powered by veterans. Kill stealing, and other aspects of the game that are considered "As Intended" need to be addressed they take much of the "fun" out of the game for new players.

Bugs. How many bugs have been around for years? Why are they not fixed, sure most of the long term ones aren't "game stopping" those get addressed quickly as a general rule, but why have others persisted for so long? What impression do you think a new player gets when a bug hits them and they ask someone in guild/alliance/global chat and get told "Oh that bugs been around for years."

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

I've seen a lot of new folks not make it far past the Trail phase, and I've asked many why, and they are the same reasons ..

1. Economy
2. Bugs
3. Cheating
4. Poor Customer Support
5. Too much separation between vets and newbies

If you believe # 4 here you are, of course, obligated to point this out whenever someone else complains that we help newbies too much, give them too much gear and advice, etc. On occasion people come on Stratics and complain new players have it too easy, they are allowed to catch up too quickly.

Frankly that list sounds like things vets tell new players are screwed up, rather than a noob-generated list. (By which I mean a list of things noobs themselves came up with rather than things they were told from others and repeated.) Upon joining a new game I have a hard time imagining myself thinking "wow the economy's screwed up, I'm going to leave." Rather, I would think, "how can I make enough money, whatever the state of this game's economy, for basic needs.

I also have yet to learn a reliable way of telling a cheater from a non-cheater; the closest I can ever come is extremely suggestive. But suggestive and reliable are pretty far apart. And somehow I doubt a newbie would be able to tell any better.

What I think drives the noobs away is the extremely complex nature of the game and the counter-intuitive nature of many of the systems.

And that is something a new player experience can, surely, help with.

-Galen's player

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

If you believe # 4 here you are, of course, obligated to point this out whenever someone else complains that we help newbies too much, give them too much gear and advice, etc. On occasion people come on Stratics and complain new players have it too easy, they are allowed to catch up too quickly.

Frankly that list sounds like things vets tell new players are screwed up, rather than a noob-generated list. (By which I mean a list of things noobs themselves came up with rather than things they were told from others and repeated.) Upon joining a new game I have a hard time imagining myself thinking "wow the economy's screwed up, I'm going to leave." Rather, I would think, "how can I make enough money, whatever the state of this game's economy, for basic needs.

I also have yet to learn a reliable way of telling a cheater from a non-cheater; the closest I can ever come is extremely suggestive. But suggestive and reliable are pretty far apart. And somehow I doubt a newbie would be able to tell any better.

What I think drives the noobs away is the extremely complex nature of the game and the counter-intuitive nature of many of the systems.

And that is something a new player experience can, surely, help with.

-Galen's player

I do not agree with Nexus' list of reasons, although they are reasons that I would expect to hear from people who have come back to the game after 5 years (even after 2-3 years these would be expected remarks from returning players) only way a new player would know about any kind of cheating is players telling them. The economy is jacked? Players tell them.

What do they need customer support for? I am sure the reason could be addressed by something else. (although CS does suck pretty bad...but then in my experience most CS sucks, although most is a bit more responsive and....human?)

I find the reason new players, real new players, the ones who have never before in their life played the game or considered playing the game, do not continue after the trial is a much less complex list. The players who play (or lack of players who play if they happen to pick a shard with 3-4 players). Just this morning on atl had a player who was professing to be new and in need of some guidance, while one person was "trying" to assist them (with random yet very good advice) there were a plethora of people who had nothing but negative comments, the first one started with "Quit while you are ahead" the rest were not as memorable, insults and such.

I am not saying the list Nexus gave would do nothing to help the new players (and old alike) I am simply saying I find it hard to think in 14 days any new player would have amassed the knowledge of "this game has 200000 bugs and exploits and the poorest person on this game other than me has 20billion gold." with out a player telling them that explicitly (to which there is no reason to tell unless they came across a problem or something of the like.)

 

[Nexus]

I do not agree with Nexus' list of reasons, although they are reasons that I would expect to hear from people who have come back to the game after 5 years (even after 2-3 years these would be expected remarks from returning players) only way a new player would know about any kind of cheating is players telling them. The economy is jacked? Players tell them.

What do they need customer support for? I am sure the reason could be addressed by something else. (although CS does suck pretty bad...but then in my experience most CS sucks, although most is a bit more responsive and....human?)

I find the reason new players, real new players, the ones who have never before in their life played the game or considered playing the game, do not continue after the trial is a much less complex list. The players who play (or lack of players who play if they happen to pick a shard with 3-4 players). Just this morning on atl had a player who was professing to be new and in need of some guidance, while one person was "trying" to assist them (with random yet very good advice) there were a plethora of people who had nothing but negative comments, the first one started with "Quit while you are ahead" the rest were not as memorable, insults and such.

I am not saying the list Nexus gave would do nothing to help the new players (and old alike) I am simply saying I find it hard to think in 14 days any new player would have amassed the knowledge of "this game has 200000 bugs and exploits and the poorest person on this game other than me has 20billion gold." with out a player telling them that explicitly (to which there is no reason to tell unless they came across a problem or something of the like.)

Sure alot of that isn't from the "Trail" period but just after. Ever sat with someone waiting for 6 hours on a GM to remove a piece of debris from a decayed house so they could place? I have. Ever had to explain to someone what to do when feebleminds debuff icon was stuck?. Ever had to tell a new player ways to legitimately make gold?

Can you honestly expect players not to get discouraged when they realise as a new player it might take them weeks of farming gold to buy 1 artifact, or that 120 mage scroll they want? That it will take them on average 4 hours of waiting to get something simple fixed, oh like a stuck quest item in their pack, that is if they don't get a canned response.

How quick does it take someone to realise that cheating is rampant when we see AFK golem bashers, and people script training skills in Luna on many shards?

Do you honestly think many of them don't ask questions from people they are friendly with? How long do you think it takes them to put 2+2 together?

I can usually "talk" someone into staying past the 14 day trial that's no biggie, you just explain all the restrictions that get removed and assure them the game gets better. But once that is past they don't automatically stop being new players.

If all those things make us as veteran players who have time and history invested into UO angry, what makes you think someone who doesn't have any invested interest in the game is going to stick around? It's going to make them angry and they'll decide it's not worth it and cut their losses. $13 is far easier to walk away from than the thousands some of us have spent over the years.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

Sure alot of that isn't from the "Trail" period but just after. Ever sat with someone waiting for 6 hours on a GM to remove a piece of debris from a decayed house so they could place? I have. Ever had to explain to someone what to do when feebleminds debuff icon was stuck?. Ever had to tell a new player ways to legitimately make gold?

Can you honestly expect players not to get discouraged when they realise as a new player it might take them weeks of farming gold to buy 1 artifact, or that 120 mage scroll they want? That it will take them on average 4 hours of waiting to get something simple fixed, oh like a stuck quest item in their pack, that is if they don't get a canned response.

How quick does it take someone to realise that cheating is rampant when we see AFK golem bashers, and people script training skills in Luna on many shards?

Do you honestly think many of them don't ask questions from people they are friendly with? How long do you think it takes them to put 2+2 together?

I can usually "talk" someone into staying past the 14 day trial that's no biggie, you just explain all the restrictions that get removed and assure them the game gets better. But once that is past they don't automatically stop being new players.

If all those things make us as veteran players who have time and history invested into UO angry, what makes you think someone who doesn't have any invested interest in the game is going to stick around? It's going to make them angry and they'll decide it's not worth it and cut their losses. $13 is far easier to walk away from than the thousands some of us have spent over the years.

I have never had any of those things happen to new players (Myself...not saying they don't simply I have not experienced it.) And again, talking to people, the players give negative feedback they do not entirely come on it themselves. People hitting golems for hours can be explained that they are simply....rude.

As has been stated you do not know who is cheating and who is not, I have trained one skill in Luna on a golem, Ninjitsu. Can you think of a more legit way to train that? But keep in mind I was not afk, just had a macro that went on and on (the skill is actually still not done...at like 115 or something but You can only do that for so many hours a day before it gets old) So how can you say someone would put "2+2 together" when 2 and 2 are not entirely there if left to their own devices? If that "friendly" person did not tell them that person "most likely" was "cheating" then would they perhaps assume they were simply rude instead? Or perhaps they have the "Say" channel blocked off? In a different chat channel?

Honestly can you say everyone you assume is cheating is? I am not trying to downplay the level of cheating, or anything like that, but to say you know people are cheating is really taking a liberty that only the person doing it can take.

But I have said that if the Developers focused on your list alone it would help both new and old players alike. Directly and indirectly as old players would not be suggesting such negative feedback of the game and new players would be experiencing it. Economy rates high on my list, not because of the huge gap in price vs gain but because what would you do as a gold sink?

 

[Squeax]

Clearly it's about power, because if it weren't, then it wouldn't matter at all how much or how little room something takes up. 40 Spellweaving on a template is nearly pointless. 40 Chivalry, the argument goes, means something.

This is where you just keep failing to compute the actual nature of the situation. Neither I nor the developers (it seems) are concerned with how much damage Chivalry does. The only issue with it was how little template space was required to get the full benefit of the skill. If they let you cast 8th Circle spells with 70 Magery tomorrow, it wouldn't unbalance things because magery got more powerful, it would unbalance things because it frees up a lot of room on otherwise full templates.

Really I'm pretty much tired of the loud "NERF EVERYONE ELSE BUT NOT ME!" campaign you're waging when no one is really even talking about Chivalry damage being out of line in the first place. You just heard "separate Chiv damage from Necro leech" and felt compelled to start screaming "CHIV DOESN'T DO DAMAGE! DON'T LET THE DEVS HEAR YOU SAY THAT! THEY MIGHT NERF ME! IT'S ALL BUSHIDO I TELL YOU, BUSHIDOOO!"

You don't have to de-couple anything, just find ways to nerf the vamp form itself; several ideas have been proposed in this thread.

I actually CTRL-F'd my way down this entire thread looking for "vamp" and didn't see anyone talking about it but me, and my proposed "nerf" of making it require Spirit Speak doesn't actually make it less powerful, it just increases the amount of template space required to benefit from it.

Because again, it's not about power, it's about excess template room allowing people to stack everything on one character. But you just want to see everything that isn't Chivalry nerfed so that the kids who laughed at you for being a pure Paladin have to choke on it, basically.

 

[Violence]

I've read what everyone's typed so far.. And concluded that even the Poisoning changes are just Caster stuff- By the way from all of your reports from TC it is clear that Curing LP is just slightly harder to do now. More Noxxers? Maybe.. But not Melee. As someone put it, I too do not enjoy playing Casters. Nothing here for me, in fact it makes my play as Melee/Nox that much tougher for no apparent reason.

45" Apple makes sense, slightly OPed SDI for Pure Casters, but NO POT CoolDown. Doesn't make much sense, though objectively 80% of the changes ARE improvements(Towards balancing) compared to what we have.


And what Nexus is saying just can't be ignored;

1. Rampant Cheating
2. Bug Fixes
3. Game Economy
4. Being a Vet Vs Newbs ; I feel VERY disadvantaged and lost playing again, and I'm 10+ Years and play MMORPGs very often. Imagine how 10+ Days with no experience must feel! I mean, personally I'd just buy an Acct. and 1-2 Billion just to shed off 20%-30% of that feeling and I'd still bet it wouldn't suffice. I think $$ shouldn't be the way out for starting players.. Something like "Time Invested per Day = Increased Skill Gain/Item Drops/Account Age" or something would make more sense.

 

[Nexus]

Honestly can you say everyone you assume is cheating is? I am not trying to downplay the level of cheating, or anything like that, but to say you know people are cheating is really taking a liberty that only the person doing it can take.

I can't but at the same time you can't prove they aren't either. We all know it does happens. Proof doesn't really matter on the larger scale though it's knowledge that it is happening on a large enough scale and enforcement is extremely lax that does the most damage.

What do you do when that situation happens where it can't be anything except cheating, you know like when we had the Heartwood Bot a while back with 20 toons and a goat? What do you do then when asked "If everyone knows this is happening and reports it, why is it still happening?" Honestly what answer can you give them that looks positive? And worse yet it makes it hard not to provide a good argument on why not to cheat.

"So using {X} is illegal right?" "Yea it is if you use it you risk getting banned." "But {X} say they trained all their characters that way and have been doing it for years and nothing happened to them!" **Facepalm** All you can do at that point is tell them "I wouldn't do it, I don't consider it worth risking my account.".

What do you do when you see a Ghost running around the Jhelom farms spouting out commands for a pet? Or a ghost standing around spamming a spell they can't cast?. Those can't possibly be attended aware players. There are the sheer number of players who will discuss cheating in IM's, Ventrilo, Party, numerous guild websites etc. that they can't help but be introduced to it quickly.

Let a new person ask where they can buy something, 80% of the time they'll get directed to one of those search sites that use Scripts to catalogue vendor content, how do you answer when asked "How do they do that?" "Umm....They err, uh, they are cheaters and bad bad people."

I don't ever encourage it, I don't ever condone it, but I can't seem to see a way to keep new players from seeing cheating happening, it is just too common for people to miss.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Bottom line is that if you didn't think Chivalry was the driver of the issues, neither you, nor the devs, would care how much skill it took to benefit from.

Of course it is possible, now that I think about it, that they don't really agree with you at all. They might just think that, as a matter of policy, all skills should depend on skill level (either another skill, as in Magery/Eval, or on itself) to a greater extent than Chivalry does. As any Paladin knows, Chivalry actually does, even under current policies, depend on the skill level to a greater degree than the devs seem to realize. (There are big differences in Cleanse by Fire, for example, at 90 Chivalry versus 60 Chivalry. Or, at least, I have perceived big differences based upon many tests.)

But there I go again, talking about the actual argument and issues....You have made it clear by now that it's actually personal at your end. What the real nature of your problem is I cannot reasonably speculate, but responding to it would appear to be pointless.

So I carry on addressing the argument.

I'm actually fine with the changes, and the degree to which it impacts me is actually fairly minimal. I have 3 characters, might have a 4th soon. Of my 3, 2 already have more Chivalry than is typical. One will require a minor adjustment, one will not. The 3rd will probably return to being a full Samurai with no Chivalry at all.

However, while I am fine with the changes, I want to point out to the team that if they expect this to have a major impact on the power of the Sampire class? (And that if is far from clear.) It won't. Because Chivalry never has mattered all that much to the class. They will, I suppose, have to adjust some. (At least those who don't already incorporate 40 LMC will.)

Overall, a good thing.

And, as stated, they (the team) may not agree with you at all; they may merely think that, as a matter of policy, skill should always matter as much as or more than some external, non-skill attribute, such as Karma. This can be argued in and of itself, apart from arguing that Chivalry is the driver of the imbalances.

-Galen's player

This is where you just keep failing to compute the actual nature of the situation. Neither I nor the developers (it seems) are concerned with how much damage Chivalry does. The only issue with it was how little template space was required to get the full benefit of the skill. If they let you cast 8th Circle spells with 70 Magery tomorrow, it wouldn't unbalance things because magery got more powerful, it would unbalance things because it frees up a lot of room on otherwise full templates.

Really I'm pretty much tired of the loud "NERF EVERYONE ELSE BUT NOT ME!" campaign you're waging when no one is really even talking about Chivalry damage being out of line in the first place. You just heard "separate Chiv damage from Necro leech" and felt compelled to start screaming "CHIV DOESN'T DO DAMAGE! DON'T LET THE DEVS HEAR YOU SAY THAT! THEY MIGHT NERF ME! IT'S ALL BUSHIDO I TELL YOU, BUSHIDOOO!"



I actually CTRL-F'd my way down this entire thread looking for "vamp" and didn't see anyone talking about it but me, and my proposed "nerf" of making it require Spirit Speak doesn't actually make it less powerful, it just increases the amount of template space required to benefit from it.

Because again, it's not about power, it's about excess template room allowing people to stack everything on one character. But you just want to see everything that isn't Chivalry nerfed so that the kids who laughed at you for being a pure Paladin have to choke on it, basically.

 

[Cetric]

I've read what everyone's typed so far.. And concluded that even the Poisoning changes are just Caster stuff- By the way from all of your reports from TC it is clear that Curing LP is just slightly harder to do now. More Noxxers? Maybe.. But not Melee. As someone put it, I too do not enjoy playing Casters. Nothing here for me, in fact it makes my play as Melee/Nox that much tougher for no apparent reason.

45" Apple makes sense, slightly OPed SDI for Pure Casters, but NO POT CoolDown. Doesn't make much sense, though objectively 80% of the changes ARE improvements(Towards balancing) compared to what we have.


And what Nexus is saying just can't be ignored;

1. Rampant Cheating
2. Bug Fixes
3. Game Economy
4. Being a Vet Vs Newbs ; I feel VERY disadvantaged and lost playing again, and I'm 10+ Years and play MMORPGs very often. Imagine how 10+ Days with no experience must feel! I mean, personally I'd just buy an Acct. and 1-2 Billion just to shed off 20%-30% of that feeling and I'd still bet it wouldn't suffice. I think $$ shouldn't be the way out for starting players.. Something like "Time Invested per Day = Increased Skill Gain/Item Drops/Account Age" or something would make more sense.

Nox for a melee char will be awesome so dunno what ur talking about, and dont forget about the healing buff..

 

[Greenism]

Every single one of these changes, in my opinion, are a terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible idea. There is not a single positive change that I can see in all of it. The game is balanced the way it is now.

Every single one of my toons/characters will become useless (aside from crafters). I'll have to re-make every characters template as well as build a new suit. Who knows if it'll be fun because I won't be able to do the things I did before (i.e. my Mage/Mystic/Ninja factions pvp'r will become useless and will have to be changed to a Mage/Scribe/Poisoner with 40 SDI.)

I'll quit UO if these changes go through.

Why not take a survey and ask the current paying customers what they think of these changes and how they would react to their implementation.

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

So do these changes apply for pvp or both pvp and pvm?

they apply to all the game, probably improving pvp but destroying pvm...

here is the way: make a pvp map and lock all this stupid rules inside. Where you can do pvm just let us have the game as it is. Thanks.

Huh?

Sampires have always been an overpowered joke. Its plain ridiculous how easy it is to create and play a very lucrative Sampire.

From what I am seeing these new changes will barely affect the current Sampre of the month template. Whats the big deal?

No offense but the whole idea of the Sampire is basically anti-community.
You wanna play alone thats fine & you should be able to have fun and make some gold also. But you should NOT be able to solo the toughest monsters in the game.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

I can't but at the same time you can't prove they aren't either. We all know it does happens. Proof doesn't really matter on the larger scale though it's knowledge that it is happening on a large enough scale and enforcement is extremely lax that does the most damage.

What do you do when that situation happens where it can't be anything except cheating, you know like when we had the Heartwood Bot a while back with 20 toons and a goat? What do you do then when asked "If everyone knows this is happening and reports it, why is it still happening?" Honestly what answer can you give them that looks positive? And worse yet it makes it hard not to provide a good argument on why not to cheat.

"So using {X} is illegal right?" "Yea it is if you use it you risk getting banned." "But {X} say they trained all their characters that way and have been doing it for years and nothing happened to them!" **Facepalm** All you can do at that point is tell them "I wouldn't do it, I don't consider it worth risking my account.".

What do you do when you see a Ghost running around the Jhelom farms spouting out commands for a pet? Or a ghost standing around spamming a spell they can't cast?. Those can't possibly be attended aware players. There are the sheer number of players who will discuss cheating in IM's, Ventrilo, Party, numerous guild websites etc. that they can't help but be introduced to it quickly.

Let a new person ask where they can buy something, 80% of the time they'll get directed to one of those search sites that use Scripts to catalogue vendor content, how do you answer when asked "How do they do that?" "Umm....They err, uh, they are cheaters and bad bad people."

I don't ever encourage it, I don't ever condone it, but I can't seem to see a way to keep new players from seeing cheating happening, it is just too common for people to miss.

Well like I said, I was not trying to downplay the cheating since I know it happens...some of your new examples here are harder for me to present an argument that would sound worthy of trying, but even in those examples it is players who are directing them to understand how rampant cheating is, not so much them figuring it out themselves. But I do agree with the need to fix each item on your list. But I must ask again since you might have missed the question.

How do we handle the economy issue? I am not fully convinced that gold sinks would drive the inflation down, and if that is not the answer than what is? All your other points in the list have doable ways to address them, at least enough to show good faith on the Developers part that they are trying to put things right.

Every single one of these changes, in my opinion, are a terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible idea. There is not a single positive change that I can see in all of it. The game is balanced the way it is now.

Every single one of my toons/characters will become useless (aside from crafters). I'll have to re-make every characters template as well as build a new suit. Who knows if it'll be fun because I won't be able to do the things I did before (i.e. my Mage/Mystic/Ninja factions pvp'r will become useless and will have to be changed to a Mage/Scribe/Poisoner with 40 SDI.)

I'll quit UO if these changes go through.

Why not take a survey and ask the current paying customers what they think of these changes and how they would react to their implementation.

Saying your characters become useless is very dramatic. Bold and huge letters the "you will quit" is also dramatic. Even if everyone on here that said they would quit from these changes did in fact quit from them, it would not be enough to force the developers to change their minds. You now have a choice, versatility or extreme amounts of power. I do not plan to change any of my characters except for one, the one that will change? My "pure" mage that has 55 chiv, will just have to think of another skill to put there assuming the changes to Chivalry stay how they are (with DF not restoring all stamina it would be better to rely on pots, and with remove curse failing at that skill level I am not convinced the points invested are worth it any longer.)

 

[Cetric]

Why not take a survey and ask the current paying customers what they think of these changes and how they would react to their implementation.

I'm thrilled with the changes

This coming from a guy who was several mystics spread across several shards.

I like template diversity, this and the apple timer will create that, you will see more pure mages, nox mages, necros, and still have mystics around. You will see the old tank mages and new throwing mages.

You will see experiments with 40sdi necro and mystic dexers... maybe even a spellweaver or 2

Nox dexers will make a nice comeback and the current dexer flavors will still have their place, with a nice healing skill boost.

4/6dexers again seem to be interesting with the extra damage and EoO useable in pvp.


Love it.

 

[puni666]

I'm thrilled with the changes

This coming from a guy who was several mystics spread across several shards.

I like template diversity, this and the apple timer will create that, you will see more pure mages, nox mages, necros, and still have mystics around. You will see the old tank mages and new throwing mages.

You will see experiments with 40sdi necro and mystic dexers... maybe even a spellweaver or 2

Nox dexers will make a nice comeback and the current dexer flavors will still have their place, with a nice healing skill boost.

4/6dexers again seem to be interesting with the extra damage and EoO useable in pvp.


Love it.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to making some sort of necro wrestle healer and a healing inscribe mage.

 

[Lynk]

I'm thrilled with the changes

4/6dexers again seem to be interesting with the extra damage and EoO useable in pvp.

Still trying to figure out a way to exploit this EoO damage.

 

[Cetric]

Still trying to figure out a way to exploit this EoO damage.

Same here, but i've put that on hold for now lol

 

[Tinsil]

- Apple timers should be 30s down from 45. 45 is too long for PVP.
- Pure SDI cap should be 30, down from 40. 40 is too much.

Can't comment on poisoning, haven't tested enough. Everything else looks good.

 

[Raptor85]

Huh?

Sampires have always been an overpowered joke. Its plain ridiculous how easy it is to create and play a very lucrative Sampire.

From what I am seeing these new changes will barely affect the current Sampre of the month template. Whats the big deal?

No offense but the whole idea of the Sampire is basically anti-community.
You wanna play alone thats fine & you should be able to have fun and make some gold also. But you should NOT be able to solo the toughest monsters in the game.

It's easy for a halfway decent player to solo ANYTHING still, even without any necro or chiv at all (and of course, not including tamers), anyone who "needs" a sampire in it's current to do it is complaining because now they have to push buttons and watch their health more often. I regularly solo spawns and can easily tank almost any of the peerless or doom monsters on what is essentially just my pvp template with a different bow (and this is on siege, so i don't even imbue everything to max, since our armor is lootable). just a bush archer with healing can rock anything in the game with relative ease, just have to move around a little more than a sampire would have to (unless it's baracoon, who stands there like a dumbass casting 1 damage fireballs on you while you kill him)

I'm red right now too, so i can't even use honor

 

[Squeax]

Bottom line is that if you didn't think Chivalry was the driver of the issues, neither you, nor the devs, would care how much skill it took to benefit from.

No kidding, it was the only skill in the game where you were "done" at like 65 points. But that's a matter of point allocation, not power.

Now they just need to make it burn vampires and we'll be set.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

No kidding, it was the only skill in the game where you were "done" at like 65 points. But that's a matter of point allocation, not power.

Now they just need to make it burn vampires and we'll be set.

I found considerable use for Chivalry considerably past 65; there is no way one can reasonably argue it was "done" at 65.

One can of course argue quite reasonably that at 65 it provided benefits more than one might subjectively think it "should" have.

But that's about design preference.

If they agree with you that Chivalry was driving the Sampire imbalance, they were, I argue, wrong.

I'm increasingly thinking, though, that it's less an agreement with your premise and more that, as a matter of policy, the team thinks the benefits of a skill should be tied to a skill (either the same skill or another) to a greater degree than was the case with Chivalry.

That's a long way from saying Chivalry was "done" at 65! But at 65, or even at 50 or 60, it had meaning and power. More, it seems, than the team was comfortable with.

Making Chivalry spells burn vampires is an extremely interesting notion. It wouldn't necessarily kill a Necro-Paladin. The Necro-Paladin combination can be justified in RP (think of Vlad Tepes, a Paladin in some sense but surely had the mentality of a Necromancer).

A full-on vampire (or even a Necromancer borrowing some of that vile creature's abilities) actually being able to use Chivalry without pain, however, is a vastly different thing. Vlad Tepes may arguably have been a Paladin in some sense. The literary creation based on him, however (I refer Bram Stoker's vampire Dracula, of course), was most definitely not.

Even that, however, wouldn't kill the Sampire class. They would learn to get by without Chivalry, as we know that some do currently. And indeed they may so-learn even under the present round of changes.

We shall see.

-Galen's player

 

[Nexus]

How do we handle the economy issue? I am not fully convinced that gold sinks would drive the inflation down, and if that is not the answer than what is? All your other points in the list have doable ways to address them, at least enough to show good faith on the Developers part that they are trying to put things right.

I see a couple of ways this could be tackled.

1. Tweak the drop rates of items that people demand idiotic sums for. If they items are more common the price drops.

2. Open a Store for Micro-transactions where people can buy many items (account bound) that are in high demand, like Power scrolls, Artifacts, Past Event Items etc.


The first way manipulates via Supply and Demand. Remember how when "The Six" event arc was going on, and Crimmies among other arties were dropping like mad. Prices on those items dropped considerably, repeated Treasures of Tokuno have make things like the RBC so common the price has dropped after each occurrence of the event. Look at the Mempo of Fortune, and Dread Warhorses They demand such huge prices because of they aren't available. Other items like certain 120 scrolls have high prices because it's such a crap shoot when getting scrolls on what you get, the supply on them is low.

The second idea, undermines the entire market, why spend 12 million on an item when you can spend $5. This doesn't prevent people from selling stuff for outrageous prices, it just gives alternatives by creating a separate market that players have no control over and are unable to manipulate.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

I see a couple of ways this could be tackled.

1. Tweak the drop rates of items that people demand idiotic sums for. If they items are more common the price drops.

2. Open a Store for Micro-transactions where people can buy many items (account bound) that are in high demand, like Power scrolls, Artifacts, Past Event Items etc.


The first way manipulates via Supply and Demand. Remember how when "The Six" event arc was going on, and Crimmies among other arties were dropping like mad. Prices on those items dropped considerably, repeated Treasures of Tokuno have make things like the RBC so common the price has dropped after each occurrence of the event. Look at the Mempo of Fortune, and Dread Warhorses They demand such huge prices because of they aren't available. Other items like certain 120 scrolls have high prices because it's such a crap shoot when getting scrolls on what you get, the supply on them is low.

The second idea, undermines the entire market, why spend 12 million on an item when you can spend $5. This doesn't prevent people from selling stuff for outrageous prices, it just gives alternatives by creating a separate market that players have no control over and are unable to manipulate.

I think I personally prefer the second option to the first. Although I guess some items do need a small tweak to their drop rate, but I would not considering advising anything that would flood the market in a way to support a price flux. But good idea's.

 

[timmer88]

I don't get why sampires are the target of all the nerfs (raising mana for lightning strike and upping requirements for chivalry are obvious shots at that build). Yes they can solo a lot of stuff, but what about mystic/spellweavers, tamers, or bards? How come those builds don't get touched? With some experience those characters can destroy most monsters in the game and take virtually no damage in the process.

I find it very fun to go toe to toe with a monster, does that mean that whenever I fight something harder than an Ogre Lord the Dev's want me to forever be doomed to getting beat on, running away, healing, running back, and repeating the process. How about they make Healing suck less or un-nerf life-leech, then maybe I'll try a warrior that's not a sampire. Until Healing is much faster and can remove Mortal Wound, it will never be a viable skill against the stronger monsters.

 

[Tm84]

The changes are great, however i see some things that can make it still heavy on one side and not happy in the middle. I suggest these changes.

1. Parry/Mage
- CHANCE parry an attack it CAN disrupt the casting.
*Mechanics : you will still have to absorb or remove the attack in order to receive no damage by either taking it with a shield or move(parry) the blow away from you - therefore it can/will make you loss your stance and disrupt the cast. This should be scaled with their life HP. At 100% vs 100% life you have 50% to disrupt cast; you have more energy while in full health then bleeding and in pain at less then full. Caster with 75% life vs x 50% life you have X% chance NOT being disrupted when parry attack i didn't work out the math but hope you understand.

- This will help prevent OverPower Casters being able to tank while cast strong spells.

casters already have about 1-2 sec casting with max FC lets not give them the ability to tank as well.. something has to give....

2. Apples
45 secs in ANY fight real life or in game is a LONG time. 25secs seems to be ideal. It's long enough to cause harm yet short enough to save yourself.

3 Archers need to be looked at they are almost useless these days
- At 120 archery a player should receive a Speed Load Bonus (SSI bonus)
- When hit the archer losses it's SSI bonus for X amount of time or for 1 1/2 attacks fired not disrupted.


Also, Please look at HCI/DCI, maybe we should just take it out of the game and have it based on SkillS: Weapon skills vs targets defense skills.....


UO is known for it's SKILL BASED PVP... let's bring it back to that...

Faction needs to be looked at. More incentive to attack and take over a Sigil more persistent pvp then just a scoring at who got the killing blow. IE : zone defended if in a town with a sigil. u gain X scroll for whatever... defending - killing a faction member with X amount of points and have this scaled with the point system . Have different things to get from different Sigil towns when defending it. GIves you an incentive to capture it (want it) and defend it (not give it away).

**Also along with this you need to be able to announce what's going on. A "Player bulletin board" on our player options bar where "Messages" can be received to the player/guild/Faction even make it have the option to find groups and parties to do PVM or PVP in witch Faction can only receive messages from their Faction and cannot see the other faction messages.

 

[spoonyd]

Please consider removing ninja from the focus list. There's no reason why it should be there when everything else is. SDI doesn't affect ninja anyway. Bushido I can understand because it would allow nerve mages TOO MUCH damage output to be fair.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Please consider removing ninja from the focus list. There's no reason why it should be there when everything else is. SDI doesn't affect ninja anyway. Bushido I can understand because it would allow nerve mages TOO MUCH damage output to be fair.

I think they fear the eventual rise of 40SDI ninja-mages.

-Galen's player

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

I don't get why sampires are the target of all the nerfs (raising mana for lightning strike and upping requirements for chivalry are obvious shots at that build). Yes they can solo a lot of stuff, but what about mystic/spellweavers, tamers, or bards? How come those builds don't get touched? With some experience those characters can destroy most monsters in the game and take virtually no damage in the process.

I find it very fun to go toe to toe with a monster, does that mean that whenever I fight something harder than an Ogre Lord the Dev's want me to forever be doomed to getting beat on, running away, healing, running back, and repeating the process. How about they make Healing suck less or un-nerf life-leech, then maybe I'll try a warrior that's not a sampire. Until Healing is much faster and can remove Mortal Wound, it will never be a viable skill against the stronger monsters.

In brief, sampires can solo monsters in the game that were quite specifically never intended to be soloed. And, according to their posts, they can do it somewhat easily. I, for one, find it depressing to see that they have become synonymous with PvM even though they are far from the only viable PvM class.

I have every reason, however, to think that sampires will adjust to this and will merely have to work a little harder.

And that's not a bad thing.

-Galen's player

 

[spoonyd]

I think they fear the eventual rise of 40SDI ninja-mages.

-Galen's player

I've played ninja mage plenty and it would be pretty close to impossible to fit 40 SDI on a ninja mage who needs HCI/DCI also. Just getting the 15 is hard enough. Only reason I don't want it to be included is because of ninja forms for dismounters. You can't cast in form anyway so there's no harm done.

 

[Squeax]

Yes, but surely to tie a skill to itself or to another skill as opposed to another mechanic is balancing in some sense. Indeed, skrag, is that not what you have been arguing, usually in bold face type, this entire thread, while denying that you think Chivalry is the driver of the imbalance (which you clearly do think as you keep going back to it)?

Every single change I've proposed has related to Necromancy. Nowhere will you have seen me me campaigning to nerf Chivalry for people who pursue the skill to >=100 or anyone besides CNB Sampires.

Well of course they will, as Bushido is barely touched by all of this. And Bushido is the real driver of the sampire class's power anyway.

That's because the entire imbalance is driven by excess template slack, and out of the three skills we're discussing, the only one a CNB Sampire might actually take up to 120 and pick up the secondary skill for is Bushido. None of the three are particularly out of line as skills in their own right.

I mean what precisely do you propose? Go ahead, lay some game design theory on me and explain the results of your proposal. Having Chiv spells burn Necro forms is an elegant, thematically-sound means of nerfing full CNB Sampires (and no one else) that re-uses an effect (garlic burn) which is already a part of Necromancy. Let's see you come up with something better than doesn't just hamfistedly wreck one skill in favor of another.

Oh yeah, and a little protip: Anything which terminates or substantially diminishes melee boss-soloing is a Pefection nerf by default, since only one person in a given encounter gets to use it, and even non-Bushido characters can ruin it by doing damage before it's been invoked.

 

[Tm84]

Please stop implying that Sampire is an actually a template. I have one so I can put in my 2 cents...
Sampire is a template put together by people and not the dev team on how the game is ment to play. Hence the balance is towards CORE skills and not a mash of ALL of them in one leech machine. Sucks to see that your money making grind boss may not be soloed anymore because of the changes. But this is about balance skills and not making the best template to solo peerless or be the best in pvp. It's to even it out.