Dear EA, UO is too complicated

[Zosimus]

As a vet of UO it is easier to say the game is not to complicated. For a totally new player lets get real.

The basics are not to hard to learn but to actually go through all the information from the AoS period and up could be quite overwhelming for a brand new player.

The game ,after all these years ,still thrive when the player community steps in and teaches these new players in the game. I'm pretty sure any guild that adds a totally new player to the game teaches them the ropes so to speak.

Now for a player that isn't so much a social bug and prefers to play solo, they have tons and tons of reading to do just to play. Returning vets that haven't played for years have to catch up also.

No player wants to become a burden to others by constantly asking question after question. Stratics puts up a ton of information and guides. These are constanly updated. That is what UO stratics is for. To answer questions and make it so much easier for a new player to find and access the information.

Bioware or lets go back and say it was EA Mythic that stated, they were working on a new player experience. How are they going to add it and do with it is beyond my imagination.

If anything that would be the most confusing to any new player or returning vets from years past would be the templates of characters. PvE and PvP templates are so different and not knowing that some skills are not needed or considered useless. How the frustration if they worked a skill that is no good and the time behind working that skill was all for not.

 

[Omnius]

Back on topic, EA is in the best position to provide information about the game. Expecting players to spend hundreds of hours to provide anecdotal information to the rest of the players about simple game mechanics seems like a lazy approach.

 

[Chap]

Adding new content to the game is a must, but documenting changes is also a must.

Ive read every change, every publish in this game since 1998, but the past two years I havent been. Now two years later logging on I am "a new player" and have to admit theres a ton of changes, and hard to get an overview of items/mods redone-locations.

If I am struggling to get an overview I can totally understand a fresh new player is.
although you might not get a totally new player to buy the game, at least make it possible for old players to return and play without quitting their job to stay updated for PvP and making suits.

 

[Warpig Inc]

F2P shards have, well those running the show actually there. That is there driving appeal. They adjust to player impute the same quarter not the same decade. Like Elvis they come out of their mansion and mingle with the fans. And in charge I would put out a classic shard and watch the roaches scatter from the infringement light.

UO is an EA cash cow. Those pulling the ingame strings do what is required to earn their pay. Knowing doing anything great EA takes as a freebi and pay boost will not be seen as a reward. Or funds to fly great ideals are short due to bleeding to other games. Even if they got Ozzy to boast UO's supreem must play game and subs grew 100%. Really how much that profit would go to sustaining that growth wouldn't be funny.

UO's p(l)ayers majority knew a world before computers.

UO's F2P shards majority would say smoking weed is cool if you don't get caught. And smoking lawn grass is OK with no rules against it.

New Gamers just perfer a bigger easy button. Young and indestructible with the belief their future can be secured. They will write a hit song, drafted to a pro sport team or invent something while winning the lotto. Playing UO has grown to being a profession. Takes time and requires thinking. I support a classic shard to pull those with that play style. Why not make money off a shard that the players require no changes but bug fixes that benefit all. Smart goverments and companies don't fight the competition. They hire or buy them. Why not give those knowledged in the game for few hours a day free game time for helping new or returning players. Really how hard is the math? For $10-$40 for all those hours in a month of free help that improves a players experience. Just have another accept button that follows a list of rules for helpers. Ass-in-vise factor. Downside paying someone to read the new player comment pages. And sneeking around observing helpers on the job to keep them honest. Gotta have the power to insta bann/lock an account before the bann investigation.

So yes EA is greedy. Just not greedy enough to do any good. That free shard is not in flight from the basement of a CEO. It most likely a Domino's driver living out of mom's basement. Or an ex UO now in like WOW stables that longs for UO and wants job security. Only free shard run by a 100mil lotto winner couldn't be bought. Anything should go if it meant a games success or cured a failing.

 

[Ivor_MacGregor]

Such a great topic. Everyone's opinions and insight are fantastic to read. I sure hope the devs take notice.

Seems to me one of the game's best strengths is its complexity and its greatest weakness is EA's lack of an updated playguide.

 

[Ivor_MacGregor]

If I am struggling to get an overview I can totally understand a fresh new player is.
although you might not get a totally new player to buy the game, at least make it possible for old players to return and play without quitting their job to stay updated for PvP and making suits.

First, welcome back! Second, pvp now a days is more about skill than equipment (although equipment does play a significant factor). I can completely relate to you on how complex suit building can be. I have spent countless days in excel pre-building my suits. But honestly, this is half the fun for me. I love the amount of variables you need to take into account. Then again, I am a number's *****.

It is my opinion the new player's experience is greatly dependent on who he/she meets in game. Meaning, will the first few people they meet give them the fish or teach them to fish. And for those not-so-social, well, lets just hope they like research and going through a lot of trial and error.

 

[Uvtha]

I have said it before. It was alot easier when we just had Might, Power, Vanqs, and silver weapons. And the armour worked the same way. You did not need to be a math wiz to figure stuff out. You knew a katana was faster than a broadsword and metal armour was better than leather but not for mages. I know that adding all this stuff kept crafters busy and players busy trying to keep up with the changes but thats all this game is about today. Just keeping up.

I never understand posts like these. In what way does one need to be a "math whiz" to play? You don't HAVE to calculate dps you know your effectiveness difference will be marginal. Beyond that its nothing more than a matter of simple addition that any 5th grader could do. Its pretty simple really, you know what mods do, and from that point the higher your total in those mods... the better. Done.

I do agree it would be handy if regular shards would have a little info box like you do on tc about hci etc, but its hardly a game breaking matter if you cant add up in your head how much dci you have.

Katanas are still faster than a broad sword, metal armor sucking has nothing to do with complexity and every thing to do with developer indifference and results in frankly a less complex armor system where armor type doesn't even matter because non med armor is not used, and its easier than ever now to be competitive.

Every mmo has item stats similar to UO. UO is not overly complex especially when compared with the modern mmo market.

Random WOW item
Randomy LOTRO item
Only pic I could find of a star wars item
Warhammer...

I could go on and on. This is just how items are in MMOs, lots of properties, and lots of numbers, and its not that complex.

 

[popps]

I never understand posts like these. In what way does one need to be a "math whiz" to play? You don't HAVE to calculate dps you know your effectiveness difference will be marginal. Beyond that its nothing more than a matter of simple addition that any 5th grader could do. Its pretty simple really, you know what mods do, and from that point the higher your total in those mods... the better. Done.

I may well be wrong, but I have a feeling that all the changes to Ultima Online might be following a rationale.

Which one ?

I will try explain my thinking.

One of the pluses of Ultima Online is its PvP features and, most importantly, the "potential" for PvP in this game.

Now, who likes to loose most always when playing PvP ? I do not think there is many out there who enjoy PvP when losing most fights.....

This said, I think that a game that wants to be succesfull must ensure that its players are not divided in those who win most fights and those who loose most fights because those who loose one too often will eventually get tired of losing and give it up AND, those winning most always will eventually get bored for lack of challenging fights.

So, the good recipe for a succesfull PvP, IMHO, is a game that has an ingenuous design which makes sure that its players, who enjoy to PvP, will win fights but ALSO will indeed loose fights, regardless from what expensive templates and suits they may have.

This means, at least to my opinion, that a game that wants to be succesfull at PvP needs to have "various" possible best templates and suits and the winning and loosing is not determined in absolute terms but in relative terms depending on what templates meet with what combination of skills, suits, weapons.

And this is where the complexity comes to play. If well done, as I see it, it will make sure that even if a player with top notch template/suit wins a fight versus another player, this won't mean that versus yet another player with a different assortment of skills/suit/modifiers the same player who just won will not loose.
Win one, loose one, win one, loose one. No winning assortment and no loosing assortment. Wins and losses are not dependant on what one wears or is skilled at in absolute terms, but on what the fight scenario is (i.e. the opponent...).

That is, no template or suit or weapon will guarantee wins most times but in some scenarios it will win and in other scenarios it WILL loose.

Hence, all players will have wins AND looses and not just more wins or more looses.

In such a way, I think, the game keeps being interesting for all PvPing players.

So, complexity may come to aid the game being succesfull if it ensures equal wins or losses to ALL players who PvP and not that some players always win most and some players always loose most.....

 

[Fluffi]

I'd like to respond to this as a "potentially returning player"...


When I left (about 3 years ago); I had multiple multi-legendary characters; I knew what to do, and where to do it; I had suits / weapons which were worth millions; and what I didn't have, I knew how to make. I'd like to think that I was fairly good at the game.


I logged-in before Xmas on a mates account, and TBH, I felt like a newbie again.

I appreciate that games move-on, and that new features are added; but if somebody like me (with what I thought was an intimate knowledge of UO methodology and technicalities) gets hopelessly lost, how the hell do you hope to attract new players?
I could see that my "elite" suits were now nothing better than average, but there was no clear guidance on any official forum as to how I should go about improving them. There were vague descriptions of the basic mechanics of imbuing, and some uninformative stuff concerning new artifacts, but as a 9-year veteran, I wasn't prepared to spend a month researching player websites before relearning my beloved game.


I stayed a fortnight, then went back to GuildWars; where everybodies armour and weapons are equal; and survival depends on skill rather than days of study and the RNG.


I appreciate that newer players will probably say that EA shouldn't waste time catering to old farts like me...
... but they should remember that there are a hell of a lot of us oldies out there, just waiting to come back.

 

[atlanticScorpion]

I never understand posts like these. In what way does one need to be a "math whiz" to play? You don't HAVE to calculate dps you know your effectiveness difference will be marginal. Beyond that its nothing more than a matter of simple addition that any 5th grader could do. Its pretty simple really, you know what mods do, and from that point the higher your total in those mods... the better. Done.

I do agree it would be handy if regular shards would have a little info box like you do on tc about hci etc, but its hardly a game breaking matter if you cant add up in your head how much dci you have.

Katanas are still faster than a broad sword, metal armor sucking has nothing to do with complexity and every thing to do with developer indifference and results in frankly a less complex armor system where armor type doesn't even matter because non med armor is not used, and its easier than ever now to be competitive.

I was trying so keep it short and sweet adding a little look back for comparrison. What I was trying to say is if you don't play 2-3 hours a day you can fall behind quickly. It seem once you obtain top skill or your best suit ever they come out with something new that made your achivements yesterdays news. The new shame loot is a mystery to me but then again maybe I am not smarter that a 5th grader. My point was that the game's main objective is to keep up with the other players and not any story line.

 

[Thav12]

to the op: no it is not.


Please. It is the only semi-intelligent game available.

20 people in this thread feel it is too difficult. Just play the game. kill the dragon or whatever mob you want. Enjoy it. For the rest of us, lets embrace the unknown and keep trying to figure it out. That is half the fun for me at least. endless calculations and reconfigurations! awesome!

New people... lol, UO has not seen a true newb in like 8 years... only old players gravitating back to UO in 2 year cycles.

 

[Viper09]

I personally love all the different mods for weapons and armor, it keeps stuff interesting and IMO it adds more sand to this sandbox. No one is forced to need these mods on anything so going on without any knowledge of every mod wont make it impossible for anyone to advance in this game. The only area of this game where one might need to know the different mods is in PvP and only PvP. In PvM there is no pressure to have to know everything asap. As for new players I doubt many are rushing to PvP.

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

I can't think of a better time for a classic shard then right now. I am so tired of playing UO with all this crap. I mean I have been trying to figure out how I should imbue a suit for close to a month now and still can't figure it out. I just don't have time to sit around and crunch numbers for a day straight so I just go with what I got and because of that I fall behind or pay billions for a good suit...

Please I just want to pvp and play the game the way its supposed to be. Now the developers have gone so far with all this mess, there is no turning back it can only get more confusing from here. Just open up a classic shard and let people have fun again?

The game is indeed too complicated now however the last thing I want is a classic shard, the game was awful back then, just awful.

They should just keep the game how it is however simplify it, too many hidden game mechanics, too many exceptions to rules, missing 'brittle' tags on items, missing clilocs, missing debuffs. There should be less arties and items, the shame loot doesn't help at all.

There are no missing 'brittle' tags.

Since when are personal pipe dreams classified as missing items lol?

I am confused though why people cannot understand the difference between brittle and cannot be repaired.
Cannot be repaired is quite literal and means exactly what it says.
Brittle of course means easily damaged or broken.
Current game mechanics may be skewed but that doesnt change a terms definition.

They are 2 very different terms so why would anyone think they can be interchanged?

Why place the 'brittle' tag on an item if it cannot be repaired AND wears out the exact same way? It would be redundant.

This ofc leads me to my point which is that adding the 'brittle' tag to an item on a personal whim would be bad for the game as it quite obvioulsy means more then just 'cannot be repaired'
I am sorry if i took a long time only pointing out something a child could understand in a second

 

[Uvtha]

I was trying so keep it short and sweet adding a little look back for comparrison. What I was trying to say is if you don't play 2-3 hours a day you can fall behind quickly. It seem once you obtain top skill or your best suit ever they come out with something new that made your achivements yesterdays news. The new shame loot is a mystery to me but then again maybe I am not smarter that a 5th grader. My point was that the game's main objective is to keep up with the other players and not any story line.

I dunno, I only play like every 6 months and I don't seem to have much trouble with it. Nothing really changes THAT much, and with imbuing making a new suit to fit any new template nuance is easy and cheap. The new shame items add in a new element, but its really an optional one, as imbued items are generally more functional since you can tailor them to your needs quickly and easily.

As for yesterdays triumphs becoming old news, I don't know how to tell you, but that is just what happens in ANY mmo. The game is never done, they will always be adding in new stuff and changing around old stuff. That's just part of the genre.

And the only reason you need to keep up with other players is if you are pvping. If you arent there is 0 reason to feel like you need to do better than someone else. You can hunt any monster in game with easy to acquire non elite gear. Its easier with the best of the best, but you can still do it.

I agree there is no story line, and the in game stories are generally not that interesting, or if they are it ends up boiling down to some poorly conceived EM event that is swarmed with a screen full of people trying to kill some monster with 100000000000000 hps. But that's got nothing to do with the complexity of item design. I think that also is just another flaw of the genre. Its hard to direct a narrative in an open world with more than one person being told the story. So you either have big sloppy events or like star was have each player have a private story, which I think is just as lame.
There's a quality middle ground in there somewhere, but the level of planning and required quality of execution are, I would wager, immense.

Also I think you are clearly smarter than a 5th grader, and your just making it harder than it needs to be. That's not saying they couldn't do a better job in game explaining stuff, I am, and have always been for much more in game info.

 

[Uvtha]

There are no missing 'brittle' tags.

Since when are personal pipe dreams classified as missing items lol?

I am confused though why people cannot understand the difference between brittle and cannot be repaired.
Cannot be repaired is quite literal and means exactly what it says.
Brittle of course means easily damaged or broken.
Current game mechanics may be skewed but that doesnt change a terms definition.

They are 2 very different terms so why would anyone think they can be interchanged?

Why place the 'brittle' tag on an item if it cannot be repaired AND wears out the exact same way? It would be redundant.

This ofc leads me to my point which is that adding the 'brittle' tag to an item on a personal whim would be bad for the game as it quite obvioulsy means more then just 'cannot be repaired'
I am sorry if i took a long time only pointing out something a child could understand in a second

While I agree I don't think its that difficult to figure out at all I do think a make over of the item presentation is well over due. The long string of white vertical text lines is ugly and lacks intuitive information.

I for one think that the basic elements of an object such as weight, base damage etc should be in one box with the item picture, and then the magic properties listed in their own section, color coded (or otherwise visually annotated) to give people an instant visual queue as to the quality of the item found. Which is something you can get (and more) from SA custom UI, but sadly not in the official SA or CC clients.

 

[Theo_GL]

We are not saying it is impossible to figgure out - its just way too complicated. More than it has to be and the UO and guides are so far behind the updates it is insane.

Tell me - what are the caps on Mana Regen? How many Mana regen is 110 focus worth? Meditation? How much stamina do I need to swing a 10% ssi viking sword at cap? Etc Etc. Most of these aren't documented on Mythic Entertainment | Ultima Online | Play the 14-Day Free Trial! and some you can't even find on the fan sites.

This stuff is all part of the RULES of the game and limitations and it should be documented.

I really wish armor had 2 properties - physical resist and magic resist. You max both those at 70 and you are done. Having 5 just makes matching armor a pita. In diablo it had mods but then an AC rating. Better rating, better armor. Pretty easy to see a 200 ac item was better than a 100 ac item. Which is better? 10/15/12/5/7 or 11/8/16/8/12? Need a calculator...

Having more simplicity would help attract/keep new players. Yes, those of us around for years and years can roll with the changes as they come and relearn the new stuff - but imagine you came in new to the game now. Imagine all the STUFF/patch notes you'd have to read to figgure out how this stuff works? Imbuing...reforging....runics...all the skills, bard masteries, etc etc.

I had a 10 min conversation with a guy explaining the difference between locked down items and secured items in his house and how to set the settings for himself/friends to access. Thats just one single aspect of the game. I would literally have to spend days and days getting him to a point he could just basically get around the game. I mean, when I first started it took me days to figgure out how runes worked and moongates. I was lost.

I think this is why you don't see many new players - when we do get one they get in and realize 'holy crap - this game requires a PHD in UO to be good' and they give up. You start with a completely crap suit and very little instruction.

To top it off - devs continue to add COMPLEXITY instead of FUN to the game. To me more and more things I have to learn is not fun. This reforging stuff is crap. Its just more and more complexity.

How about new lands? How about new challenges?

How about team/guild based competition per shard? Winning team for the month enjoys +5 stats for the next 6 months on all players? That would be cool and fun to play for.

What about arena challenges and ladders?

What about invasions with real consequences at the end?

These things would be FUN and not just more complexity to learn. I honestly spend more time on UO chores then I do PLAYING the game. Its more of a job somedays than a game. I already have a job - I want a game.

 

[Vyal]

Maybe we just forget about it and just be happy all our old characters are still alive and well on shards that have been up for 15 years....
No matter how much pancakes we all do, everyone knows Mesanna & company are stuck to their ways of never listening to anyone.

 

[kelmo]

The bitterness of this thread has gone beyond constructive. It has become personal it seems.