Anyone else notice this- Bribes

[Fridgster]

They tend to upgrade the ingot type most often then the quality type then the piece count least?

 

[Ezekiel Zane]

It is random which element of the BOD is upgraded first.

You may easily spot a trend as I'm sure the RNG is involved and it's always been streaky.

 

[Heimi]

Right now I think that what the NPC says you to gives you a clue as to what will be upgraded - for example, if they say it will be harder to find a replacement then it's more likely that your BOD will be upgraded to Exceptional. The amount you pay also affects the upgrade, I had put all of my 10/15 normal cloth LBODs in a book ready to throw away because I thought that they would be upgraded to Exceptional before the count went up to 20 (thus not being able to turn them in for a Spined runic) - not so. I found a tailor who only wanted to charge 100gp for the upgrade, and it turned my LBOD into one for a Spined runic kit. It needs a lot of research

 

[Phoenix_Mythic]

They tend to upgrade the ingot type most often then the quality type then the piece count least?

This is by design. The lower on the list of material types a deed is, the greater the chance of upgrading the material type.

 

[Basara]

Phoenix:

The older docs concerning Smith BODs indicated that there was a bonus to exceptional quality chance for GM or higher skill. In fact, for most of a decade, it made its way into most FAQs. Yet, testing 3-4 years ago showed it not to exist, and normal/exceptional was a 50/50 split at all skill levels where exceptional was possible.

You were around back in the early days of the BOD system, so perhaps you can answer -

Was that 10% bonus to exceptional for Smith BODs a design concept that never made it into the game, or did something between 2001 & 2008 "break" it? (the reason I ask, is that I am updating the FAQs once again, and occasionally I run into types that take decade old design doc info as trumping any accumulated test data from actually playing the game, unless I get a dev to state otherwise).

As it was, it took us players 8 years to get official word that the normal/Ex ratio for tailor was 2/1, when all the early design docs for Tailor BODs indicated the same ratios for both BOD systems.

 

[Phoenix_Mythic]

Phoenix:

You were around back in the early days of the BOD system, so perhaps you can answer -

I can't speak to the original intent, as it was another designer who built the system. It wasn't until adding the bribery stuff that I spent much time on it other than just doing BODs in-game.

Here's a complete rundown of how it generates deeds.

BLACKSMITH:
1. If your skill is under 70, you only get small non-exceptional iron deeds for items you can craft.
2. When skill is 70 or more but below 100, chance of exceptional is 33%
3. At 100 skill and above, chance of exceptional is 50%
4. When at 70 skill or above, large deeds happen 8% of the time
5. Large deed breakout: 25% Ring, 25% Chain, 25% Plate, 5% Axes, 5% Swords, 5% Fencing, 5% Maces, 5% Polearms
6. For all armor deeds, large and small, the chance of it requiring colored metal is: 60% at 100 skill, 70% at 110 skill, and 90% at 120 skill.
7. Skill affects chances of colors and limits available colors. For example, At 70 skill, you can only get Bronze and below; at 80 skill you can get up to Golden. Skill above 100.0 does not improve the chances of the rarer colors.

TAILORING:
1. If your skill is under 70, you only get small non-exceptional deeds for items you can craft.
2. At 70 or above but below 100, chance of exceptional is 10%. At 100 Tailoring, chance of exceptional is 33%.
3. At 70 and above, 8% of deeds are large
4. Each large type has an equal chance of being generated
5. Below GM, chance of leather deeds requiring colored leather is 50%. At GM, the chance improves to 70%.
6. Skill affects leather colors generated; for example, you can only get Horned deeds above 80 skill.


If I were to speculate as to why Tailoring's chances for exceptional and colored deeds are lower than for blacksmiths, I would guess that it has to do with how tailoring has such a smaller variety of deeds (only 3 special materials instead of 8). Even with Tailoring's lower chances of exceptional and colored deeds, it's still far easier to assemble a top-end large Tailor BOD than it is to assemble a top-end large Blacksmith BOD.

 

[Ezekiel Zane]

Wow! I think that's more detailed information than we've been given in 9 years of BODs.

Thanks

 

[Coldren]

I can't speak to the original intent, as it was another designer who built the system. It wasn't until adding the bribery stuff that I spent much time on it other than just doing BODs in-game.

Here's a complete rundown of how it generates deeds.

BLACKSMITH:
1. If your skill is under 70, you only get small non-exceptional iron deeds for items you can craft.
2. When skill is 70 or more but below 100, chance of exceptional is 33%
3. At 100 skill and above, chance of exceptional is 50%
4. When at 70 skill or above, large deeds happen 8% of the time
5. Large deed breakout: 25% Ring, 25% Chain, 25% Plate, 5% Axes, 5% Swords, 5% Fencing, 5% Maces, 5% Polearms
6. For all armor deeds, large and small, the chance of it requiring colored metal is: 60% at 100 skill, 70% at 110 skill, and 90% at 120 skill.
7. Skill affects chances of colors and limits available colors. For example, At 70 skill, you can only get Bronze and below; at 80 skill you can get up to Golden. Skill above 100.0 does not improve the chances of the rarer colors.

TAILORING:
1. If your skill is under 70, you only get small non-exceptional deeds for items you can craft.
2. At 70 or above but below 100, chance of exceptional is 10%. At 100 Tailoring, chance of exceptional is 33%.
3. At 70 and above, 8% of deeds are large
4. Each large type has an equal chance of being generated
5. Below GM, chance of leather deeds requiring colored leather is 50%. At GM, the chance improves to 70%.
6. Skill affects leather colors generated; for example, you can only get Horned deeds above 80 skill.


If I were to speculate as to why Tailoring's chances for exceptional and colored deeds are lower than for blacksmiths, I would guess that it has to do with how tailoring has such a smaller variety of deeds (only 3 special materials instead of 8). Even with Tailoring's lower chances of exceptional and colored deeds, it's still far easier to assemble a top-end large Tailor BOD than it is to assemble a top-end large Blacksmith BOD.

That is excellent information! Thanks!

Now that we know a bit more.. How about tweaking the system to make over 100 skill in Blacksmithing matter with a higher chance of rare colored BoD's?

Would sure be nice if my 120 smith had a better chance at getting Apagite and up over a 100 smith. I am LEGENDARY, after all.

 

[Ezekiel Zane]

Skill above 100.0 does not improve the chances of the rarer colors.

Now wait a minute. That's not what I understood. IIRC it was Wilki that pushed for the changes to BODs and runics and it was supposedly changed so that at Elder and Legendary skill level you got an increase in the quality of BODs? I remember because after the change I raised almost all of my BOD runners to legendary tailor/smiths.

Is this still true? If so, what's the actual bonus?

 

[Ezekiel Zane]

Ok, it took a while but I found it. Publish 50 supposedly implemented the bonus to chance to get a hued BOD at 110 skill and 120 skill.

UO Herald archive! - Ultima Online Stratics TGN.TV - Get more views!

Publish 50

UO Team

14 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST

Changed all Blacksmithing and Tailoring runic intensities. Runics will now better match up to higher end loot. Maximum intensities are now 100% for all tailoring and blacksmithy runics, minimums are as follows:


Blacksmithing:
-Dull Copper: was 10, now 40
-Shadow: was 20, now 45
-Copper: was 25, now 50
-Bronze: was 30, now 55
-Gold: was 35, now 60
-Agapite: was 40, now 65
-Verite: was 45, now 70
-Valorite: was 50, now 85

Tailoring:
-Spined: was 20, now 40
-Horned: was 30, now 45
-Barbed: was 40, now 50

[highlight]Increased chance for GM smiths to get a hued BOD: +20% at 110 skill, +40% at 120 skill[/highlight]

Increased chance of receiving a Valorite BOD

Large footwear BODs should now be available in hues

BODs now have a 10 second wait time between turnins

NPCs now vocally acknowledge a BOD turnin

Is this still accurate? Is it actually working as intended?

 

[R Traveler]

How it generated? In which order?

Say, it select
1. SBOD
2. bardiche (weapon)
3. 10 amount
4. EQ
5. tries to apply bronze material and fall back to iron?

 

[Slickjack]

Awesome information.

Awesome communication.

If only there was a channel to relay the important stuff to the players that we needed to play the game....

Maybe an online forum that had "topics" and "threads" where we could ask questions and the DEVs could pass on significant details....


........


If only.....

 

[MYUO]

Nice info! Thanks Phoenix!
While you are working on reforging with runic tools, can you look at the disadvantage the runic hammers have vs runic kits? Hammers are harder to get yet the armor it created requires mage armor for med. Can you throw metal armor a bone or two?

Regarding Ezekiel Zane's question about gm+ bonus on colored BODs. I think it may have worked like this:
At 70-99.9 smith skill, 50% of colored bod;
at 100 skill, 60% chance (increased chance over non gm)
at 110, 70% chance (+20% over non-gm)
at 120, 90% chance (+40% over non-gm).
Therefore pub50 note and the info you gave are consistent.
As I have long believed, 120 tailor doesn't get bonus over gm in terms of colored bod.

 

[Coldren]

Just curious..

Any dev response about the patch note that was found? Will it be fixed to work as intended any time in the future?

 

[Basara]

Coldren - it DOES work, and has never been broken.

I confirmed it with testing when making the FAQs (about 2500 BODs pulled in the test).

However, the numbers are misleading, as the increases in colored BODs for smith based on skill only apply to the BODs that CAN be colored.

In other words, the bonus DOES NOT reduce the number of weapons BODs, as the color check is never made for them.

At GM to 109.9 skill you have 50% chance of weapons, 50% chance of armor/helm/shield (25% colored, 25% iron)

At 110 skill, through 119.9, you get the 20% bonus. 20% bonus applied to only 50% of the BODs results in a 10% actual increase to the colored armor bonus (.2*.5 = .1), with the reduction done solely to the iron armor chance. As a result, the total BOD split becomes-
50% Weapon, 35% colored Armor/helm/shield. 15% iron armor/helm shield.

In fact, these numbers were used as often in discussion of the bonuses as the "bonus" numbers.

At 120 skill, the 40% bonus (+20% to GM color chance, -20% to iron armor chance, as (.4*.5=.2)) results in
50% weapons, 45% colored armor, 5% iron armor


It's worked fine since the change (though you can see how the "advertised" numbers are confusing), but a lot of us were irate, as we expected the reduction to come from the Weapon drop side of things (i.e. what the players expected initially was something like a 40/45/15 or 30/45/25 split at 110, 30/65/5 or 10/65/25 at 120). Players expected the color check to occur earlier in the process, and force what should have been weapons BODs over into Armor side of the calculation if they were "colored=yes", instead of the "colored" check just simply being ignored by weapons.

What I'm wondering is if the Color type limiters for sub-GM skill are actually working, or if the lowered exceptional percentiles for sub-GM skill were ever in play. Most previous testing indicated 33% exceptional (tailor) and 50% exceptional (smith) being in play from 70 skill.

I seem to remember that back in 2003 or so, my first colored LBOD was a Valorite Ring Ex20 LBOD, that I thought I got with my first smith before I hit 80 skill.

And, according to Phoenix, I shouldn't get horned BODs below 80 Tailor, but my crafting mule character (which has 70 smith (80 with hammer, which doesn't effect BODs), 75 tailor for purposes of carpentry and BOD pulling) just pulled a 20 EX Horned Leather skirt.

Phoenix, you might want to check that part of the system, and see if it was commented out (if it ever actually got implemented).

 

[Ezekiel Zane]

I do indeed still get a lot, I guess 50%, weapon BODs even on my Legendary Smiths but I absolutely do get very very little, iron armor BODs.

So, I can agree with Basara that the bonus does seem to be working as explained.

 

[Ezekiel Zane]

It's funny too, cuz I read the post notes and quite clearly it states that "GM blacksmiths" get the increased chance at pulling colored BODs.

I guess I misunderstood or misread that when it was implemented because I raised all my BOD runners to 120.0 Tailoring as well. I guess I could have left them at GM 100.0 Tailoring and still got the same quality BODs. Oh well.