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NEWS [UO.Com] Updated Publish 81 Notes

Lefty

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
210 stamina and i believe 60ssi, is 1.25 on 4s weaps, which is achievable, you just lose alot in the process of achieving it.

45ssi/180 stam and 60ssi/150 stam are the 1.5s

your chart is incorrect. extensive testing was done to verify this. I've seen this chart before, and it is "off" on the higher base speed weapons
Well dang that chart has been out forever, but you are right according to the calculator.

Lets see
  1. 125 Dex (natural)
  2. 15 Dex (Jewels)
  3. 10 Dex (reforged 5 dex x 2 Pieces) 150 Dex hard cap
  4. 6 armor with 10 Stamina Increase (reforged)
Not sure if that is possible since 2 pieces will need 2 name properties which may not get the full potential.
 
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Cetric

Grand Poobah
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Well dang that chart has been out forever, but you are right according to the calculator.

Lets see
  1. 125 Dex (natural)
  2. 15 Dex (Jewels)
  3. 10 Dex (reforged 5 dex x 2 Pieces) 150 Dex hard cap
  4. 6 armor with 10 Stamina Increase (reforged)
Not sure if that is possible since 2 pieces will need 2 name properties which may not get the full potential.
skip all that dex increae, most people use a dex potion to get to the 150 dex
 

Cetric

Grand Poobah
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
HLD has been a complete non-factor for too long.
It is too easily negated in even a low to mid level suit.
Why even keep it in the game if it can and always will be completely nullified?

IMO the new DCI cap revision is a tiny means of trying to balance out the long overpowered Curse spell.
I find it very laughable that any Mage now has issue with a mechanic that may lower THEIR untouchable resists even a small amount.
Welcome to the club.
agreed. the HLD change is pretty neat, we'll see how it plays out
 

Goldberg-Chessy

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend


Thank you for adding “Balanced” to the loot generated two-handed weapons. Will it be added to both the “classic” loot generation (e.g. overland spawn) and/or the “new” loot generation (e.g. re-vamped Shame)?

However, the penalty incurred to “balanced” two-handed weapons is too severe. Any character with Parrying or Parrying & Bushido will be at a severe disadvantage crippled. Their ability to block attacks will be eliminated, effectively negating an entire skill (Parrying) and 50% of the Bushido moves. Nothing is gained by adding this penalty to “Balanced” Two-Handed Weapons. Consider the following scenarios (using UO Stratics – Combat, example skill values given):

  1. Characters with 0 Parrying and 0 Bushido. They will be unaffected, as they do not rely on the increased defense provided by the skills. They have 0% chance to block an attack with a weapon (ignoring racial traits, for simplicity). This property will be purely beneficial, as it should be. :)
  2. Characters with 100 Parrying and 0 Bushido. Their highest chance of blocking comes from the use of a shield (30% chance), where as they have a much lower chance to block with only a weapon (17% chance, regardless if 1H or 2H). Focusing on weapon parry (ignoring shields), the ability to drink a potion (with this change) comes at cost of 17% block chance for 2H weapons or NO penalty for 1H weapons. Two-Handed Weapons would remain less favorable to one handed weapons. Without the penalty to “Balanced” this character would be unaffected by their choice of weapon and drinking a potion, and be able to use the abilities of their invested skill. :mad:
  3. Characters with 0 Parrying and 100 Bushido. They will be unaffected, as they do not rely on the increased defense provided by the skill. They have a negligible 5% chance to block an attack with any weapon (due to the bonus provided by GM skill). They already cannot use 50% of the Bushido special moves (their effectiveness is couples to block chance). This property will be purely beneficial, as it should be. :)
  4. Characters with 100 Parrying and 100 Bushido. Their highest chance of blocking comes from using a 2H weapon (29% chance), where as they have a slightly lower chance to block with a 1H weapon (25% chance) Their ability to drink a potion (with this change) comes at cost of 29% block chance AND 50% of the Bushido Moves for 2H weapons or NO penalty for 1H weapons, with a 4% decrease in block chance. Two-Handed Weapons would remain less favorable to one handed weapons. Without the penalty to “Balanced” this character would be unaffected by their choice of weapon and drinking a potion, and be able to use the abilities of their invested skills. :stretcher:
Summary:
Characters without Parrying or Parrying & Bushido will be unaffected. Characters with Parrying or Parrying & Bushido will be deterred from using “Balanced” weapons with this penalty. The weapons are clearly inferior to unbalanced versions. This change (with the penalty) provides no appeal to using 2H weapons versus 1H weapons. This penalty detracts form the "goal" of this publish of providing more choices.

Suggestions:
  • Remove the Penalty from Balanced for Two-Handed Weapons. There is no penalty for a “Balanced” archery weapons, there should be no penalty for a “Balanced” Two-Handed Weapons. Archery already does not benefit from Parrying, so this will not affect Archery. The property should work the same regardless of which 2H weapon it is on. This penalty adds unnecessary complexity to the property. This penalty detracts from the appeal of using 2H weapons, thus does not add more choices to the players.
  • Allow “Balanced” on Crafted Two-Handed Weapons. Crafters cannot be neglected and need to be able to provide an equivalent product as can be looted. If crafted 2H weapons cannot be balanced, then the crafter cannot provide that to his customer. Please allow “Balanced” to Imbuing, and Runic Crafting. The imbuing weight should remain high (comparable to SC), since this is a significant ability. Others have suggested that the total property weight be increased for 2H weapons (I am in favor of this). Any increase in total property weight should be not make the “Balanced” property free, but significant enough for greater appeal of imbued non-balanced 2H weapons (a +50 point increase may be a good start, giving 550 points for exceptional 2H weapons).

Stayin Alive,

BG
No offense but I am so tired of people whining on behalf of crafters.
Crafters have been a very viable and lucrative template since day one of UO. Drop it please. It is never a mitigating factor in any revamp discussion.

As it is right now crafters are constantly sought out to imbue armor and all the good armor they reforge sells for huge gold.

Was it cool way back when your crafter could safely camp out at Brit smith shop 24/7 and bs while making armor and weapons for gold. Hell ya. It was a big part of UO's so to speak 'golden age'
Times change though. Deal with it.
Nostalgia is no basis for a revamp argument IMO.
 

Cetric

Grand Poobah
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Lol remember this thread when you get stuck on a slime and die to a group of 5 or more people because you was rubber banding on a a slime and wasn't able to push through it.
Kage, i dunno why ur complaining about this so much. I'm sure a "Greater refresh" will be return MORE than enough stam that you run on mages. Might suck on a dexer, but we don't know the numbers yet.
 

Barry Gibb

Of Saintly Patience
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
No offense but I am so tired of people whining on behalf of crafters.
...Nostalgia is no basis for a revamp argument IMO.
None taken. But from your soapbox, you seem to have overlooked the point. ;)

We should not have to rely only on the loot generator to get a "Balanced" 2H weapon. Since it is being added to loot, it should be added to crafting as well. It is already there for archery, so it should not be too big of a stretch to add it for 2H weapons. Players should get a choice on how they want to balance their weapon, random loot or spent crafting resources.

Stayin Alive,

BG
 

Lefty

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Asking in General here.
What would be your choice on a Balanced 2 handed weapon?
 

Cetric

Grand Poobah
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Asking in General here.
What would be your choice on a Balanced 2 handed weapon?
skip balanced, give them something better like 600 intensity, 2-tile range, but sacrifice chugging i guess


the thing that sucks with them, is the high base speeds means u need to keep ur stam up at all costs, yet you cant use stam pots... lol
 

Vexxed

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Asking in General here.
What would be your choice on a Balanced 2 handed weapon?
Gah I just spent 10 minutes explaining what I'd do in Detail & then decided "WHY share it wit the masses"..... I'm thinking it will be quite effective & I'm already growing attached to the idea heh. Sorry!
 

Goldberg-Chessy

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
None taken. But from your soapbox, you seem to have overlooked the point. ;)

We should not have to rely only on the loot generator to get a "Balanced" 2H weapon. Since it is being added to loot, it should be added to crafting as well. It is already there for archery, so it should not be too big of a stretch to add it for 2H weapons. Players should get a choice on how they want to balance their weapon, random loot or spent crafting resources.

Stayin Alive,

BG
Sorry, wasnt meant to be a soapbox.
But even after re-reading your post all I get out of your crafting suggestion is that in your own words crafters will be "neglected" and that balance should be craftable because crafters should get everything that can be looted.
I dont agree with that at all. It is random and petulant IMO.
Crafters are more then viable enough right now and some of the upcoming changes will only enhance their importance.

What really made me feel the need to reply though was you ridiculously implying that "customers" will be slighted if balanced is not added to crafting.
A cheap tactic indeed
 

Lorax_Pacific

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Things I don't like...



1) LMC for heavy Armor. IF it can go over the 40% Lmc cap then maybe, but I'd still be annoyed that Heavy Armor is trying to get me to go the MANA route. I'd be more inclined if Platemail came with Hit point Increase. Make that HPI go over-cap & you've got a WINNER imo & that lines up with what I think the general "tough to kill" aspect of heavy armor means to most. HPI is also more universally useful. I've built Garg thrower wolf-form templates that don't use ANY mana (Sa-Vok ).

2) I now understand why the Hit lower Defense Mechanic was upgraded so substantially..... Just for those that don't recall. Currently HLD is -25 DCI to your target. Aka if your 70% DCI and your under HLD your still at max of 45% DCI. The pub 81 notes CHANGED HLD to apply a Penalty of 55% of your DCI. Which means prior to this updated notes thread we are in we all assumed a constant hard cap of 70% DCI. Under the proposed HLD changes you'd lose 55% of that which is ~ -38 DCI. I'll leave all that have pvped before to think about what pvping with 38 LESS DCI would amount to. With the new Armor Refinements your hard cap looks like it can go to 95%..... Under HLD that's -55% of 95 DCI leaving you with 43% DCI. So....... if you maxxed out your armor refinements for 95% (lowering your resist caps.. lol) you'd potentialy be at a small ~ 2% penalty 43% DCI vs 45% HCI (hit trying to hit you) for a warrior with HLD, The problem being that dropping base resistances isn't viable imo bc half the characters are mages lol.

Short Version. I don't like Armor Refinements.... though I haven't thought about it enough to suggest better options yet.
If your explanation is right it makes more sense to raise resist rather than worry about marginally increasing the attackers chance to hit.
pub81v2_archery.png

healing.png
not certain my healing spreadsheet is right...

-Lorax
 
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Lord Frodo

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
With all of these new changes why can't we have the menu where you mouse over your character and get your stats lmc/resist/lrc/hci/dci/kills/deaths (maybe have this menu with a toggle button so gives the option of other people to see). This is one thing that should have been on production shards long ago and would help new players/old players.
OMG

You said something i agree with :beer:
Asked and answered

They REALLY, REALLY, REALLY need to give us something that is like the gump when you mouse over your char on Test Center with everything on it. PLZ PLZ PLZ
We thought so too. We've got a solution for this already in the works!
 

cdavbar

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I am liking more of these changes as compared to the last pub notes. However, regarding the new resins, please ensure they have a low drop rate. I am a lifelong treasure hunter and fisher. While I do welcome any new loot that gives us poor folk a boost, the drop rates have tended to be too high for things. Example being the white tubs on pirate ships. They drop way too frequently and always have. To have a high drop rate would not balance out the costs of pirating at all.
 

swroberts

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
The balanced mod as a whole should only be 50-100 intensity, not 150..
Yes...or balanced could be included as one of the enhancement benefits of Copper (since IMO has the worst benefit from enhancing) or maybe from enhancing from one of the imbuing ingredients with a smith/imbuer....that could really open up some crafting possibilities....

As a side note...Allow Plate/Chain/Bone/Ring to be enhanced with something like Blackrock or some chemical to increase it's imbuing weight.

I would like to see plate more desirable without destroying leather.... However, Plate should have some significant Stamina loss when running..

but a Char on the Front line in plate should be one BA MOFO...
 

Berethrain

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Asking in General here.
What would be your choice on a Balanced 2 handed weapon?
I would be ok with their posit now but I don't think it would really improve its use.

Two handed weapons should be given either higher intensity or higher caps to current mods with the ability for them to be imbued or reforged with balanced and as well as loot generated. Remove the non parry evade nerf, and you may actually see people playing bushido warrior templates using two handed weps. I know I would give the balanced two handed wep on a bushido temp a shot if done this way.

Cetrics two tile range idea would be cool.


As far as the rest,

The stam pot adjustment is acceptable instead of the timer.

Idk about the new ingredients. Seems ok but I think they should incorporate more of the almost uesless housing items such as the loom etc. Why not spin spiders silk or cotton into thread on the loom? Idk just a thought, otherwise pretty broad range to get the ingedients.

Bladweave is still pretty worthless, it should almost come up as a gump for the person to choose. Randomness seems to be ineffective in just about any style of play. Though the gump woud be hard to incorporate.


The armor stam loss changes are acceptable.

The LMC changes to armor are good if they extend the lmc cap for the pieces, otherwise really doesn't change anything.
 

Vexxed

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
hmmm Bladeweave Idea..

--Allow the weapon weilder to select what weapon special the Bladeweave will produce, but because of the added flexibility this gives you perhaps RAISE the base mana cost of the special so that it's less efficient in mana spent? I could also see some sort of timer if needed limiting how frequently you can change the selected weapon special, but that's just another suggestion for an appropriate downside to the move. It would be kinda cool to be able to switch up your tactics as needed by carrying a bladeweave weapon.
 

Snakeman

Grand Inquisitor
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
My consensus on armor changes is simple, most everyone has spent a lot of time, effort, gp into making what they felt were damn good suits they were ALL happy with, even ones with not a lot of playing time or time to sit & use a calculator to figure out armor... Now you go & screw with it all, causing mostly non everyday players who have stayed around because they could semi compete on their level to stop & think, do I really want to do this all over again... Well to me it ain't worth it anymore to change again, so time to clean out 6 accts & say adios after 13 yrs. When a game gets to a point that armor calculations gets complicated as it has been, it sure isn't fun any more. Time to unlock all them hundreds of boxes & just let the stuff go poof. Dev's seriously need to be more in touch with playing this game itself then figuring out things by a calculator on how it is "suppose" to work.
 

Berethrain

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
My consensus on armor changes is simple, most everyone has spent a lot of time, effort, gp into making what they felt were damn good suits they were ALL happy with, even ones with not a lot of playing time or time to sit & use a calculator to figure out armor... Now you go & screw with it all, causing mostly non everyday players who have stayed around because they could semi compete on their level to stop & think, do I really want to do this all over again... Well to me it ain't worth it anymore to change again, so time to clean out 6 accts & say adios after 13 yrs. When a game gets to a point that armor calculations gets complicated as it has been, it sure isn't fun any more. Time to unlock all them hundreds of boxes & just let the stuff go poof. Dev's seriously need to be more in touch with playing this game itself then figuring out things by a calculator on how it is "suppose" to work.


I'm not sure why proposed changes such as stam effects would cause you to quit but no problem, to each their own.

Just give me your accounts on the way out.
 

chise2

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Kage, i dunno why ur complaining about this so much. I'm sure a "Greater refresh" will be return MORE than enough stam that you run on mages. Might suck on a dexer, but we don't know the numbers yet.
Exactly not to mention unless I read it wrong there is no timer anymore. Which means you can still spam refresh pots. I think we need to test it before we declare it horrible. I think it is a nice compromise I mean they could have kept the timer..
 

Lorax_Pacific

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I went ahead and entered all the weapons into a spreadsheet. Sorry about the awful colors.

Assumptions: assuming dps is important; no mistakes entering/calculating; specials are not considered; accounts for max resistance; the average damage is (max-min)/2; no skew to hit chance probability; DCI=HCI; player skills are equal; lumberjacking bonus applied; damage modifiers apply to pvp(lumberjacking?); stamina stays 180 always

Sorting on old pvp avg dps with 50% chance to hit the class order is
2 handed weapons are in the top 20 or so weapons
1. Swords - axes with lumberjacking bonus
2. Swords - Bardiche
3. mace - war hammer
4. fencing - Lajatang
5. Throwing - Soul Glaive
6. no archery until 43 weapons down and difference between axes dps and brossbow is 9.7-6.8=2.9 avg damage per second
weaponsort1.png
weaponsort1b.png
weaponsort1c.png

Sorting on new pvp avg dps

weaponsort2.png
weaponsort3.png
weaponsort4.png
Archery comes up to 35 place and throwing goes down to 42nd.

One thing I was thinking while looking at the data is since there is a lumberjacking bonus for axes, why not have a blacksmithy bonus for mace weapons. Could add them for more crafting skills maybe a bonus for fencing weapons, maybe fletching for archery, etc.

-Lorax
 
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chise2

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I am liking more of these changes as compared to the last pub notes. However, regarding the new resins, please ensure they have a low drop rate. I am a lifelong treasure hunter and fisher. While I do welcome any new loot that gives us poor folk a boost, the drop rates have tended to be too high for things. Example being the white tubs on pirate ships. They drop way too frequently and always have. To have a high drop rate would not balance out the costs of pirating at all.
Yeah but they shouldn;t be too low either. But I agree having high drop rates for this stuff isn;t the way to go.
 

Lord Frodo

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
My consensus on armor changes is simple, most everyone has spent a lot of time, effort, gp into making what they felt were damn good suits they were ALL happy with, even ones with not a lot of playing time or time to sit & use a calculator to figure out armor... Now you go & screw with it all, causing mostly non everyday players who have stayed around because they could semi compete on their level to stop & think, do I really want to do this all over again... Well to me it ain't worth it anymore to change again, so time to clean out 6 accts & say adios after 13 yrs. When a game gets to a point that armor calculations gets complicated as it has been, it sure isn't fun any more. Time to unlock all them hundreds of boxes & just let the stuff go poof. Dev's seriously need to be more in touch with playing this game itself then figuring out things by a calculator on how it is "suppose" to work.
Did you not read the Pub Notes (OP) or this entire thread? SAD esp for a UO Moderator not to do so. Here let me explain.
THEY NERFED THE NERF
or
UNDID THE NERF
or
THEY LISTENED TO THE PLAYERBASE AND TOOK IT OUT
WOW
 
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KLOMP

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Again, ONLY 5 pieces count, and lower LMC has priority over higher ones. This suit gives you 8% normal and 5x1 = 5% inherent bonus. Making a total of 13% for this suit. I have absolutely no clue, where your ominous 11% comes into play
Armor Inherent Lower Mana Cost
Each piece of non medable armor will provide lower mana cost with the exception of woodland armor. Each piece of armor up to five pieces will provide a percentage which is still subject to the lower mana cost cap of 40. The armor pieces which provide the most lower mana cost will take priority.
 
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PlayerSkillFTW

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Definitely agree. i saw that and thought wow... those 1.25s archers are going to start drooling.

oh well
Pretty much. Archers used to be balanced around the fact that they were ranged. The balancing factors were...
1. Archery Weps were slow.
2. Archery Weps didn't hit all that hard for their speed, certainly not like a Warhammer did.
3. They couldn't attack while moving, unlike a melee Warrior.
4. They required ammo. When an Archer died, odds are his ammo was looted, and he had to go back to his house and grab more from his stock. If this happened often enough, he'd run out of ammo in his stock.
5. They couldn't chug pots with Archery wep equipped.


Yet over time, all of these balancing factors have been removed, they no longer have all the disadvantages, while still retaining the huge advantage of ranged.
1. Archery weps can be imbued/enhanced to be fast, they can even reach 50% SSI via reforging+enhance.
2. Archery weps can hit very hard, and even harder with the combination of Hit Lightning+Hit Velocity.
3. Moving Shot allows the Archer to attack while moving, and currently with every dexxer having 40% LMC, 10+ MR and 100+ Mana, they can spam it.
4. Insured/Blessed Quivers removed the penalty of having to dig into your ammo stockpile every time you died in PvP. Plus ammo becoming easily farmable via Centaurs, Ratman Archers, Orc Scouts and Meer Captains also diminished the penalty.
5. The "Balanced" property that can be imbued did way with this disadvantage.

Now, take into account that you can reforge a Heavy Crossbow to 40% SSI, then imbue Balanced, Hit Lightning and Hit Velocity onto it, then enhance it to 50% SSI, and spam 40+ damage Moving Shots all day with it at 1.25 sec attack speed with 120+ Stam, and you see the problem.
 

Thrakkar

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Yes, the description can be interpreted both ways. But I'm 100% sure, they're just talking of the inherent bonus and not some added up value.
So I'm not going to deal with it.
And it would be nice, if there would be some clarification of the wording on this particular matter from the official side to have it settled once and for all.
 

G.v.P

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Some good changes, but still need to tweak a few things.

Armor Inherent Lower Mana Cost
Each piece of non medable armor will provide lower mana cost with the exception of woodland armor. Each piece of armor up to five pieces will provide a percentage which is still subject to the lower mana cost cap of 40. The armor pieces which provide the most lower mana cost will take priority.
  1. Platemail, ringmail, chainmail, and dragon armor provides 1% of lower mana cost per piece.
  2. Studded leather, hide armor, stone armor and bone armor provides 3% of lower mana cost per piece.
I think it would be better to have it set at 3% per for any non medable, otherwise people will not wear plate once again.

The” Balanced” property can now be found on loot generated two handed weapons. Weapons with this property will be unable to parry or evade.
Nice, will have to see how it turns out.

Armor Revamp – Phase 2


I like the amount of ways you can obtain the items (stealing, fighting, treasure hunting, PvP). I like the old school names. I don't know how 95 DCI scales if the scaling is still in affect for diminished returns? Also, does the new resist caps work with stone form? Lots to test out.
 

PlayerSkillFTW

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Like others have said, the Parry/Evasion penalty for Balanced 2Hers is asinine, considering melee Warriors have to deal with something that Archers don't; their opponent's melee attacks.

Not to mention 2Hers still don't hit hard enough for how slow they are. The small increase to base damage of slow, 2H weapons isn't much of anything (even with Tactics/Anat scaling it upwards), because that small increase still has to go up against 70% damage reduction against another player, reducing the damage difference between it and a faster 1H weapon.

For instance, on TC with 150 STR/120 Tact/120 Anat and 100% Dam Inc, my Broadsword does 51-67 damage before Resists, but 15.3 - 20.1 after going against all 70's Resists. My Halberd does 67-83 before Resists (A 16 damage difference from the Broadsword), but after all 70s Resists it does 20.1 - 24.9 damage, a mere 4.8 damage increase over the 1H Broadsword, while still being alot slower than the Broadsword, and requiring more Stamina to keep up it's Swing Speed. Not to mention i'm giving up a Shield by going with the Halberd, and the Shield has 20% Soul Charge/5% HCI/15% DCI/25% Dam Inc/1% Energy Resist on it, a hefty amount of stats to give up for a slower hit that only does 4.8 more damage.

To put it simply, you have to significantly increase the damage of slow 2H Melee weps in order to make them viable at all. Another way, would be to make slow 2H Melee weapons innately ignore 10-15% of an opponents Resists. An opponent with 70 Resist would resist 70% of the damage of a 1Her, but only 59-63% of a slow 2H Melee wep.
 
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Uvtha

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Much better, still thematically confusing, but much less convoluted, and easier to explain and express in game.

Giving two handed balance then taking their evasion use is a bad idea for several reasons. Most prominently its a cast of one step forward one step back. Allowing two handers to to have balanced doesnt even quite bring them up to the usefulness of one handers, but it would really help, but when you take away the evasion it brings them back down again. Secondly... why only on drops??? Archers can imbue balanced, but two handed fighters are not only at the RNG gods mercy to have balanced drop at all, but that it has to drop on a weapon with otherwise usable stats (read: 1 in a million) and even if you find a clean one its 50 points back on max intensity because its not exceptional. Why? Two handers are weak, they need to be buffed up. That is one of the major problems with weapons.

Just make balanced imbuable like it is for archery, and add no other penalties.

Also... are you going to balance out base resists? Because that still needs to happen.
 

Uvtha

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Like others have said, the Parry/Evasion penalty for Balanced 2Hers is asinine, considering melee Warriors have to deal with something that Archers don't; their opponent's melee attacks.

Not to mention 2Hers still don't hit hard enough for how slow they are. The small increase to base damage of slow, 2H weapons isn't much of anything (even with Tactics/Anat scaling it upwards), because that small increase still has to go up against 70% damage reduction against another player, reducing the damage difference between it and a faster 1H weapon.

For instance, on TC with 150 STR/120 Tact/120 Anat and 100% Dam Inc, my Broadsword does 51-67 damage before Resists, but 15.3 - 20.1 after going against all 70's Resists. My Halberd does 67-83 before Resists (A 16 damage difference from the Broadsword), but after all 70s Resists it does 20.1 - 24.9 damage, a mere 4.8 damage increase over the 1H Broadsword, while still being alot slower than the Broadsword, and requiring more Stamina to keep up it's Swing Speed. Not to mention i'm giving up a Shield by going with the Halberd, and the Shield has 20% Soul Charge/5% HCI/15% DCI/25% Dam Inc/1% Energy Resist on it, a hefty amount of stats to give up for a slower hit that only does 4.8 more damage.
Exactly. Even WITH imbuable balanced and no evasion penalty two handed weapons are still at a disadvantage over all. Balanced would help though.
 

Logrus

UO Legend
VIP
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Exactly. Even WITH imbuable balanced and no evasion penalty two handed weapons are still at a disadvantage over all. Balanced would help though.
What is the disadvantage to using a balanced 2H weapon with no evasion penalty?

The price of 2H weapons overall is the ability to drink pots. The bonus is supposed to be increased damage, and also better defense than a lone 1H weapon.

Maybe the balanced Mod would cause the 2H weapon to be treated as a 1H weapon for all intents and purposes, so that it only provides a 1H defensive bonus, rather than removing any defensive bonus completely.

2H weapons could also use a little more of a bump to damage anyway regardless of how balance works out.

Though one alternative would just be to allow potions to be drunk with every weapon, and not having hands free may instead put a delay of 1 sec on the effect.
 

PlayerSkillFTW

Babbling Loonie
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UNLEASHED
Exactly. Even WITH imbuable balanced and no evasion penalty two handed weapons are still at a disadvantage over all. Balanced would help though.
Yep. With the suggestion that i later edited into my previous post, with having slow 2H Melee Weps ignoring 10-15% of an opponent's Resists, the Halberd in that example with those skills would go up to 24.7 - 30.7 damage (10% Ignore Resists) or 27 - 34 damage (15% Ignore Resists) against another player who has 70 in all Resists. Some may think that damage is over the top, but that's also with all the damage skills/properties at absolute max. With 30% SSI and 180+ Stam, the Halberd would swing at 1.5 secs, but once that Stam starts dropping, the weapon speed immediately starts to drop as well. We already have Scribe Mages doing 45+ damage Flamestrikes as well, and those can be synced with a 30-35 damage Explosion, so the Halberd damage i just proposed really isn't that nuts. I'd ultimately choose the 10% Ignore Resists as more balanced though for slow 2H Melee Weps.
 
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PlayerSkillFTW

Babbling Loonie
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What is the disadvantage to using a balanced 2H weapon with no evasion penalty?

The price of 2H weapons overall is the ability to drink pots. The bonus is supposed to be increased damage, and also better defense than a lone 1H weapon.
The price of a Balanced 2H Weapon would be slower swings speeds (which makes missing even more painful to watch) and the inability to use a Shield, which they can provide a crapton of mods. As i already pointed out, the supposed bonus to damage of a 2H Wep is very small against a high Resists target.
 

Logrus

UO Legend
VIP
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Slower swing speeds only apply to a portion of 2H weapons. Shields while offering significant mods have to be removed for pot drinking.
Choosing a short spear over a kryss, gives a possible bonus damage of 1-4 pre-resist. Aside from specials that damage bonus really makes no point in using a short spear over the kryss. Balanced 2H with no trade off would simply mean every one currently not using a shield will be using 2H weapons unless they have an issue with special move availability.
A reasonable trade off would hopefully see a benefit to using either based on template or playstyle, rather than just 2H is better if you done need the shield.
As stands Balanced with 0 defense, won't make them usable, Balanced with 50% defense may help, but I think balanced with 100% defense will be really strong.

Regardless of the above whether it remains at 0, or 50, I think the slower 2H weapons need a more significant damage bump to make them worth using.
 

KLOMP

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Yes, the description can be interpreted both ways.
Uh, no dude. Your interpretation is exactly opposite the stated one.

You: "lower LMC has priority"
Devs: "armor pieces which provide the most lower mana cost will take priority"

You're just wrong, and do in fact need to deal with it.

But I'm 100% sure, they're just talking of the inherent bonus and not some added up value.
Of course they're only talking about inherent bonuses. My example was formulated with that in mind. The imbued LMC is just to demonstrate that displayed item properties will magically veer between being correct and incorrect depending upon what else is being worn.

We have a bone helmet with 8 LMC imbued upon it.

Joe is wearing full plate and decides to put our bone helmet on since it looks cool. It says 8 LMC upon it, but since it is one of the five pieces with the highest inherent LMC it provides a +3 LMC bonus. Thus by putting on this 8 LMC helmet, he actually gains 11 LMC.

Bob is wearing full studded and decides to put on an identical bone helmet. Since he is already wearing five pieces with +3 inherent bonuses, he gains only 8 LMC from this same helmet that gave Joe 11 LMC.

Bob later decides to swap his studded gloves for ringmail gloves. Since he is still wearing a total of five pieces with +3 inherent LMC bonuses, nothing really changes in that department. However, the moment Bob takes that bone helmet off he will lose 11 LMC, since it had 8 imbued LMC and was also providing a +3 bonus as one of the five.

Thus the LMC value of this "8 LMC helmet" can vary between two people depending upon their suits, and be different when it comes off from when it went on, depending upon what else has changed in the meantime. It is a horribly confusing and needlessly overcomplicated system, and three pages of arguing over it should drive that point home.

They need to just slap imbuing bonuses onto heavier armors.
 

KLOMP

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Balanced 2H with no trade off would simply mean every one currently not using a shield will be using 2H weapons unless they have an issue with special move availability.
What's wrong with that? Make the Balanced mod imbuable and everyone who wants it will have to give up a "real" mod to make room for it anyway. Leave Balanced two-handers with (even partially) nerfed defense and they're going straight into the "developers don't know how UO is played lol" garbage heap that seemingly 75% of everything added to this game in the last five years has ended up in.

This revised weapons list, where all the slow weapons are left slow and worthless but they tacked 2 points of base damage onto everything, is the most out-of-touch thing I've seen since that first set of Covetous artifacts was laughed off the forum.
 
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NuSair

Crazed Zealot
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Stratics Legend
I hear you there and the resources needed to actually take down a ship is WAY beyond what the return is for sinking one. Not to mention the time involved in crafting the stuff.
Definitely- between the time it takes to gather everything, make everything, get out on the boats and finally find something, the reward is no where near worth the time investment.
 

chise2

Sage
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Stratics Legend
Well hopefully that thing they are planning to make *like the thing on test that shows your stats and stuff when you mouse over your character* will help. So ideally all you will have to do is look at that and know ok I have such and such lmc. It should also show if you go over cap * and what the cap actually is* On armor I think inherent lmc should show seperately from regular lmc like maybe in parenthesis in red or something. I think doing that would help but I agree that it is a confusing system.
 

KLOMP

Sage
Stratics Veteran
No one is going to start doing pirate ships for these armor enhancements when they apparently drop from tons of other activities that people already do.
 

chise2

Sage
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Stratics Legend
Definitely- between the time it takes to gather everything, make everything, get out on the boats and finally find something, the reward is no where near worth the time investment.
Yeah I am hoping this refinement thing will make it worth it again. The idea certainly is interesting just needs work. I do think something needs to be done about how expensive time consuming it is to go out hunting merchant and pirate ships.
 

chise2

Sage
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Stratics Legend
No one is going to start doing pirate ships for these armor enhancements when they apparently drop from tons of other activities that people already do.
Yeah they need to really lower the cost of pirating. It is way to much right now. I like pirating and would probably do it occasionally for this refinement stuff. But it would be way to expensive to do it as the primary way. Much easier just to do treasure maps and champ spawns and stuff.
 

WootSauce

Lore Master
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UNLEASHED
I would really like something more simple added to this proposed system. I think maybe something like, when I equip my armor, after the fifth time that I have died, it now has a magical property that allows me to not be hit by enemies for the first 10 attempts. Let's make sure that this buff is not reported or shown to the player anywhere, and if the player kills a creature under this 10 attempt time frame, the character then gains 100 points in a hidden skill called "WINNING". Once a character has GM'ed "Winning" that will allow him to craft and imbue superior armor for female elves only, and this armor cannot be worn by any characters on your account, it can only be crafted and given away to people who know the password that you were given when you GM'ed "Winning". In order to access the password that you were given when you GM'ed "Winning", you need to do a quest that requires you to do treasure chests, and stealing from NPC's. This would really simplify everything.

TL;DR:

this publish is BS at the CORE and does not address anything of substance.
 
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ShadowTrauma

Seasoned Veteran
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Stratics Legend
Reading Klomp and Thrakkar going back and forth on the Inherent LMC interpretation, combined with my extremely vague understanding of the new system (and it certainly can be read multiple ways), in addition to other poster's general concerns on invisible stats, etc... definately leads me to believe we might not have found the proper balance yet for a "med substitute" for heavier/non-med armor. There have been a few good suggestions put forward that are feasible options in my opinion, an example being increased imbuing caps for heavier armor, which is similar to the bonus the extra lmc could give.

If mana is truly still a concern we could possibly use a hybrid of Shakkara's suggestion, where med works at 50% for studded/hide/bone, and possibly 25% for stone/plate (dragon/wood I'm less comfortable categorizing) combined with the extra imbuing caps, just a tangent to think about.

Two-handed wise I feel you guys are on the right track, more damage, less penalties, so I'll leave that out for now.
 
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Uvtha

Stratics Legend
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Stratics Legend
What is the disadvantage to using a balanced 2H weapon with no evasion penalty?

The price of 2H weapons overall is the ability to drink pots. The bonus is supposed to be increased damage, and also better defense than a lone 1H weapon.

Maybe the balanced Mod would cause the 2H weapon to be treated as a 1H weapon for all intents and purposes, so that it only provides a 1H defensive bonus, rather than removing any defensive bonus completely.

2H weapons could also use a little more of a bump to damage anyway regardless of how balance works out.

Though one alternative would just be to allow potions to be drunk with every weapon, and not having hands free may instead put a delay of 1 sec on the effect.

Well I think the general idea is, like you say, two handed weapons do more damage. That is why you imagine someone in a real life scenario using them. But as is, they really don't. And even with the new changes there are two handed weapons that do exactly the same damage as some one handed weapons at the same speed.

The only current reason to use a two handed is the slight parry bonus with bushido. With bushido and a two handed weapon you get 40% parry bonus. With a one handed you get 35%. With a shield and one handed you get 35% plus all of the mods that a shield can give, some of which are substantial. And thats only when you think about bushido. If you don't factor in bushido two handed weapons have zero advantage over one handed weapons.

So when you take away the parry bonus with balanced the two handed weapon goes back to having a disadvantage over one handed and no shield, thus defeating the purpose.

Also when you consider pvp and the 35 damage cap two handed weapons are even further disadvantaged because of general slowness.
 
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Uvtha

Stratics Legend
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Stratics Legend
If mana is truly still a concern we could possibly use a hybrid of Shakkara's suggestion, where med works at 50% for studded/hide/bone, and possibly 25% for stone/plate (dragon/wood I'm less comfortable categorizing) combined with the extra imbuing caps, just a tangent to think about.
I have a feeling that's probably just not how it works. Its probably on or off, and the closest thing they could get to replicating it being variable was the silly mana burst thing. Thus lmc.
 

Lefty

Lore Keeper
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Stratics Legend
Now, take into account that you can reforge a Heavy Crossbow to 40% SSI, then imbue Balanced, Hit Lightning and Hit Velocity onto it, then enhance it to 50% SSI, and spam 40+ damage Moving Shots all day with it at 1.25 sec attack speed with 120+ Stam, and you see the problem.
Impossible to get 1.25 with a Heavy Crossbow. 2 seconds is possible but not 1.25
 

Aurelius

Babbling Loonie
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Well I think the general idea is, like you say, two handed weapons do more damage. That is why you imagine someone in a real life scenario using them. But as is, they really don't. And even with the new changes there are two handed weapons that do exactly the same damage as some one handed weapons at the same speed.
We've hit the core problem of 2-handers and other 'big' weapons in games here - the real-world reason they were made and used was that the first time they made contact, you could be reasonably certain the target would go down and be out of the fight, whereas in any game system, 'one hit kills' are hugely unpopular. Thus we get the weird hybrid that the 'killer' weapons do the same chipping away that the smaller stuff does, and since the inclination is to make the bigger ones slower, they become nice cosmetic and graphic addons on your avatar and paperdoll, but seriously flawed options for actually fighting - especially in PvP. Mucking about with criticals and specials still gets nowhere, as the weapon's core point - 'this thing puts people down FAST' - is not generally acceptable in a game.

We're just making slower one-handed weapons with a ton of other disadvantages. Were it not for graphical appeal (and don't get me wrong, I would love some of my guys to be using tw0-hander swords purely for the look of it), two-handers just don't fit within the UO game structure, or even most game systems that use incremental damage as opposed to parry, armour absorption and dodging as the mechanics for not getting hurt.
 
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