New Ideas...vet rewards, reversing old changes...making UO better

[Arcades]

Just a few things that I've been pondering lately, try to get more people back into the game. At this point its very hard to attract completely new players to a 16-year old game...but few changes and a Return to Britannia promo might get some new life into the game, especially now that Broadsword is at the helm. Well here goes:

1.) New Veteran Rewards

2-yr: Elder Soulstone
6-yr: Mythical Soulstone
10-yr: Legendary Soulstone

Unlike the 1-yr soulstones (red/green/blue) we currently have, these soulstones technically "store" a single skill, but also have the ability to give you back any # of that particular skill, any number of times. The Elder type can store and give up to 110 skill, Mythical 115 skill, and Legendary 120 skill points (named after the powerscroll prefixes). For example, after training 120 tactics, I can place it into a Legendary Soulstone at which point, on any given char, I can "retrieve" up to 120 skill points. "Removing" a skill will function like a typical soulstone in transfering all points of that skill to 1 character to free up the Legendary Soulstone for another particular skill.

This gives veterans a way to play more character types without the meticulous training of so many skills each and every time for new characters. I love making new templates and characters but hate the mundane training of skills.


2.) Remove casting and untoggling of weapon specials.

This effectively destroyed most hybrid templates, I believe which were the most fun to play. Fitting a ton of skills onto a template was always more fun than playing cookie cutter templates which we are having more and more of now.


4.) Allow imbuing of all artifacts and replicas again.

Make all the useless items over the years have some function. Now that we have reforging, imbueing, and shame loot, the imbuing of artifacts and replicas are definitely not overpowered. Also with changes and balancing to all weapons/armor, the overpowered items such as the Windsong pre-patch imbued bows have all gone away. I would love to see some older artifacts be more useful again.

5.) Remove the Tactics requirement for Special Moves (controversial)
Im kinda impartial on this one, b/c we are all used to it by now, but it would be nice to really free up some skill points for hybrid templates!


Please add more and any thoughts comments appreciated.

 

[Speranza]

I disagree with your soul stone idea. Why do I have to wait 10 years on an account to store a skill it can take me 1 day to get to legendary? They work just fine as is, but the part you posted about taking partial amounts of the stone would be an improvment.

 

[Lady Storm]

Sorry
No to all of it, As it is the stones we have do all of the above. Now if you had said at the 5 year mark a Silver Soulstone would hold 2 skills to the max of 120 as the stone does now... and say a second Golden Soulstone at the 10 year mark hold 3 skills with the same requirements of the silver... and at 15 years a Diamond Platmum Soulstone to hold 5 skills with the same as stones do now... now that I can see...

But taking off part of the skills... no
Reason is because of the ability for the stone to move across shards and to each character... this leads to unthinkable abuse. Not to mention confusion.

 

[Arcades]

Ok I dont think you guys (Speranza, Lady Storm) quite get what I'm trying to say...but you would only require 1 of these stones, if you're a 10-yr vet, than the Legendary Soulstone would be the only one you would want, the others are redundant. But for younger accounts, getting to the milestones opens up more options. These stones are not primarily for transferring skills, but are supposed to function as a skill "bank" once you've trained up a skill at least once. So I'll try to clarify it up some...

Regular soulstones stay the same. As you know you can place 0.1-120 skill points into that stone and the skill can be either "transferred" to another character or "removed/purged" from the stone.

These new ones "store" a skill, and the stored skill can be "retrieved multiple times", "transferred" or also "removed/purged". They have a skill cap in place depending on account age (Elder (110) / Mythical (115) / Legendary (120)). "Retrieve" allows you to "retrieve" any amount of a skill that you placed into it, up to the cap, but does NOT remove the skill from the stone after use. It functions like a skill "BANK". Thus they are VERY different than regular stones.

For example, Im sick of training poisoning to GM, I've already done it once and have it on a 4/6 chiv dexer. I have access to a Mythical Soulstone (9-yr vet) and I'm looking to make a mew poison dexer and a new poison mage. I can place my 100 Poison from my 4/6 chiv/dexer char into my Mythical Soulstone. On the dexxer, I want 90 poison, and on my mage I want 80 poison. I can "retrieve" 90 poison skill points from my Elder Soulstone for my dexer, than use it again to "retrieve" 80 poison for my new poison mage character. Now I wish to use my Elder Soulstone for Magery. I "transfer" my 100 poison skill back to my 4/6 chiv/dexer (or i can purge it from the stone). Unfortunately I'm not old enough for a Legendary Soulstone but I do have 115 Magery on a mage. I can place that 115 magery onto the Mythical Soulstone and use it to "retrieve" 115 magery points for my new poison mage, but I will have to train up the last 5 points to get to 120 magery/80 poison.

Not sure if that's clear enough of an explanation, but hopefully you see the difference between regular soulstones and Elder/Mythical/Legendary stones, and also the benefit of a Legendary Soulstone over an Elder one.

 

[Speranza]

They have a skill cap in place depending on account age

That. That right there is not acceptable. The rest of it is OK.

 

[CovenantX]

Sadly, the devs probably wouldn't even look at this thread because of the title "Reversing Old Changes - Making UO Better".

I started a thread a while back... Here Hehe, Surprisingly it's still not locked !

I doubt there would be any plans to reverse the changes made to spec-toggling while casting, or tactics no longer being required for weapon specials...

But I guess, the more people who want it, the better chance of it happening, who knows.

 

[Lady Storm]

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh NO
If what I just read is your point... NO
Hell NO..
The reason is very simple and you best think on this. I see you say you wish to place your full poison skill GM = 100 pts on a stone and then:
90 to 1 character
80 to another
______________
170 skill points from the single deposit of skill to the stone, 1 trained skill to gm.... you want that to be the end of your training period.

It dont work that way sugar.
If anything they might buy the first takes 90 and leaves 10 pts from a skill that is gmed to 100 points.
But never would the Dev be that silly to let you hand over to each char off 1 training to any character you make the skill points your stating.

 

[Arcades]

Ok Storm, you keep wasting all those hours training useless skills sitting in front of your computer or you unattend macro to train all your skills. Its called PLAY THE GAME not waste countless hours training skills you have already trained up. Why dont you try to be a little more constructive. The stones are tiered and are vet rewards...you have to commit some time to playing before getting the benefits of them. Wow you are so narrow minded.

 

[Riyana]

Ok Storm, you keep wasting all those hours training useless skills sitting in front of your computer or you unattend macro to train all your skills. Its called PLAY THE GAME not waste countless hours training skills you have already trained up. Why dont you try to be a little more constructive. The stones are tiered and are vet rewards...you have to commit some time to playing before getting the benefits of them. Wow you are so narrow minded.

First off, something as game-changing as what you are proposing should not be a upper level vet reward. The idea that only players of a certain account age should have something that useful is not fair.

Secondly, no. You should not be able to train a skill one time and copy it over to multiple characters. Combined with shard shields, this would make everyone with an old enough account be able to instantly have fully trained characters on every single shard. (Tamers as far as the eye can see...) I don't like training the same skills over and over either, but its a lot easier than it used to be already.

 

[The Zog historian]

Ok Storm, you keep wasting all those hours training useless skills sitting in front of your computer or you unattend macro to train all your skills. Its called PLAY THE GAME not waste countless hours training skills you have already trained up. Why dont you try to be a little more constructive. The stones are tiered and are vet rewards...you have to commit some time to playing before getting the benefits of them. Wow you are so narrow minded.

By your logic of "PLAY THE GAME," then why not let anyone set 120 skills and 125 stats upon character creation?

Now that you've explained what amounts to legal duping of skills...I vote no. Certain skills suck to train, e.g. taming, but they should be earned for each character who doesn't swap using soulstones.

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

Storm is quite correct in this case.
You want skills? You train them. It is quite simple and the way UO has worked since day one. You don't get extra consideration or a ridiculous bonus simply because you trained a skill once long ago.
I know you are most likely way too young to comprehend this but training skills is playing the game.
I am sorry for your ADD. Deal with it and leave the thinking to the vets maybe?

And FYI, the whole premise of your OP is a joke as you say you are making suggestions to try and get new players yet your ideas are only geared towards vets. Makes absolutely no sense at all unless you simply want ways to make your own templates easier to create and really don't care about anyone else. Hrmmm...

 

[Lady Storm]

JR ...
I am a very old vet of this game.
I workd my tail off building 14 tamers to gm and 5 are legends, and i got 4 more in the works..
Poisoners... and alchemists... every shard has at the very least 3 of each some not on the same character.
Mages... I lost count after 100...
Warriors, necro's even imbuers!
I have also done friends accounts when they left them in my care for duty over seas...
I have more gms and 120s then you can shake a stick at.
I know when a young is trying to avoid the work and pull wool over others eyes.
So dont go there.
I AM worse then Mesanna could ever dream of being when you yank my chain...

To all who read this Forgive my warning at this person's Ill worded posts..
When someone wants to cheat and call it a reward and try to pass it off as a good thing only shows his lack of respcct for the players of UO who abide by the rules and work hard at making their characters.

 

[Flagg]

Path of leveling a skill, any skill, up in UO is not an entertaining thing by today's standards. We (as in dusty vets posting on Stratics) can endure it and pull it off just fine. We mmay even have some form of fun while doing so. We have nostalgia, resources and knowledge of the game by our side.

Person who doesn't play on OSI in regular basis or, bless his socks, is completely new to UO is not very likely to feel terribly motivated about grinding skills. Nothing about it is any fun to him.

On the other hand, act of dungeon crawling and hunting in UO, violent PvP,Champ Hunt of Fel.. I'd say these things remain resonably unique and entertaining, making experience of playing UO very different to things available for you in most MMOs. . Champ hunt for example offers mixture of risk and reward in flavors one just won't find in other MMOs.

"I have 400 paladins and I trained them ALL BY MYSELF and if you want max skills you need to do it yourself too or you are a bad person and"
All that is well and good but just because you had hard time in UO when you began back in 1999 doesn't mean it does you, me, the game or,least of all, the potential newbie any good to ensure his experience is as grindastic,boring and tedious as humanly possible in 2014.

Taming a greater dragon is pretty cool intense thing. Specially if you aren't in optimal gear. Training this dragon, taking it to some champ hunt with you..this too, is pretty intense, exciting and unique experience. Grinding skills to achieve a position where you can do all this, from POV of somebody new to UO, is likely to feel not only tedious and boring but also utterly insane. "
"Yees, so, now all you need to do is spend like 10 hours on this ice isle and tame these bears and cougars and"
" WHAT?!"
Games don't work like that anymore. Internet, world, games, gamers have all moved on. Nobody that lacks nostalgy tinted glasses sees any sense or fun in this process. UO's appeal would greatly benefit from thhis grind of skkills either either made much faster or removed all together. Alternatively, it'd benefit from being turned much more exciting somehow. Last option by far the most difficult one to pull off I recon.




With above in mind, I'd rather see new players more rewarded than the vets. Make OSI side of UO more appealing to those tens of thousands of people who currently play PvP oriented UO on free shards. Give each new subscriber 7 x character-bound soul stones with 7 combat and gathering skills of their desire or something like that. Bring them straight to UO's " end game".
Vets would get a reward in this too; more new people around is something that would bring more delight than yet another soulstone sitting in corner of your castle.

 

[Spawn DF]

I don't like your suggestion at all.
In my opinion, UO has to be different from other games.
With this old graphics UO can't compete if there are no big differences that make UO special.

 

[Flagg]

Making UO easier game to get started has nothing to do with making UO less special. Trust me, the game is plenty special beyond the incredibly tedious skill grind, too. UO never has to compete against WoW and the likes; too many generations in between. Advance-by-tedious-amount-of-grind is not a mechanic that has a place in plate of a gamer in 2014. People who are used to it and consider it part of OSI-UO that they know and remember can endure,accept or even like it. Brand new people...or those familiar with free UO who just want to get into pvp action quickly..nope.
I'd like to see more brand new people.

I'm surprised if you find this idea so disagreeable, since it is almost in game as it is. Mythic character tokens insta-buy you 225 stats and 5 x master level skills.

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

What about Mythic tokens, pinks and blues?
The gold to get these items is quickly and easily obtained and they completely take the grind out of skills.
There is no real grind anymore so the whole premise of the OP is incorrect.
OP doesn't appear to want to help new players. Just wants easy mode. And easy mode in any way, shape or form leads to what will end up being a dumbed down and boring game like all the rest.

 

[Flagg]

Fast and easy? It's like 60 mils++ for mythic token no? It isn't incredibly much for a vet. It is completely beyond a new player.

 

[The Zog historian]

With above in mind, I'd rather see new players more rewarded than the vets. Make OSI side of UO more appealing to those tens of thousands of people who currently play PvP oriented UO on free shards. Give each new subscriber 7 x character-bound soul stones with 7 combat and gathering skills of their desire or something like that. Bring them straight to UO's " end game".
Vets would get a reward in this too; more new people around is something that would bring more delight than yet another soulstone sitting in corner of your castle.

Uh, no. No, no, and nooooooo. Yes, UO has different things, like taming, which are an incredible grind without actual play, but training combat skills have become somewhat like level-based games in that one fights progressively harder monsters, and one could pick up progressively better armor off kills. There's no reason a new player shouldn't have to put in the work. Consider also the non-incentive of being given easy mode, even just for one character. A newcomer will be no more inclined to keep paying, because if UO turns out to be a momentary diversion, he knows he can return later with another new account.

A new player can work taming enough, find 110 scrolls and +15 jewelry from a benefactor, and then somewhat control a strong creature well enough to fight most monsters. Many of us make all-70s, 100% LRC suits at the drop of a hat for new players, allowing a new player to train GM magery in a matter of several hours.

 

[Lady Storm]

Yes he is saying he would build his set of skills up once.. ok but then he wants to give from the one to all of his the one time learned skill..
So "johnny" learns gm/120 magery he can then stone it in his version then give 99 magery to every character he creates, return the 100/120 to his main then put on another skill learned again on the beginner character and do this till his whole account is seeded with what only one character worked at. He wants to "clone" his skills and eat his cake too.
If you give the skills up front then what is there to do?
Yes we have all sorts of short cuts if your smart and have someone point you in the right direction.
Imbued jewelry, 70 suits , pinks , blues, and even the advanced token.. but they only get you so far... you still have to put in some work.
When Origin opened I know of 3 (mind you) players who got to gm Tamer/Mage then did a few early champs ..got scrolls and in a short time were 120s had castles and started on building their guild. In under 72 hours of shard time.
I had a scribe near gm in under 48 hours and placed 3 plots(18x18) on my castle spot and in under 72 had the gold for a castle and another one 1/2 way in the bank in gold..
I was able to do it on my learning of the game over the years of hard work. It was hard work and dedication to my goals.
Unlike Lake Austin where we got the advanced token use allowed , Origin was all hands on no help.. you felt like you did something.
My goodness this one wants to skip the learning and go for the instant gratification..
Not to mention haveing the ability to do it on every shard we got. He would be able to hop to any shard .. and do the same..
If this was allowed he would soon get bored out of his skull and because it was a no brainer in his building his characters would leave the game and not look back...
The UO "Drug" effect wouldnt be there... he wouldnt feel conected to what he built.
He would not apreciate the hard work and dedication we have put into making our avatars what they are today.
We worked our tails off, every scrap of skill points.
We learned and admit it you had fun doing most of it.
Others you met and who are now good friends.
All this came about because you worked your skills...

 

[Petra Fyde]

While I quite like the idea of a special soulstone enabling players to 'clone' a skill from one character to another on the same account I wouldn't like to go further.
I disagree entirely with giving new players fully skilled characters. I know a lot of people don't agree, but it is my belief that when acquiring a totally new skill the PLAYER as well as the character needs to learn how to use the skill to best effect. We've all seen questions from players with 120 points in a skill that they have no idea how to play.

 

[Mac]

To me, after reading these posts, there's a difference between whats being discussed. Without making this long and drawn out, some seem to be talking about bringing back the old UO players, and some are talking about bringing in new players. Its two different things folks, and I believe it would require two different ideas.

A soulstone with unlimited skill withdrawl (once you put a skill on it) doesn't make sense to me. Bonus's for the vets, meaning a silver or golden soulstone, doesn't make sense to me. Do any of the vets out there, who would get one of these SSs really need it? And transferring those skills across all shards, wow. Does this do anything for a new player, nope.

Now, my take on things......You wanna bring brand spanking new players to the game? After talking to my 12 yr old grandson, my kids (28-34), and a few friends (20-old coot) all say the same thing.."the game looks older than dirt"....as well as "I haven't heard UO mentioned anywhere in years" or "ever". Hell, people don't even know about the grind to skill up cause they don't get past how it looks, and the newer, younger possible players don't even know it exists.

So, lets say these two things are fixed, we have an updated graphics look, we look modern, we look cool, and there has been a media blitz and the world knows UO exists. Now what? People find out about the grind for skills, new players find out, and they don't know how to GM stuff in a few days or a week. This is our next hurdle. Not sure how to solve this, something along the lines of giving extra skills points to a player once they know a bit about what the game is all about? You give those skill points to a noob just starting out, and they will place them willy nilly and they won't do most of them any good, but maybe you give them to a player who has a 50 hours of playing time (on that toon) and you give them 20 skill points in a skill that is over 60 skill points....maybe you give them those skill point only a certain number of times? Maybe 2 or 3 times for each toon? EX: So they have been working taming for over 50 hours, they are at 70 in taming, they get a gump saying they can add 20 points to their taming just by hitting yes. So now we have a tamer, who understands taming, ( to a certain extent) and they get a bonus and are now at 90. FYI, this bonus can never be added to a skill to take it over 100.

Does the above hurt any of us? Does this help retain NEW players? Does this help Vets?

I don't know, I'm just an old veteran player with a 7yr old acct, the first 6 of those years came right after UO went live, the rest has been checking in and playing for a bit. The one thing that has stopped this veteran from playing UO is the memory of everyone standing around Brit bank talking, joking, selling stuff and setting up a hunt with people, never took more than a couple of minutes to have a dozen folks ready to rock and roll. I miss that. I'm on Baja, kinda looks like a ghost town. As much as I love Baja and the memories associated with it, I wish UO would offer free "transfer your acct" tokens, to another shard. Maybe I could transfer to a new shard with a population and make some new memories.

The only thing this this vet wants, is a token of "bring in new and bring back old players". Do whatever it takes. If they won't do that, give me the option to transfer to a populated shard for free.

DM...Tamer/Mage
Haz...Archer
Parrot...T-Hunter/Bard
Xabo...Axer/Melee Warrior
Hump...Sampire
Madis....Craftsman/Mule/Old Fart
BAJA

 

[Arcades]

Storm, I did not mean to insult you in any way. I commend you for helping others and taking care of their accounts. And you train their skills? I wish I had known you back in the days. I've known many great friends in this game and I've met people like yourself out there that will go to great lengths to help others. All I'm trying to say is to alleviate the pain of training skills. I may not have as many chars spread around all different shards, but I play my main shard and that's about it. My idea was never about "duping skills" or cheating the system. Can you honestly say you enjoy sitting there endlessly clicking your mouse and training skills? Hell, it was fun the first few times...we've all suffered through 8x8, powerhour, blackrock golems, golems, wolf spides, arctic ogre lords, etc. But at some point, enough is enough. This is not something for new players as I also believe they should experience it to some extent, thus the reason for having them as Veteran rewards. 2-yr for the Elder is not too much to ask.

Playing UO is something to be enjoyed. Yes, you must train a skill up to gain its benefits, yes you have to be a veteran to utilize these stones, and yes they save countless useless hours that most people cannot spend time on this game anymore. I have one of the oldest accounts in UO, and I have a real life. I've played since high school and now RL takes the majority of my time. I dont have the same amount of time to train skills like I did many years ago. I've put in my time, and I'm also not a billionaire in this game either. Is it a real loss when ppl make more playable chars on other shards using these stones? I dont see how getting more ppl to play on different shards in this game is in any way detrimental. Honestly i'm sorry people feel the need to suffer through skill gain multiple times after the first few years.

And yes Goldberg, if you actually read what I posted, I was trying to get people to Return to Britannia as I'm honestly lost at how a 16-yr old game with the same graphics (2D client is the only one i play) with the same game mechanics can attract completely new players. So I was appealing more to old players that left to return and also to appease those that have already put their time into this game.

 

[Vor]

Edit: Ignore this. Couldn't get my argument down without sounding like I was in support of both sides.

 

[Ludes]

I don't mind training up skills.. I incorporate training into gameplay usually so it never seems like to much grind.
But I wouldn't mind having a soulstone that had two slots so you can put one skill on it and then take another oone off.
It would be easier for my main to switch between archery and swords that way..
But then you can always have two stones..

 

[Riyana]

I don't mind training up skills.. I incorporate training into gameplay usually so it never seems like to much grind.
But I wouldn't mind having a soulstone that had two slots so you can put one skill on it and then take another oone off.
It would be easier for my main to switch between archery and swords that way..
But then you can always have two stones..

Being able to swap a skill with one already on a soulstone would be great!

 

[Vor]

Being able to swap a skill with one already on a soulstone would be great!

This is an awesome idea.

 

[Yadd of Legends]

I know you are most likely way too young to comprehend this but training skills is playing the game.
I am sorry for your ADD. Deal with it and leave the thinking to the vets maybe? .

\

*Chuckles in spite of himself* Goldberg, you're always so gracious in your replies (sarcasm), and I often cringe reading them, but they do make the forum entertaining. I hope the original poster can see that too.

 

[Yadd of Legends]

This is an awesome idea.

Yes, but it would cut in half the number of soulstone sales, and I've given Origin a lot of money buying them.

 

[Vor]

Yes, but it would cut in half the number of soulstone sales, and I've given Origin a lot of money buying them.

Perhaps. But I expect they'd just charge double a normal soulstone.

 

[Warpig Inc]

I have covered the ability for an account to be able to COPY a skill. As long as it is a skill that doesn't require resorces to train. There is the whole ability to carry those skills to other shards for those characters. See no need for the copy a portion of a skill. Want a horse & buggy point of view? I think the whole soulstone and shard transfer was a dumb ideal from the start.

Rethinking my ability to copy certain skills to other characters on the same account with new soulstones. And to cover those skills being pocketed and mobile. Forget the soulstone. Have NPCs fel and tram side at some higher learning building. Theese NPCs could copy and hold a skill that doesn't require resorces to train for an hour. With LRC in the world casting skills would have copy ability. Archery would also be on the list. I'm am mixed on lockpicking, mining and poisoning being a free ride. The ammount of skill the NPC would copy/hold would be based on how much gold you give them. This copy ability should be limited to 100 skill points. Without a 120 PS for the receiving character 100 is good, and there should be no disgracing those that have achieved above grandmaster levels. Theese NPCs could be linked across the shards with the same gold burn to receive off shard skill. Replacing the above NPC with alter works just as well.

Just how many would agrue against the cross sharding skill ideal? And in the same breath slip out "My shard is dead!" cry. Only those that think dead shards are some private hunting grounds don't want tourist tromping throught their woods.

Sure E.A. would rather sell theese special soulstones in the store. An attempt to recover some those monies lost when players no longer needed to open another account to expand their template experience. Most skills that cost nothing to train should have to waste time doing again. No matter how many times you try can only be a virgin once. Changing from lizardmen to to slithers is not a tantric move for a swordsman.

Yes the artifacts imbuing bann needs to be lifted. Currently most artifacts end up in the trash as points being most those aren't even worth unraveling.

Untoggling. Most specials use is combination with a spell. Just add the toggle activating at the end of that spells macro. Otherwise it is called having some control over your kay mashing. There needs to be some skill left to playing the game before they start auto moving our characters.

One point the Horse & Buggy riders seem to forget. Theese options don't HAVE to be used. "You got your game style in my game play."Untill they even try to curb AFKing there are no grounds to not have certain skills copied.

 

[G.v.P]

after reading about the first idea, I think I want something even better...soulstone books, lawl...

but seriously, one soulstone that could maybe store 3 skills at a time? that would be so awesome for transfers

 

[Xelious Norwood]

I would rather see a vet reward swap system of some kind. Turn in rewards to get new ones.

 

[Lefty]

I agree with the toggling and tactics requirement. There is a big back story filled with real conspiracy behind publish 46. That publish had nothing to do with balance. I would say more, but I dont want this post to get locked.

 

[Lady Storm]

Does everyone remember the first day you logged in to UO?
Lost at what first to do.
I was lucky. My nephew tricked me into doing his fishing on his precious fisher.. In beta mind you.
On a boat out at this odd spot that you didnt get the dredded "you seem to not get any bites..."
I gm'ed his fisher all while he was in Camp penny doing what marines do.
(Im a air force brat ...)
When he got home for the weekend he talked my son into geting me an account in beta too.
I worked my tail off, when the game went live.
I learned so much working each skill...

You want to take this out....
I understand that young people are use to getting an easy ride to speed up the game play.
I also understand some of our more seasoned players who wouldnt mind after years of skill building a a way to ......well my only idea of a point for it is skip the work and dive in to the play.
Sure I would love to just copy my 120 legendary Tamer skills from Cats to my lady on Pac. But to be honest... I am sorry it seems like cheating myself. Not every tamer is the same and to clone my Tenya on cats to Pac would not be right.

I'm sorry kiddo I dont mean to rain on your parade but its wrong to rob the new player the experience of the hard work and the pride you get from makeing it to that goal.

As for some of you saying you have helped a new person and have yet to see them again... go look on another shard... Like Atlantic. 5 I helped I have seen on Atl. ... how do I know?
Hehehe Well the spells books they are holding have my scribes name, the suit they are wearing has my son's tailor, the name is the same and when I say Hi they say thank you and hope i didnt mind they left my other shard...
(they had a player offer to shield ship their stuff to Atl.. if they came and join their guild)

Look if you want it and the Dev are that silly to think its good who am I to stop it...

I will just be disapointed that the new and the rest who do use it will loose the feeling of doing it all by yourself.

 

[Cetric]

that soulstone thing wont ever happen. From a pure coding stand point i have no idea how you pull it off, differentiating between "this 30 skill was bought from an npc, but putting on this 100 is from a soulstone, so it wipes this 30 and if i work it up to 105, i can only transfer 100 of it to the stone" just sounds like a pain.

 

[cazador]

If anything you should have the option for the soulstome to remove the skill cap..so I could say move 120 taming to a character that has not eaten a 120 taming scroll..but the original character I removed it from his skill cap is dropped back to 100..essentially transferring the power scroll with it..


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[Lady Storm]

hmm your making this very complacated and even more a big no then anything.
Most of us have eaten our fair share of scrolls.. but not every charaacter .. and not every scroll.
It would upset the balance of the scrolls and the players who will still need them...
You might as well face it.
This idea and the addition of the scroll power movement with it is not gunna fly.

This idea might sound great at the first read for many who are tired of grinding skills on characters.
It's understandable.
Hours of training, some get down right lonely such as tamers.. its not something you can set to auto pilot and go watch tv.
Admit it kiddo, you want your cake and eat it too.
If it were me in the masters chair I'd say no. But your lucky I am not.. but the person who is I think will see it the way I do.. not to mention the programmer who will have to code it all in.

Anyone here can tell you how many accounts I own and if you add up every shards worth of the minimum number of characters even on the main production shards that I play regularly thats a massive number characters I have going.
Yes it would be nice to just clone skills and the attached scrolls to any one of the shards I have....
(duck) IT would ruin my play. PERIOD
I would never have met the people I have or get to know them if not for the skill gaining an chat time doing so.
I'd miss out on finding that odd ball idoc, or finding a little known nugget of UO hiden in some corner.
Poor Golums who are so needed now would rot in the stable..

No baby I cant see any of this.

Now a master stone for different years as a reward that I and the Dev might go for.
The idea of a 5 year vet stone holding 2 skills, a 10 year stone holding 4 skills and a 15 holding 6 skills is a good idea.
I can see a use and a need for such. It might even help the game.

 

[a slave girl]

Just a few things that I've been pondering lately, try to get more people back into the game. At this point its very hard to attract completely new players to a 16-year old game...but few changes and a Return to Britannia promo might get some new life into the game, especially now that Broadsword is at the helm. Well here goes:

1.) New Veteran Rewards

2-yr: Elder Soulstone
6-yr: Mythical Soulstone
10-yr: Legendary Soulstone

Unlike the 1-yr soulstones (red/green/blue) we currently have, these soulstones technically "store" a single skill, but also have the ability to give you back any # of that particular skill, any number of times. The Elder type can store and give up to 110 skill, Mythical 115 skill, and Legendary 120 skill points (named after the powerscroll prefixes). For example, after training 120 tactics, I can place it into a Legendary Soulstone at which point, on any given char, I can "retrieve" up to 120 skill points. "Removing" a skill will function like a typical soulstone in transfering all points of that skill to 1 character to free up the Legendary Soulstone for another particular skill.

This gives veterans a way to play more character types without the meticulous training of so many skills each and every time for new characters. I love making new templates and characters but hate the mundane training of skills.


2.) Remove casting and untoggling of weapon specials.

This effectively destroyed most hybrid templates, I believe which were the most fun to play. Fitting a ton of skills onto a template was always more fun than playing cookie cutter templates which we are having more and more of now.


4.) Allow imbuing of all artifacts and replicas again.

Make all the useless items over the years have some function. Now that we have reforging, imbueing, and shame loot, the imbuing of artifacts and replicas are definitely not overpowered. Also with changes and balancing to all weapons/armor, the overpowered items such as the Windsong pre-patch imbued bows have all gone away. I would love to see some older artifacts be more useful again.

5.) Remove the Tactics requirement for Special Moves (controversial)
Im kinda impartial on this one, b/c we are all used to it by now, but it would be nice to really free up some skill points for hybrid templates!


Please add more and any thoughts comments appreciated.

About a soulstone that would allow us to duplicate a GM or Legendary skill over to a new character...

What if such a thing existed with the following conditions:

It's craftable in game by a crafter on your account,

It takes 12 months to collect 12 different parts to craft it,

Once the 12 parts are combined, it appears in 1 of 100? random colors,

It is account bound, can not be sold or traded or used by other accounts,

One skill can be duplicated, transferred to another character on the same account (or possibly even a second account?), ONCE, thereafter it functions as a regular full soulstone until...

12 more months pass, then it can be used to duplicate and transfer another single skill to another character, etc.

I know nothing about how hard it would be to code this or police something that is timed and also takes so much time to complete, but I like the idea of collecting, crafting it ourselves, it being in a unique (random chance) color, it being useful, it being a reward for paying your account every month, etc.

I think that the time frame of it taking 12 months to create and be usable should satisfy all of us as to the time it would take to actually train a skill to GM or Legendary as opposed to simply duplicating it once a year from a soulstone.

If this idea doesn't work for duplicating skills from a soulstone, then maybe each craft could get an item that must be collected in 12 parts over 12 months then be combined and appear in a random color and perform some useful ability to that specific craft?

 

[Lady Storm]

Answer is still NO...
Uo was build with every drop of our blood, sweat, and tears.
This is making it so you avoid the whole thing by doing it once.

Im sorry kiddies.. call me stubborn.
Any such of theOp's idea would be wrong in so many ways.
Other then the soulstone way I stated I dont see the dev making this into a viable option for the game.
I see far too much wrong and the abuse......
Look I get it you all are tired of working skills.... but that is part of UO.
Take it away and your left with players here maybe for 6 months tops.
Then they move on because they have done it all and there is no real reason to stay.
Instant oatmeal, instant UO... geesh Wall paper paste.....

 

[WildWobble]

no i have just tried 3 times to make a good skill splitter stone and unless its character bound and restricts use of other stones while its used it is just full of abuse and misuse possibilitys. and umm training is easy though getting setup can take a long time so yeah grind of skill gains sux but hey they gave us alacrity satyrs and trancendence scrolls not to mention the ggs system if you know what your doing you can 120 any skill even tameing in very shot order. and if you have a very rich friend pink it up!! a mythic token and a dozen 5.0 pinks and your set!


just make 1 toon and fully scroll it out then soulstone every skill throw them in bank box and transfer to any shard and look you have whatever toon you want to play in your bank box include like 5 or 6 suits and your good forever

 

[Warpig Inc]

Pigs can fly. Just becuase I say it must be so. I can see no abuse. New copy stone that is account bound. Only can copy up to 100 in a skill even if it is holding 120 (PS farmers/sellers would have a new push for PSs). Skills copied are those that don't require resorces. And do away with the soulstone ideal and make it a temp alter goldsink ability. For those that would rather NOT play then rinse repete a grind, bonus. Those that enjoy training are not forced to copy. The "I walked up hill in the snow both directions against the wind" is getting to be an old arguement. I see a limited copy skill needed in the game to make UO more marketable. Doubt many new or returning players have those 40+ hours a week to dedicate to UO. Players with 30% and more of their RL spent on UO have enough advantage in the game already to not have a bias vote. Players on dead shards having to deal with PS hungry new characters would be a real problem. Unless they are the weak and greedy thinking they own those champ spawns. Easy skill build for the gold site farming characters would be an arguement when they start getting banned and pigs fly.

 

[Spiritless]

The UO skill system sucks. This isn't 1997. Hell, it isn't even 2007. EA already sell skills at near-GM levels with the Mythic Tokens anyway, which are literally granting skill for no effort at all. That's more akin to "cheating" than transferring a skill you've worked between your own characters.

Anyway, dunno if I'd be in favor of a soulstole that literally duplicates skills. I'm certainly in favor of an overhaul of how skills are gained though. Taming 5 million great harts, lockpicking a box 100 times or repeatedly whacking a golem for 0.1% skill gain just isn't fun. That's why people script them... which again isn't fun because you're literally watching a program play your character. These days, as I've got older, I value my free time. When I play a game, I expect to have fun and be entertained by the experience. I certainly don't feel this way when training pretty much any skill in UO because it's so repetitive, mindless and slow.

What can be done about it? I guess you could have quests which offered a daily +5.0 or +10.0 boosts in certain skills if the criteria was met or certain monsters were slain for combat skill gains. This could encourage more exploration and give set goals to mix things up a little. Even the reintroduction of a 'power hour' type system where you were effectively guaranteed a certain amount of skill points for working a certain skill could be an option. Anything to take the steepness and time investment required off training and give it a certain amount of predictability would be welcomed.

 

[The Zog historian]

What can be done about it? I guess you could have quests which offered a daily +5.0 or +10.0 boosts in certain skills if the criteria was met or certain monsters were slain for combat skill gains. This could encourage more exploration and give set goals to mix things up a little. Even the reintroduction of a 'power hour' type system where you were effectively guaranteed a certain amount of skill points for working a certain skill could be an option. Anything to take the steepness and time investment required off training and give it a certain amount of predictability would be welcomed.

Power hour was a good try but wasn't implemented well. It's good for the casual player but can still be a pain when you log in a character and realize, shoot, power hour started half an hour ago. "I am going to focus intently on my training" or a context menu could solve this.

 

[Lady Storm]

Warpig Piggies do fly.. I saw one.
He was on a delta flight to boston...