Time to re-think the 720.

[Slayvite]

So I was just wondering with the recent "changes" and all...
Is it time we changed the 720 skill cap to 800?
Sort of mix things up a bit and give the majority chance to do some high end stuff too.
Most of the time now it's impossible to get a group together to go hunt a boss mob (unless its the new ones) and those of us that don't own these Uber suits never really see that side of the game, are we even missing out?

I just think upping the cap to 800 (plus jewellery) would make things rather more interesting for the general masses and not just that 5% UO seems to be about these days.

Just a thought, discuss?

 

[OREOGL]

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 

[R Traveler]

Allow it on TC only.

 

[OREOGL]

You want to imbalance the entire game?

Then do this.

 

[Slayvite]

You want to imbalance the entire game?

Then do this.

Wait, there's balance in the game now????

 

[OREOGL]

Wait, there's balance in the game now????

Clearly it makes more sense to make it more imbalanced then...

Your logic is invalid.

 

[Captn Norrington]

The game has been perfectly fine at 720 for more than a decade, there is absolutely no reason to completely screw with game mechanics like this. There is so much risk and very little reward associated with this idea. This change would severely mess with the games balance for a very long time. Not to mention the hundreds of hours of the dev teams time something like this would take, which would distract them from more important projects like fixing the account management site and things like that.

 

[Dot_Warner]

The only thing I'd be interested in seeing the devs explore is the idea of secondary and tertiary skills "weighing" less against the cap. The idea was floated around 2005/2006ish.

Or making some of the more RP skills weigh nothing, such as Item ID, Taste ID, Forensics, Herding, Begging.

 

[Slayvite]

I think something has to give...UO is so empty these days, even on Europa it's hard to get a group together. A lot of people just milling around since they cannot go 'solo a champ spawn' or something.
I guess it's just because I'm playing Fallout 4 at the moment that I'm having a real problem justifying my return to UO to myself.

Perhaps the Dev's should realise that without a HUGE cash investment to overhaul everything to todays standards they will not attract that 'mystical audience' they keep going for.
Instead they should put more effort into giving those of us that are still here a real reason to play UO, not just because we have sank so much money into it over the years that we cant hit the "delete" button.

 

[Lord Frodo]

You want to imbalance the entire game?

Then do this.

How does this imbalance UO if everybody has it? Was UO imbalanced when we had 7xGMs, NO it was not. When they first came out with PS they should have raised the cap to 840 and been done with it. A 7x Legendary is no different than a 7x GM was back in the day.

 

[Lord Frodo]

The game has been perfectly fine at 720 for more than a decade, there is absolutely no reason to completely screw with game mechanics like this. There is so much risk and very little reward associated with this idea. This change would severely mess with the games balance for a very long time. Not to mention the hundreds of hours of the dev teams time something like this would take, which would distract them from more important projects like fixing the account management site and things like that.

Please explain how it would take hundreds of hours of the dev teams time to do this. Are they rewriting everything or are they adjusting our skill cap just like they adjusted our stat cap so many years ago. We are talking about changing one cell in a data base.

 

[OREOGL]

How does this imbalance UO if everybody has it? Was UO imbalanced when we had 7xGMs, NO it was not. When they first came out with PS they should have raised the cap to 840 and been done with it. A 7x Legendary is no different than a 7x GM was back in the day.

If you have to ask then you shouldn't bother posting an opinion.

 

[TimberWolf]

Why stop at 800 lets go 1200???

Then a could have my tamer/bard/mage/sampire all in one and save money on fragments

 

[Slayvite]

I should add that I'm not interested in the slightest if this unbalances PvP.
The easy answer to that is keep Siege at 720 and go there if you want to PvP.
About time they stopped pampering to the 2% population that actually PvP........and no I don't mean group ganking kids.

 

[OREOGL]

I should add that I'm not interested in the slightest if this unbalances PvP.
The easy answer to that is keep Siege at 720 and go there if you want to PvP.
About time they stopped pampering to the 2% population that actually PvP........and no I don't mean group ganking kids.

Only furthering that this idea is worthless...

 

[cazador]

Please explain how it would take hundreds of hours of the dev teams time to do this. Are they rewriting everything or are they adjusting our skill cap just like they adjusted our stat cap so many years ago. We are talking about changing one cell in a data base.

Cell? Database? I didn't know UO was coded in Excel...when they adjusted the codes Years ago they basically rewrote 80% of the client. When they added 120 it was already coded in. I take it you forgot how extremely over powered things were and how long it took to need and balance most skills out didnt you? I'm all for bumping the hard cap up with the inclusion of a 125 power scroll but as Kryonix has already mentioned they mulled over the idea and was far too much coding and time for the result. You're talking about rewriting the game when you go down that road.


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[cazador]

I should add that I'm not interested in the slightest if this unbalances PvP.
The easy answer to that is keep Siege at 720 and go there if you want to PvP.
About time they stopped pampering to the 2% population that actually PvP........and no I don't mean group ganking kids.

Wait what? Lol


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[OREOGL]

Wait what? Lol


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Yeah all that "pampering" we receive...

I wasn't even going to address this, the guy is just spouting off drivel without spending anytime putting thought into the idea.

 

[MalagAste]

I think something has to give...UO is so empty these days, even on Europa it's hard to get a group together. A lot of people just milling around since they cannot go 'solo a champ spawn' or something.
I guess it's just because I'm playing Fallout 4 at the moment that I'm having a real problem justifying my return to UO to myself.

Perhaps the Dev's should realise that without a HUGE cash investment to overhaul everything to todays standards they will not attract that 'mystical audience' they keep going for.
Instead they should put more effort into giving those of us that are still here a real reason to play UO, not just because we have sank so much money into it over the years that we cant hit the "delete" button.

You know if I posted something like this 5 people would have said "What? Can't solo a spawn?" "I solo everything in the game blah, blah, blah, ...... you can't solo everything then your not playing the game right and your gaming skills suck..... "

But I agree with you... I can't solo a bunch of stuff... I can solo a few things ..... Styngian Dragon and such... but what's the point of playing an MMORPG if you are playing solo all the time??? May as well be playing a solo game...... Oh wait I do..... Been playing Diablo III more than UO.

 

[Lord Frodo]

If you have to ask then you shouldn't bother posting an opinion.

LMAO Your opinion is dully noted and filed in the nearest trashcan where it belongs.

 

[Slayvite]

Yeah all that "pampering" we receive...

I wasn't even going to address this, the guy is just spouting off drivel without spending anytime putting thought into the idea.

You know I did say "discuss" in my OP......guess you don't know what that means.
The recent Chiv nerfs......sorry "10 year old bug corrections" certainly weren't for the benefit of PvM players...

 

[Lord Frodo]

Only furthering that this idea is worthless...

Just like your opinion.

 

[Lord Frodo]

Cell? Database? I didn't know UO was coded in Excel...when they adjusted the codes Years ago they basically rewrote 80% of the client. When they added 120 it was already coded in. I take it you forgot how extremely over powered things were and how long it took to need and balance most skills out didnt you? I'm all for bumping the hard cap up with the inclusion of a 125 power scroll but as Kryonix has already mentioned they mulled over the idea and was far too much coding and time for the result. You're talking about rewriting the game when you go down that road.


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You do understand that all the data is stored in what UO calls warehouses which is nothing more than a glorified database. Are you an insider that you know they rewrote %80 of the client because that was NEVER said.

 

[cazador]

You do understand that all the data is stored in what UO calls warehouses which is nothing more than a glorified database. Are you an insider that you know they rewrote %80 of the client because that was NEVER said.

Data "storage" and server side coding are two different beasts..but I can already tell you have no clue what you're talking about...so we can end this at this. Let's save post counts for things you understand


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[OREOGL]

You do understand that all the data is stored in what UO calls warehouses which is nothing more than a glorified database. Are you an insider that you know they rewrote %80 of the client because that was NEVER said.

You are clueless aren't you?

Changing code isn't a cut and paste job.

 

[Lord Frodo]

Data "storage" and server side coding are two different beasts..but I can already tell you have no clue what you're talking about...so we can end this at this. Let's save post counts for things you understand


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LMAO Sure whatever you say because you know it all, NOT.

 

[OREOGL]

You know I did say "discuss" in my OP......guess you don't know what that means.
The recent Chiv nerfs......sorry "10 year old bug corrections" certainly weren't for the benefit of PvM players...

This doesn't account for the other drivel you are posting.

 

[OREOGL]

LMAO Sure whatever you say because you know it all, NOT.

Translated: I have nothing of substance to refute your argument.

So I will simply post "you don't know...Because I said so."

 

[Lord Frodo]

@Slayvite understand the 2 oh my opinion is right because I am a UO GOD and know it all.

 

[Zuckuss]

Umm, guys? Will you please stop bickering back and forth. If you wanna do that, take it to a PM. Logical opinions are more than welcome here. Trolling one another is not gonna fly.

 

[Tanivar]

Would be nice to have 7 maxed skills on our characters again like the game was originally set up for before powerscrolls got added making us need to go with only 6 maxed skills. provided you've played four years to have 720 instead of just 700 skill.

 

[Lord Frodo]

Translated: I have nothing of substance to refute your argument.

So I will simply post "you don't know...Because I said so."

This is absolutely so funny because all you have done is posted nothing with any substance what so ever and the mister know it all is giving his opinion on how he thinks things work, guess what I worked with programs like UO that use massive databases to store things and you do not keep hard numbers in your main code you keep them in their respective database areas, UO choses to call them warehouses. We already know you will just come back with another stupid remark so don't bother.

 

[cazador]

Would be nice to have 7 maxed skills on our characters again like the game was originally set up for before powerscrolls got added making us need to go with only 6 maxed skills. provided you've played four years to have 720 instead of just 700 skill.

Well they removed the cap increase, to balance it out for the.."younger accounts" but I so far don't like the idea of raising just the cap, we already have characters with 820 skills with items..imagine 900-1000..alchemy/deathstriker with bush healing..insanity! If anything 740 would be a decent compromise, except even the way skills are mapped out it literally changes nothing, so what's the point? Give me a template that already cannot be made by adding 20 points and then a valid reason why it should be other than its time, and you know that all they do is click into excel and type 740 instead of 720 and all is well lol. They've already wayyyy too overpowered antique legendary items which never ever should of hit the game. 60 skill rings :/ really?


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[Dot_Warner]

Guys, don't make daddy pull the thread over...

 

[OREOGL]

This is absolutely so funny because all you have done is posted nothing with any substance what so ever and the mister know it all is giving his opinion on how he thinks things work, guess what I worked with programs like UO that use massive databases to store things and you do not keep hard numbers in your main code you keep them in their respective database areas, UO choses to call them warehouses. We already know you will just come back with another stupid remark so don't bother.

You clearly have never coded anything.

But keep going, it's funny.

Edited: please inform us what programming you did in your extensive experience in the programs like UO.

 

[The Craftsman]

How does this imbalance UO if everybody has it? Was UO imbalanced when we had 7xGMs, NO it was not. When they first came out with PS they should have raised the cap to 840 and been done with it. A 7x Legendary is no different than a 7x GM was back in the day.

This.

I posted this idea up years ago on the same premise. UO was built on being able to max out 7 skills, (a system that worked) raising the cap to 840 just resets this balance. The problem is sjill jewellery .. remove it from the game and raise the bar to 840.

 

[Lord Frodo]

You clearly have never coded anything.

But keep going, it's funny.

Edited: please inform us what programming you did in your extensive experience in the programs like UO.

So I guess the US military arsenal supporting war gaming is nothing, yea right that is just a little teeny tiny amount of information. I guess if you use hard numbers in your coding that just gives you better job security so they have to call you to change anything.

 

[TimberWolf]

playing the game solo isnt UO fault......it is your inability to play well with others and be part of a team. Within 3 days of returning (2 years ago) I had offers from 2 large active guilds and joined one. If I solo anything in game it is because I choose to to challenge myself. It isnt the games fault if someone cant make friends with others.
Oh yes and I play on an underpopulated shard.

If you dont have friends to play with I respectfully suggest the problem lies within your personality.....and no amount of recoding the game will solve that issue!

 

[Smoot]

The game has been perfectly fine at 720 for more than a decade, there is absolutely no reason to completely screw with game mechanics like this. There is so much risk and very little reward associated with this idea. This change would severely mess with the games balance for a very long time. Not to mention the hundreds of hours of the dev teams time something like this would take, which would distract them from more important projects like fixing the account management site and things like that.

i dont think it would take "100s of hours" it seems like it would take just a change of a number (maybe 5mins?)

There have been alot more drastic changes over the years. the jack-of all trades 20skill contributing to lmc bonus for a time, pub 46 with all kinds of special move changes which effectively killed off templates, requiring real skill for necro forms. I just dont seen the 80 skill points as a huge change. With the masteries now, even pvm templates are very tight because 100 or 110 is no longer "good enough" if you want to use the mastery, which means you have to take away from other skills.

I think the poster has a valid point, however i think a better (albeit probably harder "fix") would be to alter the way skill increase on jewels works. We need these items in the game to be highly sought after, otherwise theres no reason to do content.

Personally i would just make skill increase jewels work with the masteries, and function like real skill for the purposes of skills like tactics, and skills where skill increase does not have the same effect as real skill.

 

[Hill Top]

You want to imbalance the entire game?

Then do this.

I totally agree like the game is barely balanced as it is and if they mess with skill caps game would be very unbalanced :/

 

[cazador]

So I guess the US military arsenal supporting war gaming is nothing, yea right that is just a little teeny tiny amount of information. I guess if you use hard numbers in your coding that just gives you better job security so they have to call you to change anything.

Dude the game was coded in probably 95-96. Your talking about an object oriented scripting language. Most likely Java,Python,C#. It wasn't written in anything modern by any means. They may have altered scripts to call on databases "warehouses" for ease of tracking. Like Vendor search,Transfer Tokens. Maybe even other things like Vet Rewards(which I doubt) but odds are its all functions which makes its a complete jumble of code, serials and all kinds of erroneous commented out garbage that had to be written and rewritten 30 times by 80 different devs over 18 years.


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[Smoot]

This.

I posted this idea up years ago on the same premise. UO was built on being able to max out 7 skills, (a system that worked) raising the cap to 840 just resets this balance. The problem is sjill jewellery .. remove it from the game and raise the bar to 840.

while i agree with you, they cant just go back and change what the games been based on for the last 15 years. items. the past 3 or 4 years of loot revamps have put UO in a decent place for "reasons to play" loot thats actually decent and something to search for. if the games developement had gone a different route, less item based, then yes a simple skill cap raise could open up alot of the templates that were destroyed early on. however the idea now is that you hunt for those skills on items, not just get them for free. if there was something else to do in the game, some other reason to play than hunt for items the cap could just be raised. but theres really not now. we all know UO is not the game currently that it was envisioned to be in the late 90s.

 

[Dot_Warner]

Dude the game was coded in probably 95-96. Your talking about an object oriented scripting language. Most likely Java,Python,C#. It wasn't written in anything modern by any means. They may have altered scripts to call on databases "warehouses" for ease of tracking. Like Vendor search,Transfer Tokens. Maybe even other things like Vet Rewards(which I doubt) but odds are its all functions which makes its a complete jumble of code, serials and all kinds of erroneous commented out garbage that had to be written and rewritten 30 times by 80 different devs over 18 years.

You can read about the programming of early UO here.

 

[OREOGL]

So I guess the US military arsenal supporting war gaming is nothing, yea right that is just a little teeny tiny amount of information. I guess if you use hard numbers in your coding that just gives you better job security so they have to call you to change anything.

And you did what again?

 

[Lord Frodo]

Dude the game was coded in probably 95-96. Your talking about an object oriented scripting language. Most likely Java,Python,C#. It wasn't written in anything modern by any means. They may have altered scripts to call on databases "warehouses" for ease of tracking. Like Vendor search,Transfer Tokens. Maybe even other things like Vet Rewards(which I doubt) but odds are its all functions which makes its a complete jumble of code, serials and all kinds of erroneous commented out garbage that had to be written and rewritten 30 times by 80 different devs over 18 years.


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OMG I retired in 93. lol

 

[Ossy]

Part of me was disappointed when I returned to UO. Being so item and template driven reminded me of WoW and other MMOs. UO was always something different, that's why I kept coming back.

I think the Devs need to work on bringing back UO's uniqueness.

Just put the skill cap at 750 and a max of 800 with items. I don't think champs and such should ever be solo-able, but do understand that with the amount of active players the game has now, that's probably the only way to make that content doable on a regular basis.

I spent a lot of time on free shards with no skill cap. That takes away some of the fun if everyone can just max out every skill and stat. You should be forced to make some sacrifices/decisions in building a character.

I came back to UO because I didn't want to have to get the "right build" and the "right items" in order to play the game and have fun. I hated raiding and raid guilds in WoW.

Just my two cents.

 

[cazador]

You can read about the programming of early UO here.

Thanks that clarifies it perfectly..proves about 89% of my point then..like this too fro-do-do


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[Deraj]

Sort of mix things up a bit and give the majority chance to do some high end stuff too.
Most of the time now it's impossible to get a group together to go hunt a boss mob (unless its the new ones) and those of us that don't own these Uber suits never really see that side of the game, are we even missing out?

I get where you're coming from, but champion spawns, peerless, and whatever else, shouldn't be solo-able. I mean, I can solo several types of peerless and champ spawns but I do not believe that I should be able to do that, and I do not believe that is balanced. If the problem is that we're having trouble getting a group together, then the question shouldn't be, "How can we make UO more like a single player game?", it should be, "How can UO better facilitate group play?"

 

[Lord Frodo]

Thanks that clarifies it perfectly..proves about 89% of my point then..like this too fro-do-do


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REALLY multiple game servers that pointed at one persistence DB, and that did data mirroring across the boundaries.

 

[Duncan McDermott]

So I was just wondering with the recent "changes" and all...
Is it time we changed the 720 skill cap to 800?
Sort of mix things up a bit and give the majority chance to do some high end stuff too.
Most of the time now it's impossible to get a group together to go hunt a boss mob (unless its the new ones) and those of us that don't own these Uber suits never really see that side of the game, are we even missing out?

I just think upping the cap to 800 (plus jewellery) would make things rather more interesting for the general masses and not just that 5% UO seems to be about these days.

Just a thought, discuss?

Maybe instead of increasing the cap to 800 they should just bring it back down to 700 and make being a GM worth it again. Increase our ability within 100 skill instead of having to have 120 to do what 100 use to do. I was against increasing the skill cap when it first came out and I am still against it. The game had plenty going for it as it was. We just went around in a circle to no better end.