IDOC TIMER

[OREOGL]

tried doing an idoc last night and stayed up til it hit the 10 hour mark, and it didn't drop. So, I said screw it and went to bed missing it completely, which isn't a big deal.

But the question here is why did they ever think doing this was a good idea? I see no value in even allowing 15 hours as an option, let alone their grubbers don't work 90% of time.

Does anyone else see this favorably?

Would it be worth at least looking at capping the idoc length to 10 hours? (Going back to five hours would be optimal).

 

[Angel of Sonoma]

there's been post after post about the 'new' idoc system. it's even been questioned at meet & greets.

we are simply players and have no say so about the mechanics of the idoc system.

the almighty dev's feel this is the best system.

i used to enjoy doing idoc's. but with the current system, who the hell has time to sit at their pc for 15+ hours waiting for a house to decay? the scripters do! scripting for the win.

 

[OREOGL]

there's been post after post about the 'new' idoc system. it's even been questioned at meet & greets.

we are simply players and have no say so about the mechanics of the idoc system.

the almighty dev's feel this is the best system.

i used to enjoy doing idoc's. but with the current system, who the hell has time to sit at their pc for 15+ hours waiting for a house to decay? the scripters do! scripting for the win.

I have been scratching my head how this even became a possibility.

No one actively attends an idoc for ten or fifteen hours. Even five is questionable.

Really they could make them randomly drop in the first five hours and accomplish the same thing.

I used to do two things in game, factions and Idocs.

Now the majority of my time is some pvp and spawns. Though since the holy fist snafu I haven't even been doing much of those either.

If the goal is to edge out play styles, it's coming along swimmingly.

 

[Yadd of Legends]

Who needs even five hours? Let em drop one hour after they turn - then we can get on with actually playing the game - those house accounts can just pay their bills if they want to keep them

 

[Bobar]

As has been said many times the 'new' system never did make sense and could only ever benefit scripters. Why was it introduced? my best guess is they somehow knackered the system which had worked perfectly well for years and which allowed players who studied the system to work out the times. Following which they introduced this 'new' method for reasons which we the players are not allowed to know the reasons for and have stated that it is immutable and we can lump it. So what's new?. I wish I lived in an ivory tower too.

 

[Lord Arm]

ive posted about this before. ive waited at a house for 15 hours, it went osi. it went through process again, waited another 15 hours but it actually took 16 hours before it dropped. took almost 2 hours before could place house. lol
I'm sure this is not good for my health, not to mention other people's health.

 

[Goodmann]

Here is my rant on current the current idoc state

1. 5,10,15 hours does not work exactly as it states. I have only done a few idocs since the change and I would say half of the ones I have done actually fell at 5,10,15. I actually lost a castle due to swapping houses and it fell in 2 days...... good system.

2. They wanted to do this to curb scripting? Now you have to script the idoc to get timer then come 5 hrs later, 10hrs,15 hrs? Not a good system IMO and this is someone who has done more idocs than 90% of the UO population over the last decade

3. Who wants to tend to a idoc all day (timer,5,10,15hrs and don't forget server down time)? Most people who play UO are adults meaning most have families/jobs so who has time for 5,10,15 hrs.

4. Here is an idea when a house drops DELETE the items, this will help out the economy. Everyone talks about gold sinks well gold is only 1 problem and the other one is the massive amounts of items that have been created from duping.

In the end if you don't like them don't do them, well I don't. It's a shame bc it use to be loads of fun. I chalk this up to another nerf and maybe one day they will revisit idocs.

 

[OldUO]

Goodmanns idea is perfect. House drops the items are gone. This would make EM/Rare items more rare as they get deleted and would remove alot of junk from the economy.

If you have items your afraid of losing, bank them.

Or when the house collapses it could spawn say 3-5bosses with SOME of the houses loot on the corpses. That would be entertaining.

 

[MalagAste]

I'd hate to see the stuff deleted but just add the stuff randomly to TMaps, MIBs and the Cavern of the Discarded... Put the stuff on Champ bosses and in spawned chests on Mobs... And most important dump it in some pool first and check to be sure that it's not duped stuff ..... then put it into a drop pool.

 

[Riyana]

I'd hate to see the stuff deleted but just add the stuff randomly to TMaps, MIBs and the Cavern of the Discarded... Put the stuff on Champ bosses and in spawned chests on Mobs... And most important dump it in some pool first and check to be sure that it's not duped stuff ..... then put it into a drop pool.

I've suggested this very thing to Mesanna. People have been complaining about treasure chest loot and IDOCs... two birds, one stone. I think putting that loot into the treasure map and mib systems would make for much more exciting hunts. You might get the normal junk, you might get someone's turnip collection, or you might get some super cool rares. A true treasure hunt... and no fighting scripters or sitting and staring for hours.

It might be a very difficult thing to implement, though. I don't know.

 

[MalagAste]

I've suggested this very thing to Mesanna. People have been complaining about treasure chest loot and IDOCs... two birds, one stone. I think putting that loot into the treasure map and mib systems would make for much more exciting hunts. You might get the normal junk, you might get someone's turnip collection, or you might get some super cool rares. A true treasure hunt... and no fighting scripters or sitting and staring for hours.

It might be a very difficult thing to implement, though. I don't know.

I imagine it would be but I agree it would bring new life to the job of diggin it up. Would certainly make it more interesting and less predictable.

 

[Riyana]

I imagine it would be but I agree it would bring new life to the job of diggin it up. Would certainly make it more interesting and less predictable.

AND PIRATE VESSELS!! Yesssss....

 

[OREOGL]

ive posted about this before. ive waited at a house for 15 hours, it went osi. it went through process again, waited another 15 hours but it actually took 16 hours before it dropped. took almost 2 hours before could place house. lol
I'm sure this is not good for my health, not to mention other people's health.

That would have bothered me. I don't even know how they go to OSI these days.

Would be good to know..

 

[OREOGL]

Goodmanns idea is perfect. House drops the items are gone. This would make EM/Rare items more rare as they get deleted and would remove alot of junk from the economy.

If you have items your afraid of losing, bank them.

Or when the house collapses it could spawn say 3-5bosses with SOME of the houses loot on the corpses. That would be entertaining.

It would seem incredibly biased to base this off of increasing value for people who do events.

You could expand on the grubber idea and have them drop the items on harbingers (as long as it actually functioned.)

But I think a small tweak by removing the upper limit time limits would improve this greatly without much effort to implement.

 

[OREOGL]

@Mesanna @Bleak @Kyronix

Is a time reduction a possibility here?

What would it take to do this?

Money? How much money would it cost me to have you fix this?

Time? Do I need to pay a temp that can code?

Seriously, let me know what the hold up is or what is needed to justify a fix for a seemingly broken game mechanic.

 

[Dot_Warner]

the scripters do! scripting for the win.

Every system that has ever been introduced/tweaked to deter/combat scripting has benefited the scripters, not hampered them. Every. Single. Time.

 

[Dixie chessy/legends]

sit 15 hrs at a luna idoc you had no idea on time of, excited at the pixelated uberness that might befall you as your reward for patiently waiting it out, only to find there was 0 items in the house......... id be cool with idocs falling in an hr after turning idoc. any time in that hr sucker could drop..id even be cool with idocs falling at 15 hrs if u could just see what was in them, then u could chose for yourself if u thought it was worth the wait or not...of course itll never happen but it sure would be nice

 

[OREOGL]

sit 15 hrs at a luna idoc you had no idea on time of, excited at the pixelated uberness that might befall you as your reward for patiently waiting it out, only to find there was 0 items in the house......... id be cool with idocs falling in an hr after turning idoc. any time in that hr sucker could drop..id even be cool with idocs falling at 15 hrs if u could just see what was in them, then u could chose for yourself if u thought it was worth the wait or not...of course itll never happen but it sure would be nice

Yeah wasting up to 15 hours for an empty house shouldn't even be a possibility.

I mean I get keeping scripters from auto looting the high end items but the other end of the spectrum is just as bad.

 

[MalagAste]

Yeah wasting up to 15 hours for an empty house shouldn't even be a possibility.

I mean I get keeping scripters from auto looting the high end items but the other end of the spectrum is just as bad.

I thought the whole BS about the house going private and the instant it starts to decay was too keep the scripters from snagging all the high end loot.... not that i think that works since most of them use loot scripts anyway... Which are preprogrammed to grab all high end stuff.

I agree the 15 hours is just insane... who ever thought that up wasn't thinking. NO one can sit there for 15 hours... except a bot. You have to eat, sleep and pee at some point...

I agree with the 1 hour thing, 1 or 2 hours max on an IDOC... but I'm more in favor of putting the loot into some sort of other drop system... heck for all I care add it to the Turtle Champ... put it in the Roof loot... Add it to T-Maps, MIBs, Pirate Ships..... etc....

And @Dot_Warner is completely right everytime they do stuff to "punish" scripting it only serves to HURT the attended players. It doesn't hurt the bots.

 

[Merlin]

No matter what - absolutely no one is going to be happy with whatever IDOC settings the game has. Change it in one direction, another different crowd will complain - and so forth. IDOC's themselves are a source of drama, and so are the IDOC rules. I just don't see any changes here that will leave the majority of people happy and/or without complaint. There will ALWAYS be scripters who get the best plots and suck up most of the loot. There will always be some exploit or someone who can take advantage in some way that will make others feel cheated. I see no positive outcome to further changes here. If anything, it's been a relief that this topic doesn't come up as often as it used to on UHall.

The only thing I miss about the old IDOC ruleset is that there was more PVP surrounding the Fel IDOC's when the old rules were in place.

 

[Goodmann]

so the dev team is always listening to there player base so here you go. It is overwhelming that the majority does not like the 5,10,15 hr system. Time for something new? It's just not this thread either, almost anyone i talk to about idocs they do not enjoy the new system.
Something to consider @Kyronix

 

[OREOGL]

No matter what - absolutely no one is going to be happy with whatever IDOC settings the game has. Change it in one direction, another different crowd will complain - and so forth. IDOC's themselves are a source of drama, and so are the IDOC rules. I just don't see any changes here that will leave the majority of people happy and/or without complaint. There will ALWAYS be scripters who get the best plots and suck up most of the loot. There will always be some exploit or someone who can take advantage in some way that will make others feel cheated. I see no positive outcome to further changes here. If anything, it's been a relief that this topic doesn't come up as often as it used to on UHall.

The only thing I miss about the old IDOC ruleset is that there was more PVP surrounding the Fel IDOC's when the old rules were in place.

The only thing is argue here is that I've not talked to or seen anyone who said they were in favor of the extended timer.
If we are going to be miserable might as well be miserable for 5 hours instead of 15.

 

[Goodmann]

UO Storage Wars! You bid for the idoc property/contents but you can not see the houses contents. HUGE gold sink! Some people will cry that people with the most gold will benefit but such is life the people with the most money can get what they want... Imagine the gold taken out of the game from this.... trillions and trillions. A good start to getting the economy on track. Sometimes you might pay 100 million for a emply plot..... Sounds fun to me
Now you never have to worry about scripters

 

[Lord Arm]

we don't need over haul whole system. the one thing that helped was the house going private. loot scripters use to go inside and sit at an item and get it. at least now we have a chance. for me, the timer is just too long. the stuff does decay a lot faster but its not that bad.

 

[Uriah Heep]

Every system that has ever been introduced/tweaked to deter/combat scripting has benefited the scripters, not hampered them. Every. Single. Time.

True. And I think this is because they don't play, other than maybe logging in as superman mode or something. Whoever thought randomized materials would stop scripting was nuts...Now the players have no idea where to go to get a certain ore/wood...but it doesnt matter to the scripters, since they arent limited to a 2-3 hour portion of the day to find it.

I've given up. I can't with a good conscience advertise this game, even tho I am hooked. Not even to the point of encouraging family to join me. I have three guildies who still play, a few hours a day. When they get tired and go, so will I. They are what holds me, not the crap that gets thrown at us nowdays.

I won't name names, but I do know a couple of people who were against scripts, would never dream of scripting. But now they do, a shame.

 

[kelmo]

How about if the house just becomes abandoned. All lock downs and secures are released at 90 days. The house itself will decay as normal and be claimed and/or demolished after the decay cycle. That way the first to notice the house is abandoned might get some fine loot.

 

[OREOGL]

How about if the house just becomes abandoned. All lock downs and secures are released at 90 days. The house itself will decay as normal and be claimed and/or demolished after the decay cycle. That way the first to notice the house is abandoned might get some fine loot.

There are certainly a lot of options to look at, but they have to be willing to consider it first.

Hopefully, they stick to what would seem to be the easiest tweak for now, and just reduce the time span.

 

[kelmo]

If ya want to make it random... take the timer off. When the account is not paid after 90 days the contents are forfeit, abandoned, there for the taking. Right at the moment the house goes into decay. This house gets looted right then. I am OK with that. Could be fun.

Let the house decay as normal.

 

[kelmo]

No one is going to be happy with any timer. Let the stuff go and let the house drop,

 

[Dixie chessy/legends]

i actually wouldnt even mind the 5 10 and 15 hr times if there was a skill u could work in game to investigate the house sign and get an idea on the fall time....lets say an hour around the time it gives ya then as long as u work an ingame skill and even though it might take 15 hrs to drop you will only be there about an hr.......oh we do have a skill that would work for that forensics! i can deal with grubbers, long as they arent in new mag or are killable there....they are just minor annoyances.......every thing else seems good other than if u dont know exact time having to sit a possible 15.

 

[Bobar]

Every system that has ever been introduced/tweaked to deter/combat scripting has benefited the scripters, not hampered them. Every. Single. Time.

You are right and in the case of idocs especially so for the following reasons -

It used to be that a regular idocer finding a house in decay knew the set time periods of each stage. Once the turn time of any stage was established it was possible to estimate roughly the time the next turn was likely to be until the final stage was reached, this eventually provided a decent estimate of when the house would fall. Under this delightful 'new' system even those parameters have been removed and the stages are RANDOM. So here we have a massively increased amount of time that has to be spent even to establish when the next stage might be reached. So what the average player has to do is visit fairly regularly to establish some sort of pattern. This, of course, does not apply to our friend, the scripter, he happily places his bot and simply waits for the time the house finally goes idoc to fall in his lap. This is just the first step in the 'Lets help the cheat' system. Unless the ordinary player has been extraordinarily lucky he will not have an exact time the house went idoc, he will just have a window which might be anything up to an hour or maybe a little less at half an hour. This means that at each stage of the 5 10 15 hour periods they have to be at the location for maybe over an hour in case it falls. The scripter on the other hand has an exact time and only requires a much shorter visit.

So unless this new system was specifically designed to aid the scripter it is difficult to imagine what they were thinking. The ordinary player has been doubly penalised and the cheat doubly rewarded.

 

[TimberWolf]

Goodmanns idea is perfect. House drops the items are gone. This would make EM/Rare items more rare as they get deleted and would remove alot of junk from the economy.

If you have items your afraid of losing, bank them.

Or when the house collapses it could spawn say 3-5bosses with SOME of the houses loot on the corpses. That would be entertaining.

yes ..spawn 1 each of every champ boss...each one with items from the house if they arent killed and looted in 15 mins...they go poof
great idea

#timetoshakethingsup

 

[MeTheGreat]

i still wish that they would work thieving and lockpicking skills into idocs.


-once it goes idoc, it becomes public.
(preferably with a unique sound or system message so if you happen to walk by one you are notified - You notice this house is structurally unsound..)

-any secure container needs to be lockpicked. items are freely removable from containers once unlocked
(possibly with a random chance of trap applied to every container)

-locked-down items must be stolen from the home
(heavy items need natural 120 thieving for any chance of success - heavier items lower the chance of success)
(chance of greedy ghost spawn {buffed revenant that only targets the thief}

-24 hours after it goes idoc, it collapses.
(remaining items are destroyed)

-anyone caught in house when it falls suffers insta-death
(packie/beetle corpses are destroyed - no recovery of items from their packs)

 

[Uriah Heep]

Some of this is all way out in left field...tongue-in-cheek I hope.

Anyway, no need for big details or plans or methods, just put the **** back like it was and quit messing with stuff that isn't broken. Go work on making new artwork look like it belongs ingame.

 

[Dixie chessy/legends]

yeah im not crazy about all the dungeon loot, treasure chest suggestions either...they are idocs...falling houses...not champ loot......but i do think forensics would be nice to be able to use on a sign for a round about time......leave everything else alone ....i like idocs lol

 

[Yadd of Legends]

OK, if we want to give forensics a boost ... make it so GM forensics flashes the house sign message as you walk by, as if you're reading it from a distance, so you don't have to click on it. That would be nice, wouldn't it?

 

[Scribbles]

I've suggested this very thing to Mesanna. People have been complaining about treasure chest loot and IDOCs... two birds, one stone. I think putting that loot into the treasure map and mib systems would make for much more exciting hunts. You might get the normal junk, you might get someone's turnip collection, or you might get some super cool rares. A true treasure hunt... and no fighting scripters or sitting and staring for hours.

It might be a very difficult thing to implement, though. I don't know.

trust me if the loot went to treasure chests you would be complaining about people scripting those next.

 

[Scribbles]

The idoc system is yet another fail by the current UO staff. It worked one way for 10 years plus, why do it different?

Here is why.

1. An exploit was discovered with shard shield tokens.
2. the UO staff "fixed" that exploit
3. The UO staff didnt realize their fix caused idocs to go off course time wise (among other things that have a decay process, basically the "fix" screwed up the entire games time code)
4. The UO staff denied that idocs were doing anything different. (showing either their ignorance or their ability to lie)
5. The UO staff then decided out of no where to change the idoc system to a 5 10 15 drop with grubbers and different privacy rules.
6. They again denied any fault of their own in these changes and called everything intentional.

With that said, I dont think there is a way to make the idoc system "script" proof. I dont think there is a way to make everyone happy with any game circumstance let alone idocs. What I do think is that 15 hours for anything in any game is absolutely ridiculous. Just let the dang things drop randomly with in two hours of hitting "indanger of collapse" You can use the same code used for the house placing timer.

 

[Scribbles]

Also on a side note. Anyone else think its funny that the scripters/dupers are better at coding the game than the actual staff?

 

[ysolt]

Also on a side note. Anyone else think its funny that the scripters/dupers are better at coding the game than the actual staff?

It's not that the scripter's are "better at coding", It's just's that the staff learn to do one thing only,and it's to code stuff.

Not like the duper's and scripter's,they didn't learn just to "code" but to try and exploit the limitation's and boundary's of an jurisdiction,cause they are not teatherd to a ball and chain.

 

[Uriah Heep]

It's not that the scripter's are "better at coding", It's just's that the staff learn to do one thing only,and it's to code stuff.

Not like the duper's and scripter's,they didn't learn just to "code" but to try and exploit the limitation's and boundary's of an jurisdiction,cause they are not teatherd to a ball and chain.

They should put a few of em in QA lol

 

[ysolt]

They should put a few of em in QA lol

In a sense,QA are bound by border's also, have you ever been doing QA's job? they don't tell you what the exploit's are' they just tell you what is good of expectation's.


That being said,who the hell know's what kind of exploit exist if you dont try to exploit whatever is possible within the law's that we set within?.

 

[Goodmann]

bump

 

[OREOGL]

The idoc system is yet another fail by the current UO staff. It worked one way for 10 years plus, why do it different?

Here is why.

1. An exploit was discovered with shard shield tokens.
2. the UO staff "fixed" that exploit
3. The UO staff didnt realize their fix caused idocs to go off course time wise (among other things that have a decay process, basically the "fix" screwed up the entire games time code)
4. The UO staff denied that idocs were doing anything different. (showing either their ignorance or their ability to lie)
5. The UO staff then decided out of no where to change the idoc system to a 5 10 15 drop with grubbers and different privacy rules.
6. They again denied any fault of their own in these changes and called everything intentional.

With that said, I dont think there is a way to make the idoc system "script" proof. I dont think there is a way to make everyone happy with any game circumstance let alone idocs. What I do think is that 15 hours for anything in any game is absolutely ridiculous. Just let the dang things drop randomly with in two hours of hitting "indanger of collapse" You can use the same code used for the house placing timer.

This is certainly interesting if true.

I know there was some talk about making the change because of scripters, but that clearly didn't do anything to change it other than the private setting.

 

[OREOGL]

In a sense,QA are bound by border's also, have you ever been doing QA's job? they don't tell you what the exploit's are' they just tell you what is good of expectation's.


That being said,who the hell know's what kind of exploit exist if you dont try to exploit whatever is possible within the law's that we set within?.

theres some merit to this, though that is the point in testing to rule out bugs that affect the game, but I do believe this is compounded by the various types of code over 18 years and the lack of knowledge around it.
There is also probably the time factor. But I digress.

 

[Scribbles]

This is certainly interesting if true.

I know there was some talk about making the change because of scripters, but that clearly didn't do anything to change it other than the private setting.

yeah after they screwed idocs with the initial shard shield exploit "fix" the idocs went nuts. sw to idoc in hours, idocs lasting 17 hours... Boats going poof... things disappearing on the floor quicker than normal etc... They at that point said nothing was wrong then after a ridiculous amount of complaints/suggestions made the change to 5 10 15 grubbers and private.

The grubbers and private change was supposed to be the anti scripting change. Not to mention they put a new timer on picking up items that failed over and over. Then they fixed the item pick up timer. The Grubbers still dont do an adequate job but the private house seemed to do the trick. Until advisors started cheating by bringing toons in the house to loot/see what was in the private house.

Over all you cant really beat the scripters. what you can do though is make it easier for the non scripters to win. Making the grubbers actually work and perhaps attack. Making it so advisors cant pull people into houses. making it truly random fall times that the average person can actually wait for. all of these things would help.

 

[JC the Builder]

With that said, I don't think there is a way to make the idoc system "script" proof. I dont think there is a way to make everyone happy with any game circumstance let alone idocs.

Is that a challenge? I'll post a design document tomorrow that is both script proof*, fun and a lot of people would like it (at least I think so)

(of course someone can still script, but it would be 1 million times more fair than it is now)

 

[Scribbles]

Is that a challenge? I'll post a design document tomorrow that is both script proof*, fun and a lot of people would like it (at least I think so)

(of course someone can still script, but it would be 1 million times more fair than it is now)

I agree there are ways to make it more fun for the average player, and making it harder for scripters... however i dont think there is a full proof way. Id love to hear your thoughts though.

 

[Merlin]

Find a way to incorporate more fighting into IDOCs. Make them more exciting and worth while to actually wait around for.

 

[Zuckuss]

Find a way to incorporate more fighting into IDOCs. Make them more exciting and worth while to actually wait around for.

They could move them to fel and drop then in the middle of the sea. Then you would get ship battles too. An added bonus for sure.