YAAAH! HEAR ME DEVELOPERS! AFTER YEARS OF WONDERING, I DEMAND AN ANSWER TO MY MOST BURNING QUESTION!

[Spock's Beard]

​

Over the years I have questioned many developer decisions, and my questions have rarely been answered. That's fine. Those guys are trying to earn a paycheck and I'm just some unpleasable forum neckbeard.

But there is one question, a question which has burned inside me for years, which I SHALL SEE ANSWERED! STAND AND DELIVER, DEVELOPERS! I CHALLENGE THEE!

Okay, so. Cora. My question is...

What the crap were you thinking?

Okay some elucidation is required.

So like, we've got this boss, right? You guys decide to add a new boss to the game. And unlike a bunch of other bosses, this one doesn't require some convoluted time-limited keying bullcrap. Nope, this boss is just plopped down right there in Covetous where anyone can go.

Right, so far so good.

So now you decide to give this boss some mechanics. Right, okay. So first you give it that mana drain thing. Seems kind of annoying to have to stand there mana drained all the time, but fine, whatever, that's not really the puzzling part.

Okay but then like, you're all like, hey, this needs something else. Oh I know, let's make it so that if multiple people even come within fighting range of the boss, they all take a hojillion damage and die instantly! Oh man we're geniuses! Blizzard should steal our brilliant ideas!

What is the POINT of this? Why did you add a mechanic that actively discourages multiple people from even GOING NEAR a public, non-keyed, non-instanced boss? Was it a desire to conduct some sort of evil social experiment? If so you kinda blew it by putting all the same loot on everything in the dungeon so everyone just sat at unbound vortexes all day, BUT WHATEVER.

Seriously you have a boss of years standing where the optimal strategy is to set up your second account as an out of combat healbot and then slowly solo it to death in the most boring fashion, and nothing about that is surprising. It all flows logically from the design.

I demand some semblance of an explanation! This is so illogical that it's driven me crazy for years! I don't even want it changed anymore, I don't care, I just want to know whyyyyy!

Otherwise I will HOLD MY BREATH UNTIL I DIEEEEEJBEbkldklbjd!!11!

And then my ghost will come back and keep posting here!

 

[Eärendil]

Dear developers, I most of the time think this guy is exaggerating, but here he is absolutely right. Cora is a bad joke!

Your most dedicated Broadsword-Cheerleader!

 

[Dot_Warner]

Just skip the ridiculousness of Cora and work L4 until you get a drop. It's all the same items.

 

[Eärendil]

I know that, Dot - but a Cora-Chance should not be much work and would attract folks like Navrey does. And @Mesanna: When you are working at the only 3 open-world peeless - my wishes:

(1) Let Navrey like she is - forever. She is perfect.
(2) Add better drops to Slasher´s artifact table.
(3) Change the Cora-Battle completely and increase her droprate.

Navrey is perfect, Slasher fun but not rewarding, Cora utter crap.

 

[BeaIank]

Add the fact that her spawn rate is very iffy.
Too often I went there to have a friendly discussion between her face and my hammer, but she was nowhere to be seen. And stood there for two hours and nothing.
Also, her 30% drop rate feels more like a 3% drop rate.

 

[Eärendil]

@Bea - yes! Important points, both! I wish I could watch the discussion between your hammer and her face.

 

[Dot_Warner]

Oh, I'm not saying that Cora doesn't need fixed, I'm just saying there is a simple way around her. Right now, she's pretty much just wasted content.

I'd actually suggest lowering Navrey's spawn timer from 15 mins to 10. 15 mins is a lot of down time when she dies in ~3.

Slasher is just kinda boring to me. The miniscule chance for a Lavaliere is no longer enticing.

 

[Lord Gandalf]

#coraisajoke #coramakesmerage #coraghosto0o0o0o

 

[Eärendil]

I'd actually suggest lowering Navrey's spawn timer from 15 mins to 10. 15 mins is a lot of down time when she dies in ~3.

No, no! I Need 15 min to get to the fridge, grab a beer and some peanut flips, check TV-program and pee. Stick to 15 min, please! Nav is the ultimate part-time occupation for PVMers, just lovely this way. In between you can do 2-3 trade / smugglers runs or anything else

 

[BeaIank]

Oh, I also hate her because the last time she and I had a friendly talk, she gave an hephaestus. The gargoyle version of it.

 

[MalagAste]

Oh, I also hate her because the last time she and I had a friendly talk, she gave an hephaestus. The gargoyle version of it.

Least you've gotten something... I've been to level 4 and killed cora I don't know how many times NEVER gotten a drop. Not one. But that's fairly typical for me. I get more drops from the roof than from there or Doom.

And I did Despise I don't know how many times before figuring out that I'll never get a drop there either.

Same with killing Slasher and a whole host of other things... the drop rate for some folk is so infinitesimally small that it just isn't worth wasting time trying. While others get drops nearly every time they go... makes me want to vomit, which of late just makes more and more of the content a snore and well... not appealing.

 

[BeaIank]

Least you've gotten something... I've been to level 4 and killed cora I don't know how many times NEVER gotten a drop. Not one. But that's fairly typical for me. I get more drops from the roof than from there or Doom.

And I did Despise I don't know how many times before figuring out that I'll never get a drop there either.

Same with killing Slasher and a whole host of other things... the drop rate for some folk is so infinitesimally small that it just isn't worth wasting time trying. While others get drops nearly every time they go... makes me want to vomit, which of late just makes more and more of the content a snore and well... not appealing.

Sounds like me and Dreadhorn... And yeah, I got 2K turn in points from her.
For Despise, kill the wisps as well. They have a drop chance and I got more drops from them than from Andros. And that Andros fight is the most boring fight I have ever done in any game.

 

[MalagAste]

Sounds like me and Dreadhorn... And yeah, I got 2K turn in points from her.
For Despise, kill the wisps as well. They have a drop chance and I got more drops from them than from Andros. And that Andros fight is the most boring fight I have ever done in any game.

I agree it's boring and yes I do kill the wisps... over and over and over... but no I don't get a drop ever off that.

What saddens me is that Despise was a well loved and well used dungeon... now it's a joke... Deceit would have been a more logical choice of dungeon to revise since well NO ONE ever goes there save those farming mummies for seeds ... but I don't even think folk do that anymore.

 

[Eärendil]

Least you've gotten something... I've been to level 4 and killed cora I don't know how many times NEVER gotten a drop. Not one. But that's fairly typical for me.

I think the problem is your attitude - you need POSITIVE THINKING!














...just kidding ;-)

 

[Eärendil]

Sounds like me and Dreadhorn... And yeah, I got 2K turn in points from her.
For Despise, kill the wisps as well. They have a drop chance and I got more drops from them than from Andros. And that Andros fight is the most boring fight I have ever done in any game.

What whisps? I avoided Despise because I hate playing tamers/comparable templates. Are there monsters I can kill just like in Cove 3?

 

[BeaIank]

What whisps? I avoided Despise because I hate playing tamers/comparable templates. Are there monsters I can kill just like in Cove 3?

They spawn with Andros, so no.
I wouldn't mind despise much if we got to kill Andros ourselves instead of having to rely on stupid pets with even worse AI than our normal pets.
I only do that fight when I feel like just spending the rest of my night drinking, because you don't get to do anything at that bloody thing. It is annoying.

 

[Eärendil]

Thats why I dont do it. Anyways: the OP is right!

 

[CovenantX]

Okay but then like, you're all like, hey, this needs something else. Oh I know, let's make it so that if multiple people even come within fighting range of the boss, they all take a hojillion damage and die instantly! Oh man we're geniuses! Blizzard should steal our brilliant ideas!

Hey now, Cora is the only encounter where Peacemaking is important or even useful (IMO)

Area peace when her fire-breath attack is going off (or even before it) and it'll never hit you, no matter how many characters you have down there. (I posted this here before)

60 damage fire breath x valid targets = >3 you're dead. (unless you Area peace every 10-12 seconds).
You can out-run her fire-breath or line of sight it as well, but peacing is much easier.

The drop-rate seems to have been bugged, because I remember my last run killing her ~8 times with 4 characters each run without getting a single drop. (it's supposed to be 30% drop-rate) I haven't farmed her since global loot though, Covetous loot seems to have gotten significantly worse, especially when you take the difficulty into account on both Cora & spawn on 3rd & 4th levels.

 

[The Craftsman]

What the crap were you thinking?

Whilst you applied this to one particular situation, this could have been applied to numerous debious UO decisions by the devs over the last few years. UO has lost its way to the point where its too far down a one way path to its own demise.

 

[Dot_Warner]

The devs need to hire more people.

They're in absolute desperate need of a community manager/PR person who can take the communications burden off Mesanna and make the community feel (at least superficially) engaged. Someone who will link random ass podcast interviews to uo.com so the players might actually know WTF is going on. Someone who can officially say that issues have been heard, or that something is going on.

Then they need a perpetual focus group made up of a decent cross-section players, instead of the cherry picked YES-people they've used in the past. This would be to run ideas past before they get too for down the rabbit hole of needless complexity and ridiculousness.

Lastly, they need dedicated QA people, preferably players, to help Misk bug hunt. Players know how to break things in far more creative ways then the devs seem capable of imagining.

 

[The Craftsman]

The devs need to hire more people.

Not happening. The devs (well, broadsword) have a contract with EA to provide dev support to UO for $xxx per year. If they hire more people their profit margin is squeezed for zero return. Not happening.

 

[Dot_Warner]

Not happening. The devs (well, broadsword) have a contract with EA to provide dev support to UO for $xxx per year. If they hire more people their profit margin is squeezed for zero return. Not happening.

Another reason UO is unlikely to get, let alone retain, "new players." Sigh.

 

[The Craftsman]

Another reason UO is unlikely to get, let alone retain, "new players." Sigh.

Sad but true.

 

[Modoc]

Oh, I also hate her because the last time she and I had a friendly talk, she gave an hephaestus. The gargoyle version of it.

I think theres a shot you can get for that these day.

 

[Arroth Thaiel]

​

Over the years I have questioned many developer decisions, and my questions have rarely been answered. That's fine. Those guys are trying to earn a paycheck and I'm just some unpleasable forum neckbeard.

But there is one question, a question which has burned inside me for years, which I SHALL SEE ANSWERED! STAND AND DELIVER, DEVELOPERS! I CHALLENGE THEE!

Okay, so. Cora. My question is...

What the crap were you thinking?

Okay some elucidation is required.

So like, we've got this boss, right? You guys decide to add a new boss to the game. And unlike a bunch of other bosses, this one doesn't require some convoluted time-limited keying bullcrap. Nope, this boss is just plopped down right there in Covetous where anyone can go.

Right, so far so good.

So now you decide to give this boss some mechanics. Right, okay. So first you give it that mana drain thing. Seems kind of annoying to have to stand there mana drained all the time, but fine, whatever, that's not really the puzzling part.

Okay but then like, you're all like, hey, this needs something else. Oh I know, let's make it so that if multiple people even come within fighting range of the boss, they all take a hojillion damage and die instantly! Oh man we're geniuses! Blizzard should steal our brilliant ideas!

What is the POINT of this? Why did you add a mechanic that actively discourages multiple people from even GOING NEAR a public, non-keyed, non-instanced boss? Was it a desire to conduct some sort of evil social experiment? If so you kinda blew it by putting all the same loot on everything in the dungeon so everyone just sat at unbound vortexes all day, BUT WHATEVER.

Seriously you have a boss of years standing where the optimal strategy is to set up your second account as an out of combat healbot and then slowly solo it to death in the most boring fashion, and nothing about that is surprising. It all flows logically from the design.

I demand some semblance of an explanation! This is so illogical that it's driven me crazy for years! I don't even want it changed anymore, I don't care, I just want to know whyyyyy!

Otherwise I will HOLD MY BREATH UNTIL I DIEEEEEJBEbkldklbjd!!11!

And then my ghost will come back and keep posting here!

Just skip Cora and go try out some of the other content.

Like the Kotl City for instan...........

Oh.

 

[CovenantX]

Just skip Cora and go try out some of the other content.

Like the Kotl City for instan...........

Oh.

I wonder when the devs are going to revisit the Kotl city.... I believe Kyronix said they have other plans for that area.
It seems to be they turned it off so that people would fill BoDs for some of the rewards on the Kotl turn-in list... but they could have just removed the rewards that had been added as bod rewards and left the Kotl content active... The wearable items & the banners would have been worth farming for, for a while at least.

 

[arkiu]

I was about to hop in on the dev bashing but then i thought about what purpose that would serve. Spock i agree with on 99% of your posts... but damn man how many are really taken into consideration and result in any sort of change? I've been a leet dev troll the last several years and of all my complaints only one has been accounted for: CC window size - a no brainer that prob shoulda been done a decade ago..

The harsh reality is that the devs seem mostly incapable of making positive changes in UO except for a few blurps of reasonable decisions here and there. Someone above pointed out Kotl and how its been added to the list of wasted content and sits idle until some mysterious point in time in which it will be reutilized. Perfect example of poor decision making and not thinking things out thouroughly on the developers end. Very frustrating that they dont seem to learn from these kind of mistakes. Vast amounts of old and dated content... so they add some more... and that content somehow manages to become wasted space..

Ah **** i caught myself trolling the devs when i said its useless! Its too easy! Something needs to change on their end, and im not even gonna try and speculate as to what on these forums (but i think we all deep down know what needs to happen). 2017 may be the year i finally let go. Thatll be 17 years of (started UO when i was 12).

But my point is i try not to be annoyed by this anymore, and neither should you logical spocks beard.. You'll be on your death bed one day wondering if these very reasonable rants of yours served any real purpose, however perfectly logical and reasonable they may be. But i do enjoy reading them for whatever weird reason...

 

[Spock's Beard]

@Kyronix @Bleak @Mesanna

Never shall I rest! Forever shall I bump this thread, my letters only getting larger and redder, my neck growing beardier as I remind you of the design choice that no one can justify with a straight face! I don't even go there, I don't care if you change it and don't particularly want to kill Cora, but it's just so BAFFLING!

I was about to hop in on the dev bashing but then i thought about what purpose that would serve. Spock i agree with on 99% of your posts... but damn man how many are really taken into consideration and result in any sort of change? I've been a leet dev troll the last several years and of all my complaints only one has been accounted for: CC window size - a no brainer that prob shoulda been done a decade ago..

Nah they listen sometimes. I know I screamed for a Doom revamp for a long time, and they took my idea about increasingly rare hued mounts. I mean they made them a buncha poo-colored hiryus that dropped from some rather uninspiring content so I don't think it was as successful as it could have been, but they did it. And they usually buff artifacts at least a bit whenever a batch debuts and everyone laughs at how bad they are.

 

[Lord Arm]

I like having many types of bosses to do. if I don't like, I wont do. I don't do cora anymore like many other bosses I think they added this because some people wanted something for the healing trammie chars to do, just like getting credit for em event bosses. cora is kind of boring and easy if u know what to do. I wouldnt recommend trying to soloing. need healers and melee guy, bard good for buffs ect. all stay way back and heal except the one melee person. u can do wod towards end but do it inbetween the big aoe hit and run out when u get pulled in. its like a hydra every person too close will add another breath hit. if u touch the blue lightning on ground, u will lose all your mana. if melee guy dies, run, inv, regroup and go back to it. I think if u use leech life weapon or form, will damage u. the biggest issue I see is I cant find people to do because the use of multi clients lol, no need to hunt with others. what I couldn't believe is when ems took huge numbers of people to do cora lol. endless insta kills from breath weapon. having sound on can help let u know when breath attack is about to occur. most new bosses are tough at first until u figure out proper tactics and chars to use. I really have no problem with cora. theres a lot of other things to do. if devs did some kind of revamp, would probably be a waste of time and destroy other dungeon bosses. just my opinions

 

[Merus]

cora is easy if u know what to do. I wouldnt recommend trying to soloing. need healers and melee guy, bard good for buffs ect. all stay way back and heal except the one melee person. u can do wod towards end but do it inbetween the big aoe hit and run out when u get pulled in. its like a hydra every person too close will add another breath hit. if u touch the blue lightning on ground, u will lose all your mana. if melee guy dies, run, inv, regroup and go back to it. I think if u use leech life weapon or form, will damage u. the biggest issue I see is I cant find people to do because the use of multi clients lol, no need to hunt with others. what I couldn't believe is when ems took huge numbers of people to do cora lol. endless insta kills from breath weapons. having sound on can help let u know when breath attack is about to occur. I remember most new bosses are tough at first until u figure out proper tactics and chars to use.

Can Cora be killed easily with the right tactic? Yes. Unfortunately THAT tactic is completely contrary to the concept of a MMO... not though hapinstance... but through deliberate programming. A boss that kills EVERYONE within range if there are more than 3 people in that range is backasswards in an MMO.

 

[Lord Arm]

well there are worse ones and they aren't even a boss, like the tormented minotaur lol.

 

[Lord Gandalf]

I used to be able to solo cora by going upstairs and down stairs on my sampire if the spawn upstairs cant open doors, timing my evasions right, i only recall having some mana issues for chaining AI, what major change happened since?

You can also let i get stuck to your char behind the dungeon's barrels or crates, and have a disco outside giving u some buff masteries while keeping it discored, and let him drop a couple heals on u without getting drained or hit.

I know some templates are not welcome, but that doesnt mean its a ***t boss, cmon!