Wish they'd change the Non-Vermin Champ Spawns so they are good too.

[Revenant2]

I feel like it's not ideal that only one type of Fel champ spawn is nice enough for all but the biggest guilds to want to go out and do (Barracoon).

Of course in saying anything at all, there's a slight worry that they'll just retune the Barracoon spawn to be more unpleasent than not, and then we'll all be worse off than we started.

It's like this. The one desirable spawn to do is Barracoon (Vermin) and this makes for some bad effects shard-wide. It appears to alienate more people than it helps because of how things work out with the biggest guild or group of guilds that dominate the spawns in Fel:

• They are known to pop all the T2a champ spawns and work out any spawns that are Barracoon spawns until all of the popped spawns are the unpleasent' types, and then they leave T2a that way. It's done deliberately to discourage other guilds from trying one.
  
• They keep in mind which champ spawn regions have popped an unpleasent type of spawn and don't have to bother scouting those (to check for people to raid). This consolidates the scouting efforts, thereby making things easier for them and overall harder for everyone else.
  

I think of a T2a that is filled with only Vermin spawns, and think how interesting that could be. The new reality would be that many guilds would be hell-bent on trying to get spawns done, knowing there's a chance to really make it happen. You would have MORE action, MORE people getting out there, and in the end MORE PVP for those who value that.

Then, I think of the situation today, and how there's a heap of Arachnid, Reptile, Undead, and Demon spawns out there. Those spawns can be so hard as to be a complete discouragement to even try.

I think it's an idea for all types of champ spawns to carry the same difficulty level as the current Baracoon spawn. There would be more people trying to spawn and the guilds that are trying to more or less 'control' the Fel champ spawns would have a much more involved job on their hands. It would just be better all around.

I don't feel like I'm able to sum up everything that makes each spawn too hard. All of the Non-Vermin spawns would wanna be evaluted, but off the top of my head, the whole Demon spawn is probably too hard, definitely including 1st level, as all those imps put together are murderous. Undead would need to be reviewed for sure. The Reptile boss Rikktor is too hard and perhaps retargets too often after his Earthquake special. Arachnid is probably the closest to alright of the non-Barracoon ones, but IMO it's still a bit too tough, including the boss.

If all spawn types encouraged people to come to Fel T2a and try to get them done (like Barracoon spawns do now), things would be better. That's the real point I want to make, here. And making the Barracoon spawn harder as an alternative would be a bad way to handle it, as it would be the opposite of encouragement, sending people even moreso away from champ spawns.

 

[ColterDC]

Yeah I know what you're saying. With some of the changes to monsters certain champ spawns became insanely difficult for a small group.

This of course only helps the large guilds even more and really leaves the smaller groups no decent spawns to complete and even if they get the champ up it takes so long for a small group to kill the champ that their chances of being discovered and raided are very high.

 

[Crysta]

Isn't Vermin the easiest of all of the spawns? You want all of them to be toned down to match the easiest rather than the easiest be ramped up to match the rest?

 

[Anne]

Dreads were changed back awhile ago ... although Mephitis was bumped up with the rest of the champions.

I also don't remember seeing greater dragons at the reptile spawn. I could be wrong though.

I agree with what's been said ... most of the champs are now too hard for smaller guilds or groups mainly because they take too long to do and are too easy to raid. Being constantly raided, as a result, is not an incentive to do champs.

Because I love to do champs I still regularly scout usually in the evenings and by then generally all I find are undead, arachnid and abyss as the vermin and reptile have been finished. If there is a vermin you can be sure it was left as a "lure" for a raid.

I thought a goal was to get more people into Fel, but after the champ changes I find that many people aren't willing to champ anymore. It's not that they don't want to, they just see it as wasted time and a frustrating experience. I think bumping up the champions was a huge mistake.

 

[Anne]

Just to add to my above post:

No, the champs shouldn't all be made easy. I like that vermin is fairly easy while abyss is quite hard ... not to mention Oaks.

I just think they should go back to the way they were before.

I would just like them to be something that people can think they can win at once in awhile. Those of us that like champing can deal with raids to an extent, but the trick of finishing a champ was always get in and get out fast. Now that tactic doesn't work.

Let's do something to get people back in Fel and give champing an incentive again!

 

[AZ-]

What was the reasoning for the champ spawn buff? Or was there not any? I mean, this EA after all...

 

[galefan2004]

If anything...

The least they could do is buff Baracoon. They do not need to nerf all other spawn types. What they really should do is just yank spawns from Felucca and put them in Trammel and actually allow PvMers to PvM to get the scrolls they want.

In 8 years in this game the only 120s I ever had I got myself. I have no desire to contribute to the kind of trash that dwells in Felucca. Having champion spawns in Felucca is a huge blight on the face of UO.

I remember when PvM/PvP guilds used to do the spawns no matter what they were, but in typical Felucca fashion all the guilds eventually went for the easiest spawn, and now you have a ton of rats being done and nothing else. Its kind of pathetic really.

 

[galefan2004]

I thought a goal was to get more people into Fel, but after the champ changes I find that many people aren't willing to champ anymore. It's not that they don't want to, they just see it as wasted time and a frustrating experience. I think bumping up the champions was a huge mistake.

They see it as a waste of time and full of frustration because unless they are the top guild on the server at the time they will probably be raided by the top guild on the server. Having some of the most fun PvM be garnished with the stupidity that is UO FFA pvp is a great way to turn people off to doing something. When that something has more effect on the outcome of making new characters or advancing old ones then any other aspect of the game you start to see why UO hemorages players each month.

 

[galefan2004]

Let's do something to get people back in Fel and give champing an incentive again!

Like a functioning and rewarding con-only pvp system that uses factions under order and chaos to create two sides that war each other instead of the FFA Felucca crap system that currently exists?

 

[AEowynSP]

Changes that "ruined" certain spawns;
Adding necro to the undead spawn
Buff to Dread Spiders to combat scripters
Adding Greater Dragons to reptile spawn
Buff to all champs making ones like Rikktor almost impossible to kill..

Dreads are back to normal and I have never seen a Greater at the Rikktor.
Other than raids I have never had a problem with doing the champs with 3-10 people, in fact we do harrys every few weeks; yes with a much larger group. 1 bard and 2-3 greater dragons and Rikky drops darn quick BTW.
I do play on Siege so we wear GM armor and use mostly crafted/enhanced weapons but I assume our spawn is just the same as yours.
So if they are all vermin how would we ever be able to get the skulls for a harrower?

 

[sirion]

I just have one question: why do the vermin mobs have mana to be leeched from (by wraither form)? ie. why do they have mana at all? Slimes, rats, hellhounds..etc, while spiders and scorpions dont have mana.

If vermins dont have mana, those bug-users wont be able to "solo" rat spawn so easily anymore.

 

[Lug]

I have wondered about making the other spawns a little easier as well, just to thin out the raiding parties. Make these people that crash at the end of spawns have to run around a bit at lest.

Currently, the other spawns take to long to do with a small group of people, because of raids. The longer it takes to do a spawn the chances of being raiding come close to 100% on atl. Reduce the number of monsters that need to be killed to advance the spawn to quicken the over-all time it takes to get to the champ.

UO's player base is super low. It's not easy to get up enough people to even do a spawn other then vermin outside of primetime hours, and this is on atl, the most active EA Shard!

or

EA could make a spawn that can be won before the champ is even popped. Kinda like a fel peerless, but make it a spawn. Many players are pretty darn tired of doing spawns only to have it finished by a few client hacking, speed hacking raiders. They could even ty it into factions somehow if they wanted too...

 

[galefan2004]

EA could make a spawn that can be won before the champ is even popped. Kinda like a fel peerless, but make it a spawn. Many players are pretty darn tired of doing spawns only to have it finished by a few client hacking, speed hacking raiders. They could even ty it into factions somehow if they wanted too...

I totally agree with this statement. The simple solution is simply to take spawns out of Felucca. Don't give greifers and cheaters a way to profit like they have in Felucca. Millions have been made on the use of third party programs to increase PvP skills in spawns over the years. Its kind of the black eye of UO.

 

[Revenant2]

Isn't Vermin the easiest of all of the spawns? You want all of them to be toned down to match the easiest rather than the easiest be ramped up to match the rest?

Yeah.

The current Arachnid/Demon/Undead/Demon spawns aren't being avoided by the majority of the playerbase because those players are being lazy and picky. It's because the whole situation is genuinely too difficult to deal with.

The thing that tells me that making the other spawns easier is the way to go is this. People who are not in the 'zerg' guild of their shard are expressly NOT getting to pick Vermin spawns. By and large they are sitting in Tram or at Yew Gate, doing NO spawns at all! Those demon and undead spawns in T2a just sit and sit. Nobody does them, nobody wants to go near them. People hope they don't die just trying to run past them. People hope they don't die simply popping them.

The Non-Vermin spawns can be very hard and take a long time to finish. This gives raiding guilds plenty of time to not only scout the spawn but gather their large numbers together. Barracoon spawns are worked faster and easier and the raiders tend to get off to a less-prepared start (this is one reason 'zerg' guilds prefer to take any rat spawns out of T2a before anyone has a chance to work it up. They are more likely to fail a raid on a Barracoon spawn due to less notification and preparation time).

In the end, when the non-'zerg' guilds consider doing one of these hard spawns, they know that they don't have enough of the right kinds of people to both keep the PVM dealt with plus overcome the large, well-prepared PVP raid that will come when the champ is up. On the PVM side, they know that it would be a significant effort to even get the champ up and then once it's up, the chars to actually deal with the thing have to be available. And the reality is that the fruits of that effort are very likely to go to the raiding guild that has been watching them for the past 20 minutes and sending out ICQs.

This makes everyone hope for Vermin spawns and not bother with the others. The 'risk vs reward' is out of whack on the other spawns, with those spawns being too high-effort plus too high-risk in one big, unacceptable package.

So once the rat spawns are gone, the people do other things and leave much of T2a untouched. Maybe someone will try a Deceit Undead spawn (Deceit's layout is helpful to the players for that spawn), or someone might try an Arachnid somewhere. It's nothing like it would be if every single spawn were like the Vermin spawns.

All taken together, that's the proof that points us in the direction the things should go (easier and not harder).

 

[Doomsday Dragon]

I vote to beef up the vermin spawn so it is no easier than the rest. I never understood the point in making one champ spawn easier than another.

For those who want it easy to bad.

Champs were designed to encourage large groups in team oriented combat scenarios. They were not designed for little groups of players that want to avoid a fight while trying to get rich quick. You want the gold you have to take it by force and numbers organized team effort on a large scale end of story.

Rikktor is still the second easiest champion to take down... Just wanted to point that out because someone said it was nearly impossible someone who obviously never fought oaks before.

You want a decent pay off for a small group in a safe non combat setting go do peerless and buy scrolls from players who had the rocks and skill to go earn them.

 

[Farsight]

OK, now we've heard from the small guild non spawners. I'd like to know what the people who do the spawns a lot think?

My situation:
Like most of the other posters, I used to spawn quite a bit before the champs themselves became stronger. I would go with a group of 3-4 people and we'd do all right. After the change, it took too long to be worth while. The risk was too high and the reward wasn't enough compared to say... Doom or Peerless. So we, like a lot of other people, switched our focus.

Lately, I've had the chance to return to the spawns and found that if you don't have at least 6 people, and preferrably 8 or more (numbers borrowed from more experienced spawners/PvPers), spawning is still too much risk and not enough reward.

My conclusions:
1. Either Baracoon is too easy or the rest is too hard. My "solution" to this would be to make the reward match the risk. Baracoon shall no longer drop 120 scrolls on a regular basis.

2. Since raiding is no longer an option for most guilds (due to lack of spawners outside of Despise), spawning has become an assembly line rather than a part of the game. I'm sure this isn't much different than before except for the people in the line are sometimes the people who want to fight. In other words, few people are having a lot of fun there. Now I wouldn't want the champions to go pre-buff level, as that was too easy. But I'm sure there's a compromise in there somewhere.

3. As the horse isn't dead until the change is made. Do something about ghost/stealth cams! They keep the risk too high for a reward that can be easily attained through other means.

 

[Anne]

Champs were designed to encourage large groups in team oriented combat scenarios. They were not designed for little groups of players that want to avoid a fight while trying to get rich quick. You want the gold you have to take it by force and numbers organized team effort on a large scale end of story.

While it may be true that champ were designed for large groups, that simply isn't working now. The player base is much lower and only the very large guilds can get enough people on line at the same time to do a champ. On the other hand I don't want to belong to a zerg guild that can farm champs with no competition. I enjoy the risk/reward aspect. All I'm saying is that right now there is very little, if any, reward. I've done my share of raids and the only time I enjoyed it and had fun were when the numbers were somewhat equal. At times I've done raids against groups that were too easy to kill and felt almost embarrassed by it. Large dominating guilds don't seem to have that sort of conscience though.

I never considered my guild's champing as a way to get rich quick. I've always done it for the fun, which includes the possibility of a raid or the possibility of pulling one off without a raid. I could get rich from other sources much easier and faster just buying things cheap and re-selling or selling peerless items on vendors.

All I see now is a deserted Fel. I live there, I scout champs there, I mine there, etc. and I almost never see anyone, red or blue. I don't much care for being limited to Yew gate and Despise fighting and my reds aren't being played at all right now.

I just miss the fun of Fel as it was before and I'd like it to make a comeback.

 

[Desolation87]

LMAO, you said scouting. Like the big shard owning pvp guilds scout. It's all about the ghost/hidden cams now.

 

[Snakeman]

Almost all changes in the game for the last few yrs have always been because of either PvP issues or Scripters. More lately because of scripting. While UO continues to "Buff" everything in sight thats out there (not to mention crap hitting you from way off your screen now that you can't see at all. Or try to hit something yourself & get the lovely msg it is to gd far. Where is the fairness... Hit a spell casting monster with numerous large spells by one or more people & watch it continue casting right thu without being interrupted, but let us get hit with as much as a magic arrow & we faill to cast!) Fairness, UO lately has been so one sided, mostly towards the honest playing people, penalizing them (and eventually loosing many) because they were trying (which only band aided problems)to fix scripting problems & pvp issues. Spawns were fun to do with 3 to 5 people (heck I remember doing a Coon all by myself a few yrs ago taking about 3 hrs on my Smith/Mage). What has made UO UO, it's being able to do things alone or in small numbers, and not having to have a dozen people together to do something. Thats what made it fun, unfortunately the scripters have taken care of that fun.
Not buffing everything in sight fix's problems, it only creates more

Look at this ongoing event, the monster Teleportating THROUGH buildings, casting unbelievable speeds, casting & hitting peeps WAY off Screen, monsters walking straight through stair walls to get to a person. The asinine problems go on. Now you wonder wtf people are quitting, doesn't take a genius to figure out, people get tired of the same ongoing bs & no fixs!

 

[Connor_Graham]

What they really should do is just yank spawns from Felucca and put them in Trammel and actually allow PvMers to PvM to get the scrolls they want.

This should NEVER happen. Not only are scrolls the ONLY reward that belongs to Fel exclusively, but the amount of griefing that would happen if they were moved to Tram would be unimaginable.

My stance on PvP is no secret, but even I would fight tooth and nail to keep the scrolls in Fel.

That alone should speak volumes.

 

[Kaleb]

This should NEVER happen. Not only are scrolls the ONLY reward that belongs to Fel exclusively, but the amount of griefing that would happen if they were moved to Tram would be unimaginable.

My stance on PvP is no secret, but even I would fight tooth and nail to keep the scrolls in Fel.

That alone should speak volumes.

This is the first time in A couple years I agree with ya lol. :gun:

 

[Nexus]

This should NEVER happen. Not only are scrolls the ONLY reward that belongs to Fel exclusively, but the amount of griefing that would happen if they were moved to Tram would be unimaginable.

My stance on PvP is no secret, but even I would fight tooth and nail to keep the scrolls in Fel.

That alone should speak volumes.

I agree also but I do think that Ilshnear, and Tokuno spawns need an alternative reward. Allowing players to get something from them (Alacrity Scrolls possibly?) would provide a commodity for players as an incentive. Eventually they may decide to try the Fel side spawns after playing with these for a while.

 

[Anne]

LMAO, you said scouting. Like the big shard owning pvp guilds scout. It's all about the ghost/hidden cams now.

Ghost/hidden cams are, imho, a huge cheat. It's no coincidence that 99% of the raids come timed perfectly at the end of the champ.

Not only are scrolls the ONLY reward that belongs to Fel exclusively, but the amount of griefing that would happen if they were moved to Tram would be unimaginable.

Totally absolutely agree

Spawns were fun to do with 3 to 5 people (heck I remember doing a Coon all by myself a few yrs ago taking about 3 hrs on my Smith/Mage). What has made UO UO, it's being able to do things alone or in small numbers, and not having to have a dozen people together to do something. Thats what made it fun, unfortunately the scripters have taken care of that fun.

Yes, exactly, being able to do things alone and in small numbers is a lot of fun. It's not only the scripters, but the "fixes" for them, which doesn't really stop them. Look at the bag of sending fix. Did it hurt the scripters or the little guy? Look at the champ changes, maybe it has stopped the very few who could solo a champ, but how many people who were having fun before do it now?

While UO continues to "Buff" everything in sight thats out there (not to mention crap hitting you from way off your screen now that you can't see at all. Or try to hit something yourself & get the lovely msg it is to gd far. Where is the fairness... Hit a spell casting monster with numerous large spells by one or more people & watch it continue casting right thu without being interrupted, but let us get hit with as much as a magic arrow & we faill to cast!

Not to mention having a spell cast on you while you're invis'd.

 

[Anne]

I've been going on about the Fel champs but I would like to say a few words about the Tram champs too.

They should have some sort of reward. The gold drop just isn't enough, especially with the bos change. They're hard; much harder than the Fel champs. You get a few paragon high level monsters on you and OooOooO happens very fast.

The TOK champ used to be busy every night. Now no one does it. It was the one place where everyone worked together and I met a lot of good people there. I'd love to see it active again.

I don't think alacrity scrolls are quite enough although I'm not suggesting major drops either. Something in between or something that can be traded in would be good.

 

[Vesta]

ToK minors should drop and then can be turned in for majors.

I've been going on about the Fel champs but I would like to say a few words about the Tram champs too.

They should have some sort of reward. The gold drop just isn't enough, especially with the bos change. They're hard; much harder than the Fel champs. You get a few paragon high level monsters on you and OooOooO happens very fast.

The TOK champ used to be busy every night. Now no one does it. It was the one place where everyone worked together and I met a lot of good people there. I'd love to see it active again.

I don't think alacrity scrolls are quite enough although I'm not suggesting major drops either. Something in between or something that can be traded in would be good.

 

[Revenant2]

ToK minors should drop and then can be turned in for majors.

How about the Trammel champ spawns drop items that can be used for spring cleanup turnin points!

heheheh

 

[Omnicron]

Tram spawns could drop Tok dyes and turn in stuffs.

But Barracoon is the easiest, and is the spawn of choice because it can be chained and easily defended.

The other spawns are a pain because they take FOEVER.

On legends we did a Spider spawn, and man, with ten of us it took forever. We breezed right through it till the dread spiders started to spawn...Ill tell you what, when you get 5-6 of them spiders on you its almost instant grey screen lol..

Anyways. Spawns need to be in fel, its what keeps that facet going imo.

 

[D.Blackmoore]

Hell yeah wouldnt that be sweet! I agree with his original post a bit he feels as most do when ya gotta have a wreckin crew to get through the raiders then ya need near bouts all of your crew to even beat down the champ. They have become quite hard cept for the baccaroon and he is where the action is ALWAYS at.
I would definately say that the fel guilds have ruled the spawns for faaaarrr to long ,control there every drop almost and really needs a little looking at. That could change some but the spawns should always remain in fel just need a lil something to promote more frequent visits other than here defend and beat this harder champ.

 

[Doomsday Dragon]

While it may be true that champ were designed for large groups, that simply isn't working now. The player base is much lower and only the very large guilds can get enough people on line at the same time to do a champ. On the other hand I don't want to belong to a zerg guild that can farm champs with no competition. I enjoy the risk/reward aspect. All I'm saying is that right now there is very little, if any, reward. I've done my share of raids and the only time I enjoyed it and had fun were when the numbers were somewhat equal. At times I've done raids against groups that were too easy to kill and felt almost embarrassed by it. Large dominating guilds don't seem to have that sort of conscience though.

I never considered my guild's champing as a way to get rich quick. I've always done it for the fun, which includes the possibility of a raid or the possibility of pulling one off without a raid. I could get rich from other sources much easier and faster just buying things cheap and re-selling or selling peerless items on vendors.

All I see now is a deserted Fel. I live there, I scout champs there, I mine there, etc. and I almost never see anyone, red or blue. I don't much care for being limited to Yew gate and Despise fighting and my reds aren't being played at all right now.

I just miss the fun of Fel as it was before and I'd like it to make a comeback.

Wow someone that actually understands the way I work that is kinda scary...

Even numbers are the most fun I agree. I think the real problem is not that champs are to hard though.

The real problem is that there is a lack of players as was said. The reason for that lack is just the fact there is nothing new right now and people are leaving the game. If that changed champs would pick back up and you would not feel the same about this.

 

[Crow]

Omg...I couldn't even finish reading the first post before I couldn't decide weather to laugh or throw up. Not sure if saying this is against TOS, but I would be embarrassed to be in same guild as someone who even thought this way as original poster.

I've been a dedicated spawner for years, myself and the many guilds I've been with routinely do any spawn that strikes our fancy. Rats are nice if I only got 1 or two people, and got nothing better to do. And even then it's more about knowing it's probably cammed and it's going to draw a fight.

Other spawns can be done with small groups no problem, might take time, and yeah you might have a higher chance of getting raided because of that, but that is half the fun of doing champ spawns in fel. The danger, the challenge, the fight, and the payoff if you succeed, or if you started hours of chaos win or lose is what it’s about.

I think one of the greatest changes to game recently is how much more difficult the spawns and champs have been made, much less do you hear of people soloing any spawn, and prior to changes I usually solo'd spawns to at least level three without hardly trying till I got others to show up. Champ spawns should require lots of people; this game is much more fun with others, there are plenty of single player games out there if that is what you are looking for.

If you need, "a very large group" to do these other spawns, you're not doing them right. Now if you are talking about doing the spawn, and holding them against raids...yeah, 'very large groups' are handy. My experience is that about 10 people on the field are enough to do the spawn and make a good stand, depending of course on how many people raider guilds bring against you.

A problem with spawning that should really be thought of is guilds themselves. Again my experience is that there are too few dedicated spawn guilds, and too many people who join raider guilds. It gets to a point where the lesser guilds don’t even try, because all the experienced players would rather run to the groups that march over less knowledgeable guilds, then pat each other on the back on how they own. Meanwhile Fel remains quiet, and fewer and fewer actually step out into something new.

I understand a lot of the people I speak of probably have been spawning for years, scrolled out to the max, and are burnt out on it. However, if these are the same people who complain that there is no one new to fight, think about that the next time you roll over some nooby guild of 5-6 people who probably couldn't navigate there way out of a wet paper bag, let alone T2A.

Simply because no one has taken the time to show them how things are done.

 

[Sarphus]

I like the increased difficulty champ spawns. The risk justifies the reward.


What I don't like is how much champ spawns reward raiders over those who actually do the spawns. Spawning needs to be enhanced to balance the risk/reward to raiding. The spawns should sense an upcoming raid and incease the difficulty for the raiders because it is REAL easy to mow over spawners on pvp optimized characters.

I don't know what the solution to the problem is, but the current system is broken and exploitable (exploited daily on pretty much all shards)

 

[Redxpanda]

I'm not going to beat the dead horse. I say let them have the champ spawns because that is truly all they have left. If they remove them from fel without completely overhauling the pvp system in this game (and probably still) they will lose all of those players.

 

[Revenant2]

Omg...I couldn't even finish reading the first post before I couldn't decide weather to laugh or throw up. Not sure if saying this is against TOS, but I would be embarrassed to be in same guild as someone who even thought this way as original poster.

I've been a dedicated spawner for years, myself and the many guilds I've been with routinely do any spawn that strikes our fancy. Rats are nice if I only got 1 or two people, and got nothing better to do. And even then it's more about knowing it's probably cammed and it's going to draw a fight.

Other spawns can be done with small groups no problem, might take time, and yeah you might have a higher chance of getting raided because of that, but that is half the fun of doing champ spawns in fel. The danger, the challenge, the fight, and the payoff if you succeed, or if you started hours of chaos win or lose is what it’s about.

I think one of the greatest changes to game recently is how much more difficult the spawns and champs have been made, much less do you hear of people soloing any spawn, and prior to changes I usually solo'd spawns to at least level three without hardly trying till I got others to show up. Champ spawns should require lots of people; this game is much more fun with others, there are plenty of single player games out there if that is what you are looking for.

If you need, "a very large group" to do these other spawns, you're not doing them right. Now if you are talking about doing the spawn, and holding them against raids...yeah, 'very large groups' are handy. My experience is that about 10 people on the field are enough to do the spawn and make a good stand, depending of course on how many people raider guilds bring against you.

A problem with spawning that should really be thought of is guilds themselves. Again my experience is that there are too few dedicated spawn guilds, and too many people who join raider guilds. It gets to a point where the lesser guilds don’t even try, because all the experienced players would rather run to the groups that march over less knowledgeable guilds, then pat each other on the back on how they own. Meanwhile Fel remains quiet, and fewer and fewer actually step out into something new.

I understand a lot of the people I speak of probably have been spawning for years, scrolled out to the max, and are burnt out on it. However, if these are the same people who complain that there is no one new to fight, think about that the next time you roll over some nooby guild of 5-6 people who probably couldn't navigate there way out of a wet paper bag, let alone T2A.

Simply because no one has taken the time to show them how things are done.

Well,

I have experience on two shards, one medium-to-large population and one sorta low population, both as a member of a shard 's dominant guild and as a member of a medium sized guild. Both of them are Fel spawn and raiding guilds with some tram mixed in. I can't say for sure but it sounds like you're describing a low-population shard, as you would not be able to do spawns at will as you describe on either shard I have been on (unless you were in the shards' 'zerg' guild). You just couldn't; with a team like you describe you'd get raided straight to hell.

On the shards I've been on, being prepared to fight off a raid is a given, unless you're the 'zerg' guild once again (and even sometimes then they need to be prepared). Showing up with a handful of specialized blue PVM chars who yes, given long enough, could potentially complete the spawn on their own, will get you a laugh from the raiding guild as they swarm in and wipe you out and finish the job. The situation doesn't support doing that on either shard I've got experience on.

On the shards I'm on, nobody except for the most dominant guilds are doing the non-vermin spawns to speak of because it's expected to be a fruitless effort. Those spawns mostly sit untouched. Everyone hopes to pop a Vermin spawn, not as a matter of lazyness but a matter of necessity. Nobody wants to work up a spawn for someone else, especially a difficult one, not just on a matter of principle but as a case of wasted effort.

The guilds have discorders, sammy parry dexers, superdragons - they aren't newbs to PVM. But these things aren't enough to overcome the situation. It's still too slow and difficult to make work. So, by and large they don't go. For most of them they want to see a Vermin spawn or, maybe Arachnid, or if they are really, really gutsy they might try to get a Rikktor done if it pops in an area where Rikktor can be trapped by the terrain to stop all of his movement and target switching (Marble is one where this works).

I do not see where the case can be made that this situation isn't broken. But, if someone is in the guild that happens to control their home shard, I can see where those people could prefer things just as they are. The situation helps them police Fel T2a with less effort than it would take if all the spawn types were a temptation to the competing guilds.

 

[Mistura]

Agree wholeheartedly with Revenant. Something should be done to make the hearder spawns more doable. It would make the game more fun for most people and that in itself should be reason enough.

 

[Anne]

I just looked up some information on our forum. I'm keeping it short to try to avoid being tedious.

This is the number of champs we have done in the past:

October 49
November 46
Champ changes in effect shortly before November 30
December 2
January 8
February 1
March 1
April 1
May 1
June none so far

Any question about what happened here?

 

[Crow]

To Revenant:

I've played on Pacific, Baja and am currently based on Origin. Pacific and Origin are regularly checked, cammed, uhhg I mean 'stealth *coughs* ghost *coughs* checked' and raided by a certain 'zerg' guild...(i've been warned about TOS crap a couple times already, so no names...but we all know by whom.)

Granted those arent Atlantic...I've never played there, but I hear things. I've done spawns on Seige long ago, but never saw a raid.

My guild is far from zerg, or even large, and numbers at least in my experience means very little if you don't have the right people. Kind of the reason we're currently based on a low pop shard. Prime time hours we almost expect a raid and do our best to prepair for it, rarely do we win. But it's a good way to draw out a fight. Even if the enemy does bring out overwhelming numbers.

To Anne:

I dont know your guild, your shard, or anything about you, but if that were my guilds' spawn counts, even for the week, let alone month...I would either be working hard for some changes within my guild/alliance, or moving on.

 

[Redxpanda]

What if......

They made it so that parties involved in a champ spawn can't be attacked in fel.

 

[Revenant2]

To Revenant:

I've played on Pacific, Baja and am currently based on Origin. Pacific and Origin are regularly checked, cammed, uhhg I mean 'stealth *coughs* ghost *coughs* checked' and raided by a certain 'zerg' guild...(i've been warned about TOS crap a couple times already, so no names...but we all know by whom.)

Granted those arent Atlantic...I've never played there, but I hear things. I've done spawns on Seige long ago, but never saw a raid.

My guild is far from zerg, or even large, and numbers at least in my experience means very little if you don't have the right people. Kind of the reason we're currently based on a low pop shard. Prime time hours we almost expect a raid and do our best to prepair for it, rarely do we win. But it's a good way to draw out a fight. Even if the enemy does bring out overwhelming numbers.

To Anne:

I dont know your guild, your shard, or anything about you, but if that were my guilds' spawn counts, even for the week, let alone month...I would either be working hard for some changes within my guild/alliance, or moving on.

The shard I spend a lot of Fel time on these days is the lower-population one. My guild there does spawns at will, but it's because my guild is the dominant guild. Other guilds on that shard do not get to do this. Things are too screwed up right now for me to feel like I want to be involved on the larger population shards in Fel (Tram's different tho, the Tram scene seems better on the larger pop. shards).

Anne's description of her guild's activity history does not make me fault her guild. The medium-sized guild I was in on the largish-population shard suffered exactly the same kind of decline when those changes went in, but I don't have good numbers on it. Our guild there used to do take Reptile spawns in stride, and in the days before the ill-sighted Dread Spider change had gone in, it did those too. I expect that this decline in the ability to complete spawns has been experienced on all shards where there's dissimilar-sized guilds (and you're not in the dominant guild).

 

[ColterDC]

What if......

They made it so that parties involved in a champ spawn can't be attacked in fel.

What if you just pin a sign to your forehead that says "giant trammy"?

 

[Thalidar]

The only thing I see here is a bunch of whiny babies. Jeeze, if you goto fel and you die what happens???? you lose 3k and like 20 minutes of your time. If you don't like the fact that other guilds are dominating the spawns then do something about ya bunch of cry baby scrubs. Go get a decent guild that can do spawns and quit wasting your time with people who cant, simple enough. If you really want something bad enough then you'll work to get it. By the way they should buff all the spawns instead of bringing them down. Make the price of scrolls actually worth something nowadays, on gl my shard its actually down to 13 mil for a 20 magery which teeters on the edge of pathetic.

 

[Crow]

Thank you Thalidar, I was trying to go the more polite route, but I think that gets the point across much better. I couldn't agree more.

Couldn't get attacked in fel...hahaha....I remember once someone asked me to find us a spawn where we won't get raided...I said, "Ilsh is thata way, you start working it, we'll catch up."

Rev, I'm not sure if that last line was an implacation that I had said we were dominant...pretty sure I never said that, for one that's not our goal, two it is a pointless goal, and three if you are implying that you are, and can't get things done...well...speaks for it self I guess.

Here's the way I see it, scrolls are so cheep today cause most everyone is already scrolled to the max. People who know what they are doing, and can get the job done, are burnt out on spawning, or have joined raider guilds that get off on stealing champs from noobs, thereby discouraging future spawning.

Besides gate fighting there is no real prize, or rally point to get people together in fel...yeah resource gathering...but come on, who wants to get 5, 10 or 15 people together to farm leather....please. What would be nice is a reason to lead groups of people in to fel besides champ spawns/harrowers or the silly rules of factions.

 

[Revenant2]

The only thing I see here is a bunch of whiny babies. Jeeze, if you goto fel and you die what happens???? you lose 3k and like 20 minutes of your time. If you don't like the fact that other guilds are dominating the spawns then do something about ya bunch of cry baby scrubs. Go get a decent guild that can do spawns and quit wasting your time with people who cant, simple enough. If you really want something bad enough then you'll work to get it. By the way they should buff all the spawns instead of bringing them down. Make the price of scrolls actually worth something nowadays, on gl my shard its actually down to 13 mil for a 20 magery which teeters on the edge of pathetic.

This post is a good example of the attitude and perspective held by some of the 'zerg' type spawn guilds in general.

• This post plays down the actual difficulty, time investment, and material losses that happen when a guild works one of the difficult spawns all the way up and loses it to a large raid when the champ is up.
  
  
• Through its viewpoints, it supports the perspective that the only guilds that should be able to complete Fel spawns are those which can field enough people to both fend off well-prepared raids from the largest PVP guilds the shard has to offer and have PVM chars to work the spawn and finish the champ.
  
  (I point out that in the case of the difficult, non-vermin spawns, this is a serious burden on the spawning guild because the raiding guild does not need to bring its PVM chars to the raid. It's also harder for the original spawning guild to get rezzed, re-supply itself, bring in its PVPers, and raid back than it was for the raiding guild to organize itself and come in in the first place).
  
  A case in point here is being able to fend off, specifically, well-prepared raids from the largest PVP guilds on the shard. The difficulty of the non-vermin spawns means that the raiders have plenty of time to gather numbers for their raid. In today's UO environment, this is stacking the odds too hard in the dominant guild's favor. The evidence of this is easily notable by checking Fel T2a for guilds other than the dominant guild attempting to do those spawns. By and large they aren't even trying, and that's the strongest indicator there can be.
  
  
• In so many words, it suggests that members of any guild that cannot dominate its competition in that kind of pvm+fight situation should quit their guilds and join the dominant guild as a solution. It also suggests that a tight market for power scrolls with high prices is ideal, quoting 13 million for the most valued powerscroll as being way too low in today's market.

If the last point above describes the Fel T2a spawn scene and power scroll market as the UO population and the UO dev people want to see it, then his suggestion to raise the difficulty of the Barracoon spawn to match the others is valid, as this would pretty much close the door on Fel spawns for all but the most dominant guild(s).

However, I like to think that the spirit and reasoning presented within the quoted post serve as evidence for why the non-vermin spawns should be made easier. I don't know if the poster is genuine but this does resemble what I've seen.

But yes there are 2 points of view on it:

1. One of them is that that Fel champ spawns should be out of reach to the point where they are not even attempted by many guilds - the spawns should be left alone, untouched, all day, as many are now. Only the most extreme examples of the shard's dominant guilds should feel comfortable enough to attempt them.
   
   
2. The other way is that the non-dominant guilds should believe they have a chance. They should be trying to break through all over T2a, trying every single spawn, thinking they have a chance of getting away with it as they try, forcing the dominant guild to keep checking the spawns all over T2a and running to fight them off.
   

That second one is the one I'd like to see. It's such a waste for things NOT to be like that! Things would be so much more interesting for guilds of all sizes this way. Why even have all of these champ spawn altars if the situation is going to resemble #1?

 

[Revenant2]

Rev, I'm not sure if that last line was an implacation that I had said we were dominant...pretty sure I never said that, for one that's not our goal, two it is a pointless goal,

On the very low population shards you might not even get raided, was more along the lines of my thoughts there, you don't even need to field any reds necessarily (or maybe just one). You just go out at a slow time of day and work a spawn and you're done.

and three if you are implying that you are, and can't get things done...well...speaks for it self I guess.

No not at all.

My dominant guild has things too easy. The members are bored. They can spawn at any time and many of them find working spawns to be a bother, just a moneymaking chore. They are resorting to PKing each other on occasion, they get that bored. They go to yew gate and complain during the quiet moments that they are bored.

I was visiting another shard the other day and I saw people at their yew gate saying the same thing. They were bored. "Go scout!" the one guy said. The bored guy said "I did!".

I am saying to give the medium-sized guilds enough of a chance to get away with spawns that they get their spirit back and are willing to keep trying! Make it so that we have to chase them everywhere and really pay attention to what's happening if we want to 'dominate' for real. Give them enough of a chance to fight us off and finish in time that we don't catch and destroy them *practically* *every* *time* which, over time, destroys their willingness to raid back or try again at a different champ altar or dungeon. Or even force us to try to raid several guilds at the same time who we feel are spawning on 'our' turf. Make us work, and raid, and PVP for our dominance, instead of putting spawns out there that the competition won't even try.

 

[Intoxication]

OMG I just read the last two post and that is the most words I have ever had to read that said so little.
The spawns do not need to be turned down. Crow and I were working a spiders spawn in oasis one day and held off the big zerg guild for two hours till they got bored of dying to us and left. If you don't know how to defend and or pvp and dont wanna learn how then don't spawn. They have lots of stuff in tram for you guys to do with rewards. Take peerless, you could do that and get a crim. do a ilsh spawn and you get the gold. Oh you could even fill bods.

and before you go crying about my post. I remember when we started our guild. We all had some PVP experience but far from great. We went out and did spawns on a fairly big shard with 4-6 people during prime time hours. Yes we got raided but that didn't make us cry, that didn't push us to tram, that made us learn. We kept coming back for more when we got raided. Yeah for a long time we were just a small thorn in there side but after a while we gave them a run. We put our minds to it and we learned how to hold them off. If you get killed then come to stratics to cry maybe you should be using that time to learn.

Also pvp guilds don't just sit around PKing each other because there bored. Its call practice, we learn off each other.

 

[Redxpanda]

What if you just pin a sign to your forehead that says "giant trammy"?

I'm not going to stoop to your level but your statement just proves what alot of people say. PKers do what they do for nothing more than the grief of others and it's pretty obvious that attitudes like yours are what people are sick of in this game. Good luck doing champ spawns when people stop playing altogether.

 

[Revenant2]

and before you go crying about my post. I remember when we started our guild. We all had some PVP experience but far from great. We went out and did spawns on a fairly big shard with 4-6 people during prime time hours. Yes we got raided but that didn't make us cry, that didn't push us to tram, that made us learn. We kept coming back for more when we got raided. Yeah for a long time we were just a small thorn in there side but after a while we gave them a run. We put our minds to it and we learned how to hold them off. If you get killed then come to stratics to cry maybe you should be using that time to learn.

When did you start your guild (month/year)?

My guild is doing fine at defending spawns, really.... you're not the first person to assume that I must personally be part of a guild that cannot defend properly. I don't claim to be some spawn-defending-god but I sure don't give up until our GM says it's over, and it's not over until the enemy gets the scrolls all the way out.

Also pvp guilds don't just sit around PKing each other because there bored. Its call practice, we learn off each other.

Um..

My guild members resorted to killing ONE ANOTHER, not members of another PVP guild, because they were bored. They said that was the reason. They were ganking, not dueling, in this instance.

They keep complaining that they are bored as a regular thing.They want to raid but almost nobody spawns. When someone does spawn, we're not allowed to go near it on a non-stealther for fear that we will scare the spawners away before we get a chance to raid.

I hear the complaining about being bored in Vent all the time, I sure don't need an education from someone not in my guild as to how members of my own guild feel about their time in UO right now.

Seeing members of another guild on a large population shard complain about EXACTLY the same thing was interesting too (btw it was friggin Atlantic - - I thought to myself, with so many people on this shard how could those guys be bored too? But it came out of this other person's typing, not mine).

So yeah, fix the spawns so people will try to spawn more, I still say!

 

[galefan2004]

.
The Non-Vermin spawns can be very hard and take a long time to finish. This gives raiding guilds plenty of time to not only scout the spawn but gather their large numbers together. Barracoon spawns are worked faster and easier and the raiders tend to get off to a less-prepared start (this is one reason 'zerg' guilds prefer to take any rat spawns out of T2a before anyone has a chance to work it up. They are more likely to fail a raid on a Barracoon spawn due to less notification and preparation time).

This is one of the reasons that spawns should have never been put in Felucca to begin with, and is a definate reason they should be taken out of it. Raiding guilds should not be allowed to prosper off of others work like they have over the years. If you ask most former UO players why they play other games now it normally goes back to issues such as spawns being needed to advance your character, cheaters and greifers controlling spawns, not wanting to have your gold go to cheaters and griefers, so leaving the game in protest. Think how many people would have never had to experience the Felucca trash if they had simply kept spawns (PvM) on the PvM side. They should have simply added powerscrolls to Ilshenar instead of adding Felucca only spawns.

This makes everyone hope for Vermin spawns and not bother with the others. The 'risk vs reward' is out of whack on the other spawns, with those spawns being too high-effort plus too high-risk in one big, unacceptable package.

This would be negated if developers had stuck by their word about spawns, and actually regulated the situation to control the raids that were happening. However, thats not what they did. I'm still hopeful that the new development team is smart enough to see what the current PvP system (a system no successful game has ever used and no UO was not successful considering most games they are competing with could buy their entire profit share in 2 years and WoW could do it in 2 months) has done to this game and rework it to a con only pvp system.

So once the rat spawns are gone, the people do other things and leave much of T2a untouched. Maybe someone will try a Deceit Undead spawn (Deceit's layout is helpful to the players for that spawn), or someone might try an Arachnid somewhere. It's nothing like it would be if every single spawn were like the Vermin spawns.

Some of us actually like doing spawns for PvM, but are not going to invest the time into a spawn (not to mention the insane difficulty that comes from dealing with all the paragon spawn) that doing it in Ilshenar will take for no reward.

All taken together, that's the proof that points us in the direction the things should go (easier and not harder).

Take PvM out of Felucca and you don't have the problem. PvM guilds will step in and do spawns. Powerscrolls will be common and drop in price. Players will not feel the need to give their hard earned gold to whatever hacker, cheater, exploiter, raider just happened to get lucky on a given night. That will clean up UO's image a lot in the mind of many players, and cleaning up UO's image helps UO have a future. Keeping things the way they are with the Felucca trash dominating the game is ill thought out and hazardous to the game.

 

[galefan2004]

This should NEVER happen. Not only are scrolls the ONLY reward that belongs to Fel exclusively, but the amount of griefing that would happen if they were moved to Tram would be unimaginable.

Because their is no griefing in Felucca? Thats funny. Lets see, on one side they can kill the champ along side you and I guess you assume that is greifing, and on the other side they can just kill you. It should have happened long ago, the only people that think it shouldn't happen are Felluca trash that made countless millions off of someone elses work in Felucca, and it has been a HUGE black eye towards this game. It wasn't cool when the lead guild on GL in Felucca had their gm paying all his bills by selling 120s on eBay, and its not cool now. People left this game over crap like this much more than they left this game for other reasons.

My stance on PvP is no secret, but even I would fight tooth and nail to keep the scrolls in Fel.

That alone should speak volumes.

Yeah. It should speak that you are very misinformed about the situation or completely wrong. Do you honestly believe it is fair that you need powerscrolls to compete, powerscrolls come from scripters, hackers, and other felucca trash, and that more money (RL cash) has been made from powerscrolls than anywhere else in UO simply because a dominate guild is going to roll the scrolls all the time and no one else on the server has a chance? If you really think all that then I don't know what to tell you, but at least their isn't griefing in Trammel (thats a joke right?).

 

[galefan2004]

I agree also but I do think that Ilshnear, and Tokuno spawns need an alternative reward. Allowing players to get something from them (Alacrity Scrolls possibly?) would provide a commodity for players as an incentive. Eventually they may decide to try the Fel side spawns after playing with these for a while.

Why bother...you do realise that the spawns themselves in Ilshenar are much harder than the spawns in Felucca unless you get raided? You do realise that alacrity scrolls a freaking joke right?

However, it seems to be the consensus that powerscrolls should stay in Felucca. Felucca hemorages about 2-3 players (thats vocal players that post leaving messages) a week, so if you guy honestly think this system isn't doing harm to the game then I don't know what to tell you.

When this game shuts down, you can thank powerscrolls and the rest of the Felucca trash for the close. This game will never make anywhere near a successful aproach in the MMORPG industry with the PvP stance that currently exists.

 

[galefan2004]

The TOK champ used to be busy every night. Now no one does it. It was the one place where everyone worked together and I met a lot of good people there. I'd love to see it active again.

But I thought you just agreed that the ammount of griefing that would go on if spawns happened exclusively in Trammel would be insane? Doesn't this just prove the inaccuracy of that statement. If it doesn't, then lets look at the truth. In 2001, when p16 introduced powerscrolls, everyone was doing them, and almost everyone was working together. In 2002, when AoS ruined this game, and made most high end PvM templates unplayable (tamers were a joke) a few guilds that could run Doom repeatedly started getting arties and abusing a poorly thought out system of gear to take the dominance in Felucca champion spawns. After that point those guilds just held their dominance until UO started having a great exodus of people, and a few of those guilds disapeared entirely only to be replaced by their rival guilds.

I don't think alacrity scrolls are quite enough although I'm not suggesting major drops either. Something in between or something that can be traded in would be good.

You mean like treasures of tokuno? Yeah, shutting down that system was another huge mistake, but oh well...just as long as a few can prosper at everyone else's expense is all that matters in UO, and you guys honestly wonder why this game loses 10x the people that it gains every month.