[B]What Happen to Pure Templates?[/B]

[Luc of Legends]

I recently took a little break from UO. I decide to get "The Bard's Tale" out of the moth balls. (The PS2 version, i did download the original) I notice something about UO... Why is it that we don't have pure char templates anymore?

Behooves me that a person would make a Tamer but leave off vet in favor of Bushido or Ninja or whatever gimpplate of the week. Another Template I absolutely don't get Pally-necro-anything else.. WAIT WAIT If I remember my D&D and what the UO booklet said when I got AOS.. Pally is the opposite of Necro. In theory then you shouldn't even be able to play a char with both skills. Same goes for Samurai - Ninja (okay i haven't ACTAULLY seen one but why not we have so many messed up templates)

What happen to the Pure Tamer or Pure Pally? A Bard being a Bard.. not a some rockstar wannabe. J/K Seriously, what happen? The WhinerBabies?!? GottaHaveitallPokemontypes?!? or did the nerfstick get them?

okay talk amongst yourselves! And lets see what comes out.

Luc

 

[Salty Pete]

This is and always has been a mix and match skill game. A character based game rather than a class based game. I honestly wouldn't even be interested in this game anymore were they to take that aspect away.

Why would a character have chiv and necromancy? Maybe he was a paladin who decided to dable in the dark arts? Perhaps a necromancer is trying to find his way to a path of virtue? Why would a tamer not have vet? Maybe he was good with animals but squeemish at the sight of blood? Perhaps they are a samurai or paladin who just happens to have a nack for speaking to animals....

The point is it really isn't any concern of yours what someone elses character is built like.

 

[Doomsday Dragon]

I never remember a time without heavily mixed character types. Right from the start of the game we had tank mages (warrior mages) there has never been a time when characters used a set of skills that matched the class they were unless a player chose to built a character fitting that description.

The thing about UO is that you start with a character not a template you decide what skills go on that character from the list of skills you can use. Other games give you a set of skills you are stuck with or a limited choice of skills to choose from to push you into a set type of character UO just lets you do whatever it is you want.

 

[Luc of Legends]

This is and always has been a mix and match skill game. A character based game rather than a class based game. I honestly wouldn't even be interested in this game anymore were they to take that aspect away.

Why would a character have chiv and necromancy? Maybe he was a paladin who decided to dable in the dark arts? Perhaps a necromancer is trying to find his way to a path of virtue? Why would a tamer not have vet? Maybe he was good with animals but squeemish at the sight of blood? Perhaps they are a samurai or paladin who just happens to have a nack for speaking to animals....

The point is it really isn't any concern of yours what someone elses character is built like.

Okay fair enough it isn't any of my beewax what character template someone else makes. When I first started UO back in 2000 there were pure character templates. If you wanted a Warrior you need a fight skill, anatomy, tactics, and parry. you can add healing so you can patch up your warrior, you could add magic resistance so you could fight mages better. Basically all warriors had the same "foundation".

Certain skills boosted your main skill like Lumberjacking used to boost swordsmanship. Inscription and Alchemy used to boost magery.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that there is no such thing as a template foundation anymore.

I recently ran into a guy that only had Taming. He was fussin and cussin because his Cu wouldn't listen. So I politely ask him "what is you taming and animal lore at?" He informs me he is GM taming and he that he doesn't have Lore because you don't need it. As a veteran player I tried to explain to him why it was necessary to have lore on your tamer. Well he didn't listen any better than his extremely unhappy Cu.

Am I making sense? I'm not saying everyone should have the same template but shouldn't common sense coming in to play???

 

[Draxous]

I recently took a little break from UO. I decide to get "The Bard's Tale" out of the moth balls. (The PS2 version, i did download the original) I notice something about UO... Why is it that we don't have pure char templates anymore?

Siege does... you can't use items there like you can on production shards to negate, replace or optimize skills you simply do not have.

(these are "main" types... there is still creative license here for those seeking it btw)

mages - many catagories... scribe, parry, focus, necro, alchy, detect, spellweave, ninja,

dexers - 4 types... ninja, samurai, old school and paladin

tamers - 3 types... stealth ninja tamer, tamer mage and disco tamer (or bard tamer)

crafters - plenty of options

thieves - variety here too


There are also sampires, bushi/chiv/necro archers and other such templates for money making. These templates are usually reserved by well established players and are item intensive/expensive... a lot of times part of a hunting party rather than solo... but I know some that run these solo for PvM so, the door swings both ways.

 

[Setnaffa]

Sorry buddy, but I've been playing this game on and off for over 10 years and I can attest to two facts:

1) A "Pure" template is only "pure" in the eyes of the creator (i.e. the player). What is considered "pure" to one player might be considered a hybrid to another.
2) There has never been a time in this game when a hybrid wasn't required to have a successful journey. For example, in the beginning of UO, everyone had magery (even warriors) because healing was too slow and you needed to be able to recall to get anywhere fast. Pure (again, in the eyes of player) templates were only good for role-playing; not for actually playing the game.

And by the way, you may have noticed that HTML doesn't work in the subject line...

 

[Leto]

Why would a tamer not have vet? Maybe he was good with animals but squeemish at the sight of blood?

That's me!

 

[drinkbeerallday]

on free shards there are dueling systems that force a 5x pure template

too bad EA never implemented the dueling system on the official shards

 

[drinkbeerallday]

1) A "Pure" template is only "pure" in the eyes of the creator (i.e. the player). What is considered "pure" to one player might be considered a hybrid to another.

i've never heard anyone say this in my life. the meaning of the term "pure" has always been pretty much accepted. you are entitled to your own definitions, obviously but that doesn't mean much to other people.

 

[Sarphus]

I like how uo's skill system allows for mix n' match templates. I don't believe in pure templates, but I do believe systems should be balanced to minimize abuses. Pretty much all abuses in the current skill system are caused by skills that give too much power for a minimal skill investment. Naturally those problems are fixed by scaling the power of a skill by the amount of skill point investment.

That being said, I think you raise some important points. There are some skills that should never exist together on a template, because those skills are supposed to represent 2 opposing schools of thought.

I agree that you should never find necromancy and chivalry on the same template, but I think this is occuring as a symptom of a much bigger balancing issue. The way to fix it is to have chivalry spell power determined by how high someone trains their chivalry to (only makes sense) and then reducing that power based on how much karma they have. That change would fix an obvious skill point imbalance (minimal investment in chivalry gives you a ton of power) and would also force paladins to not do a lot of evil things.

I also think that all necro spells should have their power reduced substantially if the caster also has chivalry and all chivalry spells should have their power reduced if the caster has necromancy. These reductions should be scaled based on the adjusted skill level, but should not include jack of all trades bonuses.

I also agree that ninjitsu and bushido should never exist on the same character. Ninjas and samurai were enemies, so why would you ever see a ninja/samurai? I think the fix for this is to penalize people for having both ninjitsu and bushido on their template. Perhaps having ninjitsu and bushido on your template would reduce your DCI and parry chance.

As for tamers without vet. This is a sticky issue that upsets people no matter what you do. I agree that serious tamers should have vet and I htink the system should be adjusted to encourage anyone who is serious about being a tamer to also have vet.

Allowing tamers to not have vet creates pvp imbalances, which causes a lot of of pvpers to complain about tamers. The unfortunate side effect is the massive nerfing to pet movement speeds after a kill command has been issued (stealth nerf). I believe the pet movement speed nerf was the incorrect balance adjustment, but I think I know the correct adjustment.

Instead of nerfing the actual pets, you just need to nerf the abuses taht were available. Pet mobility wasn't the problem to begin with. The problem is that people could access most of the power of a fully developed tamer while only investing a small number of skill points (the same problem that chivalry has).
The solution:
remove the skill point reduction from pet resurrection
add skill reduction to pet death
pet death skill reduction is 5 full skill points of all skills on the pet if the owner doesn't have at least 80 REAL vet skill
skill reduction is .1 if owner has the skills to res a pet.

I think this small change would fix the problem, because being a tamer would require a character to invest a minimum of 80 real skill points in vet. There would still be gimplates for a short while, but eventually the gimplates would have pets that are completely unuseable in combat. Even with auto-stabling, skilled players can kill a discorded pet before the owner can save it.

That being said, I think the changes I'm talking about here would upset quite a few people. There are a lot of people out there that like their highly abuseable templates.

 

[Budweiser]

My best pvp char on Napa is as pure as I can get him. He's old school townie. Dex/Fencer
120 fenc/tacts/heal/resist/anat/ and I dropped Parry for Focus for mana regen. His wep is a warfork, and carrys a shield. No pots.

I do well with him.
I'm sure everyone has their favorite template, this is mine.

 

[Setnaffa]

i've never heard anyone say this in my life. the meaning of the term "pure" has always been pretty much accepted. you are entitled to your own definitions, obviously but that doesn't mean much to other people.

Which just proves my point that "pure" is defined differently by almost everyone.

 

[Gildar]

Pure Warrior - 120 weaponskill
Pure Mage - 120 Magery, 120 Eval Int
Pure Thief - 100 Snooping, 120 Stealing
Pure Tamer - 120 taming, 120 lore
Pure Paladin - 120 weaponskill, 120 chivalry
Pure Samurai - 120 weaponskill, 120 bushido
Pure Arcanist - 120 spellweaving
Pure Tailor - 120 tailoring
Pure Tank - 120 weaponskill, 120 parry, 120 magic resist
Pure Summon Mage - 120 magery
Pure Jack of All Trades - 12 or 13 points in every skill
Pure Jack of All Weapons - 120 swords, 120 macing, 120 fencing, 120 archery
Pure Necromancer - 120 Necromancy, 120 Spirit Speak

Does a pure warrior need healing? parry? anatomy? tactics? That's all been debatable since the start of UO.

 

[Llewen]

The only "pure" template I can think of might be the warrior, where you can fill up the template with warrior skills, but as for the rest of the templates, there just aren't enough skills to go around. I have what I consider to be a "pure" tamer, but he's a tamer/mage, he isn't just a tamer.

Of course the word "pure" generally annoys me, because it is often code for, "I'm better than you are," or, "You aren't part of my exclusive club." To roughly quote Bruce Cockburn, "If you want pure you're gonna have caves again."

My general feeling is, create whatever kind of character makes you happy, and who gives a flying fandango whether it is "pure" or not. Have fun, do something interesting. It's that diversity that is one of the absolute best things about UO.

edit: Of course now that I think of it some more, I guess it is pretty possible to fill up a template with mage related or crafting skills. It would be pretty hard to argue that alchemy, inscription, spellweaving, and the necro skills aren't mage skills. And you could make a "pure" crafter, but you certainly couldn't make a "pure" blacksmith, or carpenter, etc., unless you opted to not use all your skill points.

 

[Black Sun]

I don't know about anyone else, but I find it easier to play (what I consider) pure templates on my chars. I don't have a single mixed template. Right now I have a paladin, a tamer, mage/scribe, crafter, a ninja (in training), a bard (also in training), and a 2nd crafter for skills that won't fit on my primary mule. I've played around on test with some mixed templates, but I just can't seem to get the hang of them. Maybe it's just me.

 

[AtlanteanAngel]

While I personally don't have a necro-paladin or a ninja-samurai, I feel it is in the spirit of UO to allow these without further penalty (as suggested by some in this thread).

There are already built-in limitations to such templates. It is in the best interests of a necro to have the worst karma, and a paladin to have the best karma. It already isn't easy being a necro-paladin. And they're not ridiculously overpowered in pvp... at least nowhere near pvp-dismount-tamers.

Similarly for the ninja-samurai. Not easy to be one. Ninja requires hiding and stealthing for maximum effect. Not much space for bushido skill. If you do take up the bushido skill, you'll lose out on other essential skills.

700 skill points is awfully crowded as it is. I'm not necessarily calling for an increase in skill points, I'm merely pointing out that there is no further need for penalty or nerfing creative templates in UO.

 

[Strawberry]

I'd like to see a real benefit for playing a pure weaponsmaster. If a character has: tactics, swords, fencing, AND maces, shouldn't there be some benefit beyond the lower cost of special moves? The Warrior Guildmistress knows all these weapon skills, the character template should be a reasonable option for us as well.