Town Hall notes thread...

[Vesta]

Thanks for the slam, Vesta....

No problem.

 

[Ni-]

When the word 'FIRE' was said... Did they say it like Beavis? That is how I picture it... eyes all bugging out... maybe even the AC/DC shirt over the top of their head...

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

The "transcript"... really I was just considering it quick bullet notes so context could not always get 100% through as I was listening to the Town Hall on WRR while crafting in Heartwood for recipes and talismen while typing what was being said as quickly as possible.

So it was never meant to be a word for word transcript. As for bias, I never attempt to pas smyself off as unbiased in the first place... though I'm sure if I made anti-KR comments the very people claiming bias would be patting me on the back for the posting.

Such is life and no, they aren't changing my mind or my posting habits. (Sitting in Tampa airport waiting for the flight to Baltimore as I post this)

I just knew that there would be a "What was said at Town hall?" question, so I decided to bullet list the topics as they were brought up.

A more full version is always appreciated... I guess next time I could always make a second Town Hall thread from the foaming at the mouth anti-KR luddite perspective

 

[AirmidCecht]

Some of my own opinions with town hall meets ups and what was discussed, ya know, just to make it official *cheesy grin*

Why have UO town hall meet ups when nothing of substance can be discussed?
Why the heck not?? If it was announced ahead of time that not a lot of information could be shared but there are things they would like your feedback on face to face so you all can meet other players, meet the developers and community reps and maybe a DJ personality thrown in, would you go? I would. Just me, once again, but I would and hopefully I'll have that chance in Chicago *gets out poms*

Why are some things brought up over and over again when the answer has like a 2% chance of being changed, like say the volunteer program?
I understand and appreciate the many volunteers who helped early on when so many true young players were wandering around trying to find the Inn or at least a frosty ale, but every time this is brought up I get an eye twitch. You do not need special powers or special robes to help out other players. You do not need a special name or tag to offer your assistance. Just do it. Do it now. Do it today and smile.

Why can't we choose our town when creating a new character?
Understanding my point with helping new players on your own helps when they all log into the same New Haven town, for true [young] players I would say it is a function worth having. For veteran players who know each town and have a preference, give it to them please? It really is annoying. Unless of course with different towns under invasion at any certain time it would be easier on everyone if they did not have to "block" access to an invaded town. That is a plausible reason.

KR vs 2D
I hate this. Same as 2D vs 3D, ugh. Everyone has their preference. Get us all on one client with the ability to check off everything legacy (or not) and who's to know the difference? Certainly not I.

Not able to retrieve one item at a time in locked down boxes and chests
Here's the thing. Now I'm not just annoyed about this change (and others like it) but that this change was not known at the meet up if it was intentional or mistaken. That Jeremy acknowledge reading it on the forums but did not address it right then, weeks ago when it was brought up by other players? There is a lot of that going on and I don't think it is acceptable. It is the shared responsibility between QA and our community rep to know what is and what is not supposed to happen and why. Although I thank JC and Crysta for their explanations it is important to know what is fact or opinion.
...and I'm sorry if I just screwed us over on this one by complaining about it.

Factions
With the new beneficial acts changes I think we are seeing more willing to try this new aspect of playing. I love it. Flat out. It's fun and I'm learning more every day from some great players. Getting ideas on having more control over towns or more benefits from controlling those towns is something only the community can really help balance out. I can't wait to see what else comes from the Retribution test shard!

Ok I'm done being superfluous today.
*hugs*

 

[Wenchkin]

And what exactly would a "real dexxer" be? Last I checked it was a meleer with max dex for swing speed that made a dexxer a dexxer. Support skills don't matter as far as determining that definition. Additionally, UO should NEVER, I repeat NEVER, balance combat according to roleplay. Roleplay has it's part in UO, but that part does NOT have anything to do with game mechanics.

How about balancing it because it's nuts that you can twink up, cast a spell, then remove items and maintain the "perks" of that spell? It's nothing to do with RP, simply fixing something which shouldn't have been possible to start with. No item twinking should give you the benefit that real skill does. Whether it's a sampire or tamer or anything else.

Incidentally, before you and others get all carried away with the tamer bashing, maybe you should re-read these entries in the two reports above:


Balancing animal damage: different balancing pass than weapons, on the list (specifically greater dragons)

Will you be looking at animal damage for balancing? Yes, but it isn't scheduled yet.

Are you looking at people pushing up skills with jewelry and then keeping an effect after removing the jewelry? They are looking at that issue and also the general issue of skill use based on jewelry.


I wouldn't start complaining that sampires have been nerfed when other balances were on the horizon for other classes. Do you really, honestly and seriously believe that all the anti-tamer whining here isn't noticed? It's ok though, I really wish warriors were clearly top of the damage stakes in both PvM and PvP. That way, I'd be able to enjoy using my pets without feeling like I walk on glass simply being "a tamer".

Wenchy

 

[RenaLynne]

Wow, dissappointing. Im guessing the only reason a person would go to these is to meet other UO players?

 

[Crysta]

Why are some things brought up over and over again when the answer has like a 2% chance of being changed, like say the volunteer program?
I understand and appreciate the many volunteers who helped early on when so many true young players were wandering around trying to find the Inn or at least a frosty ale, but every time this is brought up I get an eye twitch. You do not need special powers or special robes to help out other players. You do not need a special name or tag to offer your assistance. Just do it. Do it now. Do it today and smile.

We discussed this during the meet the other day Airmid.. bluntly put, its because the people that are asking the questions suck and/or are morons, generally (including myself sometimes). And if you think it's hard putting up with them when just listening.. wait until you're actually there. Had to physicially restrain myself from walking over and smacking a few of the people for their questions when I went.

After every townhall people complain fro not getting enough info and blame the devs.. shouldn't you all be blaming the players for asking the same damn questions we've gotten answers for dozens of times over already? I swear we need an extra dev just for these meetings that keeps up with released info and tells the questioners "Yeah, already been answered. You fail. Next question." or such.

 

[wrekognize]

Fix crashing on recall! They will as soon as they figure out what's happening. QA is trying but they can't consistently duplicate it.

All you have to do is play the game to figure this one out. You crash when you attempt to recall while someone else on your screen is picking up an item.

 

[Revenant2]

And what exactly would a "real dexxer" be? Last I checked it was a meleer with max dex for swing speed that made a dexxer a dexxer. Support skills don't matter as far as determining that definition. Additionally, UO should NEVER, I repeat NEVER, balance combat according to roleplay. Roleplay has it's part in UO, but that part does NOT have anything to do with game mechanics.

How about balancing it because it's nuts that you can twink up, cast a spell, then remove items and maintain the "perks" of that spell? It's nothing to do with RP, simply fixing something which shouldn't have been possible to start with. No item twinking should give you the benefit that real skill does. Whether it's a sampire or tamer or anything else.

IT DOESN'T.

When you take the gear off, you aren't getting to walk around and do things like a GM Necromancer. No necro spells get cast from that point forward, and the actual Necromancy skill points (usually 35) represent a complete waste to the template in terms of usage.

All that's happened is that the character has assumed a Necro form which doesn't even work well with a real Necromancer template. Have you noticed that at the high end of performance, it's the only way you see people even using Vamp form? They made Vamp form so risky to carry (cannot drink cure pots or cast garlic spells properly) that it takes a powerhouse of a template to make the form work to it's advantage. A real Necro-Dexer happens to NOT be one of templates that can manage it well.

On the PVM side, Vamp form's life leech can be complementary to an extremely high-damage dexer template, such as a bushido char utilizing perfection + Chivalry EOO + high DI and strength. In PVP the life leech is not such a big factor and it's use is infrequent, not being able to chug cures is objectionable to many PVPers.

The people who are doing this are NOT "working around the skill cap". They are utilizing this Necro form in the only viable way. To take it away destroys several high power PVM dexer template designs and in the current environment that would make no sense!

If someone is expressly raising the technicality of the jewelry going on and coming back off as VIOLATING THEIR FEELINGS ON ITEM USE, how about lowering the requirements for Vamp form to what seems reasonable for this thing, which is, say, 25 - 45. Then we won't have to own all this necro gear anyway and pay insurance on it each time we die =p.

------------------------

TAMERS

I swap on a taming ring to raise my taming to 120 when I tame high end stuff, then I swap the jewel right back off when I'm done. The same logic for snatching Vamp form away from dexers applies to this use of taming jewels. Under this logic, tamers should not be able to swap on jewels to actually tame pets or stable extra ones! IDENTICAL USE.

 

[Wenchkin]

How about balancing it because it's nuts that you can twink up, cast a spell, then remove items and maintain the "perks" of that spell? It's nothing to do with RP, simply fixing something which shouldn't have been possible to start with. No item twinking should give you the benefit that real skill does. Whether it's a sampire or tamer or anything else.

IT DOESN'T.

When you take the gear off, you aren't getting to walk around and do things like a GM Necromancer. No necro spells get cast from that point forward, and the actual Necromancy skill points (usually 35) represent a complete waste to the template in terms of usage.

I do know how it works, II have a necro, sammy and enough tamers to know the ins and outs of this particular trick, and other methods of twinking. I still don't think any class should have the option to twink anything.

All that's happened is that the character has assumed a Necro form which doesn't even work well with a real Necromancer template. Have you noticed that at the high end of performance, it's the only way you see people even using Vamp form? They made Vamp form so risky to carry (cannot drink cure pots or cast garlic spells properly) that it takes a powerhouse of a template to make the form work to it's advantage. A real Necro-Dexer happens to NOT be one of templates that can manage it well.

I do know how the spell works, and the restrictions it carries with it. But why should my necro train up bushido and do this trick simply so she can have the same power as a sampire? She should be on a par with a sampire by having the appropriate supporting skills, not noticibly weaker. Surely necromancy itself should be fixed instead of keeping this hybrid-twink trick? Same goes for sammies.

The people who are doing this are NOT "working around the skill cap". They are utilizing this Necro form in the only viable way. To take it away destroys several high power PVM dexer template designs and in the current environment that would make no sense!

It makes no sense to have "pure" templates yield less damage than hybrid, jack-of-all-trade type characters who mix this and that into some silly "template" either.

If someone is expressly raising the technicality of the jewelry going on and coming back off as VIOLATING THEIR FEELINGS ON ITEM USE, how about lowering the requirements for Vamp form to what seems reasonable for this thing, which is, say, 25 - 45. Then we won't have to own all this necro gear anyway and pay insurance on it each time we die =p.

Hang on, you're saying in one paragraph that removal of this use of the spell nukes very powerful warrior templates, then asking for the skill to be lowered to a level where the same high powered hybrids could go about "business as usual" Isn't that having your cake and eating it a well bit? Still screws up the sammy who doesn't want to grow long teeth before a hunt though...
------------------------

TAMERS

I swap on a taming ring to raise my taming to 120 when I tame high end stuff, then I swap the jewel right back off when I'm done. The same logic for snatching Vamp form away from dexers applies to this use of taming jewels. Under this logic, tamers should not be able to swap on jewels to actually tame pets or stable extra ones! IDENTICAL USE.

Yep, I agree 100% with this. My tamers have the real skill to control and tame all their pets and manage their stable space.

Wenchy

 

[JC the Builder]

I can't picture how that one woulda made it through QA if you know what I mean?

Three words: Age of Shadows. This expansion turned the UO upside-down. QA probably caught 10,000 bugs but still let a couple thousand through. And stuff wasn't thought through enough such as 100% Lower Reagent Cost. It might also tie into that the developers never even thought that UO would reach a point where every mage carried 100% LRC.

Cure potions, I've already checked for sure, you double click one and you get a message that "surely the garlic in this would kill you" or something like that, and it won't let you drink it when trying repeatedly. .... but heck, if you find a way let me know! ehhhh.

You are correct. You can't drink cure potions. But I have also been informed it has been this way since Necromancy was first introduced. So once again, Vampiric Embrace has never been nerfed.

 

[Revenant2]

Revenant2:

Apparently you do not know that the reversed bandage Bandage talisman is fairly rare, and that most bandage talismans give normal bandages...

I've never owned one that gave normal bandies. I had a regular tally and then moved onto a blessable one and both of them give green, backwards bandies.

And I find the same little piles of green, backwards bandies on the corpses of dexer enemies I loot (yeah I kill someone once in a while!).

So I donno... if mine are rare, I'd gladly trade them for one thats um, not rare, yeah.

 

[Revenant2]

Three words: Age of Shadows. This expansion turned the UO upside-down. QA probably caught 10,000 bugs but still let a couple thousand through. And stuff wasn't thought through enough such as 100% Lower Reagent Cost. It might also tie into that the developers never even thought that UO would reach a point where every mage carried 100% LRC.


You are correct. You can't drink cure potions. But I have also been informed it has been this way since Necromancy was first introduced. So once again, Vampiric Embrace has never been nerfed.

That's not what I heard. Supposedly you could down the cure pot if you double clicked it a second time or something, and you would take garlic damage, but still get to drink it? I wasn't there, this is what people reported the behavior as.

The fact is that Vamp has been this screwed up for the vast majority of it's existance. This whole point is kinda moot.

 

[Lady_Mina]

Relax people...we're getting cacao seeds...

lol

 

[Revenant2]

How about balancing it because it's nuts that you can twink up, cast a spell, then remove items and maintain the "perks" of that spell? It's nothing to do with RP, simply fixing something which shouldn't have been possible to start with. No item twinking should give you the benefit that real skill does. Whether it's a sampire or tamer or anything else.

IT DOESN'T.

When you take the gear off, you aren't getting to walk around and do things like a GM Necromancer. No necro spells get cast from that point forward, and the actual Necromancy skill points (usually 35) represent a complete waste to the template in terms of usage.

I do know how it works, II have a necro, sammy and enough tamers to know the ins and outs of this particular trick, and other methods of twinking. I still don't think any class should have the option to twink anything.

That's a position that doesn't take into account the real ins and outs of templates and player experiences with those templates. If that concept were to be applied, blanket-like, to everything, it would hurt bunches of important stuff.

It would smash the only templates that use Vamp Emb. to good effect. It would ruin many, many tamers, including both of mine. The purist application of taming skill points means that when I take off the jewels I used to tame my pets, I should no longer have ownership of them as my normal jewel set did not support the ease with which I tamed them. My extra pets should pop out of the stable when I unequip my taming jewels as well.

It's nice that you got 120 taming real and all but lots of us don't. In the whole picture, things are too complicated with templates, abilities and balances to make blanket judgements about item use like that.

All that's happened is that the character has assumed a Necro form which doesn't even work well with a real Necromancer template. Have you noticed that at the high end of performance, it's the only way you see people even using Vamp form? They made Vamp form so risky to carry (cannot drink cure pots or cast garlic spells properly) that it takes a powerhouse of a template to make the form work to it's advantage. A real Necro-Dexer happens to NOT be one of templates that can manage it well.

I do know how the spell works, and the restrictions it carries with it. But why should my necro train up bushido and do this trick simply so she can have the same power as a sampire? She should be on a par with a sampire by having the appropriate supporting skills, not noticibly weaker. Surely necromancy itself should be fixed instead of keeping this hybrid-twink trick? Same goes for sammies.

For the UO dev people to change things so that a straight-up necro dexer is able to function as powerfully as the bush vamp form dexers sounds like a nice goal, but, that doesn't have to translate into snatching vamp form away from the bush dexers. If they think they can change pure necro like this without making a big mess, then the more power to them.

But if done right, it's not necessary to snatch people's favorite toys away from them (Vamp form) and make them miserable. They will move on their own when the time is right!

The people who are doing this are NOT "working around the skill cap". They are utilizing this Necro form in the only viable way. To take it away destroys several high power PVM dexer template designs and in the current environment that would make no sense!

It makes no sense to have "pure" templates yield less damage than hybrid, jack-of-all-trade type characters who mix this and that into some silly "template" either.

I would argue that part of what makes UO templates more interesting than those of other games is that you CAN do exactly this type of thing (hybrid type templates). It's a strength in the game, not a weakness, that you can make funky, nichy templates and they can work. Like, "freedom", and stuff.

If someone is expressly raising the technicality of the jewelry going on and coming back off as VIOLATING THEIR FEELINGS ON ITEM USE, how about lowering the requirements for Vamp form to what seems reasonable for this thing, which is, say, 25 - 45. Then we won't have to own all this necro gear anyway and pay insurance on it each time we die =p.

Hang on, you're saying in one paragraph that removal of this use of the spell nukes very powerful warrior templates, then asking for the skill to be lowered to a level where the same high powered hybrids could go about "business as usual" Isn't that having your cake and eating it a well bit? Still screws up the sammy who doesn't want to grow long teeth before a hunt though...

I don't understand exactly what you mean but, part of it I think I do.

Yes, what I'd said simply hands the bush vamp dexers the capability to take form with their low levels of necro.

I don't think that the bush vamp dexers are overpowered, they are just very strong at their niche uses. They have to stay in solid contact with the target, hitting well, and their killing power is what keeps them alive through the leech.

They aren't good at absolutely everything, they don't survive if they cannot for any reason hit the target. If they stop hitting they stop leeching life and when it gets bad they have to suddenly run like hell to not drop dead. They also tend to be vulnerable to mage gank, they cant necessarily pound on one thing hard enough to leech enough life to heal through attacks that bypass their parry.

The temps cannot fit magic resist on. When newly-rezzed, the templates without healing are quite vulnerable until they get back into form (the leech is the main heal, for them, with chiv heal as a secondary one).

But anyway. If all of a sudden Vamp form were available for 25 - 45 real points of necro, and it actually took the real necro skill and not items to cast it, it would make them happy. They wouldn't have to carry all of that crap around with them any more, and they would not have to go around dreading the thought that maybe, one day, they will log in and find their favorite chars trashed (and then some of them would log out for good soon after).

 

[kennykilleduo]

For the next one they need to give us " THE GREATEST" Townhall ever , No we cant talk about , not in the cards or table ect....

 

[Joyous2K]

Really? When, where?!

International Town Halls got mentioned when someone there, maybe WRR, was going over the schedule for the future town halls. Jeremy said that Europeans ask for one and that she would love to go and I feel like she implied the burden was on you guys to come up with a good reason for doing one there.

But she sounded sincere when she mentioned international townhalls. I didn't see her face or body language, so maybe she was thumbing her nose while she was saying it. You should work with her with figuring out what it would take and if it is a possibility.

 

[Lord Kotan]

- Instant GMs with items, Vamp form Bushidos working around skill cap: Needs a HARD look, Vamp Form needs a HARDER LOOK and a "kick in the nutz"
========================================
actually.......... Bushido isn't the problem... just to throw that out there.. Before they nerf BOTH

 

[galefan2004]

- Cocoa Trees, 8 new seeds internally testing

This should make some people very happy.

- OSI Owned houses are being identified and falling in batches as locations and received.

About time.

- Faction vendor pricing is interesting, but what use are the vendors lately anyway.

With the stupidity of the current vendor system, these vendors are VERY useful. If they think they are useless then they should undo the stupid changes made to vendors in Trammel.

- 90% of weapons are not viable, revamping of weapons being done internally, "cannot talk about" but being looked in to

Hopefully this includes a lot of pointless artifact weapons.

- More stable slots: Cannot promise, but "on the list"

As a tamer, I'm still against this. Learn to do without some pets tamers. You don't need 20 stable slots just so you can fill them with 20 pets then complain you need more slots.

- Bounties: Cutting off heads and turning them in made parents go nuts

That was a different time and this activity would be about 100% less graphic then most of the game that these kids have for consoles.

- Tinker's Runics: Maybe Tinker BODs, but nothing specific

If they even THINK about doing tinkering BODs they better give carpentry and fletching bods too. Then they need to rework the entire bod system for all skills to dump the useless bods and undo some more of the randomness of the system.

- Heartwood quests: Stupidly tedious, looking to revamp or change in some way, especially for runics

About time...the only current way to do these are with programs no one should have to be forced to use.

- Stygian Abyss: "Can't talk about it" "Very soon you might hear more" (wow... "soon" and "might" in the same sentence)

Translation..."soon"=2-3 years and "might"=never. He was really being redundant here because translate it says you won't hear anything even in 2-3years.

- Crimsons drop on Melissa's body, not to backpack

Its stupid if she drops them at all. Why would you do peerless atm when you can farm something that only requires you to wait 15 minutes to kill and then compete with others. This was a STUPID decision. Its basically a nerf to peerless.

- End of UO2d: 2d is not going away any time soon

KR fanatics I have two words for you... (ask HHH and HBK about this WWE reference)

- Returning Tokuno Arties: NOT off the Table

Permanantly but through Ilshenar and Tokuno champion spawns would be a nice way to do it.

- Lockpicking: Desire for jewelry/talisman... a good idea

Lockpicking is a joke right now anyways. What they need to do is combine cartography and lockpicking into a new skill called t-hunting.

- Rare armor pieces, ingredients and crimsons as well as VERY high end random loot from Melissa look for info on Five on Friday

Would be nice if they would just make these a LITTLE more common. I've seen one in about 50 peerless. Putting them on Melissa was a MISTAKE though.

- High end runics popping up:... FIRE!

Ahh seems the people whining about a dupe will get their wish. The issue is that these items simply shouldn't be selling for 50 million to begin with. The bod systems NEED changed and this dupe is simply a symptom of a problem.

- Balancing animal damage: different balancing pass than weapons, on the list (specifically greater dragons)

In PvP this needs done. In PvM it does not (tamers are not even able to keep up with dexxers now through pet damage alone). Watch them either do it in both.

- More than one house per account: To prevent owning too much real estate. Basically don't expect anything on this one... no sympathy here.

Why would there be? People are willing to pay $12.95 extra a month just to hold extra houses.

- Alternative ways to get PSs: Nothing planned

It hardly even matters now. The days when you could make an eBay fortune from PSes are long gone. The fact that those days were ever allowed will be a HUGE blight on UO's record even when its dead and gone. It serves as a perfect example of WHAT NOT TO DO.

- Making it against the rules to sell for real cash: Making it against the rules doesn't stop it. They could do it, GMs would have nmore work for NO difference (I could have told everyone this)

Its against the rules in WoW. Lets just say I know for a fact people still sell accounts for decent money in WoW, and gold is still sold very often.

 

[galefan2004]

Unused areas set aside in Malas for marketing purposes will be given away to players sometime in the future. Have to figure out how to keep scripters from getting them. This change does NOT mean there will be keeps and castles in Malas. There were good reasons for not allowing them and those reasons haven't changed.

On Legends, I can place an entire player ran town of 18x18s in multiple areas. No one wants houses in Malas because of the keep/castle thing. On more popular shards it MIGHT matter, but on the shards I have seen there is no reason to not allow castles and keeps in Malas.

 

[galefan2004]

Will the virtues be finished? There are eight virtues and there are game systems attached to them. However, there was never a design document created for them. They aren't sitting on something that isn't implemented yet. They actually have to come up with something to tie the [rest of] the virtues to game systems. Players should feel free to submit ideas.

This is bogus. They not only decided which each virtue should do, but they posted it on the uo main site back when they first introduced the virtues. I'm not sure anyone still has that information though.

 

[galefan2004]

is this a joke??

ROT on Siege: They have been trying to change things all year so things would scale to 120 instead of 100. It's not that simple, will require more time. Mesanna is working on it. Need to make sure that changing one number in a formula won't change other things. It's definitely a bug that it isn't scaled to 120....it's broken, wasn't designed that way.


how long have we had 120's in UO now??? omg?
*sigh*

Here is the even more horrible thing. When I read this, I read it as ROT is broken in that it is susposed to scale. That means, you would start with say 15 minutes for a gain at 80 but that would scale to say 24 hours at 110 or so. In the end, ROT might just end up being fixed to scale like you guys want, but it might scale to make it harder to gain the skills instead of easier.

 

[galefan2004]

2d was good for its time and I know it has a lot of people defending it and refusing to move, but it's not going to bring in new subs if we ever see a UO box on a shelf. UO needs to market via KR screenshots and features if they plan on getting boxes sold to more people than multi-account holding vets with "cars full of CDs" (from the town hall).

Oh, so making KR the only client will simply erase the last 10 years from history? I ask this because...its not the graphics that turn people away from UO its the reputation. UO has the worst reputation possible in the gaming industry. You aren't going to get newer players to flock to this game regardless of graphics. However, you want to alienate veterans also. I'm glad you aren't making decision for this game.

But until more work is done on KR, 2d needs to stay... and I say that as someone who is very pro KR and would like to see what it could really do without 2d hobbling it.

Scrap KR and put the effort into actually fixing the game itself. The systems in this game are simply not friendly to newer players. The way it stands currently you have to be a veteran to make it to veteran status. People are simply not willing to put the effort into this game if starting from scratch when a much more popular game (10,000,000 players) is 1000% (exageration) new player friendly.

 

[galefan2004]

Do no dexxers aside from myself remember how to joust?

There are many viable dexxer templates aside from Sampire... and the Sampire template is most definitely way too powerful.

The problem with jousting is this...

It took me about 10 minutes back in the day to realise that jousting is just archery, but you have to run into attack range every minute or so. The answer back then was to drop swords for archery, and then I was able to solo balrons (pre-Aos) on an archer without ever getting touched.

 

[galefan2004]

...

I can attest to the Greater Dragon's survivability. I saw one on LS early in the Dark Moonglow event that was surrounded by something like 8 or 10 or so berserker daemons and holding its own. I would NEVER consider even TRYING to do that with a dexxer, not even with 120 Parry/Bushido, max Dex, max DCI, 70s resists and a good parrying two-hander.

Wow...that couldn't be more bogus. For one thing, the berserker deamons ate up anything that actually touched them. It was archers that powned them. Also, in all the time I was in the rift (which was a LOT), I never saw more than 1 berserker being taken on at a time. I think you are stretching to great lengths at this point.

 

[galefan2004]

OMG CAN YOU ACTUALLY FIX SOMETHING AND STOP ADDING STUFF UNLESS IT'S KR PATCHES OR SA?

THE DEVELOPERS DO NOT CARE ABOUT KR. Hell, for that matter, neither do the vast majority of the players. The only thing they need to add for KR is a cancellation.

 

[Wenchkin]

That's a position that doesn't take into account the real ins and outs of templates and player experiences with those templates. If that concept were to be applied, blanket-like, to everything, it would hurt bunches of important stuff.

No, it would simply mean that players would have to train skills before they got their benefits.

It's nice that you got 120 taming real and all but lots of us don't. In the whole picture, things are too complicated with templates, abilities and balances to make blanket judgements about item use like that.

I've got 6 tamers, only 1 at 120, the rest are nowhere near that, still training. They work with pets appropriate to their level. It's not a hardship. None of my characters who use skill + items would be dumped if they were taken away, I'd just reshuffle skills a little and move on.

If you make the choice to depend on skill + items you take the risk that you'll always be able to do so, and that you won't have to reconsider that in view of some new bit of equipment or change to the skill + items themselves. I'm sorry if you find that a harsh possibility, but the 1 character I have who relies on barding jewellery to bard high end spawns has her backup template. If I can retrain her, I'm sure the next person can retrain their character too.

For the UO dev people to change things so that a straight-up necro dexer is able to function as powerfully as the bush vamp form dexers sounds like a nice goal, but, that doesn't have to translate into snatching vamp form away from the bush dexers. If they think they can change pure necro like this without making a big mess, then the more power to them.

But if done right, it's not necessary to snatch people's favorite toys away from them (Vamp form) and make them miserable. They will move on their own when the time is right!

Yes, but they shouldn't be more powerful with the necro spell than a “real” necromancer. I'm sorry, that's just nuts! By all means, suggest a cut down version of vamp embrace – ie it wears off after x time or has more restriction. But to give the hybrid a better result than the pure necro is daft. Surely a necromancer should be the best template for using a necromancy spell?

The people who are doing this are NOT "working around the skill cap". They are utilizing this Necro form in the only viable way. To take it away destroys several high power PVM dexer template designs and in the current environment that would make no sense!

It makes no sense to have "pure" templates yield less damage than hybrid, jack-of-all-trade type characters who mix this and that into some funky template either. Compare the damage done by a pure scribe mage vs a character equiping only skill + items with magery, as part of a hybrid template. A warrior with anat and tactics vs someone with weapon skill items. See what I mean?

I would argue that part of what makes UO templates more interesting than those of other games is that you CAN do exactly this type of thing (hybrid type templates). It's a strength in the game, not a weakness, that you can make funky, nichy templates and they can work. Like, "freedom", and stuff.

Yeah, hybrids are interesting, I have a few strange templates of my own. But none are as powerful at casting the spells from their component skills as the pure versions.

I don't think that the bush vamp dexers are overpowered, they are just very strong at their niche uses.

Heh, that's a classic quote there, love it

All templates have strengths and weaknesses, I have tight hybrid type templates of my own. The hybrid in my view is the jack of all trades, master of none. Fun, but shouldn't be much stronger if they twink, or invest a tiny portion of skill into casting something. Especially if you don't even have to keep the equipment on to maintain the effect lol. I think that's asking a bit much.

Incidentally, if you lower the skill requirement of vamp embrace, you need to replace it with another skill at that level to enable necros to train to 120

Wenchy