210 stamina + 60 swing speed power creep

[belal]

When weapons first came out, the big weapons were slow, and the small weapons that did not so much damage were fast. And you would choose one or the other.

Now with so much power creep, players can easily reach 60 swing speed increase + 210 stamina and are able to swing the heaviest slowest weapons at max speed (1.25 seconds)

This has ruined the whole weapon system.

Heavy weapons should be slow, and light weapons should be fast.

 

[Poo]

and women should be in the kitchen!
(just don't tell my wife i said that!!!)

 

[Anon McDougle]

and women should be in the kitchen!
(just don't tell my wife i said that!!!)

No but there should be some advantage to being faster

 

[Draza]

Use of a shield for higher stats? But yeah, maybe all single handers should be able to be swung at .75 a sec instead of 1.25

 

[Merlin]

When weapons first came out, the big weapons were slow, and the small weapons that did not so much damage were fast. And you would choose one or the other.

Now with so much power creep, players can easily reach 60 swing speed increase + 210 stamina and are able to swing the heaviest slowest weapons at max speed (1.25 seconds)

This has ruined the whole weapon system.

Heavy weapons should be slow, and light weapons should be fast.

I agree with the OP that power creep has really made alot of the previous way we think about templates obsolete...

In example, if you take a look at the ABC Archer template that Marcin posted yesterday...

which can be found here:

My "simple" ABC Archer

I wanted to share my "simple" ABC Archer, which is build around current artifacts and new bow. Suit items are similar to my Sampire build which i posted here My end game Sampire Highlights: 1) 147 Hit Points, 217 Stamina, 110 Mana. 2) Use new bow from Event + Super Slayers from...

community.stratics.com

.. you will see that the entire template is almost entirely artifacts. While by all means, a VERY impressive build by this player... these templates used to be something you'd have to work hard toward getting the 'perfect' set of items for. It would take alot of time and effort to get a suit anywhere near this... and now it's becoming just another cookie cutter template that you can build with event items.

Gear that took years to find has been made mostly obsolete in a matter of just a few dynamic events. It hurts existing year-round PVM content and makes it not nearly as worth while to do. The last few dynamic events... I tried giving feedback to the devs on this... objecting very specifically to the Sentinel's Mempo.... but it was ignored... and worse yet... trollish players with only their narrow-minded self-interest in mind basically just kept asking for more and more and more mods to be added to these items. And then the fact these events were botted so heavily that these items are numerous and cheap... it's made the effort by honest players mostly for naught. It's a sad state of affairs really.

This doesn't even capture how obsolete this has made any efforts for crafting... a separate topic entirely.

And while this post comments on SSI / Stam - we're seeing the same thing happen with mages and OP items with tons of mods and SDI. A suit that used to take significant effort to build has now been surpassed significantly by a cookie cutter build of dynamic event artifact items. Everyone and their mother basically is able to get to 250+ SDI now without an issue.

I'm not sure what the answer is to this... but my sense is that it's going to get worse. I had hoped to see some items that would promote template diversity by trying to focus on skills instead of an obtuse amount of mods... but I just don't see that happening. Only option is to adapt...

I didn't mean for this to become a rant... but definitely one of the biggest problems that has popped up in the last couple years.

 

[skett]

And yet we can’t get a good fishing pole with mods

it would be nice to see one handed weapons come back in line with two handed weapons. I don’t think the devs care or know how to balance anything and I’m thinking over the last 13 years this team didn’t play that’s why templates armor and weapons are such a messed up joke.

 

[Izzy MBC]

I guess the answer was to never go item-centric for gameplay longevity, but instead to have altered the skill system so it was uncapped, but compensate by applying a weighted system so you can't GM every skill, but a limited selection of skills could gain eternally with diminishing returns, and also have player death's damage skill points earned, but high skill levels are rewarded with titles at varying skill levels and other miniscule perks that don't cause gameplay-killing imbalances, and focus hard on anti-cheat and anti-scripting technology from the get go so people don't AFK farm gold and ruin the economy, and never hesitate to ban paying customers who you know for a fact are cheating by referencing server logs of player activity and putting appropriate measures in place to enable that automated analysis, and implement a highly customisable blacksmithy and tailoring system so everyone can have unique appearances and uniquely decorated weapons and continue to expand on it over time without altering underlying item properties, and encourage player interactions to utilise these mechanics by making NPC's for such services infrequently accessible and have them also charge a significant fee when they are around.

Oh, what am I talking about, all that sort of stuff is way too boring and too much effort for any dev team to do ever.

Edit: Oh yeah, and of course, make only 1 client to maintain and using monthly subs to deliver interesting content and large story arcs to keep things rolling, and don't duplicate the entire landmass into two rulesets, splitting the server population up, and to compensate for PvM players; design a sane PvP system and/or use different rulesets for different cities/regions of the world.

 

[Pawain]

Yes the new armor is overkill for a swords sampire. But that archer did not show his mana regen. Most of the event armor has 0 mana regen, so bards, archers, and throwers can't use them. Our weapons only have 35 Mana leech. Not >80. Hybrid templates also need MR. My archer tamer can't run consume with the new armor, so he and my archer bard don't have 150 strength.

Funny how my macer still has basically the same stats on his stat sheet as he did when the SSI Epps came out.

He wears all the new armor. OP means same stats and less mana regen I suppose.

 

[Keven2002]

I agree with the OP that power creep has really made alot of the previous way we think about templates obsolete...

I didn't mean for this to become a rant... but definitely one of the biggest problems that has popped up in the last couple years.

I see what you are saying but it's a double edged sword (with max swing speed!! ... jk jk).

The team eliminated the no name legendary items a while ago so the players that were able to get those items were at a decent advantage compared those that didn't play around then. The team also has never peeled back the curtain to give much detail about loot tables so even to this day I couldn't tell you what to hunt for a clean 10 SSI / 35 DI piece of jewelry; those that figured it out (or were told) and employed their bot armies would be dominating the market. Some best in slot (limited) items were necessary to help the newer and/or casual player be able to do higher end content; I'd even argue allow them to do it solo because the number of players seems to have decreased every single year (possibly outside of Covid).

Additionally, if the team wasn't giving worthwhile rewards for their dynamic content then I'd imagine many people wouldn't bother doing it; I know I barely played 2023 & 2024 Spring events because there weren't really any new items (and I had all the old ones). It's been a complaint I've seen by dozens of players... "this item is trash...nobody is going to use it" for the ToT events (for the items that aren't slam dunks".

So while I can see what you are saying, to a point, I'd also have to play devil's advocate and ask what do you think would have happened to UO if they decided to limit the power creep of items? I personally think they would have lost more players than they did most likely out of the feeling that they couldn't ever get close to the type of suits you are talking about and being bored of being stuck doing the same old content over & over. If we are being honest, this is exactly what NL is currently... do the same 6-8 bosses over and over non stop to get +1 higher stat over what you currently have... oh and by the way you can't solo anything alone (due to lack of power creep) so you are reliant on groups of players being online to do that content. I was over that in a couple of months and haven't been back to NL, even after the dynamic events ended on Prod.

I wouldn't disagree that the same could be said if everyone has a cookie cutter suit for every toon they have, but if anything they at least kicked the can further down the road compared to if they didn't add the best in slot items for these events.

 

[hirikawa]

Gear that took years to find has been made mostly obsolete in a matter of just a few dynamic events. It hurts existing year-round PVM content and makes it not nearly as worth while to do. The last few dynamic events... I tried giving feedback to the devs on this... objecting very specifically to the Sentinel's Mempo.... but it was ignored... and worse yet... trollish players with only their narrow-minded self-interest in mind basically just kept asking for more and more and more mods to be added to these items. And then the fact these events were botted so heavily that these items are numerous and cheap... it's made the effort by honest players mostly for naught. It's a sad state of affairs really.

I have mixed feelings about this. For returning players TOT is a good opportunity to rebuild their old suits. And in those TOT events not all rewards are obtainable at once. So those players who want some old TOT items have to earn gold by doing normal PVM content in game and buy those items from other players (or wait for another TOT event when those might be reintroduced again). I was away from the game for some years and at one point I wanted Solaria's. I did spend 600 mil on 2 pairs for my templates. Had to earn gold in game to do that. Its not cheap to collect all the items you want for top tier templates.

It is also matter of preference - Crafting vs Random Generated Artifacts vs Named Artifacts. And for example I always liked Named Arties (and hated Brittle items).

And about overpowered items. I like maximizing builds. So every new good item, which let's me rebuild whole suit again, makes me very excited. This is the thing I'm looking forward to.

But I totally agree that I would love to see rebuild drop tables from current PVM monsters. For example add Holy Warrior Gloves to Slasher of Veils or add some kind of receipts.

There are many kind of players and I agree Veterans might not like it.

 

[Igg A Pie]

what if...and dont come at me because its just a suggestion and not really thought of logistics
there would obviously have to be some designation system and blah blah blah

all weapons and armor:
used for "PvM" should get the FULL benefit of all the modifications

those same weapons and armor:
used for "PvP" should only use craftable weight

 

[Stinky Pete]

Unpopular opinion: Any item with an imbuing weight higher than what can be crafted should be cursed.

That makes crafting great again because everyone is going to need a crafted suit if they die. Also, power creep becomes not a big deal, because you're going to lose the stuff eventually. Also, finding useful gear becomes more common because you're going to need backup suits.

And PoF needs to not be a thing anymore, besides shard shields, no other item is more game breaking.

 

[Deraj]

I agree with the OP that power creep has really made alot of the previous way we think about templates obsolete...

In example, if you take a look at the ABC Archer template that Marcin posted yesterday...

which can be found here:

My "simple" ABC Archer

I wanted to share my "simple" ABC Archer, which is build around current artifacts and new bow. Suit items are similar to my Sampire build which i posted here My end game Sampire Highlights: 1) 147 Hit Points, 217 Stamina, 110 Mana. 2) Use new bow from Event + Super Slayers from...

community.stratics.com

.. you will see that the entire template is almost entirely artifacts. While by all means, a VERY impressive build by this player... these templates used to be something you'd have to work hard toward getting the 'perfect' set of items for. It would take alot of time and effort to get a suit anywhere near this... and now it's becoming just another cookie cutter template that you can build with event items.

Gear that took years to find has been made mostly obsolete in a matter of just a few dynamic events. It hurts existing year-round PVM content and makes it not nearly as worth while to do. The last few dynamic events... I tried giving feedback to the devs on this... objecting very specifically to the Sentinel's Mempo.... but it was ignored... and worse yet... trollish players with only their narrow-minded self-interest in mind basically just kept asking for more and more and more mods to be added to these items. And then the fact these events were botted so heavily that these items are numerous and cheap... it's made the effort by honest players mostly for naught. It's a sad state of affairs really.

This doesn't even capture how obsolete this has made any efforts for crafting... a separate topic entirely.

And while this post comments on SSI / Stam - we're seeing the same thing happen with mages and OP items with tons of mods and SDI. A suit that used to take significant effort to build has now been surpassed significantly by a cookie cutter build of dynamic event artifact items. Everyone and their mother basically is able to get to 250+ SDI now without an issue.

I'm not sure what the answer is to this... but my sense is that it's going to get worse. I had hoped to see some items that would promote template diversity by trying to focus on skills instead of an obtuse amount of mods... but I just don't see that happening. Only option is to adapt...

I didn't mean for this to become a rant... but definitely one of the biggest problems that has popped up in the last couple years.

The answer to this is that the devs must summon the courage to deliver the biggest nerf to player power in MMO history, which I very much doubt will ever happen. UO's PvM is completely broken due to a number of factors, but as far as I can tell this does not seem to be a concern for the devs, or it's handwaved away with the old "spaghetti code" excuse. Meanwhile they keep adding new reward artifacts that are not only overpowered, but in some cases add properties to slots that never had them before. There does not appear to be any consistency in design or vision. Eventually we arrive at the point we're at now, where gear is so buffed that we're maxing out every cap, which leads to criticism's like OP's.

It shouldn't be possible to max out as many property caps as we can. It shouldn't be possible to max out all resists. It shouldn't be possible to chain specials non-stop at 150-200 damage per hit. It shouldn't be possible to solo bosses. All of these things and more have done incalculable damage to PvM. And crafting, like you said, is another topic entirely, but that topic cannot even start until people come to terms with out of control item imbalance.

 

[Keven2002]

It shouldn't be possible to max out as many property caps as we can. It shouldn't be possible to max out all resists. It shouldn't be possible to chain specials non-stop at 150-200 damage per hit. It shouldn't be possible to solo bosses. All of these things and more have done incalculable damage to PvM. And crafting, like you said, is another topic entirely, but that topic cannot even start until people come to terms with out of control item imbalance.

Understand where you are coming from, but when there is a complete lack of players playing these days (and the past 10+ years) power creep is needed to keep people interested (speaking from my own experience). If UO today was like NL is, where you need a group to do any boss, I'd have closed my account long ago because the limited time I get to play is usually early AM when many others are not online. Some people do not have hours on end to dedicate to playing UO, not even factoring in that time being prime time; they shouldn't be relegated to only killing mid-level mobs.... the whole idea for me is to work my chars up to being able to play the highest level content (with or without help).

 

[belal]

I'm not saying to do anything about the power creep, i'm just saying they should slow the weapons down. Slow weapons should be slower than fast weapons, instead of every single weapon being 1.25 seconds.

 

[G.v.P]

When weapons first came out, the big weapons were slow, and the small weapons that did not so much damage were fast. And you would choose one or the other.

Now with so much power creep, players can easily reach 60 swing speed increase + 210 stamina and are able to swing the heaviest slowest weapons at max speed (1.25 seconds)

This has ruined the whole weapon system.

Heavy weapons should be slow, and light weapons should be fast.

I'm not saying to do anything about the power creep, i'm just saying they should slow the weapons down. Slow weapons should be slower than fast weapons, instead of every single weapon being 1.25 seconds.

I mean, yes, you are asking to do something about power creep, otherwise, how would anything change?

I'm not sure what the answer is to this... but my sense is that it's going to get worse. I had hoped to see some items that would promote template diversity by trying to focus on skills instead of an obtuse amount of mods... but I just don't see that happening. Only option is to adapt...

Power creep is very hard to balance and usually the only answer is to introduce new power creep. At this point, though, we're talking about 22 years of power creep following the Age of Shadows. I agree, I am not really sure anything can be done.

The last event's champ spawn had a boss that would strip vampiric embrace (or any buffs). You would see sampires dying fairly often, despite their billion-dollar-event-artifact-laden suits. That said, it didn't make it so sampires couldn't play at all, and while the devs could go that route, that might not be that healthy, either. That champ spawn could be done by any class of character, and so it was pretty fun, at least IMHO. Looting rights were fairly easy, too. Fun is good. Everyone got top tier loot chances, regardless of class.

So here's the question, wives jokes aside, of course--a battle axe would require 150 stamina and 60 SSI, I believe, for 1.25 swing--what is feasible as a change while keeping the game fun? If you nerf things and run a rebalance, it will ruin people's billion dollar suits. Not fun. If you make more mobs that limit dexxers, it may hurt new players or players that haven't collected event rares for the last 20-25 years. Not fun. So, yeah...it's a nice thought, but how?

The ideas presented so far...I just don't see them happening. I can't say I have a better answer.

 

[Anon McDougle]

I mean, yes, you are asking to do something about power creep, otherwise, how would anything change?



Power creep is very hard to balance and usually the only answer is to introduce new power creep. At this point, though, we're talking about 22 years of power creep following the Age of Shadows. I agree, I am not really sure anything can be done.

The last event's champ spawn had a boss that would strip vampiric embrace (or any buffs). You would see sampires dying fairly often, despite their billion-dollar-event-artifact-laden suits. That said, it didn't make it so sampires couldn't play at all, and while the devs could go that route, that might not be that healthy, either. That champ spawn could be done by any class of character, and so it was pretty fun, at least IMHO. Looting rights were fairly easy, too. Fun is good. Everyone got top tier loot chances, regardless of class.

So here's the question, wives jokes aside, of course--a battle axe would require 150 stamina and 60 SSI, I believe, for 1.25 swing--what is feasible as a change while keeping the game fun? If you nerf things and run a rebalance, it will ruin people's billion dollar suits. Not fun. If you make more mobs that limit dexxers, it may hurt new players or players that haven't collected event rares for the last 20-25 years. Not fun. So, yeah...it's a nice thought, but how?

The ideas presented so far...I just don't see them happening. I can't say I have a better answer.

Just make faster weapons hit twice as much so that dps balances out

 

[Keven2002]

Power creep is very hard to balance and usually the only answer is to introduce new power creep. At this point, though, we're talking about 22 years of power creep following the Age of Shadows. I agree, I am not really sure anything can be done.

The last event's champ spawn had a boss that would strip vampiric embrace (or any buffs). You would see sampires dying fairly often, despite their billion-dollar-event-artifact-laden suits.

I agree - I don't think going backwards will work... as mentioned before I don't really care for NL for the reason that I'm used to being able to kill a lich lord no problem on PROD but on NL I can barely kill a lich (need the silver/vanq weapons).

I honestly think the power creep is still within reason right now because to swing that halberd or whatever at or near 1.25s; you need to have a billion dollar suit... that's why people pay for those suits...and they still can die in them.

My assumption is that the OP was more specifically talking about PvP rather than PvM; which does have several caps on things to help prevent the power creep as well (like AI / SDI caps).

 

[belal]

you don't need gold at all to make 210 stam suit, can make with all set artifcat pieces, even the throwaway bot accounts have 210 stam 60ssi using artis.