A thread in which to list things that seem to gain too slowly

[Revenant2]

What have you noticed in UO that seems to gain too slowly?


My first thing to list: Cu Sidhes' gain of healing skill appears to be working too poorly when the skill is at 90 and above. I don't believe the dev people would have meant it to be this way in the initial implementation?

In normal use of a cu sidhe, it's healing will gain to 90, and then stop like it hits a wall. You see lots of cu sidhes running around with all of their skills at 100 (maybe even resist too...) except for healing, which will be at 90. That's a dog that's being used a lot in-game but has had no exceptional efforts made toward getting the healing way up there.

The ways to get a cu sidhe to gain between 90 and 100 seem limited to:

- having it cure lethal poison with its healing skill
- discording it and having it cure regular poison with its healing skill

I'm not saying to absolutely change it because sometimes, some buggy-like things work out for the better good. Having a GM healing cu sidhe takes a serious, specific effort in pet training, and if this is how they want it to stay, they might leave things as they are. However, it is good to point out and be clear about the situation, which is that in normal gameplay Cu Sidhes will not gain above 90 healing to speak of. They need to be aware of this and decide if it's how they want it.

 

[Revenant2]

Raising Ninjitsu above 85 appears to move too slowly in normal gameplay.

Shadow Jump was working well before 85 or so. It should also be mentioned that ki attack, which would have been one choice to try at that level, isnt available to archers.

Taking an archer as an example, the two things to attempt to use for skill gain seem to be surprise attack and death strike. In real world gameplay while attempting to raise tactics and ninjitsu simultaneously, tactics went from around 87.0 to 90.0 but ninjitsu only went up .1 (it was 86.0 to 86.1). The archery got lots of repetitition naturally, but the ninjitsu could only be used occasionally due to mana regen time (even though the char was using a mana leech weapon to help).

The way that non-casual players raise ninjitsu is to do intensive sessions where the char wears gear for maximum mana regen (and maybe stones med on), goes unguilded, gets a pet, and uses a game mechanics characteristic (Trammel-only I think) where they are able to death strike a pet repeatedly with a melee weapon without injuring it. Word on the street is that this is the "only" way to seriously work ninjitsu above 85.

 

[mmmbeer]

disco and taming are pathetically slow

 

[Eslake]

You could almost just past the entire skills list as far as character skill gains are concerned.

Only weapon skills and tactics/anatomy gain at the appropriate rate through actual game play.

With the exceptions of Taming, Ninjitsu, Provoke and a couple of others, all skills can be Powertrained to 100-120 in a day, but that was not how they were ever supposed to be gained.

If you created a new character within a couple of hours after server up (as warrior), and did nothing but actually fight monsters until the server went down for maintenance in the morning, you could easily have 120 anatomy and 100+ in the weapon skill and tactics.
No other skills work that way.

Start a tamer at the same time and invest the same hours into just taming animal after animal, and it will take approximately 3 weeks to reach 120 taming. Provoking creatures at that same rate would take about 5 weeks to 120. Magery would take about 9 days (but 1 for meditation and ~3 for eval).

While I don't think all skills should gain at the same rate, I also don't think any skill should be possible to max in 1 day even through power training.

But until they can devise a reason to train skills through normal game play, there is no reason that some skills should take weeks while others can be maxed in a few hours. Parry for example-from 0 to 120 in less than 6 hours.

 

[Sarphus]

taste ID is slow. I'm not completely certain it's possible to gain beyond mid 70's anymore. It's also completely useless.

 

[Frarc]

- Poisoning and Disarm Trap.

 

[Sara Of Baja]

Begging ... I've worked Cu's and most of the already mentioned skills. Begging is by far the slowest skill I have ever worked.

 

[Harb]

Ninjitsu.

Taming, provoke, and discord are slow but benefits are so great that rate of gain actually seems appropriate. Several of the rogue skills are also disproportionately slow, but akin to the taming/ bard skills, thieves have become such a special case in how they're played that slow gains are probably not disproportional.

So back to ninjitsu. It's broken. No tips, techniques, or experience will help. And there is no reward at the end of the rainbow akin to taming/ barding. Skill focus is not the issue as with Jeremy's post regarding parry. Both the wife and I have finished ours off to 120, therefore this isn't a self oriented complaint, but for others to come and those currently working this skill, good luck with the pain until it gets addressed!

 

[Basara]

It was once a well-known fact that (probably as an artifact of the pre-power-scroll system) nearly all skills have a massive gain slowdown between 90-95.

In my case, through normal combat and even things like getting beaten-on by livestock (which people swore would work), I got NO gains (not even GGS) in parry for almost 2 months. It wasn't until I got from about 90 to 91 from getting KILLED about 10-20 times by Barracoon in one night at an Ilshenar champ spawn, that I started gaining again from normal combat (Ogre Lords and the like)

 

[Salty Pete]

Begging ... I've worked Cu's and most of the already mentioned skills. Begging is by far the slowest skill I have ever worked.

I agree.

 

[Harb]

Basara, the trouble with any of us advising any other of us on gaining in a particular skill is that we may be out-dated by next week. I'll drop you a PM about what I knew to be true of parry about 6-9 months ago, the last time I actually ran the skill up on a character! Use your judgement and paste if you think any portion of it should be posted, or not

 

[Pickaxe Pete]

I found ninjitsu to be fairly trivial with the right approach (no, I won't give a how-to), but taming is in a whole other league in my opinion. Don't care if they fix it or not, advanced character tokens and +15 jewels get us newbies by.

Begging just got stuck at 60something and that was that, for sure.

 

[Harb]

I found ninjitsu to be fairly trivial with the right approach (no, I won't give a how-to), but taming is in a whole other league in my opinion. Don't care if they fix it or not, advanced character tokens and +15 jewels get us newbies by.

Begging just got stuck at 60something and that was that, for sure.

I don't know partner, I've been around UO since a little before there was a published title, and haven't been able to break the code with ninjitsu. Prior to ninjitsu, the last skill the wife or I added to a character was parry, but that was a while back. Since then, we "moved" our thiefs from old accounts to a 7th slots on other accounts, but other than that, have only really worked ninjitsu over the last year or so. So admittingly, I may be dated, thus a personal habit to avoid skill based conversations. Begging, disarm, snooping post 95ish, detect hidden, stealing itself, in sum all the rogue/ associated skills have been tough to move for years. Barring something we simply couldn't figure out, ninjitsu seemed to an old guy to be broken, and the effort continued from about 6-9 months back until last week for both characters.

 

[Omnius]

every single skill in uo takes too long to gain. skill gain is the tedious and boring part of the game that pushes players to unattended macro and script. Nobody wants to do boring crap fighting garbage grinding away for days when we have to spend hours and hours of our lives obtaining gear and money to simply play the fun part of the game.

You made this an item based game, so make skills easier to gain and just embrace that you ruined character prep for everyone and move on.

 

[EnigmaMaitreya]

Taming, Veterinary (using game play).

I have been recycling the Hiryu's looking for a good to great Hiryu that has feather color that I like.

I have gone through maybe 2K to 3K bandages and recieved maybe 3 skill ups in Vet. I have been trying to move from 110.0 Vet to 120.0 vet in the last month.

 

[Nexus]

Taming, Veterinary (using game play).

I have been recycling the Hiryu's looking for a good to great Hiryu that has feather color that I like.

I have gone through maybe 2K to 3K bandages and recieved maybe 3 skill ups in Vet. I have been trying to move from 110.0 Vet to 120.0 vet in the last month.

My Best Vet gains from 90-120 were in Luna at the bank rezzing peoples dead pets. I think Vet works like Healing you'll get better gains off Rezzing Pets or curing strong poisons they are afflicted with.

 

[Sunrise]

Fishing and stealing...since those are two skills i been working on for months now...

Fishermans could use some loving too btw

 

[Quenchant]

In my case, through normal combat and even things like getting beaten-on by livestock (which people swore would work), I got NO gains (not even GGS) in parry for almost 2 months

Parry is one of the quickest skills to take to 120. It is not normal combat, but it is combat.

Go to the sheep in Yew. Dull Copper plate suit and a fast one handed that you don't have skill for. Example - if you are swords use a dagger. Then attack the sheep (tab out after attacking them), one at a time till you have 8 surrounding you. (Cats work too.) If you can get 9, that is even better. (stand on one in the center)

The secret to gaining parry is having numbers attack you. The purpose of using a fast weapon that is not you specialty, is you will still try and parry and every parry attempt is a skill check. Bring lots of aids, a few spare suits and daggers.

The Parry gains will fly. It isn't much fun but it is only a few hours to max out your Parry skill.

Q

 

[xStrikerx]

every single skill in uo takes too long to gain. skill gain is the tedious and boring part of the game that pushes players to unattended macro and script. Nobody wants to do boring crap fighting garbage grinding away for days when we have to spend hours and hours of our lives obtaining gear and money to simply play the fun part of the game.

You made this an item based game, so make skills easier to gain and just embrace that you ruined character prep for everyone and move on.

This is exactly how I feel.

 

[Vor]

Armslore is RSI giving slow. Must have been over 50,000 clicks to get from 30 to GM.

 

[galefan2004]

My first thing to list: Cu Sidhes' gain of healing skill appears to be working too poorly when the skill is at 90 and above. I don't believe the dev people would have meant it to be this way in the initial implementation?

The only real way to even get it to 100 is a borderline export that requires both the satyre debuff and mob blocking. That would tell me its not exactly working as intended.

On the topic of the thread....

Taming gains WAY to slow...sometimes you don't even get the GGS while taming creatures that are of the correct difficulty that they should be giving you gains. Having to tame all day just to get a point is lame.

 

[Sarphus]

Parry is one of the quickest skills to take to 120. It is not normal combat, but it is combat.

Go to the sheep in Yew. Dull Copper plate suit and a fast one handed that you don't have skill for. Example - if you are swords use a dagger. Then attack the sheep (tab out after attacking them), one at a time till you have 8 surrounding you. (Cats work too.) If you can get 9, that is even better. (stand on one in the center)

The secret to gaining parry is having numbers attack you. The purpose of using a fast weapon that is not you specialty, is you will still try and parry and every parry attempt is a skill check. Bring lots of aids, a few spare suits and daggers.

The Parry gains will fly. It isn't much fun but it is only a few hours to max out your Parry skill.

Q

It doesn't matter what weapon you have equipped (speed of weapon is irrelevant to parry gains).

What's important is to maximize the number of hits you are receiving from critters that have attack skills within your gain range.

So basically, most of what you said is spot on, but the bit about weapon speed is actually incorrect. I usually just unequip my weapon and equip a shield to take hits from sheep when I'm training parry.

 

[Sarphus]

Taming is definitely too slow. I built most of my tamers using GGS. Basically, I didn't have enough stable space to have all the pets I wanted, so I made 6 tamers using GGS to advance their skills. It took a very long time, but I didn't have to grind anything out and now I have 5 tamers that are GM+.

I agree discord and provoke are also very slow.

Hiding is slow, but easy to train

Spellweaving is very slow because all the spells take a ton of mana.

Poisoning is slow and very painful

Lockpicking is slow if you don't get yourself discorded. If discorded, you can GM lp in a day.

I remember cartography being a pain. I think I just grinded it up into the high 90's and went GGS from there, but I forget.

Remove trap is an incredible pain to train, but it's also a relatively worthless skill. I really wish there was a reason to have this skill.

Stealing is a pain. The last time I trained that skill I grinded it up to about GM and then just did GGS stealing "rares". I think I used alacrity scrolls to speed up the GGS process, but the skill is certainly a pain to train.

 

[Jirel of Joiry]

LOCKPICKING!

(BLEEPING)(BLEEP) Lockingpick! Once you hit 92 thats it; its .1 a day and that's all. I burned through a alacrity scroll nothing! nada! zip! zero! I been talking to other t-hunter friends and everyone had the samething slooooooooooow gain after reaching 92.

Stealing,Taste ID, and Poisoning are all slow as well. Lockpicking is the worst by far.

To the guy who said taste ID is worthless, FYI it gives a boost to Alchemy that's why I added to my mule with alchemy. Trying read and reasearching information on a skill before popping off about its worthless.

Now worthless skills are camping and item ID. Camping was put in place BEFORE they had safe log out spots. Item ID was usful pre-Publish 16; back then you could not see the resists/stats/modes/durabilty on a piece of armor or weapon. You either learned Item ID or found a ID wand to see what ya had. Since pub 16 allowed us to see the information on a weapon or armor Item ID is escentually worthless. Item ID and Camping need deleting or a serious overhaul.

 

[Sarphus]

LOCKPICKING!

(BLEEPING)(BLEEP) Lockingpick! Once you hit 92 thats it; its .1 a day and that's all. I burned through a alacrity scroll nothing! nada! zip! zero! I been talking to other t-hunter friends and everyone had the samething slooooooooooow gain after reaching 92.

Stealing,Taste ID, and Poisoning are all slow as well. Lockpicking is the worst by far.

To the guy who said taste ID is worthless, FYI it gives a boost to Alchemy that's why I added to my mule with alchemy. Trying read and reasearching information on a skill before popping off about its worthless.

Now worthless skills are camping and item ID. Camping was put in place BEFORE they had safe log out spots. Item ID was usful pre-Publish 16; back then you could not see the resists/stats/modes/durabilty on a piece of armor or weapon. You either learned Item ID or found a ID wand to see what ya had. Since pub 16 allowed us to see the information on a weapon or armor Item ID is escentually worthless. Item ID and Camping need deleting or a serious overhaul.

The quickest way to train lockpicking is to get discorded by a satyr and repeatedly pick and relock player-made boxes. You can GM lockpicking in a day. I hope this helps you in your quest to GM lockpicking. Lockpicking is still a really slow and boring skill to train.

Where did you read that you get an alchemy bonus for having taste ID? What kind of alchemy bonus do you get? Are you certain you get an alchemy bonus? How do you know?

Reason I ask is that the playguide (far from infallable) makes no mention of taste ID giving an alchemy bonus. It just says that taste ID lets you identify potions that aren't labeled.

 

[Jirel of Joiry]

LOL *Scratchs head* after 7 yrs of playing hard to remeber where I found what.

I can tell you this taste id will allow you to combine kegs of potions made by different people. For example I have a half a keg of G-explode and a friend gives me a half keg of G-explode he found at a idoc. Use taste ID then you can combine them into one keg!

Playguide suggestion for skills to complement Alchemy:
Handy Additional Skills for Alchemists:
Taste ID — For testing unknown potions.
Poisoning — Put your poison potions to good use!
Magery — If you have the reagents, you might as well use them.
Glassblowing - For making empty bottles. This is particularly good for Alchemists, as Glassblowing requires Alchemy, but doesn't use any skill points.

Okay well after digging around I think should have said complements not boosts, I have found it it hand with my alchem especially since many of my friends keep off loading partial kegs. File it under open mouth insert foot.

Since were in the vain of skills that need lovin ALCHEMY! Alchemy has bugs going back to AoS! It'd been nice to see them fixed.

 

[Lady_Mina]

Taming has always been a hard skill to raise.

But i like it..it makes things worth it at the end.
(wel sort of)

 

[Sarphus]

Ahhh ok

I figured if there was something I didn't know about taste ID, it would be good to learn it from someone who knows it. I knew about the ability to combine kegs and whatnot.

It would be cool if there was a more defined relationship between the 2 skills, though.

 

[EnigmaMaitreya]

The LockPicking for sure, the Satyr does the job quick enough.

If you can just get someone to peace him or invis you, may save a death or two.

 

[Surindur]

Cartography. Thousands of scrolls a day for a week past 97. Only gains I got were GGS. Only use one a day now.. No Satyr, that doesn't exactly fall under "normal" game play for me.

 

[EnigmaMaitreya]

No Satyr, that doesn't exactly fall under "normal" game play for me.

He he, neither is the GGS, for me. It then becomes a choice between evils and the Satyr was the least evil.

I do understand were your coming from though

 

[Elffin]

One thing i found when training the GGS-at-the-end skills like lockpicking was to drop them onto a character with no skills (less than 300 skill points) that way you can get a GGS every 6 hours instead of every 36 hours if you were at a 700 skillcap already.

Elf.

 

[NaKasha Saran]

Taming & Lockpicking top my list

 

[Cogniac]

Currently, Taste Identification absolutely cannot be raised beyond 75.0. It completely escapes my memory as to why it's like this, though.