There is no balance in UO.
Argh. I see it now. Your ranked number 88... Im ranked 94 that is not fair.
Lets put resources into that... Meanwhile I decide to send my 1st time PvPer into battle and how do you know how good I am before I fight... Hmmm. Are you ranking me, my player or my account.
Ill just make a new player and transfer over skills... Think about it.
This is an item based game.
Meaning, that modifiers are a great deal of the winning (or losing) component.
A good ranking system, IMHO, would do the following upon logging in with the account.
- # 1
It would rank the player's computer (ping ?) which means testing the response fastness of the account to the server. This is needed to evaluate the quality of hardware/connection of the player willing to engage in the fight.
- # 2
It would rank the player armor and weapons, ALL armor and weapons the player may have on oneself whether weared or in the backpack. This to avoid the player to have poor armor worn to engage the fight and then change it with other armor that was being carried in backpack
- # 3
It would rank all combat skills (or aid to combat) the player has
- # 4
It would assess all combat aid items carried like potions, magic pies and so forth
Put together all rankings in a final figure which, in order to initiate combat, will need to be close to the other opponent (be a individual or a party).
This would be assessed when the party is willing to initiate combat to a target. If the rankings are close to each other the combat can take place otherwise, it doesn't......
Of course, there is a pre-requisite to all this which is getting rid of any and all cheating in Ultima Online before anything else.
The most wonderfull combat system might be designed, coded and implemented but if players feel that PvP is influenced by cheating because the game allows cheating, they would still not want to PvP.
So, if we really want PvP to fly in UO, the very first thing that would need to be done, one way or the other, is getting rid of cheating (hacking and scripting) in Ultima onlilne.
THEN things can move on to the following step which is designing and coding a great PvP system that is balanced out and with open ended outcomes for fights.