Having a wide variety of items is good or it might be confusing ?

[popps]

Considering the vast variety of different items with different modifiers that the game has reached, with new ones coming out now and then with Events and such, I was wondering, ain't the game perpahs reached a number of items and modifiers so large that it might be intimidating to those approaching the game anew ?

I mean, for those who already have been playing the game for a while I can see how to them it might be relatively easy to figure out what items are keepers and what items should go to the trash bin, or which are the modifiers to max out and which are the ones to just pass; but to players new to the game ?

Couldn't it be possible that the greater choice might generate confusion and so intimidate players ?

Perhaps simplifying the game consolidating items and modifiers could be of some help towards players new to the game ? It could also, possibly, help make balancing the game out easier, who knows...

It is surpring also how UO does not have much template builders out there. A number of other games have some but that I know of, UO does not have much as far as template builders utilities go. Which is odd to me, since the great variety of items and modifiers template builders could greatly help with all the items' searching and modifiers calculations...

Oh well.....

 

[Trebr Drab]

I think it is too much. Some gamers love all the numbers, but I don't think most do. Simpler is better for most. That's one reason why many like the "classic" and hate AoS. The other reason being the increase of power spread, making it hard for most to keep up with some, and be competitive. By "most", I'm including all those who've left, since UO presently is unhealthily skewed in player types.

 

[Beer_Cayse]

There are 2 prime difficulties that make template builders in UO pretty darned hard to do:
1. The sandbox basis of the game itself. Most if not all other games are pretty structured on what a Swordsman or Archer or Mage/Shaman can do. Thus item usability is limited to class restrictions. UO has none of this.
2. The massive amount of items and modifiers is staggering - as you've pointed out. With Imbuing being able to fine-tune some of this, perhaps a builder could work but I still believe it's a daunting task.

A truly new player will certainly be overwhelmed. No doubt ... but then again that's why they have us old timers around ... teach them what they need!

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

Nope.
Put on GM armour and grab a sword and fight.

As time goes on... You learn and build up your suit.
Upgrade your weapon.

This game is pretty simple. Equip and kill.

No if we are going down that dead horse route of PvP or PvM max mods and all that... Note my "as time goes on... You learn and build up your suit"

And there aint that much variety in this game. I wish there was more.

 

[popps]

A truly new player will certainly be overwhelmed. No doubt ... but then again that's why they have us old timers around ... teach them what they need!

Well, but are there really those many players willing to go out of their way and use up their playing time to teach new comers the ways ?

Sure, some will, but how often can a new player really find that guidance that a game grown as complex as UO might need ?

Besides, what if new players have low patience ? They might give the new UO (new to them, that is...) a few days then if they either won't find a helping hand in the game or the initially daunting task does not "loosen up", they might get intimidated by what lays ahead of them, think they may not have the time the game needs to master it, and so give up and move on.

Should that happen, that would be lost subscriptions, wouldn't they ?

I am just debating whether, in the end, for the better sake of the game, the complexity and overwhelming variety of items and modifiers helps the game or hurts the game..........

Personally, while I think it caters a number of players who keep their interest in the game because of that complexity, at the same one time it might scare away also a number of players, perhaps larger, intimidated by that same one complexity and what lays ahead their playing this particular game.

Modifiers, CAPs, countering modifiers, bonuses adding up and cancelling each other and on and on and on.

And it grows, and it grows more at each Event with more new items with new combination of modifiers thrown in into the playing arena.......

Are we sure a new player might not just look at all this complexity and see it as a daunting task ??

Something perhaps requiring way too much time to be able to understand and master?

People have school, work, family and social lifes to deal with, perhaps quite a few players out there simply lack the time to spend too much time to learn out all of the complexities of the game ?

Don't know, just asking whether the complexity the game has grown into is good or bad for the game itself.......

 

[JamezC]

I see what you're saying. But the game in my opinion isn't that much more complex than any other game. The gamers have to give games an honest chance and try it out. The gamers we lose to frustration probably weren't meant to play a game that wasn't a sports game or a shooter.

That being said i do also think the opening quest and skills systems need to be changed. I cant even imagine being a person starting up without help.

So i'm of two sides i guess. Yes its hard and complex. But i don't see that as the reason people turn away from uo. I think people don't appreciate what it looks like compared to new games. And if you don't give it a real try you cant experience the freedom that other games don't offer.

Sorry after reading over that i realize i may have not really answered your post. The amount of variety in items is a plus for some and a frustration for others. We want the first kind of people

- james

 

[Trebr Drab]

Sorry after reading over that i realize i may have not really answered your post. The amount of variety in items is a plus for some and a frustration for others. We want the first kind of people

- james

We do?
Otherwise, good post. I don't agree though.

 

[georgemarvin2001]

Pre-AOS, armor just protected against physical attacks; we had the skill "magic resistance" to protect against.....wait for it.....you'll never guess........MAGIC!!!!

Suddenly, magic resist was nerfed practically out of existence, and we had to get out a calculator just to see whether a piece of armor would fit our suits, since that old skill had changed to not one, but FOUR different armor resists. Figuring out whether a piece of armor is worth looting is even intimidating for us veterans; I mostly just leave everything on the Miasma and Swoop corpses and collect the gold and marties. It's not worth the time and effort to figure out whether anything in that huge mess of junk is worth picking up. The only time I loot anything is if I log in with the crappy EC and grab items with a score of 400+ for unraveling. I can imagine how bad it would be for a new player.

It isn't just that they made the armor calculations so complicated, either. They had to make leather armor more powerful than plate, and threw in some artifacts so powerful that any player who wanted to PvP or even PvM effectively would have to wear it, despite the fact that none of it matched any of the rest of their armor and it often looked terrible.

I would like to see armor changed back to a simpler system. If they insist on armor deflecting magic attacks, they should simplify it to just "physical resist" and "magic resist". Having 4 types of magic resist just makes it too difficult to make a matching set of armor.

If I was the head of development for UO at the time of AOS, I would have fired the babbling lunatic who came up with the idea of making armor have 5 separate resists and changing the magic resist skill, and kept it just like it was. The old phrase "if it ain't broke, only a fool will fix it till it is" comes to mind. At this late date, I guess the only way to do it would be to just combine all 4 magic resists into 1, and have armor just say "physical resist" and "magic resist". It would be easy to fix all the current armor so that it would work with the new system: Just total all 4 numbers, then divide by 4 to get the new magic resist number.

I would drop the maximum resists to 50 for leather, 65 for studded, ringmail, wood and chain, and increase it to 80 for plate, with appropriate penalties to dex and meditation. Then I would get rid of the "mage armor" property. Each step up in armor would bring about a corresponding penalty to meditation. 1x for cloth, 3/4 for leather, 1/2 for studded, 1/4 for chain, 1/6 for plate. Only a strong, dextrous warrior could wear plate. Only a pure mage would want to wear cloth or leather. Studded, ring and chain would be for stealthers, archers, warrior/mage hybrids, ninja, etc.

On a side note, if they allowed us to change artifacts to match the rest of our suits, people would be proud to wear great GM crafted armor again, not ashamed of the mismatched mess that armor has become.

For the first half of its life, UO was a skill-dominated game. Players won and lost battles by their wits and strategy. UO only became an item-and power-scroll-dominated mess after AOS came out. Pre-AOS, I was about average in skills. Post-AOS, I was nearly indestructible for a while with 90 DCI, 120 parry, 100 LJ and an axe of the heavens, till they nerfed my template out of existence. The devs thought AOS would bring in a lot of new players. It didn't. They thought that the veterans would like the ability to be practically indestructible gods of UO, since we could grab all of the power scrolls and either eat them to become even more powerful, or sell them for so much gold that we could never spend it all. We didn't. Once all of the victims, trammies and newbies gave up trying to get their own power scrolls, and only the uber-equipped, 6x legendary multi-millionaire players could survive in Fel anymore, it got boring; most of the PvP veterans either moved to pre-AOS free shards, moved on to other games, or quit altogether; most new players were overwhelmed by the complexity of the equipment, couldn't see any way to get the PvP rewards and artifacts that they needed to ever compete effectively in either PvP or PvM, found that the skill gain system was tedious, impossibly time consuming, and in some cases, irreparably broken after it was changed to accomodate power scrolls, and just left as soon as their trial subscription expired; that's really why Fel is practically a graveyard on most shards now, and UO's subscription base declined from the UO:Rennaisance era's high of nearly 300k to its current anemic levels within months of the introduction of AOS. We all voted with our pocketbooks that we hated AOS, but the Dev team back then never once thought of putting things back the way they were, back when the game was fun. They just arrogantly told us over and over, till it became like a broken record, here on Stratics and other places, that we could like it or leave it. So we left. Some of us have come back for ML and SA, but most of us didn't.

 

[RichDC]

personally i like the total variety.

I like the fact that no suit has to be the same, no one needs to wear the same thing

What i DONT like, is the new imbuing.

The old way imbuing worked allowed for cheap competitive suits due to the availability of all the ingredients...now well its back to being only the established rich players who can actually benefit.

They should re implement all the bugs they fixed enabling players to cheaply make relic frags...why make a skill that can open up the game to all...then restrict it to only the players who already have the resources available??

 

[JamezC]

We do?
Otherwise, good post. I don't agree though.

I meant more that we want people that will play, I'm assuming the ones that like a lot of stuff will play. What in particular do you disagree about if you don't mind me asking?

I'm on the fence a little on the issue because i see that too many items might hurt the chances of people feeling comfortable entering uo, and ultimately hurt the player base. But at the same time it is good for the current players to have a variety of things to use and attain.

I see what you said above about the people being competitive but i guess its not my playstyle to try and be the best at uo. I Just like hanging out with the people i meet and trying out all the things you can do in uo.

- James

 

[RichDC]

I know it sounds stupid but id like to see basic items...gm armour/waepons for example actually being usefull.

If the availability of mid range gear became greater then people wouldnt need to grind for hours/days/months to be competitive, pvm or pvp.

I think that would help. Making it easier for a person to join but just as difficult to become the best {best gear} people would more likely, imo, to play.

Most other MMOs have a mindles grind to get to the competitive level, UO doesnt have this. Why should we move towards it in terms of equiptment?!?

 

[Berethrain]

They should re implement all the bugs they fixed enabling players to cheaply make relic frags...why make a skill that can open up the game to all...then restrict it to only the players who already have the resources available??

I dont think it should be easy to get these, it makes other items almost worthless.

Why should we move towards it in terms of equiptment?!?

It's been this way for years...

 

[UOKaiser]

I know it sounds stupid but id like to see basic items...gm armour/waepons for example actually being usefull.

If the availability of mid range gear became greater then people wouldnt need to grind for hours/days/months to be competitive, pvm or pvp.

I think that would help. Making it easier for a person to join but just as difficult to become the best {best gear} people would more likely, imo, to play.

Most other MMOs have a mindles grind to get to the competitive level, UO doesnt have this. Why should we move towards it in terms of equiptment?!?

The game would die at least in the pvm side. PVM is about grinding for better items the fun is in the discovery on the corpse and knowing the next fight monster will bring greater reward. PVP is about having the best as fast as possible to kill other players. Both playstyles do not mix neither does the requirements of fun. Other mmo are linear by level straight paths and not a sandbox they tell you what to do the world shapes you. While UO is a sandbox and you tell yourself what to do and you shape the world.

 

[RichDC]

The game would die at least in the pvm side. PVM is about grinding for better items the fun is in the discovery on the corpse and knowing the next fight monster will bring greater reward. PVP is about having the best as fast as possible to kill other players. Both playstyles do not mix neither does the requirements of fun. Other mmo are linear by level straight paths and not a sandbox they tell you what to do the world shapes you. While UO is a sandbox and you tell yourself what to do and you shape the world.

Makes sense, never really thought of it that way.

I forgot to remember when i started back after the AOS introduction. I was given a virtue suit and it did me fine for a long time. It was only until i moved into pvp it made a difference.

Good post. especially the bolded.

 

[Uvtha]

No. Is diablo intimidating? Hardly. UO doesn't even have that much going on item wise. There aren't that many properties, they are all pretty straight forward about what they do, and all you need to know about the numbers is the higher the better.

 

[Uvtha]

A truly new player will certainly be overwhelmed. No doubt ... but then again that's why they have us old timers around ... teach them what they need!

No more than any other game. MMO's are complicated games, it takes a while to learn stuff. And honestly, i've seem many others games that are less straight forward than UO. I think people are making it out to be way more complicated that it actually is.

 

[popps]

The game would die at least in the pvm side. PVM is about grinding for better items the fun is in the discovery on the corpse and knowing the next fight monster will bring greater reward.

Uhu ?

I would hope that people played an online multiplayer game for more than merely hoarding the next best item, endlessly.

Not sure about others but to me it sounds rather boring, repetitive and gets old.

Perhaps giving to players good reasons other than merely going after items could make it for a better game ?

Just perhaps ?

To me, "content", new content actually has nothing to do with items or, if preferred, new items, but instead, new content means way more than that.
It means scenarios, storylines, puzzles and riddles to solve, a world to save, taking sides when needed and so forth.

Items is the least I would want to be interested in, when playing an online multiplayer game.........

Actually, I think that focusing a game too much on items at the expenses of more deep content hurts the game, making its playing experience, at least for me, superficial, not a real immersion in a virtual environment.

 

[popps]

No more than any other game. MMO's are complicated games, it takes a while to learn stuff. And honestly, i've seem many others games that are less straight forward than UO. I think people are making it out to be way more complicated that it actually is.

It might be easy for someone who has been playing for long, I really wonder what the feeling is for a player who has never seen UO before and opens the client the very first time these days..........

 

[Connor_Graham]

Uhu ?

I would hope that people played an online multiplayer game for more than merely hoarding the next best item, endlessly.

Not sure about others but to me it sounds rather boring, repetitive and gets old.

Perhaps giving to players good reasons other than merely going after items could make it for a better game ?

Just perhaps ?

To me, "content", new content actually has nothing to do with items or, if preferred, new items, but instead, new content means way more than that.
It means scenarios, storylines, puzzles and riddles to solve, a world to save, taking sides when needed and so forth.

Items is the least I would want to be interested in, when playing an online multiplayer game.........

Actually, I think that focusing a game too much on items at the expenses of more deep content hurts the game, making its playing experience, at least for me, superficial, not a real immersion in a virtual environment.

Every game out there has items as the reward for PvM. There has to be a goal to achieve, and attaining the latest item is the only one that works. You can put out all of the puzzles or whatever that you want and unless there's some kind of reward for participating, there won't be any interest in it.

Don't like items? Play Tetris or something and leave UO.

 

[Santa Claus]

Nope.
Put on GM armour and grab a sword and fight.

As time goes on... You learn and build up your suit.
Upgrade your weapon.

This game is pretty simple. Equip and kill.

No if we are going down that dead horse route of PvP or PvM max mods and all that... Note my "as time goes on... You learn and build up your suit"

And there aint that much variety in this game. I wish there was more.

I do that and try that and is why I stopped hunting with ML Expansion... there you really have NO chance with gm stuff. As for the number crunching ... AOS stuff is not that interesting to me that I bother to learn it.

 

[ZidjiN]

Well, but are there really those many players willing to go out of their way and use up their playing time to teach new comers the ways ?

Sure, some will, but how often can a new player really find that guidance that a game grown as complex as UO might need ?

Start a new char on europe and i dare to tell you that it wont take you more then 5 minutes before someone offers their help.
Both HELP and Saor have players there allmost 24/7. Nah okey not 24/7 but during "normal hours".

 

[UOKaiser]

I do that and try that and is why I stopped hunting with ML Expansion... there you really have NO chance with gm stuff. As for the number crunching ... AOS stuff is not that interesting to me that I bother to learn it.

Nobody will be doing things with gm stuff in ml expansion. Got to start from the old lands fiirst. overland monsters in trammel,malas then dungeons from easiest to hardest in trammel then lost lands then ish then ish dungeons then doom then finaly they are ready for Ml. After conquering ml they may start with SA. By that time there armor started from non gm to gm to better and better and better. The essence of PVM increase the skills of your characters by tackiling stronger creatures and getting better loot. If a new player starts out tommorrow and the next day they are killing stygian dragon solo then they should be quitting by the end of the week. They already reached the pvm end game and received everything in a short amount of time. On to the next game.

 

[UOKaiser]

Uhu ?

I would hope that people played an online multiplayer game for more than merely hoarding the next best item, endlessly.

Not sure about others but to me it sounds rather boring, repetitive and gets old.

Perhaps giving to players good reasons other than merely going after items could make it for a better game ?

Just perhaps ?

To me, "content", new content actually has nothing to do with items or, if preferred, new items, but instead, new content means way more than that.
It means scenarios, storylines, puzzles and riddles to solve, a world to save, taking sides when needed and so forth.

Items is the least I would want to be interested in, when playing an online multiplayer game.........

Actually, I think that focusing a game too much on items at the expenses of more deep content hurts the game, making its playing experience, at least for me, superficial, not a real immersion in a virtual environment.

There is no good reason to kill monsters after they killed them once if there is no reward,item,rare something to reach for everytime they fight them. There is not enough different new monsters every day to keep all players occupied with unique content for 12-20 years let alone a month. If you add in the instant gradification of having a full character with best items within a week then membership would last 1 month. Theres not nearly enough pvp players to pay for all the other players subscriptions that would be loss to keep the game around for them to pvp. Those players would have to pay like 60 or more a month per account for ea to brake even

 

[Wilde1]

Interesting post, Popps. I disagree. I think new players can get help and that finding a low end lrc suit (for example) is pretty easy to do.

What I like about the variety is that there are many paths to a really good suit. You can piece together drops if you saved enough good ones. You can shop for pieces at merchants. You can craft items with runics of various sorts. You can imbue items you found or made. You can do specific quests for items. You can grind monsters for a special drop, or for the gold to buy a special drop (but you don't need to in order to have a very nice suit).

This is opposed to simpler weapon/armor systems where you have to earn some sort of token by running the same dungeon over and over, or save up milions or scan the auction house every hour to see if someone has put up that ONE item you need that everyone is also looking for because its the best item for your character class. Everyone who knows anything about that game is wearing the same suit (or trying to build it) because its the best ONE. Thats the problem with simpler systems.

I think the wide variety is a strength. Is it a PITA sometimes? sure! But it also makes UO unique in a manner consistent with the best sandbox mmo to date.

 

[Uvtha]

It might be easy for someone who has been playing for long, I really wonder what the feeling is for a player who has never seen UO before and opens the client the very first time these days..........

Like I said, any online game can be daunting to a complete noob, but really all that new players need to know is what the properties on magic items do, which generally are self explanatory, and from there, what ones are worth having on an item. Since its just items we are talking about.

 

[Uvtha]

I do that and try that and is why I stopped hunting with ML Expansion... there you really have NO chance with gm stuff. As for the number crunching ... AOS stuff is not that interesting to me that I bother to learn it.

...explain to me the "number crunching" that goes on? I never understood what people were talking about when they say this. The ONLY thing that requires any kind of anything is resists, and thats only if you want an all 70's suit which you don't HAVE to have, I rarely have one. Or you want an 100 lrc suit, in that case only keep pieces with 17% or higher. Pretty simple.

All you need to know is what the properties do, what properties you want, and know that the higher the number...the better. Thats it. It's not like its differential calculus.

 

[popps]

What I like about the variety is that there are many paths to a really good suit.

One thing I cannot understand, is how it is possible, while other games have template editors and builders to help players out in figuring their best template and outfit, in UO while there is tons of scripts for everything as well as other utilities from the geography of the game to looking inside files and calculators for various skills, I have yet to see any template builder/editor or anything that helps players sort through the wide variety of items and modifiers when building up their template and outfit.

And this is a game going towards 13 years of life..........

I mean, the wider variety of items and modifiers would, at least to me, make such a builder/editor more needed and yet, other games have them but UO does not.

go figure........

 

[popps]

...explain to me the "number crunching" that goes on? I never understood what people were talking about when they say this. The ONLY thing that requires any kind of anything is resists, and thats only if you want an all 70's suit which you don't HAVE to have, I rarely have one. Or you want an 100 lrc suit, in that case only keep pieces with 17% or higher. Pretty simple.

All you need to know is what the properties do, what properties you want, and know that the higher the number...the better. Thats it. It's not like its differential calculus.

Well, to my understanding there is more than that...

Besides, having to deal with modifiers CAPs, one has also to consider exceeding the CAP to "counter" other players opposing modifiers affecting their modifiers and this, while still struggling to balance out the entire suit's modifiers.

It is like a blanket that one pulls over the head but leaving the feet out in the cold.....

And the modifiers to be considered are many and of these many a lot very important.

Is it more important to boost more Mana Regen or Lower Mana Count ?
Focus on Hit Chance increase or Lower Defence ? And what about hit point regen, stamina regen and blah blah blah.........

Trying to work them all out and balance them, fine tune them in a suit can be a nightmare......

 

[curlybeard]

Yes. Complexity is a good thing. Adding restrictions on when items can be used by players based on skill (UO doesn't have levels and that is a good thing) or removing items would negatively impact the character of the game.

 

[Vercingitorix]

I don't mind the current system too much, however I'd love to see a return to the way armor and weapons were before all these modifiers. It'll never happen, I would just like to see it is all.

 

[Shelleybean]

One thing I cannot understand, is how it is possible, while other games have template editors and builders to help players out in figuring their best template and outfit, in UO while there is tons of scripts for everything as well as other utilities from the geography of the game to looking inside files and calculators for various skills, I have yet to see any template builder/editor or anything that helps players sort through the wide variety of items and modifiers when building up their template and outfit.

And this is a game going towards 13 years of life..........

I mean, the wider variety of items and modifiers would, at least to me, make such a builder/editor more needed and yet, other games have them but UO does not.

go figure........

The complexity is part of what makes UO special. And what's important to one player when it comes to skills & items may not be important to the next player. No template/item editor is going to tell anyone what's "the best" because there isn't a best. It's doing what you enjoy in game and trying to come up with a template and equipment that can help you do what you enjoy. I learned this when I created a sampire, copying skills and items to almost the exact detail as what is popular and then realizing that it didn't suit my playstyle and I didn't enjoy it. I made changes to my skills and items so that it worked for me.

 

[Santa Claus]

...explain to me the "number crunching" that goes on? I never understood what people were talking about when they say this. The ONLY thing that requires any kind of anything is resists, and thats only if you want an all 70's suit which you don't HAVE to have, I rarely have one. Or you want an 100 lrc suit, in that case only keep pieces with 17% or higher. Pretty simple.

All you need to know is what the properties do, what properties you want, and know that the higher the number...the better. Thats it. It's not like its differential calculus.

Actually I like differential Calculus more, as it has firmer rules and definitions.

I only play on a friends account anyway and for that made a tamer as they are least item dependendant, like decent bards were before the 'you have no chance of provoking this creature' went in.

And don't underestimate the hurdle AOS brought as the friend whose account I play sucks even more at hunting than me and uses the 4 accounts for roleplaying and keeping houses.