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Please Read! Forum Info, FAQ and More! (UPDATED 5-15-03)

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N

Neon Ninja

Guest
With the release of Publish 16 on to production shards, much has changed. In overland Felucca (places other than Dungeons or the Lost Lands), when you kill a blue (also known as an “innocent”) they have the option of giving you a murder count, which increases both your long and short term murder counts by one, and all the loot remains on the innocent’s corpse.
However, in Dungeons or the Lost Lands (T2A), murdering an innocent has two slight variations. Firstly, receiving a murder count only increases your long term counts, and not your short. Secondly, the innocent will retain all loot except for cursed items, resources, gold, and scrolls.

As of AoS, short term counts have been disabled. You can still only murder in Felucca and there is no longer any stat loss. Long term counts will still decay in 40 hours of game time. Looting has now also changed with the new "insurance". Any items not insured (Except for newbie, blessed, and vet rewards) will remain on the corpse of a victim.
 
N

Neon Ninja

Guest
To make it simple, 5 long term counts will turn your character red and you will be known as a Player Killer (PK/murderer) throughout the land. While red, you are freely attackable by all people, and on shards that are not a Siege rule set shard, you will be killed by guards should you enter the guard zone and someone say “guards” (including NPCs.)
When you acquire 5 short term counts you now risk taking what is known as “stat loss.” If you die in overland Felucca and resurrect before going below 5 short term counts you will take statloss.

As of AOS there is no more stat loss and short term murder counts do not mean anything


To quote Fire Song:
The amount of statloss varies from 9% (5 murders) to 20% (20 or more murders)
It takes from both your stats and your skills. But to rezz in stat loss clears away ALL Short term murder counts.
However, death in the Dungeons/Lost Lands area of Felucca and resurrecting with over 5 short term counts will NOT cause stat loss. You can check if you will take statloss by saying "I must consider my sins" while a ghost, which will prompt two messages: one with your short/long counts and the second telling you if return to the living you will suffer statloss or not.
 
N

Neon Ninja

Guest
Both type of murder counts decay at a different rate- long terms take 40 hours in game, and short terms 8 (and it does not matter if you are dead or alive; murder counts decay in either form). However, it is important to remember that taking a murder count resets this timer.

As of AoS, stat loss was removed thus making short term counts disabled. You will still see them listed when you say "I must consider my sins" but they mean nothing.
 
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Neon Ninja

Guest
Speak aloud "I must consider my sins" and a count of your short and long terms will appear in the lower left corner. If you are currently dead, you will also be informed if ressurecting will induce statloss.
 
N

Neon Ninja

Guest
“Ping-Pongs” were a 3rd type of murder count that were removed with Publish 16; all they did was to allow a player to go “perma-red.”

As of AOS this feature is no longer enabled. Perma-red no longer exists
 
N

Neon Ninja

Guest
It used to be that a PK could have his long term counts reduced to 4 one time by joining a faction. However, recently OSI issued a one time only complete murder count wipe to all characters, and now the faction murder reprieve nolonger works.
 
N

Neon Ninja

Guest
On Siege and Siege ruleset shards, being a PK works a little bit different. Basically, murderers are allowed in town but they may not attack anybody unless that person attacks them first, and there is no statloss whatsoever. For more information visit http://PlaySP.com
 
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Neon Ninja

Guest
The only thing there is to do from here is to rebuild your lost skills... sorry :(

Again, as of AoS murderers do not take stat loss for murders. This feature has been disabled.
 
N

Neon Ninja

Guest
As of Publish 16, yes. Before publish 16, however, newbied items would stay on a red's corpse.

Newbie items still exist in game but are no longer given to a new character upon creation. They still have the same properties after AOS
 
N

Neon Ninja

Guest
This is currently unknown, however, it is suspected that it will be a Trammel ruleset, though there are rumors it will be split into two halves much like Trammel and Felucca.
 
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Neon Ninja

Guest
These blues are known as "Justice Campers-" they take pot shots on newly ressurected reds in order to gain in the Justice virtue.
 
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Neon Ninja

Guest
Buccaneer's Den in Felucca does not have any guards and you may freely bank there.
 
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Neon Ninja

Guest
Because you are red, thieves may freely steal from you. However, remember that if they can steal from you they are in the thief guild and thus cannot give murder counts... so attacking them may turn you a criminal, but what do you care, you're red.
 
N

Neon Ninja

Guest
This is a widely debated concept, however, it is generally accepted that most PvPers who do well have less than a 100ms ping. Above that you will start having some trouble with spell times and keeping up with people running from you.
 
N

Neon Ninja

Guest
I personally break down the murderer class into 4 different catagories:
~a. The Active Solo Murderer: This style involves actively taking murder counts while fighting solo.
~b. The Active Group Murderer: This style involves two or more murderers that work together and actively take counts, such as guilds who raid dungeons simply to kill all the blues there
~c. The Passive Solo Murderer: This style involves the murderer taking just enough counts to keep himself red (but no more) and simply letting people attack him.
~d. The Passive Group Murderer: This style involves two or more murderers who keep themselves red but do not take counts and let people attack them but fight together, such as cross healing each other.

Of corse, there are other styles and meathods of playing a murderer, but I consider those to be the basic four.
 
N

Neon Ninja

Guest
Any class you can deal damage with =P It's completely up to you.
 
N

Neon Ninja

Guest
I suggest looking in the appropriate class forum for this one as well as discussing different techniques with people who play the same class as you.
 
N

Neon Ninja

Guest
An assassin is, essentially, a murderer who uses stealth to sneak up on his victims undetected in order to achieve the element of suprise.
 
N

Neon Ninja

Guest
A pirate is, essentially, a murderer who sails the seas and uses magery or archery in order to kill and plunder people he finds. Macroers make easy targets for pirates.
 
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Neon Ninja

Guest
Personally, I have a few good reccomendations. Firstly, learn what it looks like when someone is about to attack you- they will often stop, get in war mode, bless/RA/Magic Reflect/etc. themselves, and other telltale signs. As soon as they DO attack you, slowly drag them away from any large crowds into a somewhat secluded area and proceed to fight them one on one.
 
N

Neon Ninja

Guest
This is simply a matter of personal preference. While some PvPers will complain when you "chug pots" and such, I say go right ahead- anything to give yourself an edge.
 
N

Neon Ninja

Guest
I suggest looking in the appropriate class forum for this one.
 
N

Neon Ninja

Guest
Hello and welcome to the murderers forum! We are doing a bit of restructuring here. We have combined some of the locked threads into one thread to cut down on some space and make room for the new "MOM" (Murderer of the Month) Walls of Fame & Shame.

Here in this thread you'll now find all of the info needed for this forum. Forum information provided by forum moderators Brave and Fire Song. Our wonderful "Guide for slaughtering the Innocent" Was provided by one of our regulars, Vile Style. A BIG thank you to all of you who helped put all of this information together and for Neon Ninja for our FAQ!

Here we go!


Welcome to the PK forum - before you start using this forum please take a minute to read this post & try to stay within the guildelines set out.

  • Read the Rules of Conduct. Bare the rules in mind when you are posting - this is a public forum & thus must be suitable for the public.
  • Read the FAQ. There's a lot of great information there regarding markup, smileys, signatures etc.
  • Spam is not allowed. Please refrain from spamming the boards.
  • Flaming and trolling are not beneficial to the community. Personal attacks are not encouraged, heck, they're not allowed - so leave your egos at the door.
  • Bugs and 'sploits... we don't want the how-to's discussed here.
  • Pornography, Warez etc... all 100% inappropriate.
  • No eBay ads or real-cash advertisements. The place for those is the UO Trade Forums.

Please note that we are fairly strict on signature sizes. Below are the signature maximums:

Maximum size of image file(s): 35k
Maximum height of image(s): 125 pixels
Maximum width of image(s): 600 pixels

Okay guys and gals, it's time to address this issue because it's getting a little out of control.

We have a profanity filter for a reason. It is to filter out profane words. So from now on those of you who are really trying to be good by typing things out like Fu***** a@@holes, just type it out and let the filter take over.

****ing ****s!

See how it works. You'll also note that maybe some of the words you have been filtering yourselves aren't even filtered through the system. But all of you please try and remember that circumventing the filter is against the ROC and from this point forward we're going to have to start dishing out warnings for things that are so easily avoided.

K. Deliberately circumventing the censor filter is prohibited.

So from now on when you really feel you've just got to swear and get it all out there, just let the fingers flow and let the filter do it's job.

Thank you!


Those are the rules of the road. Enjoy your stay and have fun!

And now from the mind of Neon Ninja!

____________________________________________________________________

Well, here it is folks, the new UO Murderer Forum FAQ.

I have compiled all the questions I could think of pertaining to murdering/PKing off the top of my head in to one FAQ, but I still need suggestions for questions I missed.

Please PM me any suggestions you may have.

NOTE: Due to post edit time limit restrictions, which the admins seem unable to remove, I an unable to edit the replies to this thread.
What this means:
Additions to this FAQ must now go through a moderator... meaning that when I want to add something, I have to contact one of the great staffers of this forum, which means it's a slightly longer process to update the FAQ than it would normally be.
You will find all additions as red text in the replies.
My thanks to FireSong for helping us accomplish the rather large task of updating the FAQ post-AoS without needing to entirely re-create the FAQ (a hassle, indeed).

Index


Section 1: General Player Killing Info

1.1. How does the murder count system work? (Edited 5-13-03)
1.2. What do murder counts mean and what is statloss? (Edited 5-13-03)
1.3. How do I get rid of murder counts? (Edited 5-13-03)
1.4. How do I display my murder counts?
1.5. What are “Ping-Pongs?” (Edited 5-13-03)
1.6. What is a murder reprieve?
1.7. What about Siege?
1.8. HELP! I took statloss! (Edited 5-13-03)
1.9. Do reds keep newbied items? (Edited 5-13-03)
1.10. Why can I only see Felucca on the moongate selector?
1.11. Will the new landset, Malas, in Age of Shadows have a Fel or Tram ruleset?
1.12. Why do blues keep killing me every time I ressurect at the chaos shrine?
1.13. How do I bank if I can't enter a town?
1.14. A thief just stole from me and he didn't turn grey!
1.15. What ping do I need to PK?
1.16. What are "bounties?"

Section 2: Techniques and Styles

2.1. What are the basic catagories of a murderer?
2.2. What classes can I murder with?
2.3. How do I play a (insert class here) murderer?
2.4. What is an "assassin?"
2.5. What is a "pirate?"
2.6. How do I avoid being ganked?
2.7. Is it okay to use pots, hiding, etc?
2.8. How do I train (insert skill here)?
2.9. Is it possible to PvP without resist (or other defensive skills)? (Edited 5-13-03)
 
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Neon Ninja

Guest
It all depends on your playstyle. Personally, I only have resist in one of my character's templates, and it's already GM and I only miss the occasional poison resist when I play my other characters. Without high resist expect to spend more resources on GC pots and cure/heal regs.

As of AoS, magic resist now only works against stat altering spells, poison, paralize and mana draining spells.

Supposedly as of publish 18, magic resist will be updated again to give a base amount added to all 5 resist before armor is applied. *IF* this is the change being added to the next publish we will update when it becomes official.
 
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Neon Ninja

Guest
Ultima Online Renaissance, implemented in May 2000, doubled the world in size by creating a duplicate Britannia that was accessible by use of moonstones found on corpses of monsters, or for sale from other players. Moonstones only work outside of guard zones, and can be used only once. A cheaper way to cross from Felucca or Trammel to the other is to use Moongates - OSI did make facet travel possible with moongates early 2001.

Felluca is the ‘old lands’ where any criminal or murderous act (Stealing, Attacking, and Killing) has consequences. This land is littered with gravestones and bones and the trees have no
leaves.

Before July 2002
(Your movement is blocked by animals and people, your area affect spells can turn you
into a criminal and others may kill you. If you die, your corpse can be quickly looted before you
get back. Almost all towns are subject to random monster spawns. Felluca is the lands of ‘no holds barred’ so to speak. It’s where Men are Men, and Women…are Women.
Trammel is the lighter, fluffier, fuzzier side of Ultima Online. The Men are Boys, the Women are Lonely, and the Sheep are afraid. All new players start in Trammel. You may not attack or be attacked by other players at any time. Other people or monsters never block your movement. If you become a criminal, the only way justice can be served is by town guards (you must be in a guard zone). If you die, your corpse is lootable only by you for the first few minutes. The grass is green, flowers bloom, and trees have leaves. Monsters are not allowed in Guard zones. For this reason, many call Trammel, ‘Barney-Land’. There isn’t much room for a Thief in Trammel, but it does have it’s good points, all covered in this FAQ. The more creative evil mind will find many opportunities in Trammel to profit.


In July 2002, "Publish 16" was applied to change the entire system of Felucca.
Your movement is blocked by animals and people, but your area affect spells only will hurt reds and grays if you are blue yourself. If you are red, then the area effect spells can hurt everyone. If you die inside or outside of town, your corpse can be quickly looted before you
get back. You can't cast any area effect or field spell in town, nor summon monsters or animals. You will turn Gray looting BONES of another blue player now, so dedicated Looters better be careful now.

Dungeons and the Lost Lands were changed as well. Thieves can only rob gold and gems off blues. However, if your victim is gray or red, you can steal anything from them! If you die in a dungeon, you are kicked out and you are not allowed to reenter for 20 minutes. The good news is if you die in the dungeon blue - you ress with just about everything you were carrying! If you die gray though, you lose a good portion of your loot. But the downside is if you see a BLUE corpse in a dungeon or Lost Lands, chances are the loot isn't worth much, and you'll go gray looting the body or bones.*


Also, be aware you are unable to snoop in Trammel, as it is considered an aggressive/offensive action.
 
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Neon Ninja

Guest
This forum deals mainly with the thieving of items from players, and while obtaining these items utilises the "stealing" skill,there has historically not been much info posted on this subject on the forum. Hence no details here. We await enlightenment with eager anticipation.
-heathwalker (UO Thief Forum Moderator)
 
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Neon Ninja

Guest
Before attempting to steal from your packhorse, say "all guard me" or "[name] guard me" and make sure you recieve the message [pet's name] is now guarding you; if you are in a guild your pet's health bar/name will turn green.
 
N

Neon Ninja

Guest
First, your character needs to be in-game for 48 hours. Second, your stealing skill must be 60. Third, you need 500 gold (700 more if you wish to buy a disguise kit). Then, all you need is the Thief Guildmaster (see below). Once you find one, ask them by name, ‘(name) join’. They will ask for 500 gold if you meet all the requirements; then just drop it on top of them. Then ask them, ‘name buy disguise kit’ and drop 700 gold on top of them again. Bank that Kit! Zip came up with a brilliant way to know when you are 40 hours old. As soon as you create your thief, go out and take ONE murder count (Don't worry, it's 5 murder counts where you turn red). If you say, "I must consider my sins", it shows you have 1 long term count, which takes 40 hours to go away! So basically, once you get rid of your murder count, you only need 8 more hours to join the thief guild... which, if you don't know, is the exact length a short term murder count lasts... so as soon as the long wears off if you wish to be REALLY accurate you can take another count, and when the short wears off then you are at the exact 48 hours.

So you want to also know how to QUIT the Guild? FOR SHAME! Just find any NPC Thief Guildmaster again, and tell them by name, "(name) resign guild"
If you wish to steal from actual players in addition to NPC's and Containers, you will need to join the Thief Guild, via the Thief Guildmaster. They now appear in random locations around every town. You will have to run around and bring up every NPC paperdoll to see if they are the Guildmaster. They do NOT reside in a single place for more than an hour, so there is no other way but to run around and look for him. I personally advise going to the city of Cove - it's the smallest town there is, and I always find him within 3 minutes. Be advised once you join the Thief guild, you may NO LONGER give murder counts to anyone that ever kills you. NEVER.


ALSO:
Once you have joined the thief guild, not only may you no longer give murder counts, but you are FREELY lootable on ALL facets.



A helpful hint:
The thief guildmaster will have a yellow name if you have allnames on (as he/she is invulnerable) and will not have a title (ie. "the musician").
This should cut down the NPCs you have to search through considerably.
 
N

Neon Ninja

Guest
It will only work if you are in the Thieves Guild. Double click on it, then select what style of hair you desire. Once you apply it, bring up your own paper doll and see if your ‘new’ NPC name is acceptable – if not, use the kit again. You will notice that your hair turns bright white when you use the kit. You can always wear a hat, or simply use hair dye to cover it up. The kit will work for 2 hours in Real Time. It can NOT be removed, and you must play for 2 hours to have it removed. While disguised, you cannot cast Incognito or Polymorph.
Other things to improve your disguise are to raise your karma and get rid of your ‘Scoundrel’ Title and delete any relative text in your scroll that tips other off into knowing you’re a Thief. You can gain karma giving items to NPCs by dropping it on them. Ie: collect bags from monsters, and give them to the provisioner. Cycle your newbie clothes, and buy a dye tub. The objective is to not allow yourself to be recognized! Even go so far to dress and act like the Local NPC's!
If you know someone is using the Tracking Skill on you, don't think changing disguises will throw them off the track. The sure-fire way to break the tracking is to leave the area or cross server lines.
But for the thief on the go, you can always leave the disguise kit menu on screen, even while the kit is in the bank and you run off. Just move it to the bottom of your screen and bring it up when you need it, and you can change your diguise again and again. However, dying with it up can do very interestings things...
Be warned, if you quit the game while your disguise is on, you will notice your disguise name in your Login Menu instead of your thief's original name. You will also notice all your macros you recorded are also not working - this is because UO's code makes a totally new folder for this new-name character and has trouble keeping track of it.*
 
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Neon Ninja

Guest
As we already covered, plenty of important changes were made with Publish 16, a few very big ones involving thieves. It seems that since Publish 16, what was known as "perma grey" has been removed- very good news for us! As it stands, if you click yourself and you're grey, you may be freely attacked without consequence, and if you're blue (or green, as the case may be) you're essentially safe. This isn't to say that people will not attack you, it simply means that they will face normal consequences (ie. if you are blue and attacked in the guard zone, guards may be called on the offending player).
 
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Neon Ninja

Guest
As of now, YES!
For those of you who do not know, since Publish 16 sometimes items recently stolen will be "blessed" (that is, rather, that they cannot be lost by dying but can be lost by being stolen) for two minutes.
Here is the official word from OSI in early November 2002:
Lord-Xanthor - *Mocker* Why are items stolen by thieves now temporarily blessed? This allows thieves to keep stolen items after ressurecting, ensuring 100% success for a play style which involves 0 risk. They can even call guards on themselves. Was this intentional, or is it a bug?
Helios_OSI - It was an unintentional feature that we decided to keep in the game. It gives the Thief an extra plus.
Helios_OSI - Which isnt all bad.

Lord-Xanthor - *C_Mike_GL* Since Theifs are soo limited to where and what they can steal, will there be changes of the theiving skill?
Helios_OSI - I wouldn't retire my thief just yet - that's all I'll say about that for now.
 
N

Neon Ninja

Guest
Simply put, if the opponent highlights grey (or anything except blue, for that matter) to you, they are a safe target. That's all there is to it. Now, with Publish 16, unlike Pre-16, stealing is NOT considered an agressive action, therefore if a victim attacks you right after a steal they WILL highlight grey.
 
N

Neon Ninja

Guest
First you need 80 Wrestle and 80 Arms Lore minimum to use the "Wrestle Disarm" function. Macro a key for "Wrestle-Disarm". Press this when you are ready to run up to anyone and wrestle them. While you wrestle, the Program makes a check against your skills, and determines if you Fail or successfully disarm the opponent. High Wrestle will help you avoid being hit by your opponent, and you can disarm ANYTHING held in their hands - spellbooks, weapons, and shields. However, you will lose 15 Stamina points for EACH success or failure; carrying red potions is wise.

You do become an aggressor for this action if you initiate the attack, so watch out for other players or guard-zones. You of course you can safely do this when someone else initiates the attack, especially after the 2-minute aggressor rule (see #10). I heard of people that just run around dungeons disarming and stealing high quality weapons, and do not worry about receiving murder counts - your victim would rather take a loss than die to give you a count and loose all his loot.

It helps to have very high STR and DEX. I got on the Test Center and played around with the two skills. These results are the most COMMON amount of failures I received. (Wrestle/Lore):

80/80 Failed up to 6 times in a row, not reliable at all.
90/80 Failed up to 4 times
95/80 Failed 3-4 times
95/85 Failed 2 times
100/90 Failed 1-2 times
100/100 Failed Rarely

To be effective you should have their weapon targeted and ready to hit Steal-Last Target. Run up, disarm, hit your steal-target macro and you can have their weapon before they knew what hit them. You also become a nice assest in a close melee attack where someone may not notice their sword missing until it's too late. Keep in mind what weapons you can NOT steal, anything that weighs over 10 stones is off limits. But also remember your Steal Skill determines how well you steal anything. If you have decent fighting skills, disarm your victim then kill them with thier own weapon - now that's class.

Any disarm thief should try to Grandmaster both Arms Lore and Wrestle, because when you are going head to head with someone carrying a very strong weapon, one failure could mean you death. If they are holding a deadly poisoned weapon, one failure can also mean your slow death! Keep in mind sometimes they will have higher dexteriety and be able to land one hit on you before you get a chance to disarm, so always carry some quick healing potions and cures!


AoS Edit: Disarming may now be accomplished using certain weapons and their appropriate skills- see your "special moves" book on your paperdoll and look under the disarm weapon move to see what weapons are capable of disarming.
 
N

Neon Ninja

Guest
Stealing is effected by Line of sight (LOS). Stealing while your PC victim is directly facing you will 99% of time get you noticed. NPC's however act very strangly, they have eyes in the back of their heads and see through walls. However, here are the possible outcomes.
1.) You successfully steal the item – Nobody noticed you! Beautiful!
2.) You steal the item, but are noticed! – You are gray to everyone. If in a guard zone, you better start running before someone calls them on you!
3.) You steal the item, but you turn gray to your victim – Being only gray to your victim has it’s advantages, he may not see your name anymore, and has to hit All Names to take notice.
4.) You fail to steal the item – Not good, you are noticed as a failure, and you’re gray! However, you do not turn Perma-Grey! This is handy information for anyone trying to wack you around town and is waiting for you to turn Perma!
5.) That item is too heavy to steal – You tried to target something over 10 stone weight. You stay blue.
6.) That item has no value to you – You targeted a newbie item or your stealing from a Young player. You stay blue.
Keep in mind that if you die after a minute you steal, the stolen item returns to the owner. Now if you had a partner to hold that item for you….
Keep in mind you do NOT turn gray stealing from other Grays or Reds
.
 
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Neon Ninja

Guest
Many would say that there is no such thing as protection from a thief. However, there are a few things you can do. First carry large newbie items in your backpack to cover any important items. A death robe works great for all occasions. One trick is to dye a death robe black, and your Bag black. Memorize where on the death robe you placed it, and you can always open it, but a thief can’t see it. Some thieves are good enough to move the robe and see what’s underneath. Fewer Thieves are great enough to target the bags under the robes before it moved back, and they can use Last Object Macro!
FYI - A mace & halbred weighs more than 10 stones - it can't be stolen ever! Good weapons for the Thief-Haters out there.
Do not place newbie items into bags or pouches, they will stay on you if you die, but the bag/container can be stolen (One glorious theft included 4.5 million gold worth of Housing Deeds all contained in ONE bag!)
CrazyJoe’s personal method is probably the best (And yes, I am boasting!). Have 2 spare Spellbooks and a pouch on you at all times. Drop the pouch (not a bag, it’s too big) in the top left of your bag, but in the lighter area where the bags’ graphics end. The pouch will drop down to the utmost left corner of the interior of the bag. Open your pouch and MINIMIZE it, never close it. Now drop a dummy spellbook (which is newbied and can not be stolen) in the same spot – it will slid down on top of the pouch, but will not actually go inside the pouch! Do this again with your other dummy spellbook, and viola! Nobody can see your pouch. If anyone moves your first book, they only see the second. Now if you kept your pouch minimized, you can always access it and move things in or out. Make sure you minimize your main bag as well. I personally invited Thieves on Lake Superior to try and get a free boat by stealing the key from the pouch underneath my spellbook. Five thieves and 10 minutes later, I still owned a boat!
 
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Neon Ninja

Guest
Power Hour/Burst Hour is EXTINCT as of July 2002.

With that said, it was replaced by the GGS, Guaranteed Gain System.

I'll just "Steal" the information from the OSI Website located here.

Guaranteed Gain System (GGS)

The core of this system is the guarantee that if you play "normally", you will gain skill. Under the GGS system, if you have not gained skill under the current use-based system after a certain time period, the system would recognize this and force a point of skill gain (point meaning a tenth of a point, as in moving from 70.1 to 70.2). The length of the time period, or timer, is based on the level of skill. The current time periods are listed below, but note that they are subject to change. In addition to the time intervals listed below, there would also be a limit on how many GGS points total per day a player can earn once their skill reaches 70.

Skill Value Ranges Time Between Gains
10.0 – 14.9 160 secs
15.0 – 19.9 200 secs
20.0 - 24.9 250 secs
25.0 - 34.9 300 secs
35.0 - 44.9 400 secs
45.0 - 49.9 500 secs
50.0 - 54.9 10 mins
55.0 - 59.9 15 mins
60.0 - 69.9 20 mins
70.0 - 79.9 40 mins
80.0 - 89.9 80 mins
90.0 - 94.9 120 mins
95.0 - 98.9 150 mins
99.0 - 100.0 240 mins

As always, you can only gain skill when you successfully perform an action. So an example of this is as follows: Let's say you cast a spell of moderate difficulty, and succeed, but you do not gain skill. If the relevant time period passes, and you have still not gained a point in that skill, then the next time you successfully use that skill again, you will gain a point. These time periods are based on the server system clock, meaning that you don't have to be logged in for your timers to refresh.

This does not mean that players would be unable to gain skill until the timer refreshes, because the GGS would not be replacing the current use-based system, but it would be implemented in addition to it. You would still be able to gain skill under the current use-based system, but the GGS would now keep track of how long it has been since you had gained a point of skill. If the time period had passed and you had not gained skill through the regular method, you would gain a point through the GGS. The use-based system, though, would not be restricted by time. Even if you had just gained a point through the GGS, the game would still check for skill gain under the use-based system, although admittedly it would still be incredibly difficult to gain skill in this way at the high end range.

To ensure that characters could not become Grandmasters overnight, there would be a limit on how many points of skill a player could earn through the GGS during each day. This limit would be high for players of low skill, but as players' skill levels grow higher, the limit on how many they points they can earn through the GGS grows smaller. This means it would still take longer to gain skill in the 90's then it did in the 10's or 50's (this is nothing new). Note, however, that this limit does not affect the current use-based system, so players who reach that limit can still gain more skill through the old skill system, by using the skills themselves.

The most noticeable difference from the current system (not including power hour) is that skill gains in the 90's while playing normally would not only be possible, they would be guaranteed (provided you are performing your skill in or around your current skill level). For example, casting Magic Arrow with a magery skill of 90 would provide no chance whatsoever to gain skill in magery, even with GGS. You would need to cast higher level spells to see guaranteed skill gain. Similarly, crafting daggers with a blacksmithy of 80 would provide no chance to gain skill in blacksmithy. Skills that are not difficulty based, however, would always have a chance to gain.
 
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Neon Ninja

Guest
IDOC stands for In Danger of Collapsing, referring to houses. However, about one year ago, houses stopped decaying... OSI is promising their return soon, but as it stands when this FAQ was written, houses are not decaying.
 
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Neon Ninja

Guest
Insured items and items blessed with an AoS item bless ticket may NOT be stolen. It's as simple, and unfortionate, as that.

Containers, as of AoS, are no longer stealable. This includes all forms of containers, including bags of sending. Another unfortionate truth :(
 
N

Neon Ninja

Guest
2.1 Introduction to post-16 gaining and the 8x8 meathod
Since publish 16 went live, much has changed with gaining certain skills. The general techniques remain the same, but burst hour has been removed and replaced with GGS, which you should read up on (in section 1) if you have not already.
Some skills, such as hiding, remain almost entirely the same. However, stealing, for example, has changed quite a bit.
The following is a explination of the "8x8 Meathod" which is referred to a few times in this section:
Contrary to rumors, 8x8 still works even with Power Hour gone.

The entire world of UO is layed out on a grid. Every step you take, you are standing on one tile of the entire grid. Now when you gain in a skill, hide for example, you want to 'mark' the tile you are standing on as a 'gain tile'. (mark it mentally, for UOAM is not going to be very usefull soon). Now, you need to imagine that you are now on a grid, and there are 'intersections' 8 tiles in any direction. Every Eighth tile is a possible new gain tile, with going north being the most probable. In other words, once you gain, go north 8 more tiles and try the skill again - there is a high chance you will gain again. That's the simple rule to 8x8 - gain, go north 8, gain again. Since gains are easily duplicated with this method, many skills can easily be Grandmastered simply by finding ONE gain to start the entire 8x8 process.

In reality, it isn't that simple. You can be blocked by trees, buildings, etc etc if you do this on land, which is why many people try to gains skills on boats at sea - where only other boats can block you. It is in your best interest if you are a power gamer trying to simply gain skills to buy a boat, and go to sea (Feluca is less populated than Trammel, so I would also suggest you go there).

As you go forward 8 tiles, you won't always gain - there's just a higher probability that you will gain. There are times that you simply won't gain on the tile. This is where most people gave up and went back to sailing aimlessly looking for another gain to start the 8x8 process all over, however don't do that.

If you are POSITIVE you are standing on the correct tile, it's quite possible you simply are standing on a 'dud'. Now imagine you are on a large gridmap, and you will just have to find which 'intersection' on this grid has the gain again. Go forward eight more and see if you can find it, go backward 8 a few times to see if you can 'recapture' the gain from a previous tile. If no luck, go left or right eight tiles and try again. I almost always could rediscover my gain going in a spiral direction (8 forward, 8 right, 8 backward, 8 backward, 8 left, 8 left, 8 forward, 8 forward, 8 forward, etc etc). If I went up to 40 tiles outside of my grid, then I did count it as a loss, then went sailing aimlessly once again looking for a new gain.


When a skill is "stuck" or "at a wall" (if it's been a LONG time since you're last gain and you think you should have gained by now, you're at a wall) there are a few things to try:
1. If it's a target base skill (arms lore, snooping, etc.) get some more objects or wait for the server to reset.
2. Commit suicide (no, not IRL =P)
3. Cross a server line

Those are the three main things that tend to "unstick" skills, but nothing is guarunteed.
 
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Neon Ninja

Guest
To gain stealing, first grab a packhorse, head to felucca, and tell it to guard you. Now simply TARGET (not random) steal the appropriately weighted items which you place inside its pack over and over.
The general accepted weight to steal for gains is 1/10 your skill- ie. at 90 steal 9 stones, at 8 steal 8, and so on.
WARNING: containers may NO LONGER be stolen with AoS. These meathods STILL WORK, however, you will have to steal ITEMS of the appropriate weight, and not containers.

Pickpocket's dips are similar to training dummies for fighting skills- they are a house add-on made by carpenters which allow you to train stealing up to 25.

You can choose to find items the appropriate weight, fill pouches with the apropriate weight (ie. 7 piles of 1 gold EACH in a pouch will produce an 8 stone item- the pouch weighs 1 itself).
The following is courtesy Zellorian concerning how he gained stealing:
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The Way Zellorian Does It:
I personally like the weighted bag method of gaining stealing. The reason being is it is macro able (attended, of course) and allows you to not have to constantly have your whole attention on your training... What I did was get 60 bags (pouches weight one stone) and put empty bottles (can also use beeswax since they also weigh one stone stacked. Beeswax can be difficult to collect in large numbers though) in each. Now empty bottles weigh one stone each when stacked so they are perfect for calibrating your bags (remember when weighing your bags that the pouch weighs 1 stone. So if you need a 3 stone item you would add 2 bottles). Now all you have to do is put the appropriate amount of bottles in each bag for your skill level. I went by this scale:

0-30 buy
30-35 3 stones
35-45 4 stones
45-55 5 stones
55-65 6 stones
65-75 7 stones
75-85 8 stones
85-95 9 stones
95-GM 10 stones

Now after about 75ish stealing I wasn't making gains after two times through the 60 bags. I then switched out my bags and gains picked back up. At about 93 stealing 9 stones just wasn't making it. I then switched to dye tubs. I used 60 dye tubs to GM from about 93. If at any time your gains seem to slow a lot then switch to the next higher weight.

The beauty of doing it this way is that you will only need to make ONE UOA macro for the duration of your training. When you switch out targets all you have to do reset your targets in your macro. Most like the "gold method" but I find that it requires a lot of clicking and your total attention on what you are doing. I like to just hit a key and watch a movie or something while I train. Both methods work equally well though.

Your UOA macro should look like this:
use skill/cast spell -stealing
target -the target
pause 10500 -10500 is good for people with no lag... If you’re laggy might need to up this...
Do this for all targets on your pack horse.
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Corran Horn's Input:
Stealing:
So far Im doing the gold method *50 Gold = 1 Stone*
00-15 1 Stone
15-25 2 Stones
25-35 3 Stones
35-45 4 Stones
45-55 5 Stones
55-65 6 Stones
65-75 7 Stones
75-85 8 Stones
85-95 9 Stones
95-100 10 Stones
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Neon Ninja

Guest
<font color=green>Your success in hiding is not dependant on what armor you are wearing. It is based on what is near to the thief and how many people have line of sight. You can NOT hide if you are being attacked and your attacker is on your screen. (At Grandmaster Hide, you can hide from attackers 7 Tiles away! Very nice!) Remember this when being chased and when training . Furthermore, you have a better chance in hiding against a wall. If in the wilderness, you will almost always be able to hide along the wall of a house rather than in the open.
One of the myths to gaining hide is that you need to wear armor, this is far from the truth. To gain hide skill, all you need to do is simply hide A LOT. At any level, you will gain on failures and successes. I know from experience that you can Grandmaster the Hide skill wearing the clothes that you started with (3 AR).
To Grandmaster this skill in a fraction of the time, go to sea with a boat, and tell the Tillerman 'Slow Forward' and sail north along one of the continuous Server Lines (Get UO Auto-Map from Stratics to find these lines). The two main lines are west of Ice Isle, and east of Moonglow. When you gain, stop and 8x8 your run (explained in 2.1, "introduction")
.
This really is the best way to gain hiding- just 8x8 it a lot. With GGS, hiding seems to have gotten much easier to GM.
 
N

Neon Ninja

Guest
With publish 16, stealth became much more difficult, but it is still possible. Here's what the assasin forum has to say:
0-30 Buy from Thief Guildmaster
30-65 Stealth with only newbie clothes and a robe on
65-95 GM Full Studded Leather Suit
95-GM GM Full Studded Leather Suit and GM Close Helm

All this is done at sea 8x8ing, very similar to hiding. Remember, to have a chance at stealth <font color=red>you must have at least 80.0 hiding and be hidden when the skill is triggered.</font color=red> Without 80 (or more) hiding, you will get a message informing you that your hiding is not high enough, and you will not gain any skill.
 
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Neon Ninja

Guest
With AoS, fighting skills have became even more difficult- nolonger do the Jhelom pits work for easy gains, as the fighters will now fight back AND take damage.

The best suggestion now is simply spar another player or fight monsters (such as rotting corpses with a group at higher levels).

This is the pre-AoS guide for gaining stealing for those of you who play on shards who do not yet have AoS enabled:
With publish 16, it seems fighting skills have become MUCH more difficult, however, Zellorian poses an interesting solution:
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Wrestling:
Despite popular belief melee skills are just as easy as they have always been to gain. In fact, you don't even have to leave the Jhelome pits from 0-GM. I am making an alchy/scribe/mage and just GMed her wrestling in a week using this:

30-60: 6gp wrestlers
60-75: 8gp wrestlers
75-90: 7gp fighters
90+: 8gp fighters
(wrestlers have no armed weapon, fighters have weapons. Be sure to pull up paper dolls as some also carry two handed weapons that are hidden by the shield)

All you have to do is find the appropriate fighter by bringing up its context menu and selecting "hire". It will then tell you how many gp per day it is available for. If you end up having to look around be sure you click again on the fighter you don't want and select "dismiss" from its context menu. Even though you didn't hire it, it still shows up on your followers count. Now you have your fighter you want... I would drop about 30 gp on them to hire them fro about 4-6 days or so. Tell it to follow you and go to someplace that is not in guard zone (like the center of the pit or something)... Then use the context menu to tell it to guard you and attack it. It will swing at you until it hits you once then stop swinging. Be careful... after its gold is used up it will start swinging again stating it will do nothing more till paid. Kill the NPC at that point and get another. Melee skills are not only effected by the targets skills but more targets = more gains.

For 100+ wrestling I have found the easiest and fastest way to 115 (my axer just got there) is to beat on a guild mate that is GM in a melee skill as they hold an appropriate weapon. I have two account and two computers so it was easy for me to create a temp training guild for this purpose. I tried all the other more solo methods and they don't gain as fast and can be a pain in the buttox.
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If this doesn't work for you, you can always try the conventional beating on Jhelom NPCs at random and then moving on to Rotting Corpses at about 70 or 80 skill.
 
N

Neon Ninja

Guest
Snooping hasn't changed much over the years- the only big change was the anti-macro code implimented a few years back.
(A sure fire way to save time is to do place a bag in a bag in a bag in bag etc etc etc. Have a friend hold the bags for you. When you have snooped them all, close all but the top bag, then snoop again. He found that he kept gaining skill off of the same bags over and over. No need to change targets. With UOAssist, get yourself 1 bag, and 99 pouches. Snoop all 99 pouches off a buddy - and be nice and hold 99 pouches for him as well. I say 99, because the opening of pouches can be recorded with UOasssit to save your poor fingers from falling off for quite some time. Once you hit 85 skill, you need to actually get about 396 pouches and divide those into 4 bags and change bags often.)*
The UOA macro should look something like:
Use Item (pouch)
Pause 1000

Repeated for all the pouches in the stack. Make one of these macros for each stack of pouches you have, and then simply play one macro with the corrosponding pouches on your friend, and if you gain repeat the macro; if you do not gain after going through the entire stack, simply move one to the next stack and next macro.

You will need a good deal of pouches- approx. 600.

Remember, snooping is considered a "target based" skill, which means that after each bag you snoop, if you do not gain, you will not have a chance to gain off that bag again until either you gain (off of another bag) or the server resets.
In plain english, that means if you gain off of one stack of bags, go ahead and try that stack again, if not, go to the next one. If you go through all the bags without gaining, you need to either get more bags or wait until the next day after the server goes down (resets).

A quote from my reply to a PM I recieved regarding if snooping is an active or passive skill and exactly how it works:
Snooping is an active, not passive skill. It is not triggered when stealing- the only time snooping is triggered is when you attempt to open a container belonging to anybody but yourself (note that you may only do this in Felucca). Case in point:
When I walk up to a person in Felucca and open their paperdoll and then double click their backpack, snooping is triggered (by the actual action of attempting to open their backpack). It is also triggered if I attempt to open any sub-containers (example: pouches within the backpack, etc.). You must be standing on a tile directly next to your target to snoop them. Note also that a successful snoop will allow you to remain hidden, while a failed snoop will display a message for all to see ("You notice (name) peeking into your belongings!") and reveal you if you are hidden. At GM snooping you will never fail (and thus never be noticed or revealed, which is also why there is no such thing as a snooping powerscroll).
 
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Neon Ninja

Guest
Arms lore is, essentially, very similar to snooping in the meathod required to gain. Instead of pouches you'll have items that can be arms lored (daggers, skullcaps, etc.) and instead of a friend, these items are generally kept well orginized in an "arms lore house" (check around to find one on your shard). Once again, make a UOA macro for each container of 66 items (which is how many items each UOA macro can hold once you insert the pauses) which looks something like this:
Use Skill/Cast Spell (Arms Lore)
Target (item to be lored)
Pause 2000
The pause must be ajusted as you see fit. Once again, simply cycle through each macro until GM

Remember, arms lore is considered a "target based" skill, which means that after each item you lore, if you do not gain, you will not gain off that item again until either you gain (off another item) or the server resets.
In plain english, that means if you gain off of one set of items, go ahead and try that set again, if not, go to the next one. If go through all the sets without gaining, you need to either go lore some items elsewhere until you gain or wait until the next day after the server goes down (resets).
 
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Neon Ninja

Guest
There are appropriate forums for each of these skills which probably do a much better job of explaining how to gain them then I could hope to... simply look in their FAQ :)
 
N

Neon Ninja

Guest
GM Stealing
GM Snooping
GM Stealth
GM Hiding
And the last 3 skills are left up to your preference You could stick some healing/anat/mage in, to give you 2 options of healing and a meathod of recalling and such, if you like.

To be successful with stealth, however, it is almost a REQUIREMENT to have the ability to ride ethy mounts... if you are not old enough, consider replacing it.
 
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