Prison escorts are now 5 min cooldown?

[Hildebrand]

I tried escorting prisoners out of the Orc prison cave (that everyone uses) and it won't let me do them quickly anymore? Said to wait 5 min. Was this changed with the booster? Make getting compassion harder?
If so, why?

Secondly, Escorts don't ask to be taken to Britain, Minoc, Skara Brae, or Trinsic for past 2.5 yrs. They always ask for same towns: Serpent's, Cove, Jhelom, & Nujel'm over and over again.

Anybody notice? Anybody care? lol.

 

[Babble]

Have not done lots of escorts, yesterday's asked for Nujelm.
Maybe no one else wants to return to the other towns?

 

[Merion]

Those system could need a little tweak, that's true.

Also, there's that matter of unfinished virtues....

 

[MedeaDF]

There was always a 5 min. cooldown - doing them quests for my compassion char for years

 

[Merion]

There was a delay for "normal" escort quests, but not for prisoners you freed from lizardmen, orcs or brigands.

 

[Hildebrand]

I'd love a Virtue Booster. But fact is, compassion decays over time, I have to try to keep my compassion up if I want to be a sport and rez people *grins* with more hitpoints.
This is a bit annoying to keep it up, but the prisoner escorts makes it virtually painless. If I have to spend a half hour to upkeep my compassion, then there goes another virtue down the drain.

Put it back for now, then work on the Virtue Booster.

 

[Flutter]

Yes this was a game breaking bug that needed to be fixxed immediately.

/sarcasm

 

[Basara]

I used to get 5 Brigand prisoner escorts fairly quickly, since one of my houses is by the Compassion Desert crossroads, and the Crystal Portal vet reward allows you to deliver escorts and unbonded pets.

But, it's all rescues - I just tested a couple around that house, and had the cooldown timer come up.

 

[G.v.P]

I tried escorting prisoners out of the Orc prison cave (that everyone uses) and it won't let me do them quickly anymore? Said to wait 5 min. Was this changed with the booster? Make getting compassion harder?
If so, why?

Secondly, Escorts don't ask to be taken to Britain, Minoc, Skara Brae, or Trinsic for past 2.5 yrs. They always ask for same towns: Serpent's, Cove, Jhelom, & Nujel'm over and over again.

Anybody notice? Anybody care? lol.

I've noticed the last part; nice for building runes on secondary shards ;P but sort of annoying I guess. I think it must have to do with guardzones or something but I'm not sure I guess just previous invasions. Would like it if they turned on Vesper guardzone again as well.

 

[R Traveler]

Other towns turned off since ophidian invasion.

 

[Hildebrand]

I know during the town invasions, they turned off escorts to most towns, then they enabled it partly. But it's still not fully re-established.

The crystal portal is an excellent idea!! I'll have to see how to find one.

 

[Basara]

They're a first year vet reward.

 

[Hildebrand]

This 5 min cooldown is still in effect. Any word as to why this was changed and if it's permanent?

 

[Babble]

It was changed to limit the amount of gold that could be made I think.
Before mages collected a few escorts and gated them around making some money and it seems the developers thought it unbalanced.

 

[TullyMars]

Reading this thread is a bit humorous.
Mainly it seems that half the people did not realize there was no timers on prisoners.

Yes the original change to escorts (5 minute cooldown) was done years ago to limit the gold.
I think that change came before compassion existed but don't quote me on that.
What the devs (and many of the players evidently) didn't realize was this change did not effect prisoners like the one in the orc cave dungeon.
So for years this beneficial bug has been around, and either we (as a player base) successfully kept it on the lowdown or the devs saw no need to fix it because it wasn't as game breaking as they thought. Now I am sure it was put up on forums, and hints, and tips, and uoguide, etc. SO us keeping it on the lowdown is not what happened. Lol

Now it seems this beneficial bug (perhaps even technically an exploit?) to the rescue escorts has been fixed.

So the questions remain.
Were prisoner rescue quests supposed to be exempt from the 5 minute cooldown these many years?
Why was this recently changed?
Do the devs consider this a fix for a long time running bug?
Will this change back?

 

[TullyMars]

Would like it if they turned on Vesper guardzone again as well.

Vesper guard zone is alive and well on Atlantic...at least Atlantic Felucca Vesper.
I thought when that happened it happened acrossed the shards.

 

[Babble]

My turn for guessing

Were prisoner rescue quests supposed to be exempt from the 5 minute cooldown these many years?
No

Why was this recently changed?
A developer stumbled over the code and fixed it

Do the devs consider this a fix for a long time running bug?
You just got a bug fix be happy.

Will this change back?
If by further evaluation we deem in necessary to change it it will be in consideration of being changed.
Short - No

 

[Viper09]

There has been a cooldown on prison escorts for many years. It was changed sometime around when virtues were first introduced. I thought that they added the cooldown because it was very easy to raise compassion quickly with escort after escort with no break in between. Reason being is I remember getting max compassion so easily from prison escorts before it was changed

 

[TullyMars]

There has been a cooldown on prison escorts for many years. It was changed sometime around when virtues were first introduced. I thought that they added the cooldown because it was very easy to raise compassion quickly with escort after escort with no break in between. Reason being is I remember getting max compassion so easily from prison escorts before it was changed

Sorry to disagree but as early as a month ago, I was escorting the prisoner from the orc cave with no 5 minute cooldown for compassion. I stopped because I found it easier to farm compassion sage from controlllers. The only thing that limited my compassion gains was you can only do it 5 times a day for compassion. And the only other reward was money which can be obtained faster in other ways.

So I think the "cooldown for prison escorts for many years" is just a common misconception.

I think Babble probably has the correct answers.
I enjoyed it while it lasted.
Wonder where it ranks in terms of longevity for bugs.

 

[Viper09]

Sorry to disagree but as early as a month ago, I was escorting the prisoner from the orc cave with no 5 minute cooldown for compassion. I stopped because I found it easier to farm compassion sage from controlllers. The only thing that limited my compassion gains was you can only do it 5 times a day for compassion. And the only other reward was money which can be obtained faster in other ways.

So I think the "cooldown for prison escorts for many years" is just a common misconception.

I think Babble probably has the correct answers.
I enjoyed it while it lasted.
Wonder where it ranks in terms of longevity for bugs.

Hmmm, then sometime between the time when they introduced that cooldown many years ago and as early a month ago it changed. And was thus changed back. Perhaps there was a bug that removed it?

 

[Silverbird]

If you want to get compassion gains without cooldown, you can escort Bravehorn ( Bravehorn - UOGuide, the Ultima Online encyclopedia ) to its destination. Once you has his quest done, you can kill him for instant respawning at the starting point of his quest.
Lisbeth ( Lissbet the Flowergirl - UOGuide, the Ultima Online encyclopedia ) gives compassion, too. But she despawns after reaching the hut and you better shouldnt have negative karma in that area.

 

[JC the Builder]

Hmmm, then sometime between the time when they introduced that cooldown many years ago and as early a month ago it changed. And was thus changed back. Perhaps there was a bug that removed it?

There has never been a cooldown for escorting prisoners. We were using the prisoner in the Orc Caves as far back as 2001 to gain Compassion for Factions. You would use the Orc Cave prisoner because it was a static and fast spawn.

 

[Restroom Cowboy]

You can just chug something for your daily gains now right?

 

[Zyon Rockler]

These types of changes only upset me more. You would think that just doing the simple math would stop certain changes from being made by using some type of logic.

If there's a 5 minute cool down and you have 7 characters and you can gate up to 5 NPCs, does this not dictate that it's not worth having Compassion on all of your characters?

Also, the Virtue disapates, which means you can work it and then find out that you've just wasted all of your time because your Virtue points are gone, Pathetic by Design.

The Prisoner Camps are a worthless joke and not even worth going to and now they want me to sit around 5 minutes with a group of ratmen and some idiot yelling, "HELP ME." I don't think so!

This is just another reason why UO isn't worth playing. Thanks to fixes like this that don't fix anything but just make you say, "The heck with it, i'm not even gonna waste my time."

 

[Xanth de Orlig]

These types of changes only upset me more. You would think that just doing the simple math would stop certain changes from being made by using some type of logic.

If there's a 5 minute cool down and you have 7 characters and you can gate up to 5 NPCs, does this not dictate that it's not worth having Compassion on all of your characters?

7 chars ... rotating through, one escort every five mins, get done all in about 5 mins?, start over at char 1 ... rinse, repeat... ~ 35mins best case ... ~60 mins worst case ? roughly ...

So ... don't do it if you can't spare the 1/2 hour to an hour .... I'm too lazy and just don't ... easy peasy

Also, the Virtue disapates, which means you can work it and then find out that you've just wasted all of your time because your Virtue points are gone, Pathetic by Design.

So ... don't do it

The Prisoner Camps are a worthless joke and not even worth going to and now they want me to sit around 5 minutes with a group of ratmen and some idiot yelling, "HELP ME." I don't think so!

So ... don't do it

This is just another reason why UO isn't worth playing.

So ... don't play?

 

[Xanth de Orlig]

to OP ... thanks for heads up ...

orc prisoners was only way i would do Compassion, as a result of my general lack of effort ...

ahh well ...

I once got free cable for a while too ... was nice ... that ended ... now i have to pay or don't watch TV heh

I don't watch TV ;-)

 

[Zyon Rockler]

That was my point there is no getting around it is there? So I will not be doing it anymore.

Just because they make it harder to do doesn't make it more worth doing . It just makes it so ppl will not do it.

It's no good because you have to pick a char to do the Virtues, all the others would just take to long to do. So the system fails.....

If you are able to work all of your character's Virtues and then use them, the system would make sense. It would make sense to want to have all of these Virtues but as it is now, there is no point in setting goals to have the Virtues on all of your characters unless, that's all you're going to do.

It comes out to about 175 minutes, plus then you have to figure, you need to go hunting to be able to use the ability. So, it limits your game time and forces you to pick if you want the Virtues or if you want to do something else with your time.

 

[Hildebrand]

All my guildies stopped escorting due to this cooldown. They don't feel like waiting around 20+ minutes to help gate my and other's warriors around. We used to have one mage gate two or three of us from the prison. That's 20 min per char. I'm embarrassed to ask someone anymore.

Yup, stopped escorts. Also stopped spending a few min with buddies escorting. Also love getting rezed with just 1 hp and repeatedly getting rez killed.

Farming for the compassion sage is an alternative, but it's just so random and spend hours just to get a few sages.

*you have just lost compassion for Mythic*

 

[Basara]

Do any devs even consider the RP repercussions of changes to the Escort/Rescue Compassion virtue system?

Where is the "compassion"?

With Mondain's Legacy, we went from being able to rescue as many prisoners as we could, to being able to only do one at a time, as they were incorporated into the "new" (current) quest system.

Much to many people's surprise, I could and DID get Knight of Compassion from escorts, mostly rescues, ON FOOT, prior to ML. I once took FIVE rescues and a normal city escort in TRINSIC, and delivered the combined troupe to other cities starting in Britain (crossing one server line), continuing (after dropping two people off in Britain) on to Cove (server line #2, picking up ANOTHER rescue just over the line), and from there walked on to Minoc, and Vesper (server line #3) to finish the deliveries, losing only one (and that might have been the normal escort timing out, not one of the rescues) 10 seconds from where he'd have delivered to Minoc. And, I documented it in pics at the time, for a disbelieving Stratics audience.

Tell me again, Devs, WHAT is "compassionate" about being FORCED to leave a prisoner behind in chains, even if you kill their captors, because you have one in tow already? In fact, it's the OPPOSITE of that virtue.

With the addition of last publish's 5 minute timer to rescues, it's EVEN WORSE.

Now, not only are you cruelly abandoning this second potential rescue to their fate, they are almost certain to DIE (despawn) before the cool-down timer resets. So, not only is your virtuous Paladin without gating skills now forced into being a cold-hearted *******, he's now a murderer by deliberate negligence.


If the permanent spawn of the orc mine prisoner is an issue, remove it. If Bravehorn and Lissbet are issues, make them not give compassion, just like you did the New Haven escorts.

But, please, REVERT the incredibly ill-thought-out timer on cross-country rescues, and if possible make it to where you can do more than one at a time again. You really can't GET much more antithetical to the virtues than the current version of that system.