PVP nerfing, instead of nerfing skills into uselessness for pvm.

[aarons6]

why dont they just limit the amount of damage a person can take pvp.

make it so if any player attacks another player with no matter what spell, sword, animal the dmg is limited to a cap..

 

[Kiminality]

Two problems:
First, how would you account for attack speed?
Accounting for damage from a single attack is one thing, although it greatly benefits faster attack speeds. If you're considering capping DPS, then that's a whole world of complicated.
Second, all a player then would need to do be able to out-heal that cap, to be unbeatable against a single other player.

 

[Korik Bloodguard]

Hiya, the problem isn't so much the amount of damage that can be done in any given move. The real problem is the extreme amount of complexity which is intruduced when you can take any skills into your 720 point template to accomplish your goal. It's a problem that has to do with the amount of utility which people can cram in there.

Sure the ultimate goal of pvp is reducing your opponents hps to 0 before they reduce yours to 0, but a lot happens in between. In fact, it's what happens in between that's the most interesting and important.

A pvp battle rarely takes the form of 2 people casting a bunch of spells and then adding up the damage at the end. Instead it is more like chess: Each move by a player is countered by some other move by the other player. Good thinking, timing, and choice of spells or moves are what make the battle a success or failure.

So, a blanket change to damage done or damage healed doesn't really do anything because that's not the source of the problem. It's managing the many permutations of skillsets and utility to make available to you the most tools to counter your opponent's own chosen moves.

Edit: Kiminality, your sig has convinced me that the next little booster should be a golf booster!!!

 

[Tanivar]

Two problems:
First, how would you account for attack speed?
Accounting for damage from a single attack is one thing, although it greatly benefits faster attack speeds. If you're considering capping DPS, then that's a whole world of complicated.
Second, all a player then would need to do be able to out-heal that cap, to be unbeatable against a single other player.

O.k. Then let's just have PvP set so everyone playing PvP does a locked solid 10 damage per attack, can only heal a locked solid 10 damage between attack damages received, and all attacks are locked at the same attack speed. This will balance PvP and not screw up PvM anymore than the crying of PvPers have done already.

Simple solution that balances PvP completely and stops all the demands for the latest thump rump PvP skill template to be nerfed messing up PvM in the process.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

O.k. Then let's just have PvP set so everyone playing PvP does a locked solid 10 damage per attack, can only heal a locked solid 10 damage between attack damages received, and all attacks are locked at the same attack speed. This will balance PvP and not screw up PvM anymore than the crying of PvPers have done already.

Simple solution that balances PvP completely and stops all the demands for the latest thump rump PvP skill template to be nerfed messing up PvM in the process.

How exactly has pvm been adversely affected again? The 1 player being able to kill anything should end. This game is already far to easy in pvm, making it harder is not adversity, it is diversity. Doing anything becomes a grind instead of a challenge. I do not see a single skill that has received or will receive a pvp nerf that has made it useless.

 

[Basara]

How exactly has pvm been adversely affected again? The 1 player being able to kill anything should end. This game is already far to easy in pvm, making it harder is not adversity, it is diversity. Doing anything becomes a grind instead of a challenge. I do not see a single skill that has received or will receive a pvp nerf that has made it useless.

The repeated changes to Special Moves are good examples of how PvP changes have hurt PvM.

First of all, the addition of the Tactics requirement was a ham-handed attempt to limit special moves by oddball PvP templates (typically ones not relying on damage as much as the side effects of the specials - ironically, the skills that were being abused were NOT made Tactics reliant, but checked different skills, in the final design).

This was later followed by the JOAT nerf to special moves. We were told when ML was released that the JOAT skills counting toward special moves was an INTENDED effect of JOAT, to give a reason for people to play humans instead of Elves.

Note that the "able to solo anything" PvM gimp templates DON'T USE special moves, relying on DI and leeches to keep the opponent monsters being damaged, while healing the attacker. Hell, most of them don't even use HEALING, let alone Focus or Meditation! So, these changes were NOT meant to be a Sampire nerf.

Those two obstensibly "PvP" changes had the effect of making any PvM combat template that wasn't an Elven Samurai/something (usually necro, but I've seen people experiment with a weaver or Mystic) an exercise in futility, as people look at those of us who DON'T WANT the "solo everything EASY Button" as a template like we're some kind of idiot for not turning our characters into one of the cookie-cutter Sam-elf templates.

Even things as simple as making Chivalry count toward special move costs, having the Tactics requirement be based on modified (not real) skill (while keeping the real weapon skill requirement), and/or having a toggle sense whether the target of a special is a PC or NPC for mana consumption, would help balance out that disparity.

The solo-anything templates would be tempered by making it to where you could only have 150 total points (modified) combined in the skills Bushido/Chivalry/Necromancy/Ninjitsu, and making the Necro-form leeches be based on (Necro+SS)/2, not just SS-based.
Frankly, Bushido/Ninjitsu & Chivalry/Necro are polar opposites, and Ninjitsu would be as offensive to a Paladin as Necromancy to a Samurai, as violations of their codes of Honor.
Ninjitsu & Necromancy aren't all that compatible (what's subtle and stealthy about the Walking Dead? Ninja are supposed to attack and never be seen - while necro alternate forms and their summons are things civilized types usually attack on sight).
Bushido & Chivalry's code of Honor aren't all that compatible either (personal & liege honor, vs. living a humble lifestyle honoring what is good, not seeking personal glory).

 

[Draxous]

Note that the "able to solo anything" PvM gimp templates DON'T USE special moves, relying on DI and leeches to keep the opponent monsters being damaged, while healing the attacker. Hell, most of them don't even use HEALING, let alone Focus or Meditation! So, these changes were NOT meant to be a Sampire nerf.

Sampires love using feint, whirlwind and a couple other special moves.....FYI....

I believe the opposite of what's being asked in this thread should happen. PvM needs serious nerfing across the board. It needs to be more challenging and more engaging.

 

[popps]

The real problem for PvP, as I see it, is that too much focus has been put over the years into items and their modifiers and they have become so many, and their combinations so many, that balancing all PvP combat styles has become a daunting task.

Personally, as the game is, I do not think there can be a real balance in PvP as the variables that come to play are way too many.

Once the predominant template and setup is identified by players, then most players will use that template and that set up thus reducing diversity in the game.

I'd much prefer to see UO go back to give more emphasys on skills rather than items and modifiers. If an archer can be on an equal footing to a Mage, and them to a Tamer and so to a Melee fighter then players will not be tempted to use all or most of them the same template because there would not be a predominant template but all templates will be equally viable to win fights in PvP.

In that case, if skills were to prevail over items and modifiers, what could make the difference in PvP would be clever stratedy in combat like using potions, special moves, magic buffs available to all.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

The repeated changes to Special Moves are good examples of how PvP changes have hurt PvM.

Hate having to quote to much, so bear in mind it was just to address you.

I never mentioned a single template, more than just sampires can deal with over 98% of all things in this game. An archer alone could handle just about everything in game.

Aside from that statement that I made above, the only response I have to the rest of your thread is to read what I wrote in its entirety, to only respond to the bold part with what you did does not argue against me. Again, pvm is already to easy, it gets easier and easier. SA did a decent job of making it somewhat difficult, and from what I hear HS booster did a fairly good job at it as well. But over all everything is to easy for almost ANY pvm template. I am not a hardcore pvper in the sense that I cry nerf or cry when they do nerf, I do not even care when they make changes to pvp because every change simply means I need to learn how to adapt to the new, but same goes for pvm I welcome each change as something to learn and hopefully one that makes my gaming experience a bit more challenging and thus fun, but at the same time not ridiculously challenging as to not be fun (from time to time I still gripe about AI casting speed for example).

 

[Basara]

Sampires love using feint, whirlwind and a couple other special moves.....FYI....

I believe the opposite of what's being asked in this thread should happen. PvM needs serious nerfing across the board. It needs to be more challenging and more engaging.

FYI, Bushido has a Whirlwind spell built in that is different from the special move, and isn't subject to the limitations of the special move, and Feint REQUIRES Bushido.

Please try again when you actually have a clue of what you talk about....

 

[Basara]

C&D:

I agree - PvM's problem is that the devs have not taken actions to remove what is in effect, an abusive template, that because of its abusive nature, has all but eliminated in-game variety in the desire for the EASY Button. It seems, based on the head dev's comment, that he has been so focused in game on PvP (his chosen playstyle), he didn't even KNOW that Sampires existed.

But, PvM gets easier and easier ONLY in that things are getting easier and easier for the Sampires, or other Necro-melee templates (whammy archers). There would be a major shift back TOWARDS balance with the ability to mix Bushido and Necromancy nerfed.

I still play the basic templates I created for characters in 2003-2004, and most fights for me are STILL fun and challenging, and balanced - even with equipment buffing me up to 800 skill points and max in certain combat-related abilities. I even did level 6 maps before the changes to the T-maps, as a challenge, with a melee character that didn't soulstone skills - not because it was easy, but because it was hard, and I liked the challenge (now that poor character can't find a chest even if he was standing on it).

You might not be a hard-core PvPer - but you made a blanket statement that was definitely not true, about PvM. It is only true for a few specific templates that have come to dominate PvM (sampires, Whammies, hell, even tamers with "star" rated Greater Dragons - I didn't go out taming hundreds of dragons looking for a statistical fluke, and my high physical & fire resist (but mediocre skill and HP) greater can't solo champs, unless someone helps in the level 3 spawn), as a result of the nerfs forcing people out of balanced templates into the abusive ones, just to be able to compete.

The PvM issues, other than the accidental nerfs while (not) fixing PvP, are a matter of poor game design and no steps being done to correct them, intersecting with the "I want it all, and I want it now" mentality of many people who treat the game more like COD:MW than an MMO.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

C&D:

I agree - PvM's problem is that the devs have not taken actions to remove what is in effect, an abusive template, that because of its abusive nature, has all but eliminated in-game variety in the desire for the EASY Button. It seems, based on the head dev's comment, that he has been so focused in game on PvP (his chosen playstyle), he didn't even KNOW that Sampires existed.

We can mostly agree here. I only mentioned my status in pvp so as to say I am not calling for a nerfing of any skills, but I do adapt when they are changed, the same is said when changes are made to pvm. The original post was stating that skills are made useless, what skills have been made useless?
Perhaps some items or techniques have been made useless (such as using JoaT to get the lower mana cost on specials but this is not a skill that has been made useless) but no skill has been made useless in a long while, if anything they have shown only advancement as far as skills worth is concerned.
Also with the templates built back in 2003 the JoaT nerf should not have affected you, although I can understand you taking the position of defending others.