I know you are very active in PvP and touched on it a little in your reply to me. So why do you think UO left out the PvPers with the Refinements? If this Pub really changes nothing, only appears to enhance/give varity, to our current play style then why is everybody WHINNING so dang much, I just cant figure that out. It has been a very long time that the DEVs have taken this long to do a PUB, good thing, and they are taking constructive feed back and making changes, another good thing.
I think one of the main reasons people have been upset about this publish has been how long it's taken to get to this point in the process of rolling it out and there's never been anything said about whether armor refinement is going to be extended to meddable armor and if so, what it will look like.
At the 15th Anniversary party in late September, Mesanna said: "We want to revise the armor. Right now, leather is basically the way to go. We want to change that. We want to make all of it useful, where everybody can use whatever they want, you know, and not just use leather." [Source:
http://uo.ultimacodex.com/2012/10/uo-15th-anniversary-transcript-presentation/ at 8:00.]
January 18th, Mesanna released a Producer's Letter that said the next publish would include revamping the weapon system and revamping the armor system ("Made all armor types useful again"). [Source:
http://www.uo.com/article/Letter-Producer-1 ]
On February 1st, Publish 81 reached TC. It included multiple changes to weapon base damage amounts, reassignment of some special moves, changes to some special moves, and modifications to the mana cost of some special moves. The armor revamp section was titled, "Armor Revamp Part 1." We were told at that time that stamina loss would be based on the type of armor as well as the amount of armor equipped; each piece of nonmeddable armor would provide a chance to trigger a mana phase effect ("armor inherent mana phase"); and also that a defender wearing nonmeddable armor would have a 10% chance to apply a 5-second long SSI-nullifying debuff to attackers wielding weapons whenever the player takes damage. Being human also provides a bonus to stamina loss reduction. Ninjitsu's animal form became interruptable. Made some changes to throwing sweet spot hit chance and damage reduction penalties. Evil Omen reduces stone form immunity by 30. When used on multiple targets, Cleansing Winds power will scale based on the number of targets that are not the caster. Divine Fury stamina regeneration decreased from 4 duration to 2.5x duration. All stamina potions would have a global cooldown. [Source:
http://www.uo.com/article/Publish-810-Comes-TC1 ]
On February 8th we were told that there would be an update to TC as early as the following week. It included a few additional reassignments/changes to weapon special moves and one more special move mana cost change. Instead of the "armor inherent mana phase" and "SSI Debuff," nonmeddable armor (other than woodland armor) will provide a percentage of lower mana cost, not subject to the 40 lower mana cost cap. Plate, ringmail, chainmail, and dragon armor pieces provide 1% LMC; studded, hide, bone, and stone armor pieces provide 3% LMC. The 5 pieces of armor that provide the most LMC take priority for this purpose. Loot-generated two-handed weapons could include the balanced property, but such weapons would not be able to parry or evade. We were told that cloth and leather armor and jewelry will give the same stamina loss as prior to Publish 81. Nonmeddable armor will be split into two groups for purposes of providing stamina loss reduction: Heavy bonus to blacksmith armor and light bonus to studded, hide, bone, stone, and woodland armor. This update also brought in "Part 2" of Armor revamp: Refinement for nonmeddable armor. Using refinement components obtained by stealing from certain NPC shops in Fel or as loot in treasure and MIB chests, merchant and pirate vessels, and champ spawn bosses and other components purchased from certain town NPCs, you can raise the caps on armor resists at the expense of lowering the cap on DCI, or decrease the caps on armor resists while raising the cap on DCI. The maximum increase to a resist's cap that can be achieved with armor refinement is 75% (80% for energy resist for elves). The maximum increase to the DCI cap that can be achieved with armor refinement is 95%. No cooldowns on refresh potions, but total refresh potions are converted to "greater refresh" potions and provide more refresh than standard refresh potions. [Source:
http://www.uo.com/article/Updated-Publish-81-Notes .]
On February 22nd, the third update to Publish 81 reached TC. Gargoyle racial bonus HCI cap is decreased from 50% to 45%. HLD scales 55% of the players Max DCI, with a -25 penalty to the default max DCI of 45 and a -52 penalty for the 95% DCI cap. Weapon hit stamina leech subject to diminishing returns based on max player stamina. Can imbue balanced property on two-handed melee weapons; such weapons with the balanced property will no longer be able to parry or evade. Faster casting no longer affects animal form. [Source:
http://www.uo.com/article/Updated-Publish-81-TC1 ]
On March 9th, another update to Publish 81 reached TC. This update made some changes to the NPC stocking of some of the materials and where you go to apply the refinements. It also slightly decreased the number of refinement components available and clarified the order in which the refinement modifications were applied to various types of armor. It describes changes to resist bonuses that that come from making armor out of various types of material. It indicates HLD is scaled 55% to a player's DCI and remains at -25 DCI against non-players. Ninjitsu Surprise Attack and Force Arrow will ignore over-capped DCI. Dragon scale armor can be reforged. [Source:
http://www.uo.com/article/Updated-Publish-81-TC1-0 ]
On April 5th, the most recent update to Publish 81 reached TC. This update clarifies the number of modifications to resist caps and DCI cap possible with each different type of refinement component and adds a gump that lets you specify the order in which you want to apply the resist bonuses and the chance that one additional resist's cap will be raised. The Mage Armor property is removed from imbuing, reforging, and enhancing. Armor pieces can be converted to or from mage armor by paying 250,000 gold to a mage guildmaster NPC. The Mage Armor property will have a 0 imbuing weight. HLD is scaled 35% of the player's DCI and remains -25 DCI versus non-players. HLD will now ignore over-capped DCI. Added "balanced" property to imbuing for 2-handed melee weapons; such weapons won't be able to evade or parry. Corrected an issue that prevented reforging of yellow dragon scale armor. [Source:
http://www.uo.com/Publish-81-Notes ]
It has taken NINE weeks so far to get to this point, with a huge number of revisions and additions made along the way. However, because Mesanna's January 18th letter said there would be some other changes/additions included in the next publish, we STILL don't know if what we've seen so far is "all there is" to Publish 81. What about "advanced tinkering"? What about the stuff that will be added for a new theme pack/booster? What about the idea of a second house on Siege?
Who really knows at this point when this publish will be "complete" on TC, has been sufficiently tested to publish it to Origin, how long the team wants it to bake on Origin, and when it will finally hit the other shards. I suspect it could be another month or more. It's great that the team is working so hard on this and being responsive to feedback. However, I think it would go a long way with the players and ex-players who might be thinking of returning to find out if there's more to this publish that we haven't seen yet but that's been hinted at and when the team hopes to finish pushing it out.
But when a monsters first defense is to steal all my mana LMC isn't gonna help but regenning some back will. It's a dance. And I find it just down right rude to pay 250,000.
