Return Of Resource by Location? (Devs?)

[FrejaSP]

Keep it as it is now, I love finding new ores or a new blood tree but make higher levels wood spawn more offen.

I don't want to see old Resource by Location back ever

 

[Sadrith Mora]

Cogniac,

Are you trying to insinuate that scripters are so colossally stupid that they haven't bothered to change their scripts and locations in the past 1.5 years since the resource change? If you really believe that, it just shows an ignorance of the entire scripting situation.

Of course they have, but i can't tell you how many times i see the same spots being recalled to by scripters while i'm mining quality areas that they aren't aware of. It doesn't matter if they change their areas, it's just pure luck if they find the good spots anyway.

Scripters run these things called Rail Scripts, which are named that way due to the fact that they cause a character to automatically move around in a predefined pattern, as though they were on rails. The character recalls into a location, then strip-mines, or lumberjacks in a spiral or grid pattern, for X number of screens around the recall location, then moves on to the next location. Rinse, repeat, hundreds of times, in hundreds of locations, up to 23 hours a day.

You can only carry so much at a time before you have to unload or smelt. What are you saying? No matter how elaborate their script is, it's pure luck if they run into the quality ore as long as it remains random.

This is why i said it will at least 'hinder' scripters from knowing exact locations, and having to settle for whatever is available at their currently marked locations.

They can change their runes all they want...

When I said that randomized resources help scripters, it was not an opinion that you could disagree with. It was a fact.

It's only luck over time, not a fact. Randomness has nothing to do with it. They would get more with static locations, but i'm sure you're aware of that.

In any system where a desirable outcome is random, and of the resources required to achieve a desirable outcome, only time is not infinite, those with more time are more likely to achieve the desirable outcome.

Sure, over time, but it doesn't mean that some miner who plays to mine and puts in 3-4 hrs. a day won't be more successful especially when they end up stumbling on the good ore spots, and can get back to get it. Once you find the spots, you can rack up the ore totals quickly unlike scripted spots.

Given someone using the system for 1 hour a day, and someone else using the system for 23 hours a day, the one using the system for 23 hours a day has 23x more chances to achieve a desirable outcome.

If you want to use that extreme comparison, then yeah eventually the scripter will have the better ore over time.

This means that random resources, and, in fact, any system featuring random chance, favors scripters, who have the ability to take advantage of the maximum amount of time available every day.

Logically yeah, but realistically any real miners who put in the time CAN have an advantage over the scripter by at least getting the more quality ore once the areas are located.

The fact remains that scripters must be removed from the game, somehow. That would be an important improvement toward the future of UO...

Not sure how i can spot a scripter a mile away, but a GM somehow can't...

Take care.

 

[Darkholme]

Interesting... So they went to a RNG system for resource nodes eh? I don't believe they had that in before I left, at least I don't remember it being that way. Trust me, you really don't want it to go back to a static system. While I really dislike systems designed with 100% RNG, it is far better than static. Although it seems to me that a semi-static weekly random change system that was mentioned earlier might work better overall... but then, what do I know?

 

[Saunders]

I've ended up enjoying the randomized resources, even for lumberjacking. It's a nuisance, yes, but it means my resource gatherer actually has a chance to find some of the rare stuff, instead of always arriving just behind one of the many other people who knew the same location. It would be nice to have something like a prospector's tool for lumberjacking, but I think that's the only change I'd like to see.

I do agree with this. I am a casual resource gatherer, and I like to have a stock of resources built up so I can then make stuff, rather than than going out to gather resources in order to make a given thing. Random resources work wonderfully for me!

 

[HD2300]

I've ended up enjoying the randomized resources, even for lumberjacking. It's a nuisance, yes, but it means my resource gatherer actually has a chance to find some of the rare stuff, instead of always arriving just behind one of the many other people who knew the same location. It would be nice to have something like a prospector's tool for lumberjacking, but I think that's the only change I'd like to see.

I do agree with this. I am a casual resource gatherer, and I like to have a stock of resources built up so I can then make stuff, rather than than going out to gather resources in order to make a given thing. Random resources work wonderfully for me!

The solution is hard caps. That way if a scripter wants to monopolize a spot for 23 hrs every day, they will need to pay for 23 accounts. More casual players will get into LJing and Mining again, which will be an extra incentive to keep open their accounts. Those that like finding a rare spot once every 20 hours, can simply not mark any runes.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

The solution is hard caps.

No it's not.

More casual players will get into LJing and Mining again

Not with hard caps on what they can achieve.

 

[Warpig Inc]

There a plenty of mine spots in the middle of the destard dragon spawn. There are plenty of mining locations that share space with spawn. Just put harden non random higher ore locations in those spots. Most of the high end creatures have passive reveal or could have it to spoil the insa hide. Team mining where you take a body guard into hotspots and split the ingots in the end.

They just needed to stop thinking the code mages are the answer. They knew where the val and frost locactions had been from the start. By not getting gold embriodered red robed pixelated butts in game they missed out on the fear factor. Followed by the word of mouth, the BS wasn't going to be tolerated POLICING of the game.

The whole plan and thought for the hard to get rare ore is for the coming stone armor. Just sounds like the stone properties are going to be more like ingots then wood. Stocking up on the granite cuts into the ingot stack also.

 

[HD2300]

...

The solution is hard caps.

No it's not.

More casual players will get into LJing and Mining again

Not with hard caps on what they can achieve.

I guess the 26 remaining unscripted players that still regularly LJ and Mine would agree with you too. Tell me how many new players you can convince to come to play UO if you tell them, well for fun I keep pressing this key for 3 hours each night and if I'm really really lucky I get 1 valorite ingot that I can use to buy a couple of arrows. Keep waving the pom poms.

 

[NewThunder]

I think resources should spawn even more randomly than they do now. Developers, don't make life of UO players too easy, and don't turn UO into a Sims game! And runic crafting was one of the worst ideas in UO history. The main problem is, that today you NEED bulk resources to craft anything useful. Which is total crap. Crafting should not be a tedious treadmill-job, but success should depend on random luck and skill!

Valuable resources should be rare, and not be farmed by players with appropriate runebooks.

You know, I already work one job, I really would hate to see crafting in UO become a second job rather then an escape from my first one. There needs to be a balance, I personally believe the current system has the rare woods a bit too scarse and difficult to find.

 

[Ravahan]

Anything you can do in game from mining to fighting a monster can be scripted. ANYTHING. if you can do it a script can too.
...
They talked about rare resources being rare, and what they succeeded in doing was making legit crafters rare.

Damn man, that brought a little sniffle on. All true. The only thing that a person has over a script is intelligence. You can only realistically program a script to respond to so many things.

When I said that randomized resources help scripters, it was not an opinion that you could disagree with. It was a fact. In any system where a desirable outcome is random, and of the resources required to achieve a desirable outcome, only time is not infinite, those with more time are more likely to achieve the desirable outcome. Given someone using the system for 1 hour a day, and someone else using the system for 23 hours a day, the one using the system for 23 hours a day has 23x more chances to achieve a desirable outcome.

This means that random resources, and, in fact, any system featuring random chance, favors scripters, who have the ability to take advantage of the maximum amount of time available every day.

^That

In the old system, you had script miners, sure... But I at least occasionally ran into other real people who were really mining. I've not seen one. Not a single one, since I've been back.

Not only does UO need more GMs, but they need to be more customer oriented and we need a dedicated team to get rid of botters. There should be an option in the help menu, complete with a target cursor, that lets you report a character for suspected UMing that will go to a team that deals only with UMers. Want to raise my subscription $2 a month per account? That's fine by me, but I don't ever want to wait in queue for 3 hours to get a canned response that links me to a KB article I mentioned reading in my original page again. In fact, I don't ever want any combination of those things to happen again.

If we have a real GM team, we can really start getting rid of unattended macroers of all kinds.

If EA doesn't want to pony up and do that, they need to get rid of the 2d client. That will stop scripting cold.

 

[Ravahan]

...

The solution is hard caps.

No it's not.

More casual players will get into LJing and Mining again

Not with hard caps on what they can achieve.

I wonder if you're a fan of Terry Goodkind...? Well, if you've not already you should read The Sword of Truth series, as I think it'd agree with you ideologically.

I think the key here, if you want to go with hard caps (I didn't see the second page) instead of making the GM system better, would be to set the caps high enough that a legitimate player wouldn't hit them. This would have two effects, both posetive.
1. It would prevent a REAL player from burning out on resource gathering, which many have done.
2. It would prevent scripters from having quite as large of an advantage in resource gathering-- Sure, they can still script the same amount while they're asleep as a normal player gets playing, but is that risk of being banned worth the reward of, say, 4 hours of your day?

As I've said before on this subject, I don't give a crap if the person sits there and "does their time" while a scipt clicks for them. I personally don't like gathering resources using a script as it feels like cheating, but other people may have other ethical views. As long as the time invested to get these resources has value to them, because they're actually sitting there and paying attention to their character while they could be doing other things, I'm satisfied.

Another benefit of the generous hard cap is that the average scripter will be more likely to script mine attended, or even forget script mining all together as its really pretty silly.

 

[Orthus]

When it was static, I saw scripters all the time. Their scripts had the resource respawn clock built in and I had to mine/chop at the same time they did on the same spots they did to get any rare ore or wood. After the randomization, I don't see scripters...or any legit miners/choppers either. They nerfed resource gathering in an attempt to stop scripters. Seems the outcome wasn't what was desired.

Static resources with a twist...here's an idea that's not well thought out (at least I try to think outside my box):
-----------------------------------------
First, you cannot mine hidden nor invis'ed. Small annoyance but only in the dicey spots. You mine Fel, you accept the risk/reward.

Player A sees potential scripters, say Player B and C

Player A can target Player B once per day and Player C once per day (to prevent griefing legit players) with a server-generated question/answer that requires interaction...oh say something like "What is the animal that we just spawned next to you" or "Who just script-targeted you?"

Let's say the server does not get the correct response from Player B, but does from Player C, then Player A is given a one-day license to grief only Player B by, oh say, blocking their recall spot with a chest, spawning ore eles and leaving them near their spot, luring monsters to their recall spot, etc.
-------------------------------------------
I could always tell the scripters by the way their characters worked...recall in, hide, 5 swings, recall out. If it was within the account and game rules, I would have blocked their recall spot. I must admit, I would mine from their spot on occasion

 

[ColterDC]

Whether it's script resource gathers, bod collectors, gold farmers, speedhackers, etc, etc.

The problem is cheaters are ruining the game for honest players.

EA obviously doesn't give a damn about removing cheaters..... That's why their game is dying.

Screw EA, take your money somewhere else.

 

[Lord Frodo]

Keep the locations random.

Here is what has bothered me about resources.

WOOD
GM Lumberjack finds all types of wood
GM Carpenter can turn all wood to boards with no chance of loss or just work with the logs.

Leather
Anybody can collect any type of hides and cut them with no loss.
GM Tailor can work with hides or cut hides.

ORE
GM Mines can locate all ores but CAN NOT smelt without the chance of loss
GM Smith CAN NOT work with ore, only ingots.

Sorry but I think in is wrong that wood and leather have no restrictions and ore does. If need be then let Smithing and Mining add together to give a better smelt rate or just do away with the failure rate with ore. If you have the skill required to mine it or work with it then you should have the knowledge to smelt it with no loss.

Barbed (+12), Frostwood (+18), Valorite (+13) all have high value when making armor, but you have no loss with 2 of the material. Make all 100%. It’s hard enough just finding Val and at 105 mining (no smithing required) you only have a 62% chance to smelt.

2 solutions are to do away with the loss or let a GM Miner / Legend Smith have a 100% rate.

 

[The Home Guild]

You ever hear that song by justin timberlake[Cry Me a River]?

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

I wonder if you're a fan of Terry Goodkind...? Well, if you've not already you should read The Sword of Truth series, as I think it'd agree with you ideologically.

Already have, and Faith of the Fallen was probably the most difficult one to read due to the "logic" of Collectivists. I have also somewhat recently finished Atlas Shrugged and am currently reading The Fountainhead.

So as you can probably guess I am very inherently a Capitalist through and through which is why I tend to disagree with "fixes" that involve limiting people who are doing things in an intended and legal fashion (also why I have no problem with RMT sellers). However, I am in FULL support of an active GM staff that will remove scriptors, dupers, and exploiters (and by extension remove the current RMT sellers so that legitimate players can sell items if they wish).

Personally, for my own UO experience, randomized ore veins makes mining a bit more fun overall. Oh sure I can't target Valorite all day long, but I can still get a good mix of material built up using my current system, so it works for me.

 

[Kaleb]

Not counting siege. Lets keep ore random in tram and static in fel drop the 2x R&R resources in fel, Keep the highest end ores in dungeons based on lvl (no recall) low levels elsewhere outside. See in fel we have our own way to deal with scripters let them script the low levels being high lvls may be camped by someone who dont like scriptos.

 

[red sky]

Whatever happened to those colored elementals that spawned in Ilshenar close to the gargoyle city? Personally, I think they should just leave the system how it is (and do it to the wood system as well, what's the point of only doing it with ore?). Then create ore elementals that give 25 ore but make them like those blackrock elementals or something so it is quite a challenge to take them down. Also, create different wood Ints that give like 100 wood per Int with the same difficulty. Then put them only in fell so that people have to fight over them or whatever ( I know this won't work, too many trammies on these boards but it's a good laugh). This is just my idea and anyone can expand on this. Oh, and BTW has anyone seen the vendor that sells 60k bulk frostwood and has it restocked the next day if someone does manage to buy it out somehow? I also noticed this with gold hammers that some guy was selling on his vendor. I swear I bought like 10 of those and he still kept placing more on the vendor. Guess it's possible to do that (considering I don't script bods) but geeze.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

Whatever happened to those colored elementals that spawned in Ilshenar close to the gargoyle city?

They were removed when they opened Ilshenar to the 2d client (I miss them as well). Used to be Gold, Verite, and I believe Copper elems.

Lets keep ore random in tram and static in fel drop the 2x R&R resources in fel, Keep the highest end ores in dungeons based on lvl (no recall) low levels elsewhere outside.

While I'm for dropping the 2x resources in Fel, this would completely remove miners from Fel as a whole which I believe is NOT the end desired result (which would also serve to basically allow scriptors within the top PvP guilds to control the ingot market as well as the power scroll market... no thanks).