Skill Cap Increase

[Arcades]

I think its time we increase our max skill cap by 50-100 points. With all the new "support" skills, there is not enuf room on any template to be more than just one so-called "class". The days of old UO, skills were not synergistic with one another, and allowed for a great variation of templates. Much of this has been lost since then, and now with the introduction of yet another skill (Mysticism) that requires both Imbuing AND Eval to be effective, the template is so cramped, most people will not bother with the weaker version of a mixture of magery/spellweaving/chiv all thrown into one skill.

That being said, with imbuing allowing potentially for 100+ skill points in jewelry, said +skills should be capped.

 

[Alezi]

Not a good idea. A good idea would be to give 720 skill cap to all players (not just the ones with 48mo old account).

Note: My account is 58 months old.

 

[neocron79]

Not a good idea. A good idea would be to give 720 skill cap to all players (not just the ones with 48mo old account).

Note: My account is 58 months old.

Now THAT I would love to see. My account is a month old and my Sampire Template is based around a 720 point cap... which means my Necromancy is stuck at 80.0 and I am forced to rely on jewelry to get the other 20 points of necro for Vampire Form (which in turn means I'm stuck wearing that jewelry full time).

 

[Connor_Graham]

No. They'd have to rebalance the entire game. Templates are supposed to be about choices, not cramming every skill onto one char.

 

[The Fallout]

What they should do is make the +20 bonus available for ALL accounts of all ages.

 

[The Fallout]

Not a good idea. A good idea would be to give 720 skill cap to all players (not just the ones with 48mo old account).

Note: My account is 58 months old.

This is a great idea, highering it more than now available is a bad idea, but giving everyone the +20 is a great idea.

 

[Thangorodrim]

The skill cap should not be increased, there are enough jewel based work around with imbuing already.

I am fine with giving to +20 to everyone as vets already have status symbols. My youngest account is around 120 months, so it makes no difference to me.

 

[Diomedes Artega]

No. They'd have to rebalance the entire game. Templates are supposed to be about choices, not cramming every skill onto one char.

Agreed. Pretty much any other game you are restrained to a certain class type and can only deviate outside that to a certain extent.

I mean...they already gave most of you what you wanted by making soulstones with no timer on them. Learn to adapt.

Not have every skill in the book on your template.

 

[Taylor]

No. They'd have to rebalance the entire game. Templates are supposed to be about choices, not cramming every skill onto one char.

This. ^

It is this challenge that makes building new toons fun.

 

[Altpersona]

Soulstones are really the way to go now.

 

[lucksi]

I´d love to have an additional 100 skill points on any char that goes out an interacts with monsters.

However, my crafters really need those 100 skill points.

 

[Diomedes Artega]

Soulstones are really the way to go now.

Agreed. Courtesy of the 8th Age when I bought it and vet rewards every year of getting a soulstone, I have quite a few (including frags.), just because I couldn't have every skill I wanted.

Now with no timer on them...I even more so can't see a reason why the skill cap should be increased.

Most templates are basic in nature and have only a few skills to interchange out. My mage template usually I would swap out inscription for spellweaving.

Sampire template I would swap out one skill for another. It really is quite easy and boils down to the saying, "You can't have everything you want."

 

[guum]

No. They'd have to rebalance the entire game. Templates are supposed to be about choices, not cramming every skill onto one char.

I agree, except that two of the new skills are really dependent on several other skills. Mysticism relies on Eval & Imbuing, while itself being basically a support skill, and throwing has a whole system of co-dependencies on various skills. My guess is that the devs originally intended for gargoyles to be able to get around all these dependencies through heavy use of skill jewelry, but that when they were (forced into) making it so necklaces and earrings can't have skills on them, those two skills got orphaned.

My suggestion would be instead to fix mysticism & throwing to have fewer dependencies. I like that mysticism is dependent on imbuing, but make it independent of eval. That way mystics can be archers, dexers, whatever, with a summonable tank and support damage. And take swords completely out of the equation for throwing, and remove the various little penalties associated with it -- small bonuses for keeping the correct range would be much preferable.

Personally, I'd also like to see earrings & necklace go back to jewelry mod slots as well. This is the obvious way to improve gargoyles, who are still kinda struggling.

Finally, lower the property weight values on everything with a 1.4x weight (including skills) to 1.2x, and cap weights at that. This will allow another 10 points or so of skills on each piece of jewelry (currently a skills-only piece of jewelry is capped at 53 points). This would allow for an effective raise in the skill cap at the cost of other important mods. A choice.

edit: Also, I would definitely support giving the 720 cap to all players. This works out to a penalty rather than a reward and all but forces new players who don't want to be at a disadvantage to buy a used account.

 

[Taylor]

I´d love to have an additional 100 skill points on any char that goes out an interacts with monsters.

However, my crafters really need those 100 skill points.

Soulstone off lumberjack, carpentry, fletching, etc. as needed.

 

[Chaosy]

No, no, no.

 

[Diomedes Artega]

Soulstone off lumberjack, carpentry, fletching, etc. as needed.

Agreed. Relatively easy to do now.

 

[UOKaiser]

They owe us 100 skill points. Just give those back which they took away when they introduced power scrolls and balanced everything that you had to be 120 to have the same strenth you had in 100 before the rebalance. Give us back the 100 skill points!!
At first it was fine you can increase to 120 for extra specialization but then years later they rebalanced everything making your 120 as strong as your 100 before it. People have gotten used to having only 6 skills many don't even remmember the old days. UO was a 7 skill game bring it back. Give us back what we losed.

 

[Gellor]

No to skill cap increase. Connor pretty much hit it.

No to screwing vets yet again by giving 20 skill point cap increase to everyone. With imbuing, 20 skill point to cap isn't that huge of an advantage.

If EA keeps screwing vets, they will be left with a game with no vets(ie, no game)

EA isn't gaining new account subscriptions hand over fist. They are maintaining current accounts. AKA vets.

I've already closed one account over EA screwing vets(aka the AOS 5 point stat bonus)

 

[Ender]

They owe us 100 skill points. Just give those back which they took away when they introduced power scrolls and balanced everything that you had to be 120 to have the same strenth you had in 100 before the rebalance. Give us back the 100 skill points!!
At first it was fine you can increase to 120 for extra specialization but then years later they rebalanced everything making your 120 as strong as your 100 before it. People have gotten used to having only 6 skills many don't even remmember the old days. UO was a 7 skill game bring it back. Give us back what we losed.

I agree with this to be honest.

 

[EnigmaMaitreya]

No. They'd have to rebalance the entire game. Templates are supposed to be about choices, not cramming every skill onto one char.

Templates have always been about choice in UO, ergo no one character is a I do everything in the world character.

Now then, how does that correlate to a No Cost (as in time delay) Soul Stone?

Given a large number of Soul Stones and you might just as well have implemented the Test Centers set command.

It is not that I agree with Skill Cap increase etc.

It is more the reality that a Skill Cap, with unlimited use, no time delay Soul Stones is pointless.

I expect the rebuttal of the Encounters are still governed by the skill cap. But that gloss's over the reality that I can stop being an archer and become a sampire in seconds in an encounter. Or in short you gave me the essence of a 720 Skill Cap * the number of Templates in Soul Stones, that I can carry. And switch between them in the blink of an eye.

 

[UOKaiser]

I agree with this to be honest.

The interesting thing about this is that it was done by 2 different groups of dev I believe "could be wrong but dev have chaged alot during the years".

See at first when power scrolls were added you couldn't see it as a nerf because there were both 6x120 users and 7x100 users they equaled in strengh except 1 was more powerful in what they had but the other had a extra skill set that incresed there situational situation. But then they slowly added skills and made requirements,lowered success rates and buffed new creatures that required 120. Now if you were a new player and after that then you won't notice a difference as everyone wants 120 so 6x120 is the norm.

But if you were a player before then and being around long enough to remmember the 7xgm being at the same level then you can piece all the pieces together and see that 100 skill points were taken away as a huge ultimate multi-year nerf right under everyones nose without even 1 complaint cause well what you don't know can't hurt you correct?How could you lose something you never knew you had?

 

[hawkeye_pike]

Every few months someone comes with this question. The request, to turn UO into an even less challenging Sims game than it already is.

I only hope that the game developers are not listening to the player base too much, or we will soon have a boring game without diversity and challenge.

 

[Uvtha]

No. The game is "balanced" around 720. If you want more skill, you must sacrafice properties on your items for it.

 

[The Fallout]

No to skill cap increase. Connor pretty much hit it.

No to screwing vets yet again by giving 20 skill point cap increase to everyone. With imbuing, 20 skill point to cap isn't that huge of an advantage.

If EA keeps screwing vets, they will be left with a game with no vets(ie, no game)

EA isn't gaining new account subscriptions hand over fist. They are maintaining current accounts. AKA vets.

I've already closed one account over EA screwing vets(aka the AOS 5 point stat bonus)

Screwing vets??!!! They will not improve the graphics because all the "vets" want their nostalgia... why was KR scrapped? Yeah.

You closed an account because of the stat increase? What are you an immature "gimme gimme, mine mine!" brat?

This game will die because of vets, of which I am one.

Vets get a lot of cool items only they can use. The skill increase should NOT be apart of that. The items do not give an advantage, the 20 skill points give a blatant skill advantage over all new players until they hit 4 years of playing that is truly insane.

 

[Llewen]

No. They'd have to rebalance the entire game. Templates are supposed to be about choices, not cramming every skill onto one char.

Agreed. Pretty much any other game you are restrained to a certain class type and can only deviate outside that to a certain extent.

I mean...they already gave most of you what you wanted by making soulstones with no timer on them. Learn to adapt.

Not have every skill in the book on your template.

And it would never be enough. They add 80 skill points, and people would be asking for a hundred more, then a hundred more.

 

[HippieMagic]

They could combine Tinkering and Blacksmithing into a new skill. Then change Mining and LJ into a "Resource Gathering" skill. That would at least free up 200 points from a mule... I support my idea of having a secondary set of skills though that can be trained up to give a slight bonus to skills you have while not touching the skill cap.

Say to make musical weapons with carpentry instead of requiring musicianship and carpentry they could add a minor skill like "Music Theory" that allows you to grind away making musical instruments to raise that to it's full potential. It would expand on current skills while minimizing the skill points we are all hurting for without raising the cap or unbalancing the game. I don't really think its going to hurt the game to reduce the crafting skills enough to where one character can craft everything in the game when he has 720 points dedicated to JUST crafting.

 

[Ender]

120 more and the game is exactly how it was originally (after they first implemented a cap anyway). 7 full skills at most.

 

[Taylor]

And it would never be enough. They add 80 skill points, and people would be asking for a hundred more, then a hundred more.

Yup. That seems to be how it goes around here. rolleyes:

 

[Urk of LS]

I agree on some points, I like the idea of giving the 720 Point Cap to all players, It will allow for a good solid character with 7X GM skills and a few for flavor to go to whatever combo above the 100 GM cap. I also like the Idea of hooking any Cap increase to account age. +5 points per year I think is a good ammount.

As for Crafters, I had to split my Crafter into 2 Full time Crafters (one metal worker and one wood worker) and 1 Part time crafter (Mage with inscription and Alchemy), So I don't think a Crafter needs a big Point boost. With 7 character slots per account How many adventurers do you need anyway?

Just my opinions.

 

[HippieMagic]

I dont really wanna pay $20 for 1 more character...

 

[Apetul]

Vets get a lot of cool items only they can use. The skill increase should NOT be apart of that. The items do not give an advantage, the 20 skill points give a blatant skill advantage over all new players until they hit 4 years of playing that is truly insane.

/Agree

 

[UOKaiser]

Do ya know that there are people who have around 10xgm or more characters no new skills though since before they implemented cap out there.
Im not sure if they ever purge tham I doubt it but those are true vet accounts.
Too bad people are so used to having 6x legendary most are ignoring the fact that there suppose to have 7 skills with each skill having the same abilitie as a 120 point skill and there 120 skills are now as strong as the gm skill used to be. Wake up everyone you all were nerfed and ya don't even know it lol. You shouldn't be calling for a increase you should be calling for a undisclosed nerf revert that not even the dev noticed so it was not intended. And if it was it was a genious way to do it without anybody knowing.

 

[Taylor]

If you hated the change from 7x GM, just don't use your extra 20 skill points or power scrolls. Problem solved.

Personally, I'm going to keep using my 720.

 

[UOKaiser]

If you hated the change from 7x GM, just don't use your extra 20 skill points or power scrolls. Problem solved.

Personally, I'm going to keep using my 720.

What do you mean? Remmeber the nerf was done in by 2 different steps. Power scroll step first that was fine you get incresed power by specializing but then many years later the changes to requiring 120 skills to do the same thing that you were able to do at gm before kicked in and the power of the 6x legendary was diminished. They made this change in adjusting the environments and the percentage needed to cast or use skills. Multiple other things have also slowly lowerd down the ability. Currently players with 6xlegendary are as powerful as a 7x90 or so was back in the days. This is a main thing when people see that skills don't count for much anymore compared to items. The skills have being reduced and the items have being buffed.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

They owe us 100 skill points.

No, they don't.

 

[UOKaiser]

...

They owe us 100 skill points.

No, they don't.

Yes they do actually more but 100 is good enough. They took it away without so much as a announcement by different dev they need to give them back.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

Soulstones + +Skill items = WAAAAAAAAAAY more than 100 points.

 

[UOKaiser]

...

Soulstones + +Skill items = WAAAAAAAAAAY more than 100 points.

I agree but it's a differnt type of monster. You cant use it all at the same time it's like having 7 characters with all the skills doesn't matter. This is more going to the abilities of the characters that can rely on there skills more than items even in this item focus world.

 

[kelmo]

No. Soulstones are already bad enough.

 

[UOKaiser]

No. Soulstones are already bad enough.

Kelmo you remmeber don't you when 7xgm was the best you can do? ANd then the moment you they introduced power scrolls you could do better as a 120 for that particular skill but then somewhere along the way being a gm didn't pack the same power as it used to? You must of felt it.

 

[EnigmaMaitreya]

I agree but it's a differnt type of monster. You cant use it all at the same time it's like having 7 characters with all the skills doesn't matter. This is more going to the abilities of the characters that can rely on there skills more than items even in this item focus world.

I disagree, having no reuse timer on a Soul Stone, allows you to switch between the Templates in a heart beat .... constantly as the environment dictates. Oh that wave is a warrior, ok the next wave is a Archer etc.

 

[UOKaiser]

I disagree, having no reuse timer on a Soul Stone, allows you to switch between the Templates in a heart beat .... constantly as the environment dictates. Oh that wave is a warrior, ok the next wave is a Archer etc.

It requires you to go home and do the switching and maybe outfit your character differently same thing as if you go to a inn or home log off and get out another character that can do better for the next wave except you probably don't have to outfit him again. Like let see you have a sampire ok you fighting whatever then you go home to give him skills as a abc archer in that case your gear will be pretty different especially if you use any +skill items. Though most likely you have the gear ready to go but it's like having another character ready to go after switching still will need to make your way back to were you are tough if it's a closed no recall area impossible if it's a peerless fight.

Though soulstones make things nicer because every nerf you don't have to retrain skills again and can make different templates. But the extra 100 points we losed allowed our templates to rely more on our skills at that particular moment.

I like the items am not a item basher in no way. But I really miss skills meaning more than they do now. We vets got 20 skill points back from the 100 we losed still being 80 less by the numbers but because of the other factors it doesn't mean much. We have plenty of things that make up for alot of our shortcommings but many of us never felt it was nice to nerf that part of our templates so quietly, so slowly , so in the shadows.

I don't ask for extrems I just want all of us to have those 100 points we losed with vets getting a extra 20 points. We had them already we just want them back and if the player base decide they don't want those points back then after the change we can try for a renerf. But I doubt once you have your points back the vets will remmeber that they used to have it already and the newer players will enjoy there more improved choices.

 

[calibek]

Agreed. Courtesy of the 8th Age when I bought it and vet rewards every year of getting a soulstone, I have quite a few (including frags.), just because I couldn't have every skill I wanted.

Now with no timer on them...I even more so can't see a reason why the skill cap should be increased.

Most templates are basic in nature and have only a few skills to interchange out. My mage template usually I would swap out inscription for spellweaving.

Sampire template I would swap out one skill for another. It really is quite easy and boils down to the saying, "You can't have everything you want."

Am I missing something? I thought a dev cam in here and said that the soulstone timer was an issue and is being addressed. Has something changed?

 

[UOKaiser]

Am I missing something? I thought a dev cam in here and said that the soulstone timer was an issue and is being addressed. Has something changed?

It was intended Chrissy confirmed it.

 

[calibek]

Well that is stupid...it should be re-added. But I digress. I vote NO on the skill cap increase.

 

[popps]

I think its time we increase our max skill cap by 50-100 points.

I have an even better idea........

Why not raise the CAP ten folds so that we can put all existing skills on one template ?

After all, being able to do everything everywhere would be wonderfull and would give a feeling to have "won" UO............

/sarcasm

Ultima Online was born a "role playing" online multiplayer game and, IMHO, we have already diverted waaaaaaay too much from that with all of the "salad" templates that are possible.

I would actually much more prefer a return to a more stricter class role playing environment where, for example, an archer is actually an archer, not also a tamer and a mage and something else on top of that......

 

[UOKaiser]

I have an even better idea........

Why not raise the CAP ten folds so that we can put all existing skills on one template ?

After all, being able to do everything everywhere would be wonderfull and would give a feeling to have "won" UO............

/sarcasm

Ultima Online was born a "role playing" online multiplayer game and, IMHO, we have already diverted waaaaaaay too much from that with all of the "salad" templates that are possible.

I would actually much more prefer a return to a more stricter class role playing environment where, for example, an archer is actually an archer, not also a tamer and a mage and something else on top of that......

Thats pretty boring and it's done to death. The unique ness of UO is that you can be a archer fisher. Or a ninja miner or etc.. Hell it was advertised on the boxes everyone bought.It's the reason UO was popular when it came out and the reason it's still around. If I want to play that way I have about a million old school and all these cookie cutter games copies of each other.

 

[The Fallout]

I have an even better idea........

Why not raise the CAP ten folds so that we can put all existing skills on one template ?

After all, being able to do everything everywhere would be wonderfull and would give a feeling to have "won" UO............

/sarcasm

Ultima Online was born a "role playing" online multiplayer game and, IMHO, we have already diverted waaaaaaay too much from that with all of the "salad" templates that are possible.

I would actually much more prefer a return to a more stricter class role playing environment where, for example, an archer is actually an archer, not also a tamer and a mage and something else on top of that......

What I love about UO is the actual salad options. The problem is if someone wants to go be a straight warrior or something, they suck lol.

 

[Diomedes Artega]

Every few months someone comes with this question. The request, to turn UO into an even less challenging Sims game than it already is.

I only hope that the game developers are not listening to the player base too much, or we will soon have a boring game without diversity and challenge.

Agreed completely.

 

[Konge]

if we win uo do we get cookies? I'll sign if we get cookies