-
Hail Guest! We're looking for Community Content Contribuitors to Stratics. If you would like to write articles, fan fiction, do guild or shard event recaps, it's simple. Find out how in this thread: Community Contributions
-
Greetings Guest, Having Login Issues? Check this thread!
-
Hail Guest!, Please take a moment to read this post reminding you all of the importance of Account Security.
-
Hail Guest! Please read the new announcement concerning the upcoming addition to Stratics. You can find the announcement Here!
Pirate hunting sucks... for the amount of supplies you put in you get very little to nothing in return... the money is in "merchant" ships... which I refer to as the "illegal smugglers" ... as RP wise it would make zero sense to kill blues... However you needn't engage the crew of the merchant ships... just scuttle the ship board it and confiscate the illegal booty they are hauling. They generally have far better loot... but not really great. Unless you need resources.
As i recall i think the main purpose was to get the orc ship, you could get a piece of the plans( you needed 8). I think i turned in about a dozen pirates before i quit doing( never did get a piece of the plans as reward). Although i heard that the pirate captains are good for pet training.
- Awards
- 5
Yeah I was thinking that myself about the merchant ships, I had this thought that the merchant ships were for Fel and the pirate ships were Tramm, is that not how it works? I got High seas years ago but still have only done one pirate hunt and that was with guildies. I still find the cannons a bit of a carry on.
My bard does the merchant ships now and then, apart from resources you occasionally get a cannon deed, the white cloth dye tub and smuggled liquor. The rarer 3 bottle group can sell nicely at the Europa auction. You can also sometimes find an orc-manned ship that doesn't have a red pirate aboard, though loot there isn't great. I don't really do them for loot, I do them because that's what suits my mood at the time.
I tend to believe not everything has to give super high rewards. Some activities I just do occasionally for the the enjoyment (which is highly subjective of course). Pirate ships fall into that category as well as those times when I go to ice dungeon and one-hit kill arctic ogre lords with my flamestrikes for a couple of minutes. Or cleaning up titan valley now and then, roaming laps around old haven, doing level 5 or lower t-maps or a couple more of those activities.
Enjoyment, I have sold a few orc ships on Siege and have a ridiculous amount of resources from it. You certainly can't win UO doing it, but it would have been nice had the devs had the forethought to put Frostwood boards when it first came out. Made zero sense that they didn't and no explanation, I know i know, its rumored to be coming soon. My guess is, they'll be 10 frostwood on every 15th dread pirate ship. High Seas was really cool when it first came out, mainly because they made that video and eveyrone Oooo'd and Ahhhh'd over it. They could have tweaked it just a little bit and made it so much more awesome.
You and I have very different expectations of fun. I have now sunk many, many pirate and merchant ships, and I killed numerous Peg Legs and Clap **** Red Pirates. I made entire RP pirate guilds on Legends just to hunt pirates (and treasure). So I feel like it is a system I'm more familiar with than maybe the average UO player (considering folks in this thread have mentioned how they have not really delved into it).
Ships, cannons, scuttling, etc etc is an awesome idea. However, preparing the materials to do so is a HUGE pain in the stern. If you don't spend a day making them in massive bulk amounts, it is SOOO easy to give up on high seas. Just review all the steps needed to go from raw materials to a primed, loaded, fireable cannon. It is ridiculous.
A simple fix would not even require changing the crafting much.
If you have the skill, and the initial raw materials, provide a "shipwright" house add on that will automatically step through the various crafting menus to spit out charges, fuses, etc.
That's it. That one ability would make pirate hunting so much more accessible.
Now that it is less onerous to get a ship in the water, yes, focus on what is out there to hunt:
Create new pirate hunting quests. For instance, after killing so many pirates, the guy at the dock offers you a 'special' bounty quest, where you find a renowned crew of especially incorrigible buccaneers.
Create Sea monsters, more than the occasional Kraken.
Create poacher ships that carry tameable animals, once the crew is defeated the animals can be tamed.
Create slave ships, where if you free them and escort them to dry land you complete a quest.
Create more customization options for ships. If UO has shown ONE thing to be true in gaming, it is people LOVE their custom paperdolls, houses, etc.
EVEN SHORT OF ANY OF THOSE OPTIONS, SPRINKLE SOMETHING NEW ON PIRATE LOOT:
This would be a base change to the loot table and minor item creation on the part of the devs.
Make a few items randomly drop after killing a pirate, such as:
- Level 6 and 7 treasure maps (WHY DON"T PIRATES ALREADY HAVE THESE????)
- Random 'Smuggled' items from merchants (Existing, re-colored, re-named popular deco)
- Random rare crafting item (Mondain's Legacy stuff like Taint, Corruption, etc)
- Random special alcohol mixes (Rum, Grog, etc) that are Supernova-like throwable potions
People like High Seas. I have never taken a new (to High Seas) player pirate hunting and they NOT get excited. They love it. But when that initial set of supplies runs out, they never hit the water again.
@Kyronix @Mesanna Please use these ideas as you consider a High Seas update!!!!
Lots of great ideas here. Sadly, yours, mine and other voices aren't the ones that the powers that be are listening to.
Killing the pirates is more worthwhile than turning them in after a point. How many orc ships do you really need 
I also have good luck getting legendaries from the pirates running a high luck suit. Usually one every 2-4 pirates sometimes less and sometimes more.
Turn in points like the orc ships after collecting so many resources I just dump everything from the merch ships into the trash and it does not take long to tally up a million turn in points. Can also dump the resources into the library and museum donation for points there. (Don't put the hw and BW logs in the trash can though they are zero points)
Draw backs as mentioned are tedious and real. Making Fuse Cords SUCKS and without 30% worth of tali or tali/amulet combo it really sucks. Ship paintings atleast relieve the heavy charge portion of it.
Yep more variety in the spec loot, I think everyone has about all the white cloth dye tubs they want
add talismans to the pirates
MAKE BALLS OF WOOL AUTO STACK
Streamline cannon firing a bit doesn't need to be faster just less clicky.
Some new ships or even customizable ships would be neat.
The BIG Cannons hinted at that never materialized?
I believe Garth suggested this a long time ago Cannons that keep the color of the metal they are made from.
A couple more lock downs on brit ships and a couple on the rest of the ships, I mean what is a pirate ship without a parrot on board.
Yep 6 maps on the pirate and a chance for a pirate chest with a 7 in it would be nice.
High seas and ships have a whole lot of untapped potential
I also have good luck getting legendaries from the pirates running a high luck suit. Usually one every 2-4 pirates sometimes less and sometimes more. Turn in points like the orc ships after collecting so many resources I just dump everything from the merch ships into the trash and it does not take long to tally up a million turn in points. Can also dump the resources into the library and museum donation for points there. (Don't put the hw and BW logs in the trash can though they are zero points)
Draw backs as mentioned are tedious and real. Making Fuse Cords SUCKS and without 30% worth of tali or tali/amulet combo it really sucks. Ship paintings atleast relieve the heavy charge portion of it.
Yep more variety in the spec loot, I think everyone has about all the white cloth dye tubs they want
add talismans to the pirates
MAKE BALLS OF WOOL AUTO STACK
Streamline cannon firing a bit doesn't need to be faster just less clicky.
Some new ships or even customizable ships would be neat.
The BIG Cannons hinted at that never materialized?
I believe Garth suggested this a long time ago Cannons that keep the color of the metal they are made from.
A couple more lock downs on brit ships and a couple on the rest of the ships, I mean what is a pirate ship without a parrot on board.
Yep 6 maps on the pirate and a chance for a pirate chest with a 7 in it would be nice.
High seas and ships have a whole lot of untapped potential
So not exactly zero reward but certainly not anywhere near as rewarding as it should be given the amount of time and resource invested into it, just to get ready to pirate hunting.
Treasure maps and a chance for a white MIB would be very nice. at least a start. I like the idea of a rare chance for a smuggle crate full of ML regs or something of that nature. It just seems like a ton of work for nothing. It was fun shooting the ship and capturing the pirate though, maybe we should kill pirates instead? I dont know, really a let down when we opened the chests.
And we aren't talking about 2 lousy taint... I'm talking more in the range of 20... this BS of giving next to nothing for return on time and material invested just downright blows....
What the floating farmers markets don't impress you
NO they don't.... You know maybe it's just because I played on GL's for so long but I tend to recall orcs at Skara Brae always wanted shinnies...
I expect to see less food stuff and more shinnies on a pirate ship... Perhaps there ought to be new T-Maps of Pirate Booty... just along shores or on islands... Like the jungle islands and such... and digging them up brings up undead pirates or something... and then you get some booty! With real pirate loot... necklace's, gems, rings, bangles and bobbles, golden chalices... Maybe a map to a "Dread Pirate" booty... somewhere in Fel... with bigger nastier mobs... and even some sea monsters... maybe those maps are only in Fel T2A near the shorelines... no recalling... might be fun... anyway... just a few random thoughts...
I expect to see less food stuff and more shinnies on a pirate ship... Perhaps there ought to be new T-Maps of Pirate Booty... just along shores or on islands... Like the jungle islands and such... and digging them up brings up undead pirates or something... and then you get some booty! With real pirate loot... necklace's, gems, rings, bangles and bobbles, golden chalices... Maybe a map to a "Dread Pirate" booty... somewhere in Fel... with bigger nastier mobs... and even some sea monsters... maybe those maps are only in Fel T2A near the shorelines... no recalling... might be fun... anyway... just a few random thoughts...
Pirate ships should have guaranteed lvl 7 treasure maps
That hits the Spot.
Imagine they would introduce lvl 8?
Everyone likes a little more booty.
Two things I would do to make sea battles/pirates more fun:
1) Simplify cannons. Too many steps, far too much work. No reason for it.
2) Add trashed items to pirate loot ala caverns of the discarded so you never know what you might find.
UO is and always has been about a lot of risk and very little reward or at the very least time consuming sadly. I solo'd numerous champs in The Abyss and rarely get a drop worth anything. Every time on the Roof has been fruitless and I spend a whole butt load on insurance. The whole process to get into fight most of the peerless monsters are time consuming and then the drops are not usually worth it. Even the trade orders, I lost count of the times i walked from minoc to trinsic and killed numerous mobs only to be rewarded with damn dragon scales. I cant stand WOW but at least the drops are fairly consistent there. I definitely agree that pirate hunting needs to be revamped, as do many other areas though. The powers that be should realize some of us actually have lives outside of uo.
Last edited:
But according to @Kyronix grinding is in... it's the way of the world... or some such... I've tried saying how it just is so boring that I can't force myself to do it... tried warning him that it just makes scripting and afk scripting more and more of a must for most people as they just don't have the time or energy to invest in doing the same repetitive boring task over and over and over and over and over and over and after so many overs you do for NOTHING.... You kinda say F THIS... and the more and more often you say F THIS.... the less and less you play until finally you reach where I am and several others are and you ask yourself WHY am I paying for 10+ accounts when I pretty much log in ONCE on Tuesday night for the EM Event at which 1/2 the time I get irritated because all I see is 4 to 8 sets of multiboxers taking up my piddly chance at getting a drop and making it nearly impossible to follow the story I came here for in the first place?????? Why do I do this and why do I pay this much on a game I play less than 5 hours a week now??? This going from when I used to play from the min I got up till I went to bed .... work or something... but I was on over a 200 hours a month I'm sure... now I am at less than 20... And the more I ask myself why the more I question it... the closer I am to walking away.
They really do need to get a clue
Well considering I've been trying to bash that into their heads for the last 5 years... I highly doubt they will... I keep hoping it'll happen before it costs them something more than 1 or 2 subscribers 10+ accounts but as I see today they are TOO LATE.They really do need to get a clue
Customer Service and Dead end content have been EA and now BS biggest shortfall. There is a massive amount of existing content and story lines they could expand on without destroying the original content (IE Tram Despise being one of their more epic failures that should have been undone and the mini game put in Have IMO since despise was one of the most loved and used tram dungeons) Bugs that have been around for almost as many years as I have always get promised to be fixed and never are. Athough every Dev team I can remember at one point or another was going to make bug fixes a priority.
LOL the bag of sending and powder of translocation quest are still the best bang for the time invested IMO
Just a quick followup here.
As I stated earlier, getting a ship supplied to hunt pirates is an onerous chore.
But what makes it doubly onerous is scuttling a pirate ship only to have it despawn as you go to board. This has happened to me twice recently.
I've never had a dragon despawn in the middle of a fight. Why should a boat?
So there's 14 heavy shot, 14 heavy powder, 14 fuse cord, and a match lost. I cut my losses and logged out after that.
As I stated earlier, getting a ship supplied to hunt pirates is an onerous chore.
But what makes it doubly onerous is scuttling a pirate ship only to have it despawn as you go to board. This has happened to me twice recently.
I've never had a dragon despawn in the middle of a fight. Why should a boat?
So there's 14 heavy shot, 14 heavy powder, 14 fuse cord, and a match lost. I cut my losses and logged out after that.
Best thing on pirate ships which I didn't see mentioned are the rare triple bottles of alcohol.
These are rare single graphics of the specific single bottles that spawned but combine into 3.
Alcohol bottles can spawn in a multitude of single bottles, a couple or few double bottles, OR a very rare triple bottle.
It took me around 6 months to complete my 1st set of all 23(if I remember correctly) triple bottles.
Pirating literally hundreds of ships got me all 23.
I now just sell the few rare triple bottles I still get on occasion. Depending on the bottle's name & graphic,
they can fetch between 750k-3m per bottle.
I still enjoy the occasional pirating adventure
PS. I can post a pic of all 23 later if anyone is interested. They're in the bar of my museum
These are rare single graphics of the specific single bottles that spawned but combine into 3.
Alcohol bottles can spawn in a multitude of single bottles, a couple or few double bottles, OR a very rare triple bottle.
It took me around 6 months to complete my 1st set of all 23(if I remember correctly) triple bottles.
Pirating literally hundreds of ships got me all 23.
I now just sell the few rare triple bottles I still get on occasion. Depending on the bottle's name & graphic,
they can fetch between 750k-3m per bottle.
I still enjoy the occasional pirating adventure
PS. I can post a pic of all 23 later if anyone is interested. They're in the bar of my museum
Something I have been noticing more are pirate ships with empty deck crates. I don't remember scuttling them before and finding the crates contain 0 anything. Have not found a merch ship with empty crates yet.
I never had any luck selling them after a couple of full collections of them I just started dropping them in the Zento trash can with most everything else...... The bottle are worth zero turn in points but the smugglers crates are and taking the bottles out takes longer than a quick recall to the trash can and back. Must be something that sells on better populated shards than the ones I play on.Best thing on pirate ships which I didn't see mentioned are the rare triple bottles of alcohol.
These are rare single graphics of the specific single bottles that spawned but combine into 3.
Alcohol bottles can spawn in a multitude of single bottles, a couple or few double bottles, OR a very rare triple bottle.
It took me around 6 months to complete my 1st set of all 23(if I remember correctly) triple bottles.
Pirating literally hundreds of ships got me all 23.
I now just sell the few rare triple bottles I still get on occasion. Depending on the bottle's name & graphic,
they can fetch between 750k-3m per bottle.
I still enjoy the occasional pirating adventure
PS. I can post a pic of all 23 later if anyone is interested. They're in the bar of my museum
Garth and I reported empty merchant and pirate ship crates nearly three years ago. General - Empty Liquor Smuggler's Cache
Yeah then I had a long long stretch where I didn't find any, maybe the RNG just smiled on me for a couple of years and now it isn't
And I don't mind the empty smuggler crates save me the weight or time of dumping the bottles. The completelty empty deck chest are a bit annoying though. Atleast the holds are never empty.
I had a chest go from items in it to empty as I was about to open it. The only thing I noted was, another orc ship without a captain was bouncing back and forth toward the ship I had just scuttled. Almost as if that ship looted the chest , it was weird. I'm also frustrated that a simple change to the coding to allow for more item types didn't happen with this publish as was hinted. I guess there wasn't enough time to do that with all of the Clops drama taking up developer time.
I have noted while training pets on ships that the items in the chest decay inside the chest, what starts out as a loaded chest is almost always empty at the end of cycling pets on the pirate. Wonders now when that decay timer on the chest starts.
Normal decay for items on the ground was reduced to around 30 mins awhile back. How long does it take you to finish off a pirate? I'm wondering if from the time you engage the ship to the time the pirate dies... if that's around 30 mins... well there ya go on the ship's chest decay timer.
Sorry @Petra Fyde I missed this the 1st time reading through. You called it
Those triple bottles are much harder to acquire while pirating.
Were you selling the single bottles @Tyrath ? Not really a market for singles but the triple bottles sell well.
I'm designing a new bar area in one of my homes so I had to box up stuff.
Here's a pic of all the triple bottles & some extra items that all go in the bar when finished.
I can scuttle and kill a dread in under 4 minutes, only to sometimes find an empty chest, decay is not the cause.
Singles and doubles hit the trash as do most of the triples now days. If the smugglercrate doesn't show 18 items I don't even open it.Normal decay for items on the ground was reduced to around 30 mins awhile back. How long does it take you to finish off a pirate? I'm wondering if from the time you engage the ship to the time the pirate dies... if that's around 30 mins... well there ya go on the ship's chest decay timer.
Sorry @Petra Fyde I missed this the 1st time reading through. You called it
Those triple bottles are much harder to acquire while pirating.
Were you selling the single bottles @Tyrath ? Not really a market for singles but the triple bottles sell well.
I'm designing a new bar area in one of my homes so I had to box up stuff.
Here's a pic of all the triple bottles & some extra items that all go in the bar when finished.
View attachment 71042
Makes me wonder if the decay starts when the ship is spawned and the ones with empty deck crates and chest are at the tail end of their life span. Have never found a merch ship with empty deck containers, but of late plenty of the pirate ships only have the hold loot.
I've often wondered that myself. If the ones you get stuff out the the crates it's because they have recently spawned .... and older ones no one has attacked and are just roaming are empty.
It sometimes seems like after they spawn and for whatever reason start moving is when the decay starts.
Alkaseltzer
Journeyman
It's the event that is the reward. It's exciting and challenging and if you succeed that is the reward. For example: I have two kids, I never wanted kids but it happened. I hate being a father but I love my kids. There are people that actually adopt kids, because they want to make a difference, or they like the challenge. personally, I think it's insane to want more kids, but for others the reward is the challenge.
If everything was easy, there would be no challenge and you would not fill fulfilled. In a sense it would be boring. Life is a challenge, and the more work you put into it, the more fulfilled you feel.
Also, I think the mechanism was designed for multiple people to work together. Too many people try to do everything solo in this game. This game is a multi-player game people. It was meant to be co-operative. Like a guild or a just a group of friends and a common goal. I bet doing a pirate hunt is a lot easier when two or more people participate.
Last edited:
Do you realize this thread is from Aug 2017. The event started in 2019.
And the reward for pirate hunting is the Orc ship and the resources in the cargo of the captured ship. Now we get crates for points added to that.
ALL of the above! AND..Don't forget also to add PS of some type in the Fel renowned pirate ship rewards, or god-forbid in Tram!
**Ooops I said a bad word PS and Tram..Sry..**
**Now hides under desk to avoid onslaught of rotten eggs, tomatoes and assorted rotten vegies tossed**
When scuttling ships, do you use grapeshot or ball? Be great to use up this ever growing grapeshot supply.
I just use the balls... I see little use for the grapeshot... I have to pets with me who kill all the crew quickly.
Ty. Grapeshot just takes up space and doesn't sell at all so I'll just leave in place when sacking Orcs or confiscating contraband from Gargs.
The only thing it's good for is when you are hitting another players ship and trying to kill them... It's ok if you are killing something like Scalis I guess ... or that other one with the tentacles but otherwise yeah never use the stuff.
