Something to chew on while I'm gone

[Seraphima]

As a "casual player" I have been very grateful for GGS. However, something is not working correctly with skill gain for certain skills and/or I am not understanding GGS. I am having immense trouble, which many other players have confirmed, with the parry skill. My advanced char, who had a moderate level of parry skill prior to the AoS launch, is not having trouble getting reasonable gains, even thought she is is now in the 90s. My newer char, who had no parry prior to AoS (and now has 26.6 to be exact) is not gaining through normal gameplay, nor is she getting the GGS gains that are due according the the timetable. She is playing both with a shield and without, and although I see the "flash" that tells me she is parrying successfully, she is not gaining anything at all. I have been fighting everything from bunnies to ettins to solen infiltrators. All of the methods I have been advised to try by other players have not worked for me. For example, today I fought 4-5 bunnies and birds at once without a single gain (about a half hour of rt play) and I also fought solen infiltrators without a gain (about an hour of rt play).

Now, that having been a specific case, I would say generally that it would help me to know if something I'm fighting is TOO HARD for me to gain in a difficulty based skill. My understanding is that currently, if a skill is difficulty based and you fight something *either too hard or too easy*, you won't get a gain. I feel that if I can see myself succeeding at fighting something that is very hard for me, I should gain skill. If I choose to fight difficult monsters and thus succeed less frequently, I shouldn't be penalized for that. I shouldn't be forced to fight just a certain few things at a certain skill level. BUT, if this is the way the game is going to stay, then I would like to know if something is being considered "too hard". It is fairly easy to figure out if something is too easy, but not always so easy to figure out if it is too hard.

I expect it to take quite some time for me to GM a skill, but I shouldn't be going days without a gain at the 25ish skill level!

 

[TyCon]

<blockquote><hr>

How much should I care about Macroing Prevention?

<hr></blockquote>
Pretty gawd dang much -- think it through… macroing is normally done on a skill that is BORING to raise (i.e. Fishing, Anatomy, Magery) or feels like it takes too long to raise. Do something to make the skill gains at least FEEL quicker and then maybe you’ll see the WANT/NEED to macro go away (a least a little) but you can never really remove the threat of Macroing.
I mean look at fishing: The whole fun in the skill is having a Grand Master that can fish up MiBs, the fun isn’t in raising the bloody skill -- in fact raising the skill is like pulling teeth and feels like a huge waste of time. Standing around clicking water isn’t many peoples idea of good time but fishing up a DSS and battling it for a MiB, now THAT’S fun!
<blockquote><hr>

Should I eliminate 8x8? If skill gain were more predictable and sane, would you even need it?

<hr></blockquote>
Go for it! Make skill gains quick, fun, and non-painful! Think of the future of MMORPGs, you have two great MMORPGs coming out within the next few months that are claiming to do away with the hair pulling grind of older MMORPGs (i.e. UO &amp; EQ -- but mainly EQ). And yes gaining skills in UO can be considered Hair pulling depending on what you are doing (Blacksmithing, Fishing, Magery, Tailoring) and how many hours you play -- casual gamers suffer because it takes longer to reach some of the main content. The future of MMORPGs isn’t mindless ‘leveling’ (that’s all EQ and the old UO ever was) it’s going to be about CONTENT (Using your skill, Places to travel, things to see, things to collecting, things to loot, &amp; feats to perform).
<blockquote><hr>

How long should it reasonably take to GM a skill? Should all skills be the same?

<hr></blockquote>
Depends really on what you the Developers think is more important… is it A) Players spending time gaining skills (a grind that might rub some the wrong way) at any cost (i.e. Macroing, or soloing) or B) Players enjoying the Game Content… I’d say B and a lot of the content isn’t unlocked until you Grand master the said skill, which by the way can take an enormously long time depending on how long you play (like Blacksmithing, Tailoring, Lock picking or fishing). ‘Leveling’ is an outdated concept of game play but should at least have a minor role within the game.


Let’s look at fishing again as an example (and this IS only an example). Let’s not kid ourselves… the fishing skill isn’t very useful until level 100, only thing you can do before then is open a shoe store and serve fish steak dinners to your patrons. Now, Let’s say I only play one hour a day on this character (which as about right for a casual gamer) and at the rate of his skill gain it takes two months to GM the skill… I’ve just spent that amount of time riding around in a boat – TWO MONTHS of doing nothing but staring at water – It has taken me TWO MONTHS just to get to the fun part of my MAIN skill I bet many people would tire of the game before they even got to the content of that skill.

I’d say quickly mastering the skill and putting it to use matters more than the many countless hours spent trying to raise it to THAT level – a minimum of one month (which IS the amount of time many upcoming MMORPGs are going to use because it better serves the Casual gamers a few ‘hardcore’ ‘classes’ will take many, many more months to finish).
<blockquote><hr>

For difficulty-based skills, what information do you need? If a task isn't hard enough for you, should it tell you that?

<hr></blockquote>
Be straight forward… if I can’t create something or I can’t perform a feat I should know. This information would be wonderful to prevent wasting of a player’s resources &amp; time (time is a MAJOR factor to a lot of people and so is wasting resources they’ve spent hours to collect). If something is too easy, I should know for sure in order to prevent more waste of our time.
<blockquote><hr>

I'm thinking about decoupling stat gain completely from skill gain -- so every 15 minutes, you would just gain a stat point, up to your daily limit. Is that a bad idea?

<hr></blockquote>
The system does need a change and this change would seem fair if it applies to EACH stat (every 15 minutes Strength, Dexterity, AND Intelligence goes up).

 

[Sularis]

It seems like one thing that I see alot is "The worst thing OSI ever did to UO was _______ __ _____"

I personally think that theres MANY things that have really made me stop playing UO lately. The latest of course being AoS and all the 'baggage' (buggage?) it brought with it. UO USED to be a very fun game, and its NOT by a long shot because the game itself was awesome, it was because the game was at least fun, but most importanly it was a community game that allowed a group of friends to enjoy time together, whether they were a 'good' honorabe guild training, or a pack of reds marauding the Felucca lanscape.

All of that seems to be gone now, at least it is for me and the people I have played with for the last (almost) 4 years. Skill gains were (IMHO) perfect just after pub 16 right after 'powerhour' went away. In fact, despite some of the negatives that came with pub 16, in MANY ways, it was for myself, and many others, the way UO should have been from the start. The only thing I would have changed with skill and stat gain in pub 16 is the increase in stat gains per day that is currently in effect.

Enter Pub 17 - aka Age of Shadows....

I used to have 4 very active accts for myself and my family, now they dont get even 2 hours of play a week between the 4. Two of them are closed already and the others will likely follow soon for at least a few months, perhaps indefinitely. We, and so many others have no desire to play this item based game that we used to love. Its just so sad to see something we have spent so much time enjoying suddenly be turned into what it has become since Feb 11th.

Get rid of the Advanced Character service, bring back the rares market, make the game FUN again like it used to be. Most importantly, STOP BRINGING OUT 'UPGRADES' AND CHARGING PEOPLE FOR THE OPPORTUNITY TO DEAL WITH A MULTITUDE OF BUGS AND CHANGES TO THE GAME THAT THEY DIDNT WANT UNLESS YOU FIX THE THINGS THAT ARE CURRENTLY BROKEN, AND IMPLEMENT THE THINGS WE HAVE BEEN PROMISED FOR YEARS.. SHEESH!!

Sularis

 

[DerekL]

<blockquote><hr>

1. There are to many "gold sinks" now.....
2. I have played three years and I cant even afford PS's., and I for one am tired of all the "gold sinks" in this game now.....armor, regs, wpns, jewelry, and item insurance, etc., etc. bah!

<hr></blockquote>You confuse 'gold sinks', which remove gold from the game, with transfers of gold between characters.

 

[TyCon]

<blockquote><hr>

AND IMPLEMENT THE THINGS WE HAVE BEEN PROMISED FOR YEARS.. SHEESH!!

<hr></blockquote>

Like Necro spells &amp; More housing space? /php-bin/shared/images/icons/doh.gif

 

[Laozar Firewyth]

<blockquote><hr>


How much should I care about macroing prevention? Should I eliminate 8x8? If skill gain were more predictable and sane, would you even need it?


<hr></blockquote>

Macroing prevention should be a moderate concern *IF* you intend to readjust skill gain in such a way that certain skills aren't almost completely impossible to GM without macroing.

I think 8x8 should be eliminated, but some MAJOR reworking of "normal game play" skill gain for a lot of skills needs to be done first.
For instance, magery is extremely easy to GM with 8x8, but takes a grossly disproportionate amount of time and effort to GM if you do not 8x8. This goes for some other skills as well, and should be addressed. I would much rather see it so that normal gameplay skill gains are accelerated and 8x8 eliminated. The net effect should be it will take longer to GM skills like magery with 8x8 now(since you cannot 8x8), but it would take much less time to GM than it does without 8x8 now. Magery isn't the only skill affected by this though.

I think that also addresses the question of if skill gain were more sane would we need 8x8

<blockquote><hr>


How long should it reasonably take to GM a skill? Should all skills be the same?


<hr></blockquote>

How long should it reasonably take? That's a loaded question my friend
On one hand, it should be a long process to GM, since you don't want overnight fully developed characters. On the other hand, it shouldn't take very long, because we already have such a large base of developed characters that new players or characters will feel very frustrated at having to take a long time before they are able to be on a par level and competitive with others. The upside of making the time to GM shorter is that it also diminishes the gap that very rapidly develops between casual players and powergamers.

Should all skills take the same time? Ideally yes. I've thought about this for a very long time, and I used to think they shouldn't, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that how do you then determine which skills should take longer and which should take less? How do you determine how long each one should take, how far apart they are, etc? Everyone is going to have a different opinion of which skills are more useful or more powerful or how long they should take to GM, so the obvious answer would be to not spend the huge amount of time trying to make those determinations and just make them all take the same amount of time.

<blockquote><hr>


For difficulty-based skills, what information do you need? If a task isn't hard enough for you, should it tell you that?


<hr></blockquote>
Preferrably more than we get now
Yes, if the person is less than GM, there should be a message telling them if what they're doing is not hard enough to give them any chance at skill gain. However, ideally there would be a way to turn this on or off for those who don't want the "fun" spoiled for them.

<blockquote><hr>


I'm thinking about decoupling stat gain completely from skill gain -- so every 15 minutes, you would just gain a stat point, up to your daily limit. Is that a bad idea?


<hr></blockquote>
I don't personally see it as a bad idea. I don't see any reason why this would have a negative impact on the game.


Basically right now the system is set up in such a way that (other than warrior skills), if you attempt to gain through just "normal game play", you'll be waiting a very long time to GM, but if you 8x8 or macro, you'll GM in an extremely short time.

The problem with this is it "forces" people to macro or 8x8 (at least in their perception, or if they want to get to a competitive level and be able to do a lot of things)... now, both 8x8ing and macroing are very boring, which ends up with people having a tendency to unattended macro, which can get them in trouble.

So 8x8 and macroing should be effectively eliminated (although, macroing can never be totally eliminated without some EXTREMELY intrusive restrictions which affect people who don't macro, and that would be VERY BAD) and normal gameplay gains sped up a bit to make the only path to GMing a median length instead of the extremely long length (without macro/8x8) or extremely short length (with macro/8x8) that it is now.

Also, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE pay attention to certain skills that are extremely difficult to GM regardless of whether you macro or not!!!!!

Carpentry is by and far the most time consuming and expensive skill to GM out of the crafting skills. Tinkering, tailoring, and smithing are much much easier.

Lockpicking. OMFG. Just do us a favor and go try to GM a lockpicker from scratch... you'll see what I mean.

Magic resist. Wow. Even before AoS, unless you had several people helping you macro by summoning demons and having them all cast on you, this was probably one of the hardest skills in the game to GM, and now with only a small handful of spells that check it and allow you even a chance at skill gain... come on, are you guys into torturing us?

That's all I can think of right now.

 

[EliteXGamer]

First let me start by saying, I know this is not exactly what your looking for but.... I think first and foremost my stats should raise. For some odd reason my stats will not gain. I'm not going into to much detail cause I've told to many GMs and such this story, but I've GMed music and raised other skills into the 70s and 80s and my stats are still at character generation stats. So My advice is to fix whatever is causing this first and foremost.

Also letting players know when there skill needs to target something more powerful to gain, or what not, would be great. I mean maybe an option in the options menu to enable it or something like that.

Hell with it hers a quick ideas list...

You could mess with macroing for better or worse but remember even though its a MMORPG a lot of people don't RP. With the way you have skills done if you want to be a "bad ass" character (RPing or not) you have to power game sometime or another.

Some skills should be harder to raise than others because some skills are comparatively weak (pathetic) compared to others.

Oh yeah Game time should not matter in skill and stat gain. So please don't do anything that says you have to be so old to gain so far in a skill/stat and fix it if you have (hint, hint). Yet saying you have to do something so many times is OK. hehe

ummm....

How about taking out some of the now useless and unrewarding skills (I don't feel like naming the ones I think, cause it will only bring contempt). I'm sure this may hurt and probably will make some people mad but for the majority there a waste of space and coding. Add some other stuff in or make the useless and unrewarding useful and rewarding.

Yes, Skill gain and stat should be UN-grouped and only because of the way its set up now. I could be wrong here but by gaining in strength when you do something that does not require it is ludicrous. If it was me I would take it back to the old way. Or even better add stuff to the game that allows you to specifically gain in stats and not skills. Like lifting weights, carrying logs, running (with weights on your arms instead of bracelets) could be strength. Intelligence raises could be from playing checkers and chess (would promote playing with others), reading/writing books, figuring out puzzles. Ways to raise your dexterity could be, dart boards, looms, spinning wheels, etc. I think this would add more use to existing items in the game and would add more interaction between players if well thought out. The reason I think this is better is yeah you could raise intelligence from magery or strength from swordsmanship, or dexterity from music but really you are learning the skills and not the stat. Football players work out to be stronger and more athletic not practice tackling other people to be stronger.......... I don't feel like giving any more examples. Heh

hmmmmmmmm.....

That's all I can think of.

So if anyone would like a rebuttal or want to say "good ideas" just reply to this message cause I'll probably never read all the new post unless there sent to my email. hehe

PS I know i cant type well. certain fingers are faster than the others. hehe

 

[Zardo Zap]

My goodness,

I had been reading the thread trying to work out my thoughts - and you have got the problem exactly.

Its the inherent randomness in the system that causes the problems, the "skill walls", the frustration. GGS is a patch to the randomness (if you are really unlucky here is a point anyway) and 8x8 removes some of the randomness (but destroys any illusion that you are in a real game world).

But accumulating skill points by each successful challenging use of the skill and gaining when you have accumulated enough removes the randomness. (Well of course the skill use would be random e.g. does the spell fizzle?, but the gain wouldn't be random.)

Reducing the points gained over the course of a day also makes sense.

So what about the situation where a mage sits and just casts spells (original reason anti-macro was introduced and which lead to 8x8). Well there are a number of options:

1) Let them sit there - IRL (for a mage - I know /php-bin/shared/images/icons/wink.gif ) a mage would often sit in their tower to practice. This would encourage unattended marcroing and with new lower reg suits doesnt use up resources. Hmm should mages be easier to "make" than warriors. Probably not.

or

2) Make them go out and about - they have to use their magery in risky situations. So the gain only comes when they cause damage to a creature or overcome a creatures resist. Hmm lots of problems here - trapped creatures, guildmates etc. How much of a concern here - not sure. But probably better than allowing them just to sit and cast (or as it is now sail and cast).

I favour (2).

Now to get back to the questions and apply your solution.

Should 8x8 be eliminated

It should. Its artificial. It destroys the game world illusion. Yes I have used it because its there. But we shouldn't need this artificial game device.

Should all skills be as difficult as each other to gain

I don't think is necessary or achievable. But no major skill should be simple to obtain (e.g. peacemake or magery).

How long to gm

My opinion is it should be easy to get a skill up to a useable/fun level, but if you want to GM it it would take a long time.

I know UO is not a level based system (thank heavens), but the instant GM mob are like - *I want a level 50 now!* - hey I have a level 50 Magic User - I should be able to make a level 50 *insert new class here* in about two days.

UO is a skills based system (sure fudged now with AOS) but still a skills based system. Just because you don't want to work your character doesn't mean you get skills straight away.

Veteran players have enough resource advantages to ease the process. Goodness when I started my smith/miner I was soo pleased when I could afford a pack horse as I then I could really accelerate my business! Now I have all the ingots I need so when I want a new smith I just have to get working. There is nothing wrong with this (although I don't really like being able to buy 999 iron ingots - it was a lot better when you had to find the miners - I digress).

If you can get skills up to a reasonable level quickly, jewellery will allow vets to get them up to a good level quickly. Then they can work their character to remove their jewellery dependance (so they can wear some other adavantage giving rings etc).

Should I discourage macroing

Well do you mean mindless (and hence unattended) macroing. Yes get rid of anything that will encourage that.

Lets look at some examples.

Taming is very hard to macro now. Sure there are taming scripts but its hard. This is a great example of what you should have to do. It would be better if it were a little less tedious - so potentially gaining out of using your pets would be good. But it works.

Combat skills now work. No more finding a rc and hitting it till you are GM. No 8x8 equivalent. Sure you can train up against a guild mate providing you gain at the same rate. Sure it can be scripted. But just now it works.

Provo worked better when you needed fresh targets.

Smithing and tailoring I think is fine just now. With the new menus - you dont really need macros. UOAssist is good for smelting, but they use resources. The things you have to do to gain are logical. It would be better if the random element were removed. Sure you can script them (you cant gain unattended from any legal program). The only way I can see the unattended smith scripter being limited is to limit the gains in a day. I don't know if this is a good solution.

Magery/Necro/Chivalry/Peace - 8x8 just makes them a joke. GM is a few days of boat sailing. Really. That can't be right. Make them all target based or something that needs real targets - like causing damage or overcoming resists (Chiv might be difficult)

Lore/Vetting/Sprit Speak/Healing - again 8x8 makes them a joke. But difficult to target base them (Esp as you can only lore your own pets until GM!). I am sure there is a solution. Its less critical with those though.

Summary

If you possibly can remove the random element.

Remove aritificial elements if you can (eg 8x8)

Don't introduce anything which will encourage mindless unattended marcoing. Make top skills (or combat skills eg magery, fighting, taming etc) target based to gain skill points.

Ensure trade skills use resources. Possibly limit daily gains at top end to limit attraction of scripting.

If you do make any changes - please test them for quite a long time /php-bin/shared/images/icons/wink.gif

Zardo

 

[Guest]

I don't think you should change anything.
If I remeber correctly, Power Hour was put in to stop all the macroing. Back before Power Hour that was the only way to really gain. Now power hour is gone again, but with 8x8 you can build skills to gm within days.
This game was made to play. Kinda hard to play a char that is stuck at 50 skill because they need to fight a certain type of creature to gain...
Weapon skills are a perfect example. What ever happened to gaining skill off player vs player? I used to love helping out my guild mates, and chatting and hanging out, and having a good time. Recently (before aos) I dropped gm swords on my 7x gm warrior to gm fencing. That took forever. I am at 113 now. Thank god for the pre aos rotting corpses in ilsh, and the shrine that USED to cure you.
But the things I had to fight on my way up was a joke to say the least. What is the sence of having to fight wolfs? or bears? Can't you see that is a joke?

I vote for leaving the system alone. Unless you are going to allow players to gain skill by fighting another player with higher skills.

No more nerfs please.

You also might want to look into fixing all the bugs that are in the game now before you go and code in a bunch of new ones with a skill gain change.

 

[Grace RH]

Just one thing that has bothered me since warrior skills became difficulty based.

I think that instead of having to kill monsters at your skill level, you should have
to use a weapon at your skill level. Sort of like a mage has to cast a spell at their skill level.

For instance, lets look at a butcher knife for a swords warrior as the equivelant of fireball for a mage. Does not matter what you hit with that butcher knife you should be able to gain up to say 50 (like fireball for a mage).

Then it just progresses from there accordingly, like from 50-60 you would use a katana, 60-70 a longsword, 70-80 a viking sword, 80-90 any axe, 90-120 a polearm.

It just seems to me that with this difficulty based method for warriors is really going to turn off new players. I am making one paladin and hating every damn minute of training her. Why after 2 1/2 years of playing warriors I have to now suddenly fight stuff I would never have bothered with before to gain? hello, just how many days do you think a person can stand hitting skeletons?? Only to then get the thrill of hitting what, trolls or harpies for days on end?

I don't care if I don't gm swords for 6 months, but I would like to be able to hit whatever I feel like and still have a chance to gain.

Thanks for listening.

 

[Zilor]

How much should I care about macroing prevention? Should I eliminate 8x8? If skill gain were more predictable and sane, would you even need it?

8x8 should be removed, if you add more senseible skill gain, then thats just a bonus on top. I am of the thought that all cheap (easy, overly fast, not as intended) ways to gain skills should be removed, 8x8 being one such way, should be removed.

- How long should it reasonably take to GM a skill? Should all skills be the same?

No skill should take any more then 3 months of average play (3 hours a day maybe) and at the fastest a month... I'm not sure how that works out making any sense...

Skills should be scaled by difficulty and usefulness, with something like cooking taking very little time but taming or barding taking the maximum amount of time.

- For difficulty-based skills, what information do you need? If a task isn't hard enough for you, should it tell you that?

Once it becomes stupid to continue trying to gain on something you should get a message tellign you of the futility of it.

- I'm thinking about decoupling stat gain completely from skill gain -- so every 15 minutes, you would just gain a stat point, up to your daily limit. Is that a bad idea?

Thats a good idea, perhaps just let them build up in a pool and then let them be used as wished.

 

[Guest]

Yes, I see what you mean about the gold sink.
To me its a gold sink though when all my gold goes for PS to rez skills, and save my armor with item insurance (gold sink). And considering they just reduced all the loot on creatures, (which was a huge gold sink) and I still cant afford PS, because its hard to save the gold, to rez the skills on my char to reach maximum potential, I still dont want to have to pay for any more skills.
In essence your still paying for skill gain. Its bad enough I am trying to save the gold for the damn PS, and can't, without paying for something else to gain skills, like the 7500 it costs me everytime one of my character dies, trying to hunt to get the gold for the PS and item insurance and regs, and try to save some, etc,etc.

I am tired of paying to gain skills (PSs), and regs and potions to gain skills, and items, and item insurance and not being able to get the gold for anything else in the game.../php-bin/shared/images/icons/crazy.gif I would really like to have a house in Malas someday, but at this rate forget that, and I have been playing for years....../php-bin/shared/images/icons/frown.gif

Having to pay for more skills only hurts the poorer player, and that gold sink wont hurt the rich player as they are already making alot of gold.... and they will be the only ones that can afford to pay for more skills, not the poorer player and especially not the newer player.....

 

[LadyCam]

My apologies for the long winded post, but you gave us lots to comment on /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif

<blockquote><hr>

How much should I care about macroing prevention? Should I eliminate 8x8? If skill gain were more predictable and sane, would you even need it?

<hr></blockquote>
First, when you say "macroing prevention" are you referring to unattended macroing? If so, I don't think you should be all that consumed by unattended macroers considering there isn't much left in the game for a low skilled character to do except maybe tram brit cemetary... If they can get their skills up fast it makes the character more fun to play sooner. That character can then participate in group hunts and not just be a pain to everyone else who has to keep resurrecting the low skilled player. When someone macros unattended or uses a script for skill gain they aren't really hurting anyone else, the only ones who may take a negative effect from it is whoever gets paid when someone buys a pre made character. If they're macroing unattended or using a script to expliot the game (for example: this said by Basil in a previous post "...if someone is using a carto script 24/7 and making millions of gp a day...") then that should be punishable and if possible, stopped.
If you're referring to just simple macros like ones that can be created in uoassist or even in game then I don't think you need to be concerned with these either. Some activities are just way to monotonus. Like smelting a whole backpack full of plate gorgets when training blacksmithy, or cutting up a whole backpack full of oil cloths when training tailoring.
As for my thoughts on 8x8, I think it should stay in the game if the skill system stays the way it is. It gives people an option as to whether they want to gain quickly or to gain the old fashioned way. I've been playing for 3 years and I've done characters both ways. When I first started I did 8x8 a lot so that I could have my characters able to make money quicker, so I could get established. Now that I am well established, on my new account with AoS I've been doing my characters the old fashioned way because its more challenging. I think its nice to have more than one way to do things, and more interesting.
If skill gain was more predictable, of course you wouldn't need 8x8 but I think it would take away a great deal from the game. Gaining in skill whether it be 8x8 or not is a major part of this game. You can only go killing stuff for so long before you get bored. Thats why I keep playing this game, theres many different things to do and many different ways to do them.
<blockquote><hr>

How long should it reasonably take to GM a skill? Should all skills be the same?

<hr></blockquote>I think that skills like Animal Taming and Provocation and Peacemaking should take a long time to gain in. They are seriously powerful skills. The amount of time it takes to gain skills right now is right on I think. Of course I wish it didn't take so long to gain in Taming, for example, just because I want to be Legendary like NOW! /php-bin/shared/images/icons/laugh.gif but, once you reach high levels you can make serious cash, so its fair for it to take a long time. Just like in real life if you wanted to become a doctor, you have to go through years of schooling, but once your finished you have the ability to make a lot more money than everyone else.
<blockquote><hr>

- For difficulty-based skills, what information do you need? If a task isn't hard enough for you, should it tell you that?

<hr></blockquote>It would really be nice if it would tell us that a task wasn't hard enough. Personally, I would love that. Also though, it should be something that could be toggled on and off. If I'm going to take my bard out and train I'd want it on. But, if I'm going to take my bard out and go dungeon crawling I don't want the message popping up all the time, even if its on the bottom of the screen. Usually those types of messages get in the way of party chat also.
<blockquote><hr>

I'm thinking about decoupling stat gain completely from skill gain -- so every 15 minutes, you would just gain a stat point, up to your daily limit. Is that a bad idea?

<hr></blockquote> All I can really say about that is; for example, I've been training blacksmithy and tailoring on a new character for about 2 weeks. I've gotten both skills up to around the 90's and my characters stats are completely done already with 125 str, 50 dex, 50 int. That happened REALLY fast. But, on another new character, which is a necromancer made by the predetermined template, her stats aren't doing much at all. So considering that, I guess it would be best to make stat gain completely separate from skill gain. But, if you want to make it happen automatically, wouldn't it just be easier to have us be able to set our stats like we would on a test shard?

 

[Guest]

/php-bin/shared/images/icons/members/bounce.gif
I would love to see the skills and stat gains go back to the way it was before rel 16. What was wrong with working on your stats the way it was done. It was a lot more fun and even new players could rez their stats and skills.......and get rid of those PSs or at least make them available as loot, (high end ones more rare) on all aggressive creatures so everyone has a chance to get scrolls even the newer player.....

Osi keeps trying to re-invent the wheel. They change something and it doesnt work and they dont put it back to the way it did work. They keep jury-rigging to make the skills and stats gains back the way they were before rel 16. It was easier and more fun then and everyone could do it....veteran and new player alike.....

 

[Tyro]

I don't mind if the 8x8 system is altered to a new random n x n system. Skills need to normalize so that some of the harder skills will be easier and some of the quick skills need to be a bit harder. Magic resistance skill need to be more consistent in term of gaining. Right now at high level, the only way to gain consistently is GGS. Also, special moves need to normalize too.

 

[Guest]

For every update you people've done with skills it gets easier and easier to GM a skill (for good and bad).

I really just have some input on this one;
The 8x8 thingie should be removed.
The only real thing it does is making people hop on boats saying "one forward" eight times after every skill gain then uses the skill again... *rince - repeat till naucea preferably with a macro*
Then again, will the removal of 8x8 mean that every skill will be GM-able by standing on one spot?

You said: "so every 15 minutes, you would just gain a stat point, up to your daily limit. Is that a bad idea?"
Actually, yes. Why just not give us the 225 pts right away? ... Seriously, to gain in stats you really need to do something. Usage of some skill should be mandatory.


Just one more thing: Please, do -not- make it too easy. Don't spam us with "The creation of that item will not let you gain in skill!" when we're making our trinkets or "The animal you are trying to tame is easily tamed and you will not gain skill".
*shudders* ... Do NOT give us too much served, it just takes the fun out of things.

 

[imported_Samwise]

How much should I care about macroing prevention?
It would be great if you could allow attended macroing and prevent unattended macroing but I think it would take too much effort to do that. I guess we have to leave it up to GMs to differentiate.

Should I eliminate 8x8?
No. Not unless you make skill gains a bit easier, more regular and less location dependant.

If skill gain were more predictable and sane, would you even need it?
Probably not.

How long should it reasonably take to GM a skill?
25 hours of play time for easier skills. 60 hours of play time for tougher ones.

Should all skills be the same?

No. Make taming, lockpicking and poisoning a little easier. Make taming aggressives a lot more effective in getting skill gains. Make players decode more maps to GM cart. GGS makes it way too easy now.

For difficulty-based skills, what information do you need?
maybe use colors to indicate how your action would affect the skill in use. For example 96 tamer:
taming a dog gets red text meaning no gain possible
taming a great hart gets yellow text meaning a little chance of gain
taming a ridgeback gets green text meaning optimum chace of skill gain
taming a nightmare gets orange text as you are probably wasting your time.
etc.

If a task isn't hard enough for you, should it tell you that?
It would be nice if this could be set as an option for each skill or maybe just those set to rise.

I'm thinking about decoupling stat gain completely from skill gain -- so every 15 minutes, you would just gain a stat point, up to your daily limit. Is that a bad idea?

No, leave it but make see-sawing work again.

 

[Lameski]

- How much should I care about macroing prevention? Should I eliminate 8x8? If skill gain were more predictable and sane, would you even need it?
You should eliminate 8x8 and skill gaining on boat except for fishing related skill. Make those skill a little easier to gain thru ame play.

- How long should it reasonably take to GM a skill? Should all skills be the same?

Powerful skill like Magery, Provocation, taming should taken a little longer time to achieve. All skills above 100 should increase certain amount of difficulty.

- For difficulty-based skills, what information do you need? If a task isn't hard enough for you, should it tell you that?
Put it in option up to player to config whether they need?

- I'm thinking about decoupling stat gain completely from skill gain -- so every 15 minutes, you would just gain a stat point, up to your daily limit. Is that a bad idea?
stat gain in every 15 minutes not a bad idea but daily limit.

 

[DHH]

In regards to Macro Prevention, let's face it everything OSI has ever done for "Macro Prevention" has hurt the game in one form or another and now almost encourages a system of gameplay that favors Macroing becuase most "Macro Prevention" techniques have made it far more complicated and difficult for the average player to make it. There are many skills that are almost impossible to GM by simply playing the game, which makes the idea of getting rid of 8x8 a very, very scary thought to me. Sure, 8x8 may not be realistic but it works and in some cases it is the only way to get adaquate gains in some skills. By getting rid of 8x8 without spending 100's of hours of development time adaquately fixing the skill gain system is going to ruin the game and upset many players. Let's face the fact that Macroing is going to take place and without an almost total re-write of fundamental game systems any attempt to hinder Macroers is going to negatively affect average players and is going to waste vast amounts of development time that should be spent fixing bugs that really need to be fixing. Most of the "Macro Prevention" techniques implemented in the past have already negatively affected many players and should have never been implemented in the first place. My best suggestion is too forget about Macroers and focus on game issues and changes that can actually benefit the game instead of further hurting the game. It's plain and simply a waste of development time and budget trying to fight macroers so just forget it. Far too much time has already been spent fighting the minority of the player base (macroers, exploiters) let's focus on issues that affect the majority of the player base instead.

GGS at it's core wasn't a bad idea but it has some fundamental flaws. In essence it is the best system implemented to attempt a skill gain system that was predictable and sane, it's helps break the notorious skill blocks of the past and circumvents the negative issues of Power Hour, such as it only helped people one hour a day. At high skill levels it is an almost fruitless system, 24+ hour waits between GGS gains is totally absurd. Lower the GGS rate at High Levels and stop tieing skill gain to total skill points that too is totally absurd. Every skill should be independent. Fix the system so that ALL skills work with it. The pains people are having with skills like Parry are well documented, fix that. UO has been pleagued with half-implemented buggy systems that hurt the game as a whole, if the development team continues to break working code making changes they are only going to succeed at ruining the game. FIX WHAT IS ALREADY HERE FIRST!!!!!!!!!!

Other changes to make skill gain more accessible to average players. Difficulty based skills though realistic don't totally make sense. For instance my Tamer uses Magery primarily and almost totally for healing purposes. In an average 2-hour play session she casts about 30-50 Greater Heals, 10 Cures, 4 Gates or Recalls, and 1 or 2 Resurrections. In her case in an average 2 hour period of average fun playing she has 4-6 chances to get a Magery gain (she is about 83 Magery now) which isn't adaquate for any amount of significant skill gain. It could be argued that she does need GM Magery to adaquately function as a Tamer but that does not mean that I don't want her to have GM Magery and I believe that this is something that should be fixed.

Let's get something straight, UO is a game that favors GM characters, it is that simple. Newb characters are all but useless in Brittania. The idea of 100 hours to GM a single skill is absurd, let's look at this rationally we don't get paid to play UO, UO is supposed to be a FUN GAME not a full-time job. I don't pay someone else to allow me to work a full-time job. I shouldn't have to spend 3 months of my time just so that I have a character in a game that I can actually play with a minute chance of success. Plain and simply UO is not fun until you reach high-skill levels and after the first few skills character building gets overly boring and tedius. The aristocratic ideas of elite veteren players that newbs should have no choice but to be worthless for years on end is stupid and in the end will ruin the game. UO needs new blood to continue and months of remedial labor with little to no fun is not the way to win over an already dwindling new player base. With the many great MMORPG's coming out in the near future OSI needs to concentrate on keeping a happy and growing player base. No skill should take more then 3 months of average play, with skills like Taming and Provoke being on the more lengthly scale, and most skills should only require 10-20 hours of hard work. A 2x GM Fighter (Tactics/Weapon, with 70-80ish Anat, Healing, Parry, LJ depending on the template being trained) shouldn't require more then a week of average play time, face it Fighters suck when even a 5x GM Fighter can barely solo a Deamon without dying. Why the heck should I spend 500 hours to make a 5x GM Fighter just to attempt to solo a Daemon??? Give me a break. Change Fighting Skill Gain to the way it was pre-AoS for god sake. To the Vets out there, take pride in the fact that you GMed in "harder" times and enjoyed the evolution of a new world but remember that times change. Newbs do not have an even playing field now, a newb Smith can't make a living, no one is going to buy a smithed item from a newb smith when they can get a similar but exceptionally well made GM version of the item for similar price made by a veteren GM+ Smith. Despite being an MMORPG, many UO players do not adaquately role play, and for any newb player to have a chance at feeling like he is making an accomplishment and his playing time being worthwhile he needs to have a mentor. UO is well suited, being skill based, and has a great potential for Master/Apprentice type Role Playing, but it needs to be remembered that every Master's true desire is to see there student (Apprentice) succeed and often even become better then there Master. This means in game terms that Apprentice's (or Newbs in general) should be able to gain skills faster then there Master's (Veteren players) did when they started. This is the standard evolution of things, every generation (referring to real life now) learns faster then there parents did. UO should not be expected to be different. I am not saying that there should not be a reward for working your characters or even a sense of pride related to GMing a skill, finally GMing a character is a great accomplishment for any player, but excessively long training times is just absurd. My best suggestion is to award Master/Apprentice Role Playing to add depth to the game while making UO more newb friendly as well as rewarding veteren/experienced players for helping the younger UO community, tweak GGS for more adaquate gains over shorter periods of time, get rid of "Macro Prevention" systems that hinder skill gain for average players, tweak certain skills to be more accessible (Parry, Taming, Poisoning, Magic Resist, etc...)!

UO is essentially a community based game, the game itself should not hand lead newbs all the way, keep difficulty based skills as they are and emphesize Master/Apprentice Role Playing as discussed earlier.

Regarding Stat Gain, coupling Stats (and Stat gain) to certain skills made perfect sense and added depth to the game. It made sense that a character studing the arcane arts of the wizard would increase his intelligence, or a character that mines everyday for rare ores would gain in strength, while a warrior honing his skills with a shield might gain in dexterity; that added depth and immersion to the game world that was lost with the Pub. 16 Stat Changes. Sure you crippled "See-Sawers" but at what price? You crippled an aspect of the game that added a distinct sense of depth to the entire game world? My suggestion dump the Pub. 16 Stat gain changes and make Stats related to certain skills like they used to be.

To re-cap:
1) Ignore Macroers, don't waste your time... "Macro Prevention" has historically hurt average players more then the Macroers ever did to begin with and the Macroers just adapt to the changes made. Get rid of "Macro Prevention" systems that already hinder game play.
2) 10-20 hours of hard work to GM most skills, at most 100 hours of hard work for *HARD* skills. Tweak GGS for more gains over shorter periods of time and make GGS independent of total skill, each skill should be seperate, make really rough skills more accessible (Parry, Taming, Magic Resist, Poisoning)
3) Master/Apprentice Role Playing should be encouraged by the community and through game mechanics. This would solve many problems and would greatly increase the level of enjoyment of newb players and most likely Vet players too.
4) Recouple Stats to Skills like they were pre-Pub. 16, it added depth to the game.

In general concentrate on fixing and tweaking the game systems already in place, don't break working ones or add bugs by adding new ones.

 

[Blue Fin]

I just wish you would fix GGS, I worked VERY hard to get to 114.1 taming (+20 scroll). Then you released AOS, and since it has gone live on my shard, I have had TWO gains.
My other tamer bought a +10 scroll and slipped on a +11 taming ring, he can tame just as much as my elder tamer (easier since he has peace in his template).
PLEASE FIX THIS!

 

[steffrupp]

Just a short calculation - 3 hours a day for 3 months adds up to 270 hours of play time only to GM one skill - thats way to much!!! It should not take more than 100 hours to GM a skill.

 

[Inspiration]

- How much should I care about macroing prevention? Should I eliminate 8x8? If skill gain were more predictable and sane, would you even need it?

Macro programs have been in use for years. As someone said, too little too late. Theres no way you are going to prevent say, someone setting a macro program to double click a dummy every 3 seconds.

- How long should it reasonably take to GM a skill? Should all skills be the same?

I used to play 4 years ago. Back then, being a GM was pretty damn rare. It was seen as a major accomplishment to GM any skill. As an example, me and my group of 3 friends played UO for 2 years and I don't think any of us ever hit 100.0. I may be wrong, but back then it was seen as a major task. Frankly, it bothers me that someone can make a new character, transfer 1 million gold or whatever, and then GM a skill in a couple of days, if that. How long should it take to GM a skill? A month minimum perhaps? I dunno... maybe I'm being too critical, but I always thought getting to the maximum in any skill was something people had to work for a long time on. Cramming it all into a few days just doesn't seem right. Yes, you put in hours and hours of work, but I also think you should have to experience "game world time" too. Maybe I'm just bias because I've never been a GM. *shrug* I just always used to think being a multi GM was worth something.

- For difficulty-based skills, what information do you need? If a task isn't hard enough for you, should it tell you that?

Yeah I think a little message might be nice, something like "You fail to find this challenging" just to indicate that the skill requires something more difficult perhaps to increase gain. I don't know.. the moment you start to spoon feed people.. the game gets a little less rewarding.

- I'm thinking about decoupling stat gain completely from skill gain -- so every 15 minutes, you would just gain a stat point, up to your daily limit. Is that a bad idea?

You might aswell do that now because that's what you have alreaddy!! . If you log into UO, lock INT and DEX, run to a dummy room and strike a dummy once, you get +1 STR. Return 15-30 minutes later, hit the dummy once more, +1 STR. Repeat and gain at least 11 points, versus a gain of say, 2.5 on wrestling or whatever weapon you used. Lock STR and DEX and you gain INT in the same way. Again, DEX too. I feel sorry when I see newbies hitting a dummy furiously for hours and only gaining say, 6 STR, when in reality they only needed to hit that dummy 10 times and run around for the rest of the time, and they would have gained twice as many points. That's just wrong. I feel like saying "Hey dude, don't do that, it's a waste of time and skill points". Back in 98 the dummy rooms used to be full! Now I rarely see anyone in them.. hmm.. I wonder why *rolls eyes*. When I came back to this game I wasted three characters because I thought you had to beat a dummy and really work your ass off to gain STR points on every new character. How wrong I was. I now have more STR points even tho I have less skill points on my STR releated skills. As its been said before, STR gain etc should be on a curve with skill gain. Decide which skills influence STR. Average those skills, and this average directly effects your STR. This makes sense.

I dunno.. personally, I prefered it when you really had to second guess this game. When you wasn't sure what the mechanics were and when you had to really share your knowledge with people and try new things. Right now, everyone seems to know exactly what you need to do to advance quickly and smoothly. UO should never be allowed to turn into an instant-bad-ass-character game.

Heres one for you... has anyone ever looked into implimenting "Character Age".. a system where by a character gains "age" over time, and the older it gets, the more STR, DEX, INT it can gain and the more skills it can advance in. So a player who has played a character for say, a year, will feel like they have, and be able to look at their stats and see a year old character. A year in real life could be say, 25 years UO time. So a player who has been working on his mage for 3 years can open the paper doll and see a 75 year old character. Of course I'm not talking about altering the paperdoll, but just another stat that actually says *something* about how long someone has been working on that character. So someone can pop open the paper doll, see "75 years" and think "wow, that guy is someone to ask about how to do this, or that" esspecially for newbies. Character age would of course advance while the player is logged out, it would simply be a "DATE_NOW - DATE_CREATED" calculation then multiply that against an UO Years system.

But then perhaps people will get bored.. and I guess for Origin it's important that doesn't happen.

Just my 2c.

 

[beatleman327]

As far as i can see we need to keep one thing in mind....this is a game and it should be FUN, taking FOREVER to create a char that can survive an ettin attack is not my idea of FUN. Its seem that lately that is the case, with that in mind if you were a new player the game would become very frustrating and boring in a short period of time. Now i know alot of people are going to say "well new players will just have to deal with it or don't play etc etc" but we all need to remember that people leave the game every day for one reason or another and if the game is to much of a pain in the arse for new players to get started then eventually OSI will be left with so few players that theres no other option but to shut the game down. i for one don't want to see that happen. In the last year/year and a half a great deal has been done to try to eliminate powergaming. Everytime we find some way to gain skills at a reasonable rate you guys find a way to stop it. Now you mention putting a stop to 8x8ing. Why do you always seem to want to make the game difficult to get a decent char started? ITS A GAME AND IT SHOULD BE FUN!!! real life is a pain in the arse A GAME SHOULD NOT BE!!! My god 8x8ing is no walk in the park...its the most boring way i can imagine to gain skills but the final reward at the end makes it worth it. Besides 8x8 only works if your there to steer your boat off other boats and objects. To just set a char to 8x8 and walk away will do little for gains as you'll eventually hit something and then your gains will stop. So unattended macroing is not a real problem associated with 8x8ing. Gaining magery and eval during normal game play is a pain in the rear. The only real way to make a decent mage that can kill more then a mongbat in a reasonable length of time is to 8x8 or spend hours killing mongbats with fireballs. If i were a new player i'd get disgusted pretty quick with the game if i had to spend days killing mongbats while many of the people i were meeting were going off to kill things much more interesting and challenging. At least when you could seesaw skills to raise stats you were then able to SURVIVE while working skills during normal game play and seesawing skills to gain stats was as boring as hell too but atleast when you were done you were able to survive working skills through normal game play. Now not only can't you seesaw to gain stats but skill gains are based on difficulty. So how is a new player supposed to know what he/she should be doing/fighting to gain? Unless he/she uses trial and error and dies alot, losing items repeatedly which they can't afford to begin with little lone with the lowered loot on the lame enemies they might be able to kill. Why does everything have to be difficult? Why should it be so hard to create a decent char? It's a game and creating a char thats strong enough to have some fun with in a reasonable amount of time should be acceptable. After all aren't games meant to be fun? not a TASK one must struggle over for days/weeks to be able to one day possibly enjoy....assuming you don't get frustrated and just say the heck with it and move on. Granted things shouldn't be so easy that theres no challenge either but in my opinion the game was reasonably well balanced prior to pub 16. After that things became so complex that it bred macroers just to create a viable char in a reasonable length of time. OMG LOOK AT THE TIME!!! gotta go i have to work in the morning....thats another point....some of us don't have all day to work a char through normal game play. The only way we can create a decent char in a reasonable length of time is to powergame. Anyway thats my 2 cents. I'll try to post more specific ideas and less opinions tomorrow lol.

 

[Zilor]

Maybe a little less, but 100 hours isnt enough...

 

[Yemai]

It would be nice if it was possible to make the skill gains easier until you get to 60 so that a newly made character wouldnt be so lost for the first days of gameplay.
With a fighting skill of around 60 you can hack and slash at most common monsters without fear of being chopped and clubbed to death within a few minutes.
After the 60 you can make it harder to gain, but then atleast people can enjoy themselves more.
It would be more fun for the player I think.
Of course I am only talking about PvM and not about crafting wich is a whole different scenario.

 

[Saharah]

So a player who has played a character for say, a year, will feel like they have, and be able to look at their stats and see a year old character. A year in real life could be say, 25 years UO time.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------


Geez that would make all my characters 100 in December! You'd think by 100 I'd be getting weaker and senile, not stronger and smarter! lol =P Pleaaaaaase MrTact don't do this! My character is too cute to be 100 years old! *grins*

 

[Storm Blade]

"Definetely not. As for example tamers are way more powerfull as GM then warriors, it should take them longer to master the skill. Same for magery, necromancy, chivalry, bardskills..."

-- What have you been smoking since AoS came out and where can I get some?? AoS has Nerfed Tamers beyond recognition. Warriors can now kill anything a tamer can, only warriors can kill it FASTER. Yet Warriors can be GM'd in 3 days, and tamers in about 2 months.

That is WAY un balanced. Lets break it down....

T: Tamers can kill Dragons, Daemons, or about anything with the right template....
W: Warriors can kill the same stuff with the right template, just they do it 2x as fast. Winner: Warriors

T: Taming is Increadibly boring and time consuming to train befor you get ANY use out of it, and you make almost no money doing it.
W: Warriors hunt monsters for skill gains, which is fun, gets them items, and actually starts making decent money once you hit about 65%
Winner: Warriors

T: Tamers cant really PvP well. Not enough room in the template for for most of the necisary PvP skills like wrestle, inscription, or in some cases even Eval Int.
W: Almost any successful PvM warrior template is good for PvP as well, exception maybe being Peace Warriors.
Winner: Warriors

T: Tamers take about two months at LEAST to GM unless you seriously powergame
W: Warriors take about two weeks to GM, and can be powergamed in 3 days maybe less (I did Sword/Tac/Anat in 3) with most of their other common skills not too far behind...
Winner: Warriors

Solution: Taming needs to take ALOT less time to GM because the reward is not as high as it used to be AND/OR Warrioirs need to take LONGER to GM because the reward is ALOT higher than it used to be.


In short, YES a peace tamer can take on almost anything short of Doom monsters in the game. So can a Peace Warrior, only they can kill faster, and it takes them about 75% less time to train their skills.

 

[Yemai]

Something else ...
I personally think its sad that nowaday's you seem to have to be a GM to realy get the fullest out of UO.
Look at all the forums, they are filled with posts like "How to GM this or that skill, what to make and what to use and where to go and what to do ect. ect."
Of course skill is very important and the better you get with the skill, the more you can accomplish. But right now it looks like as this is the only thing to do in UO.
GM your character so that you can join the rest of the crowd.
Its good that you focus on how to improve the skill mechanics, but please do not let skill dominate the game!
With some more attention to other sides of the game, like what the Seers did, it mostly didnt matter much how strong and skilled your character was.
You enjoyed the game because your imagination was triggered, because you were caught up in a scenario, a riddle or a contest.
Please, put some focus on those areas aswell?

 

[Yemai]

I use macro's, the reason is that I do not want to click the mouse for every action.
I use macro systems wich are 3rd party programs.
The reason for that is because there are no macro systems in UO.
I believe that when you create a macro system to be used inside UO, you would have much better control on macro'ers.
It's customer friendly aswell as people do not have to go out to search for 3rd party macro systems.

 

[Saharah]

- How much should I care about macroing prevention?




Another question for MrTact: Since you bring up macroing...My question is this: Since macroing with UOA is allowed, why not allow other 3rd party Macro programs?


My point here is, what difference does it really make? A macro program is a macro program and most are not all that different from each other. I use them at work on a regular basis and am fairly competent at using them. The only character I used a macro with is my Tailor. I started macroing at about 74ish for one reason and one reason only! Developing the Tailoring skill is BORING! At 74 you make oil cloth after oil cloth after oil cloth after oil cloth after oil cloth after oil cloth after oil cloth after oil cloth after oil cloth after oil cloth after oil cloth after oil cloth after oil cloth after oil cloth after oil cloth after oil cloth after oil cloth after oil cloth after oil cloth after oil cloth after oil cloth after oil cloth...you got bored just reading that didn't you? =] You don't move around much at all, it's difficult to visit with others and work tailoring. You just want to get it done so you can have some fun with that character, make some cool stuff with your name on it and get some of the reward goodies. Getting the rewards of the LBOD's are tedious enough in itself.

I just don't see the harm in macroing and I don't see what difference it makes which program you use. It still took me a good amount of time to GM the skill. Other's claim they can GM other skills in in 2 or 3 days...personally I don't see how, I never have. If thats the case.....I'd like to be able to macro legally, with the program of my choice and I'd prefer not to be banned if I leave long enough to go to grab a Dr. Pepper or answer the door! I pay my 10 bucks per month, on time, everytime and I have for years...I'd like to get that character developed so I can have some fun too!


Sorry...I don't think its fun making thousands of oil cloths and I find it quite stressful trying to rez someone at 80ish and fizzling 40 times with a room full of monsters locked on me in Doom! I see no point in paying for stress when I get tons of it on a daily basis in the real world free of charge! Since the implementation of AoS and the publish that came with it...I find this game more stressful than fun. That makes me sad because I do love this game. Perhaps you're onto something with these ideas MrTact.

 

[Guest]

I find it's importen to make it so playing the game will be the best way to gain skills. Any kind of macroing is bad, it's boring and it make you play alone.

In the past, we could gain skills from being near others, who was using a skill. Maybe we could get some of the community back, if you got better gain from being together with others as from standing alone on a boat or in your house.

Maybe a group of warriors would gain the shared skills faster if they was hunting together and miners, lumbers, would gain faster with grouping up too.

Now where we can lock skills, we won't get the problem with gain of unwanted skills.

The first years, Uo was addictive .. I couldnt stay away. I believe it was the community feeling, that did that.

Something went wrong in UO, players did not more depent of each others and we lost that community feeling.

Community feeling in UO = more money/accounts to EA.

If I look back, powerhour was one of the worse add to UO. I was guildmaster, and my members used to group up, when they got online. With PH, I alwas heard, "not now, PH". If a player had 3 hours to play and 3 chars to train, there was no time left for the community.

I do believe Trammel in some way was bad too. It made alot unbalance in the combat skills and in the economy.
Players was able to farm to mich with little risk and they did not need to group up for protection. Sure you can make monsters so hard, that they have to group up, but then the risk get to big in the PvP zones and they will be a desert.

I think it's about time to remove some Trammel zones, with my best will, I can't understand why Malas needed to be Trammel Zone, special when Necromancy was meant to be evil.

The complains before Trammel was lose of items when dying to PK's.
Do we really need Trammel zones now?
Now we do have 100% secure houses, you can make vendor houses, where you can be total safe on the patio behind a low wall. Place the vendors there, so customers can asccess them from outside.
You can make deals with your customers without risk to get killed. Only risk is when you are gating/recalling in.
If the price for incurance get lowered or better depent of the value of the item.
A high level PvP item should not be cheap to insure, but regular gm stuff should be almost free to insure.

Flowers and BODs are nice, but it take far to long time. If I grow flowers and do BOD's, my first hours a day will be used to care for my flowers or seach for sbods to my lbods. It's time I will use to play a single player game and not being with others. I won't add to the community feeling and I will feel UO is my second job.

Make a auto care system for plants, so they can use potions and water from lockdown kegs and water through (can't spell it). Maybe let the plants grow a little more slow with auto care as if you do it manuel.

Make the BOD system more easy to handle, maybe color the bods in the ingots/leather color and make a symbol on them to tell if weapon, plate, chains, ...leather, studded ... items.
This will make it easier to sort them and easier to find what you are looking for on PC vendors.

Making players travel around to visite vendors is a good thing. Making then surfing the web for bods is a bad thing.

Always keep in mind, when you changes stuff, that be skill gains or other thing. Will it add to the community feeling or hurt it.

Any kind of interactions is good for the community feeling, even non consent PvP.

 

[Obi-Wan KenOObie]

-------------------------------------------------------
- How much should I care about macroing prevention? --
-------------------------------------------------------

Isn't every crafter FORCED to macro ? Can anyone imagine creating a GM Poisoner by clicking "Use Skill - Poisoning, click Poison bottle, click fishsteak" until 100% poisoning ?? You'd get insame by doing that.. Also if you'd record that uo-macro (without looping it) and play it over and over again, you would get INSANE

 

[MoonWhisper]

I'd have to agree here, how about fixing the tamers before looking into everything else you plan on? and no I dont want you to make the skill easier to attain we have enough 100+ taming twinks running around from jewelery. Taming use to be worth something but now with the changes to combat, items, poisoning, defense, parry and such warriors can out damage my dragon and live longer usually. I've seen some with shield and jewelery giving enemies only a 5-10% chance to hit them, along with parry means they can take on anything in the game toe to toe and live, while my dragon who use to be able to take almost anything short of the champ spawns is having his butt handed to him by things like elder gazers and blood elementals. It use to be that you spent several months GMing taming instead of going the "Joe Tank" route because in the end you'd come out on top, it's not the case anymore. I've been playing since 97 and had a tamer since 2000, if I had known in 97 what you guys would do the the game as a whole I dont think I would have taken it off the shelf. Had I known what you would do to taming I would never have made a tamer. AoS wasnt even the start, introducing monsters that could kill tamed pets in just a few short hits wasnt right either.

As it stands now the only server I normally play on is Siege. It is the only one left that even resembles the game I loved when I started and you guys are begining to screw it up too. When AoS hits that shard it will be a disaster.

 

[kreysig]

<blockquote><hr>


- How much should I care about macroing prevention? Should I eliminate 8x8? If skill gain were more predictable and sane, would you even need it?


<hr></blockquote>


Don't eliminate it - there has to be some way of "training" skills that doesn't involve PvM!
At least now, if someone wants to play in any part of this game they know that they can train their characters up to the required skill level relatively easily. No-one wants to play a useless character fighting cows and horses for their entire game time. They want to have a character they can actually use on a level with everyone else in the game. If you do eliminate it, you'd better replace it with something that is just as effective, but less confusing (think of the poor new players). Perhaps stick in "training centres" like those oh-so-useless guild buildings that exist (like the warriors guild outside brit, or the rangers guild beside skara bank). If you want rapid skill gains, go train in there. Added bonus - you know exactly where to look for your unattended macroers.

The hard part now is getting the uber-items needed to compete in an item-based game. That can't be macroed - you have to either put in the time farming monsters, or just spend all those stacks of gold/ebay$$. Congratulations - instant anti-macro code!

<blockquote><hr>


How long should it reasonably take to GM a skill? Should all skills be the same?


<hr></blockquote>

No, all skills should not be the same. GMing the big "powerskills" - like taming/provo for instance - should take longer than the "functional" skills like magery/eval/med/melee/tactics/anat/healing/etc/etc.

Oh, and people that want to take up cooking shouldn't be hindered by slow skill gains.

However, if someone wants to train up their skills, they should not be hindered by some silly anti-macro code that means they can't gain without standing on their head while riding a llama backwards singing "I want to do it with madonna".

<blockquote><hr>


For difficulty-based skills, what information do you need? If a task isn't hard enough for you, should it tell you that?


<hr></blockquote>

Couldn't care less to be honest. I suppose it'd be handy for spell-casters. You already have it in place for tamers of course.

<blockquote><hr>


I'm thinking about decoupling stat gain completely from skill gain -- so every 15 minutes, you would just gain a stat point, up to your daily limit. Is that a bad idea?


<hr></blockquote>

This doesn't gel with your anti-macro stance. WBB will just be full of people standing there gaining stat points. Much better to tie it into skill *usage* (not gain), so that you have to be doing something to gain. Even if it's just standing at WBB macroing begging or something.

 

[Yossarian5]

I think we can all agree that the repetitive nature of skill gain is farely boring, and tends to recluse people into spending most of their time just working on skills. To fix that the whole system would have to be rethought, so that's a little difficult to expect a change from. However, I would like to see gains come in bunches instead of 1's or 2's, like instead of making 100's of gorgets for .5 - 2.0 gains, why not try and make it more complicated to make a single gorget and have higher rewards from each one made. Like break up the process of making a gorget into several steps. Bring up a little window of a flat piece of metal...Now melt the metal down, where would u like to hammer the metal, now cool the metal in water, and so on. This would make the monotonous nature of skill gain more interactive and fun, make macro'ing incredibly complicated, and make skill gains more due skill through personal experience rather than just a number. Think Bassmaster 2000 and then incorporate that thought into UO fishing. How fun would that be? /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif It is a lot to ask from a Dev team already bogged down with a lot of work, but I can dream can't I? /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif

 

[Lady Chele]

Yes I have to agree a very scary post. I think mage med eval are the 3 main skills necessary for 90 percent of chars in game. I have played over 3yrs and all chars on all 4 of our accts use these skills daily. Removing 8x8 would be horrific for the simple fact that most people work these 3 skills before moving onto what their chars r gonna be, be it a mule, a tamer or a bard or a pvper. A necessity to most and a requirement to survive. Ive paid my dues and worked my tamers, my mules, my bards and pvpers for my hubby. And 8x8 isnt easy. You have to know how to use it and what resources r needed for that particular skill and it challenges me to work a mage to 120 and so forth. I have spent 3yrs building some of the best chars and thank you god most of ours r done because if 8x8 is eliminated that would be like taking my left arm from me.

I dont unattend macro 8x8, I sit and do that particular chars skills till they r done. Basic 3 then I move onto whatever skills are going on them. I dont run scripts, and most other skills I work by hand and have come to learn the ins and outs of skill building and gaining. That is what I enjoy in game.

The satisfaction of spending hrs and days and maybe weeks building one helluva char. If too tell me I am sry no 8x8 and would take months to build a mage. Bah, the game would become very vet ended then as most vets have most of these skills and considering the new player population who r learning 8x8 and skill building. That would be a horrific experience for some.

My opinion on 8x8 leave it, its been here this long y take it. You took powerhour which was a godly hr for most of us who loved to work a char in that particular time. You took seesaw for stats so it takes weeks to gain the proper stats u need. Now lets just take 8x8 so everyone is basically screwed then totally.

Sry I dont see a point to making this game so hard no one wants to play.
Its a game let it remain fun not so hard u get so frustrated u hate it.
Your thinking of all your new accts who dont remember the good, the bad and the ugly in Uo over the yrs. Why not for once think of the vets who paid their dues for yrs and leave one thing we can still feel like we have control over.

Thanks
Lady Chele

 

[Honkwomp]

My very first reaction is "Uh OH!!!" but here is my two cents

- ----How much should I care about macroing prevention? Should I eliminate 8x8? If skill gain were more predictable and sane, would you even need it?-----

I see 8x8 as a mini exploit. However, I am a VERY strong advocate of a skill gain system that you can "work" such as what existed with power hour. I liked the idea that I could work very hard for part of my game play and be rewarded for that work by additional skill gains.

------- How long should it reasonably take to GM a skill? Should all skills be the same?-----

I dunno, but unless you know the exploits, it takes too damn long right now. Hate to sound like a power hour whiner, but until some skills gains were broken while being improved, it took a couple of weeks working your ass off during power hour to GM them. Again, if I work very hard for a few weeks, seems that should be enough. Unlike many games, being a GM in UO is just the start, it is not the end game.

Some skills should be inherently harder, however, it seems that they are that way right now. Taming to me, is very hard for example.

------ I'm thinking about decoupling stat gain completely from skill gain -- so every 15 minutes, you would just gain a stat point, up to your daily limit. Is that a bad idea? ------

Here is a perfect example of someone pissing away coding time on something that was not broken. The old system, where you would ping pong was working fine, players were happy with it, and it was not breaking anything. Bring back ping pong, then leave it alone!

 

[Guest]

I don't believe that macroing is the biggest sin committed by players. Most players currently use 8X8 and UOA macroing in they way that they were intended. That is, attended! There will always be a small portion of players that abuse the system. Not to question your programming skills, but I don't believe that you will ever be able to program out exploitations of the games mechanics. I believe that 8X8 able skills are fine just the way they are. If you wanted to get rid of unattended macroers on the high seas, make them attackable by players in Tram. You could add a context menu button to players avatars that is accessible by all which is a querry for response. If the player recieves the querry and doesn't respond in a few minutes turn them grey. That would be sooooooo fun. It would bring pirates back! In Fel, you don't see many unattended macroers because of the pirating. It also brings back a sense of player justice. The macro whiners could form their own pirate guilds and hunt the high seas for macroers. Of course, third party software could probably respond to such querrys but those are the guys who are really giving the macro kiddies a bad name anyway. If the player making the querry suspects third party software....PAGE!

GMing a skill should not take forever but the time and effort should be comenserate with the power of the skill. I currently believe that the current system is fine for the most part. Most people who whine about skills not taking enough time to GM are really the already skill blessed minority. They are basically trying to protect their gold farms. Heres a suggestion. Establish player guilds like the thief guild that allow you to gain skills faster as an apprentice/journeman/adept...etc. When in this guild you would have to be near a GM+ player to gain skills at the increased rate. This would promote player interaction as well as put another hurdle in front of the unattended macroers. What was that virtue thingie you guys were gonna push...humility or something?

Information while training would be GREAT. Knowing if a monster is too hard or easy for you to gain off of would be a welcome innovation. But we should be able to turn it off and on so that we are not constantly bombarded with messages.

Decoupling stat gains from skill gains doesn't make any sense to me. My strength goes up just because I stay logged for 15 min? If this was the way life worked you would put schools and gyms out of business. *secretly wishes as he eats jelly donut*

 

[Sue Wing]

Actually i think the whole trade skill system is the worst of any currently used in online games. It takes far too many materials , and money, to actually get to the "status" of GM, and then theres sod all special about getting the "status".Practically everyone has a GM this, or GM that, and use them just to supply their own chars. Everything is a simple item, no gatehring of resources to produce a " recipe" to make something. For example, plate armour is xingots, hit it, you either get something or you dont, wheres the padding?? As for the bod system, enough has been said about it already, suffice it to say i have a 110 smith, whos hasnt got anything out of bods apart from runic and a few ash. and i dont do it for the 110 tailor either now, both get very low end bods to fill, so is a complete and utter waste of time. The trade skills system in DAoC is far far superior, and instead of bods, you actually have to deliver orders to specifically named npc's, which prevents the huge queues of smiths in the smithy.
As for enhancing, pffft, got to get the appropriate tool for that, so i give up on that as well as its dependant on bods.
so all in all, i have gm's in all "trade" skills that are sat doing sod all except take up slots in the accounts. although not for much longer as i'm cancelling 2 out of 3 accounts and handing everything over to someone else.

 

[Guest]

8x8 - Kill it. Definitely make skill gain more predictable and sane. Bring back Powerhour, I never felt the need to play a character in training more than an hour a day when we had it. But leave GGS in to GM those skills that are still broken (such as Cartography).

GM time - 60 hours. Everyone is already multi-GM's anyway, all you're doing is penalizing new characters at this point and giving them incentive to macro to "catch up". Remove the requirement that you have to use your skill on a certain level of opponent to gain skills, it requires people to hunt list of "what to fight when" and is highly frustrating.

Skill differences - 60 hours for all skills, there should be no skill that takes "forever" to GM (sounds like we need RoT doesn't it?).

Difficulty-based skills - Yes, an indication that the task isn't hard enough to gain you skill would be awesome. Be sure to make it configurable so people can turn it off for one or more skills. Automatically disable it for a skill when that skill is at the cap.

Decoupling stats from skills - No way! You should have to perform a skill that would affect a stat to gain that stat. The current "gain a random stat that is set to rise" is not realistic and needs to be shelved. Remove the daily limit for stat gain.

 

[Jon von Darkmoor]

How about making Skill gain like Stat gain in the proposed 1 pt every 15 minutes?
You gain 1 full point of a skill (while using it)every 15 mins for a max of 10 pts a day.
and get rid of the .1 crap
So from 30 it would take you 7 days to Gm.
Make it the same for all skills across the board.

In the game of jewelry ,why should I be out gaining .1 in Taming for weeks to get 10 points when someone else can go find a +10 bracelet and get the same skill level in minutes?

Make it fun to buy the game ,gm your characters in a week and actually go play with the big boys. /php-bin/shared/images/icons/laugh.gif

With this method 8x8 and macroing wouldnt be needed because with normal skill useage you could gain the same as a powergamer.

 

[TheBetrayed]

I have not played (again) in several weeks, or even looked at these boards, and I may well never return to the game because of the bankrupt situation in which one loses more to insurance than one can gain hunting for gold. I look at stratics every couple of weeks on the off chance that some angel will descend and make this horrible nightmare go away, and let me return to the game I gave 5 years of my life to. So far this thread has been the only glimmer, and it is in fact just that. Still...

ALL new games coming out have thrown away the idea that one should labor like a slave for vast periods before being able to begin playing.

The general trend is to cut traditional leveling times by 75 - 90%.

And leveling is defined as what you have to do to prepare a character to begin playing the game (doing anything other than leveling). In uo this means at a minimum gm'ing enough skills so you have some sort of chance against anything other than earth elementals (which seem to be unique in that they can be found without magic-using critters along, so without a million-gp suit of armor on you can afford to hunt them, but of course with most of the players on a shard all crammed into shame 1 all the time this becomes impossible). For pvp in uo leveling up means gm+'ing at least 2-4 skills, gm'ing the rest. And gm+'ing (going over 100) of course means somehow getting power scrolls, which means years of labor to get the gold, or some very good luck at the spawns, or pking/stealing. In regard to getting ready to begin the game uo is by far the worst game ever. And the standard practice has been that once people adapt to the last massive changes and learn how, everything gets ripped out and replaced, forcing a whole new round of leveling.

This level-grind has been trying to drive me from the game for 4+ years. It almost succeeded. (see top paragraph for the actual last straw.)

The level-grind has had its day.

Those who will use the W word to describe my post of course have an (un)hidden agenda. Since they have gained an upper hand by exploits, cheats, shear hours of macroing, stealing PS, etc, etc, etc, they want to keep the upper hand by keeping things difficult for everyone else. They of course want things kept as they are, the worst ever.

I have no doubt that a vast hemorrhage of paying customers has driven you to consider these changes. While new sales may be going on perhaps you have seen that try-for-a-month'ers are not going to keep this company alive when the old-timers have all cut and run. That is the very reason you need to consider far more drastic steps - when the ship is sinking you throw the elephant overboard, you don't consider a new paint-job.

The Solution

Cut all time/iteration requirements for skill and stat gain by very large amounts, 70, 80, 90%. Let the dedicated players play the game, and let the casual player at least be IN the game. There is no longer any way to pretend that making it take months just to level Magery has any value. The players who once did that are jumping ship, and the new players (who have no chance of ever having a house, etc) are not impressed. The current generation of games coming out will not impose the penalties you do, and your player base will go to them, and this time they won't return.

It's like the guy in the news today who went hiking and got his arm caught under a boulder. He lay there for days and realized no one was going to rescue him, and the arm was ruined anyway. If he didn't do something he was going to die. So he took out his pocketknife and amputated the arm, then walked to where he could get help.

Do you have the courage to make the cuts?

I'll check back in a few weeks to find out. Or then again maybe it's time to stop paying for accounts that I'm more and more convinced I'll never play again.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

8x8 - Kill it. Definitely make skill gain more predictable and sane.

<hr></blockquote>

I agree wholeheartedly with that!

<blockquote><hr>

How long should it reasonably take to GM a skill? Should all skills be the same?

<hr></blockquote>

Being a GM doesn't matter much now and that is what should be addressed. For those of us who don't use 8x8 and finally GM a skill, there is a major let down because it's as though you're in the 80 skill point level now.

 

[Fenara]

OH GOD PLEASE NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This terrifies me! What is wrong with the system the way it is now? it works doesn't it? And if something isn't broken, it doesn't need fixing! there are so many things still broken since AoS... please don't break more! Leave the stuff that works alone!

I like the skill system how it is now. I gain through normal play, and when i get stuck, I will use the 8x8 method for a few gains to get it started up again. As far as macroing goes, there will never be a cure... people will always figure out a way to beat the system... so you spend 6 weeks trying to beat macroers for this system, publish your work, then 2 days later someone has it figured out and is telling his/her friends about it... 2-3 weeks later everyone is doing it and you have to start all over again... a waste of time and money that could be spent fixing REAL issues as far as I'm concerned. If they want to jump their characters ahead, that's their business. I have played for 5 months and just now finally GMed my smith, which to me was a great accomplishment, and I am within 20 points of GMing my mage, which I also look forward to. That is MY preference. Let them have 8x8. I like it because if I am actually trying to get a gain or two, I can use 8x8 and get out of a rut.


"- I'm thinking about decoupling stat gain completely from skill gain -- so every 15 minutes, you would just gain a stat point, up to your daily limit. Is that a bad idea? "

Yes. Definitely a bad idea. I think that would take some of the fun out of it... Ok, I log on and sit there and gain in a stat (kind of like gaining in focus). No thanks... I enjoy trying to get my stats up by doing stuff.

"- For difficulty-based skills, what information do you need? If a task isn't hard enough for you, should it tell you that? "

only if there is a way to turn the zillion messages that I'm going to get from making stuff below my level off so I don't have them covering my screen! LOL... I (and many many other players) sometimes run into financial binds, and then must do tasks way below our level to make a bit of quick cash. I liked the idea of maybe talking to a guildmaster who can tell you (maybe from an average of the last 10-20 things you did/killed/tamed/whatever) whether you are at or below something for your skill gains... that way those of us who don't give a rats rear end don't have to deal with the game spamming us every half second.

"- How long should it reasonably take to GM a skill? Should all skills be the same? "

Why? are you planning on making taming easier to GM? *smiles* I think the gains you get so far are pretty well balanced according to profession. I think that if someone has an older account, like 2 or 3+ years, that they should have extra points to play with at character creation (MY account is only 5 months, so, no, this would not benefit me, but I can see how making new chars suck for them since they have had to do it so many times...

 

[Lochen]

I would have to agree that now is NOT the time to go playing with the skill gain system. There are WAY too many bugs that need to be addressed before we go causing new ones. And by the way... We've been adding alot of new things with scenarios etc. How bout removing a few? IE what if lizardmen disappeared or a city. Might help with the information overload =p

And please look at Taming and GGS. Its busted for quite a few people. Someone posted a gain diary a short time ago. There were generally 500-1000 *optimum* animals tamed between each gain. About 1500 at the worst. And no, that wasnt in one day either. As has been mentioned, Taming cetainly isnt the Uber PvM skill anymore. So there's no reason to keep punishing it.

 

[jglide]

How about doing a success check on stats before gaining in skill.

For example: Doing a roll based on intelligence for magery gain.
or strength for lumberjacking, etc.

 

[DrDolittle]

<blockquote><hr>

- How much should I care about macroing prevention? Should I eliminate 8x8? If skill gain were more predictable and sane, would you even need it?

<hr></blockquote>One big reason that people macro is that skill gain is generally boring and frustrating. Maybe the first time you GM a skill it is fun and challenging, but after that it is just a pain. Most of the things added to prevent macroing hurt your legitimate players more than the macroers and eventually forced legitimate players to do weird things like 8x8 to gain in a reasonable time. Rather than worrying about 8x8 and anti-macro just make is so people don’t need 8x8 and macroing.<blockquote><hr>

- How long should it reasonably take to GM a skill? Should all skills be the same?

<hr></blockquote>I am so glad that you asked this question because I have the answer! /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif

A 7xGM Should Take NINE Hours! /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif

Today, thanks to the Advanced Character Program, it is possible to calculate a dollar value for a skill point. With a skill point dollar value in hand one can then calculate how long it should take to create a 7xGM character at a given wage. Let’s do the math!

OSI will sell you a full 395 skill points for only $29.95.

That means that a skill point is then worth $.076
[ $29.95 / 395 = .0758 dollars per skill point ]

At a $6.00 per hour wage one could then buy 79 skill points per hour
[ $6.00 / .0758 = 79 skill points per hour ]

So, at a $6.00 per hour wage, buying 100 (GM) skill points would take 76 minutes
[ 100 / 79 X 60 = 76 minutes ]

For a 7xGM it would then take about 9 hours
[ 76 X 7 = 532 minutes or 8 hours 52 minutes ]

There you have it. At a wage of only $6.00 per hour, a 7xGM character is "worth" 9 hours of your time.

Seriously though, I don’t think that any single skill should take longer than about 20 play-time hours to GM. Some should be easier. Please refer to my previous post for some thoughts on how the gain system might be designed to give you a very good control over gain rate.<blockquote><hr>

- For difficulty-based skills, what information do you need? If a task isn't hard enough for you, should it tell you that?

<hr></blockquote>Going with the system outlined in my earlier post this problem would disappear. The gain benefit of using a skill greater or less than the "sweet spot" of your range would be worth less that using the skill close to your sweet spot but the activity would not be "worthless". Therefore you would not need to inform the player that he was doing something too easy or hard.<blockquote><hr>

- I'm thinking about decoupling stat gain completely from skill gain -- so every 15 minutes, you would just gain a stat point, up to your daily limit. Is that a bad idea?

<hr></blockquote>Either that or just make it so you gain a stat when you use any skill. The problem now is that some skills do not seem to be giving any stat gains at all.

 

[ArtsCrafter]

Too many posts on here to read through in one sitting, so I apologize if I repeat anything.

<blockquote><hr>

- How much should I care about macroing prevention? Should I eliminate 8x8? If skill gain were more predictable and sane, would you even need it?

<hr></blockquote>
Preventing UM'ing is fairly important, since it's unfair to those of us who actually sit at the screen and put in the time for a character. I like the suggestion about putting in more ocean spawn, that would cut out a lot of boat macroing. If the gain system were a little more sane (i.e. easier to gain through casual play and harder to powergame) then yes, 8x8 would be unnecessary.

<blockquote><hr>

- How long should it reasonably take to GM a skill? Should all skills be the same?

<hr></blockquote>
I agree that gaining a skill should certainly take a while the first time you do it, but that training magery on your 7th character isn't fun at all. First time around, skills should generally take 5-6 months of casual play (note: casual play, first time around) to GM. They should definitely NOT all be the same; things like taming, the bard skills, magery, etc. should be harder than things like carpentry (virtually worthless now that all add-ons are redeedable) and the "joke" skills like begging and herding.

<blockquote><hr>

- For difficulty-based skills, what information do you need? If a task isn't hard enough for you, should it tell you that?

<hr></blockquote>
It would be nice to have a feature like this, but you need to be able to turn it off when you want too.

<blockquote><hr>

- I'm thinking about decoupling stat gain completely from skill gain -- so every 15 minutes, you would just gain a stat point, up to your daily limit. Is that a bad idea?

<hr></blockquote>
It would be nice, since some skills don't let you gain stats (such as my beginning bard, who trains peacemaking while taking care of the plants, but I have to use arms lore every 15 mins instead because peace does nothing) but there's too much potential for people to sit and UM for it, even with a daily limit.

I think that what the stat gain system really needs is a variable timer, kind of like GGS has. Basically, you can gain more stats per day, and more quickly, if you have a lower stat total. That way it's easier to get a new character up to a good level while keeping people from switching stats all the time.

 

[imported_Hammer]

Mr Tact, how about checking ggs to make sure it's working (since you're currently studying skill gains).

My tailor has been stuck at 119 for 22 days in a row. Since it takes about 1 hour to get 200 bones, and my tailor burns through the pile in minutes, it's getting to be a little ridiculous.

It's pretty sad when you go to sleep &amp; wake up consumed with the annoyance of all the time wasted over the last 3 weeks trying to get a lousy .1 gain.

GGS does work on Great Lakes after a character has reached 119 right???

For the record: yes my character has plenty of room left for skill gains, yes my tailoring arrow is turned up, yes I've been making bone leggings &amp; bone armor, yes I've tried having my character commit suicide in hopes of resetting his skill gaining ability (silly rumor I heard), yes I'm losing my mind, yes I know 120 will not help with enhancing items (even though I think that is ridiculous), yes I know you're thinking "boo hoo, poor Hammer"...

 

[scottish]

Hmmm...I'm a little torn on macro prevention. I don't use 8x8 so wouldn't miss it if it was gone.

A heckuva lot shorter than it does now! I started a Blacksmith on a second account in January and he still hasn't hit 80.0 in blacksmithing. I am only a casual player, but usually play 2-3 hours on the weekend. It's a major bummer to have to create a neverending stream of gorgets or whatever for that whole 3 hours only to see the skill increase .5!

I think it would be nice to see a message about a skill action being to easy or too hard, but as others have said it should be coded to allow one to turn it off or on.

I agree that it seems kind of silly to just have stats raise randomly and with no associated action. I agree that the old flip-flop method was nice.