Something to chew on while I'm gone

Guest · May 2, 2003

oooo some good questions.

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- How much should I care about macroing prevention?

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I think it is good right now. Macroing is the only way some of us can actually get skill gains done. Remember Powergaming is a playstyle also.

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

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This is an extremely tough question. If it wasn't for 8x8 I would have gone INSANE working skills.(I have 30 characters, 20-25 fairly advanced). Now when you say predictable and sane. What does that mean?

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

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All Skills Should NOT be the same. Because all skills are not equally powered.

Taming and Barding(Peace and Provoke) should be the hardest skills to GM(and 120). 3 months-1 year for non powergaming(to GM).

Then should come the 3 magic classes and thier supplements(Magery, Meditation, eval int, resist, Chivalry, Necromancy, Spirit Speak). 2 Months-8 months for non powergaming(to GM).

Then should come the "Thief and T Hunter skills"-Stealing, Lockpick, Carto, Hiding, Stealth. 2 Months to 6 months.

Then Blacksmithy, Tailoring and the other trade skills(Fishing,Tinkering), 1 month to 4 months.

Warrior skills, Fencing, Swords, Macing, Archery, Tactics, Anatomy, healing and Battle Focus. 2 weeks-2 months.

Now that may seem long to a lot of people, but this is for non powergaming. I think there should be limits on powergaming. But not restricting their gains per day. Maybe just get 10 points+(5+ at 80 or better, and 0-50 would not be affected at all) your gains would slow down, then another 5 or 10 points it would slow down even further.

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

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I think that would be a good idea. Would help a lot of us, also in the option's menu have it an option to tell us if a skill we are using is locked or no points are going down for it. I remember I worked taming for a week and gained 0.0 and found out it was because I had nothing going down.

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- 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?

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Yes and No. Overall I think its a good idea. But I don't think you should be able to sit at WBB and gain 1 stat every 15 minutes without doing anything, would make macroing even worse. So its kinda iffy.

starhawk45 · May 2, 2003

I feel sorry for you, Mr. Tact. I've been here reading the posts for hours now and I think I'm going cross-eyed and I have an extreme headache! <ugh> But, you wanted to open this can of worms while you went on vacation and its worms you'll get in your lap for opening it and leaving it! <heh>

Macroing....hmmmm....a touchy subject to address on the boards to be sure, but one that has a simple answer to eliminate this problem. Make it so the people don't have to macro for gains! Why do we macro now? Another easy answer! Because no one in their right mind will sit on a computer clicking MILLIONS of times to get to GM a skill! (and if they do, they'll have Carpal Tunnel, mush for a mind and eyestrain headaches from staring mindlessly at a screen doing a repetitive task. Not much up on current trends of computer related injuries are ya?) After reading most all of the posts on the boards, I can see where several concepts can be incorpoated into a cohesive and workable solution to avoid having to macro anything except to use a skill or skills while actually PLAYING the game and not working at it.
- Powerhour was a good thing. It allowed increased skill gains for a very short period of time. You still had to work at it, but not nearly as hard as you do now under the GGS system. But it also created macroers. Those that were just TOO lazy or had TOO much ego to get to GM that the few decided to exploit this wonderful period of time and ruin it for the majority. I don't remember which post it was, but I loved the idea of actually having guilds where if you occupied the area, you could expect increased gains. So, incorporate the two ideas. Make it so that there's a guild (building or area) you can sit at for a limited period of time and get increased gains ONCE per day. Not only do you promote community, but you make it very easy to catch that minority that macro unattended. A simple, but random, que from a GM or the game itself could "test" to see if there was someone actually there or not. Ask a question that demanded an intelligible answer. Something that only a real person could answer and not give a 'canned' answer such as that which 3rd party programs might provide to exploit the system. On the other side of this coin, gaining while outside this special area, work = reward, but with limits. No one enjoys the idea of having to create 40,000 oil cloths to GM Tailoring or tame 40,000 animals to GM Taming or hammer out 80,000 iron ingots to GM smith and the list goes on. I can go to Fel and buy the ore to make ingots and the same for wood and reagents in a reasonably short time. All well and fine, but what about the overpopulated Trammel? The spawns of these resources are incredibly long. I could spend hours, nay nearly a whole day, just recalling from shop to shop in a gallant, but feeble, attempt to buy all the leather or wood or regs I need to GM a skill. It's not something anyone enjoys having to do as most of the time the demand far outweighs the supply by magnitudes! Just let us go into a shop, buy all the wood, reagents, ingots we want/need and let us be on our merry way. That takes care of supply and demand. Now what? Now you bring the skills more in line. Making 40,000 oil cloths is lame and uncalled for. All you've learned is how to make really good oil cloths, but instead it allows you to make high quality leather and studded goods now. Does that seem right when I've never made a single leather thing to get to GM? I think not. Bring it more in line with the skills! Allow me to make normal items easier and make the exceptional harder! This way, if you want to invest in tons of leather in order to make that EQ bone armor suit, you're more than welcome to do so....at a price! Make 90-something Tailors HAVE to work in the higher leathers to get to GM. Make the smiths HAVE to work in the colored metals to get to GM! Tamers do have a long uphill climb to GM and its as it should be since they wield a lot of power! (No more crying from you tamers about how weak your dragons are! I sat and watched a tamer with a single WW clear ogre lord after ogre lord in seconds and never cast a single spell or lift a finger to help in the battle except for the occasional aid needed to keep it at full health while I could do nothing except leave. So much for archery gains today!) Bards are the same way. they weild a lot of power and it's rightly so that it should take a long time to GM. However, fighters need to have their gains slowed down. Walking through earth ele after earth ele does nothing to provide the training needed to take on dragon or a lich or a demon, yet this is the way things are. I can 5-6xGM a fighter in under a week easily w/o using any exploits, cheats or macroing.
Enough on macroing and it's reasoning. Want to avoid macroing? Make repetitive skill gains easier or bring the skills required more in line with the skill being used.

I think I've pretty much made clear my stance on all the questions you had except the last one, stat gain. Another can of worms about to slither into your slacks! (nice visual, huh? hee hee) Let me put it this way......it's BROKE! I made a bard character using the advanced template (because there is none for bards or tamers in the character creation table) not once nor twice, but three times!! Everytime I made one, I changed the stats around in a vain attempt to gain ANY stats and all to no avail! I GM'ed 4 skills on all three of these chars and never gained a single point in stats.....ever! It's been reported to proper channels and all I can get is the standard answer about how to gain stats. HAH! I've played this game for over three years now and there's nothing you can tell me thats new to me about how to gain stats. I know how to gain them, they just aren't coming! (For a bard char anyway. I have no probs with my other chars at all except that the gains come too slow. I agree that we need to gain stats faster at lower levels and slower at higher levels of skill. This allows a new character to actually get into the game sooner and not get bored and disgusted with killing umptine hundred hinds and harts! Remove the 10/day limit. this just makes me want to never start a new character cause they'll be so weak compared to the beefed up spawn that I don't want to play one. It's bad enough halving the gold for loot so that a new char has very little chance of becoming self-sufficient anytime within the next 6 months to a year. I won't even get into the luck system and how messed up that is. I'll save that one for another day and give your eyes and brain a rest now. /php-bin/shared/images/icons/laugh.gif

Enjoy!

Burl · May 2, 2003

My thought's on skill gain are to model it more closely to how people really learn. People do not learn by success, they learn by failure. One thing that has always bugged me is that in the stage when your 'paying your dues' for a characters development, every time you fail you know without a doubt that you've gained nothing. When you fail, you've just spent resources and in a material sense would actually have better off had you not made the attempt. This crosses your mind for every single failure. Even if you do go out and and try to get some real playing done, fail, die, lose your stuff, you know that you just should have just stayed off the computer that night.

I'm think that a very simple difficulty based system would be to have a good chance to gain every time you get a bad roll at something. To be more specific, when you fail, the chance to gain should depend on whether or not the action is something you *should* have been able to do. So, if you have a 99% chance to succeed at something, and you fail, you should have a 99% chance for a gain. 10% chance means 10% chance to gain on failure. That means the best learning efficiency would come at around 50% difficulty, which is kindof like it is now, but with some important psychological advantages. I believe that such a system would make for a more enjoyable experience for both learners and do-ers.

If your goal is to gain skill, you can feasibly do so by challenging yourself with things that are difficult in a real game setting. You may be getting your butt kicked, or spend alot of your time fleeing rather than looting, but you know that in spite of being empty handed, you are gaining skills. As it is now, if you aren't succeeding or killing things, you are really wasting your time and resources. Not only is this very frustrating, but it encourages sitting at home in a tedious but safe environment 'practicing'(macroing?).

If your goal is to simply succeed at some... goal, You don't have to curse the computer if you fail ten times in a row at something you previously have been very good at, because you will likely learn whatever is was that you had 'forgotten', with one or two little blue massages that everyone likes to see.

I really think that some kind of failure based system would be more realistic and more enjoyable.

Dern_Ironskull · May 2, 2003

Hmm, lots of good choices in this thread. The best suggestions have been the ones that minimize dev time. Putting something in that would not cause alot of bugs would be good too. Something that has been implemented before doesn't sound bad.

Should I eliminate 8x8?
Only way to do that is to eliminate the anti-macro code, right? This is a pretty good idea. I've been feeling like a newbie alot lately, lets go back to the skill gain we had in 97 when I was new /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif ummm, but WITH skill locks. I don't want to have to go running away from campfires like I used to.

RoT souds like a decent plan to take care of macroers. THis is not a bad idea either.

Could also increase the rate on the GGS, but you would probably still have to look individual skills that many beleive are "broken"

How long should it reasonably take to GM a skill? Should all skills be the same?
Sounds like RoT, again

what information do you need
Your skill has increased by 0.1

gain a stat point, up to your daily limit. Is that a bad idea?
Nah. Double the max points too. Let the noobs get some str easier.

summary
remove anti macro code
Deploy (re-instate) RoT
Keep GGS, but increase rate
Double stat points per day
Decrease stat time to 1 per 15min
Minimize dev time spent
Minimize bugs

imported_landicine · May 2, 2003

- 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?

Macroing prevention? It should be high priority. A person should never be able to get something for nothing. As for 8x8, unless certain skills (hiding, stealth, magery, necro, etc) become easier to gain, it is a much needed aid.

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

Depends on the skill. Craft skills (many of them) don't really start until GM with marked exceptionals and high level metals and bods. Since these skills take a ton of materials, they should be based on quantity of material, and not on time. If you go through 60k ingots, you deserve to GM.

Provoke, magery, and taming should take a bit longer since they are highly useful at a variety of levels, but incredibly powerful at GM or beyond. However they shouldn't be harder to normally GM than they are now (by normal I mean natural play). Some skills that are useful in a minimal sense (remove trap, forensics, camping) should be easier to gain and actually work.

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

There should be a way to figure how difficult something is. What is my chance to provoke this dragon? How wimpy is this lock? I shouldn't have to look it up on a web page.

- 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, its a great idea. As it is now, people just use the useless skill arms lore or struggle to gain stat points. I would however increase the number gained per day (maybe 10 instead of six?)

scottish · May 2, 2003

Even 100 hours it too long to me. I usually play 2-3 hours on the weekend at most. On rare occassion if I meet up with a group 4-6. At the 2-3 hour rate it would take me close to a YEAR to GM...and that would be having to play EVERY weekend! (which ain't gonna happen).

As many have said in this thread UO is a game and should be FUN not a second job.

I enjoy the multiple skill and crafting aspects of the game, but I don't want to be 65 years old and finally attain my first 7xGM character. /php-bin/shared/images/icons/wink.gif

Zilor · May 2, 2003

Thats unfortunate but they cant make it reasonable for such a little amount of time because then it would be exceedingly fast for everyone else. You have to look at the average player and then the power gamer and finally the not often type player.

An as allways, if you dont play as much, you dont gain as much...

Maybe 100 hours to create a competent character, which is in my eye a character with 4 skills near GM but not quite there yet, home stretch.

Donal Mor · May 2, 2003

To think outside of the box... remove the numbers altogether from view of the players.

Joe smith tries to smith something... if he succeeds great. If not.. well he keeps trying until he does... hence training. No numbers are ever shown. Perhaps titles would be the only thing giving a rough idea on skill level.

Donal Mor

Guest · May 2, 2003

I gotta great idea....! Why dont you stop screwing up my game and the fun i have on it with your lame ideas....Aos sucked I worked long hard hours to gm resist and you go screwing it all up. Funny how a 3yr vet can get owned by a character one mth old because he has some better ring or bracelet then me cause he paid for that item when i worked my skills...Shouldnt pvp based on talent and skills not because someone has a special ring or item...whats the point of even working skills with these items out like this. Also I will add why did i spend money and time to get powerscrolls when now half of them mean absolutely nothing. Another thing what is the point of having a disarm thief that i worked a long time to get skills up to steal things and items that were good and now they can insure everything and its not stealable. As far as I am concerned about 8x8 any character i needed it on is already done but why are new people gonna wanna come play this game when you idiots make it so hard for them to catch up too players that have already built characters. I dont care if you make it easier for them to build skills too make characters as good as mine it doesnt mean they can play them as well as i can. That takes game time to get to know your character and how to use the given skills.

My stun mage=worthless
My disarm thief=worthless
My tamer (because of jewelry anybody can tame or ride a mare now)=worthless
My Pker=worthless (insurance)
The only character that is worth anything is my 120 bard and you will nerf that next week!

I might as well buy and build into an amazing ljer that does these fancy one hit kills! How lame is that.

Why dont you stop catering to whiney ass trammies, fix factions, fix pvp, fix spawns so you can pk and steal and not worry about taking out what we can use and worry about things you need to fix.

LAST NOTE: WHY DONT YOU WORK ON THE DAMN BLACKHOLE ISSUE BEFORE YOU CHANGE ANYTHING ELSE!

P.S. Bring back Pre pub 16!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Make the game fun again!! Cause Shadowbane is looking real nice now.

PizzaDude · May 2, 2003

1.) 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?

Unattended macroing is Not PLAYING the game, and harsh consiquences should be the result of such Lameness. Script Campers (ie: Doom, enough said...) should have even harsher punishments.
Ive never 8x8'ed a skill, but i think that it would be pritty rotten, having to boat around "Slow Forward" 8x's "use skill" "Slow Backward" 8x's, just to get decent skill gains. Look at Fighter classes - when i GMed my Fencer i didnt have to walk up 8 tiles "Crack the ogre", walk down 8 tiles "Crack the ogre": i just killed crap for hours and had FUN doing it. You got Anatomy raising, your Weapon Skill, Tactics, Healing (cus your getting hurt), Resisting Spells (when it was more usefull and worth raising past 65 or 70). Why should a Bard tring to get good gains in Peacemaking have to boat around to gain, when they could go practice in a more FUN place, like a dungeon or another {*insert fun place of choice here*}. So, in my non-professional opinion: 8x8 probably aint fun, and "If" Skill Gaining itself were more sane and predictable, that would be cool...

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

Thats a hard question to answer. There is a wide variety of people that play for different reasons, and for variant amounts of time.
I do beleive that the GGS thats in place now, is flawed. For example: if you want to trade off skills for others, such as go from Fencing to Swordsmanship - its going to take longer to GM Swords then it did to GM Fencing because of the GGS. Its not going to accomodate to skills set do DECREASE, it only adjusts a timer based to the particular Skill's points that are raising and to the Total Amount in ALL skill points. When a skill is set to Decrease and you still have spare points to burn, you gain the points NOT Allocated to skills FIRST - It should be the reverse: Spend the decreasing skill points first.
I also beleive that the GGS is unkind to certain skills, such as Stealing and Hiding. The Delay Mechanism on these skills make it VERY aggrivating to train, (Please refer to your questions reguarding the 8x8 method for Fun and Reflection...) especially after you read the information in the PlayGuide on the UO.COM site about GGS timer bases. From 65.0 to 69.9 skill points (in a particular skill) at 500 total skill points (totaled from ALL skills) How long you ask? What!? 3.6 Hours for a Guaranteed Gain?! Thats NOT figuring in the 3 to 5 second delay between skill uses! Them few seconds really add up when training a difficult skill based on hard coded timers.
The only thing this Guarantees is somebody saying one of the following: "Wow, 3 hours of training and .1 skill gain to show... This freakin' sucks! Im sick of doing this." -OR- *wipes snot off keyboard* "uuh... ooh... gotta keep doing this, its the ONLY way to get good gains in this skill..." *starts dripping snot on keyboard again*
A skill gain bonus for the skills with delays would be a nice addition like, .001 skill per X seconds delay or something (You do the math and figure out a reasonable bonus, i just rant here /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif).

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

I think that a little statment if weither or not you're "Spinning your wheels", "Not really challanging yourself", "This is kinda hard", and "I cant do that yet!" would be really helpfull! Please add it.

4.) 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?

Yea thats a bad idea to me. Stat points should be earned, like Skill points; not given.

Im glad that you've decided to take a look at the skill gain system. I know what you said was basically "No huge changes, just reorganizing", but i dont know whats "Huge" and whats "Reorganizing" in the programming world, so if some of my opinions and ideas are over the top... PLEEESE DONT HIT ME! ... ill be good...

Oh! Real quick, a WAY Early X-Mas List:
- Fix LootingRights in Tramm, Ilish, and Malas so you get to keep the loot that you did 90% of the work for.
- Add resist mods to each resist catagory for higher lvls of the Resisting Spells skill (is .3 or .5% for every 10 to 15 skill points insane? I dont know - You do the math!)
- More monster varieties in Doom! Im sick of looking at patchwork skeles, toss in a few "other" undeaders.
- And a new Van so i can haul my band's equiptment around without getting Tickets! TICKETS - TICKETS - TICKETS! (Gotta hate 'em)

Fujur · May 2, 2003

Lets look at this from two distances...

From the macro-level what we've had so far is mostly a one-size-fits-all system. It begs the question: Do we all play the game the same way? Apparently not. So it should stand that the gain systems need to cater to all of us. New players, older players, powergamers, adventurers, casual players and addicts alike. ... Sometimes wants will collide, sometimes they'll work together. Let's look at them...

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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?

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Powergamers will want to powergame. While 8x8 seems silly and artificial, it is only artificial to the game when you take the 'adventurer' point of view and look over the fence at how a powergamer plays; Otherwise it's largely transparent. So then. Do Powergamer want to do without 8x8? I'm not sure, you need to ask them and not other gamer groups. Applying the wants of other groups (the newbies, the vets and the adventurers) full-on to Powegamers is just, well, not logical.

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- How long should it reasonably take to GM a skill?

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This is the part where all player classes will clash and the system needs to <font color=red>auto-adjust accordingly</font color=red>; which today it doesn't. The system should have 2 months (my personal values, replace for your own criteria here) as the median value, with the possibility of pulling it off in just 30 days of intense playing, 2 months of regular play, or 3 months of very casual gaming. This probably means the system keeps track of how long you're online, or -better yet- how many skill checks you have over a given period of time, and throttles itself accordingly. More casual players will get boosted gains towards the 2-month goal, regular players will fall naturally into the 2-month target, and powergamers will get throttled back towards a 30-day target.

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Should all skills be the same?

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I don't see a particular justification to make some skills harder than others. All skills grant different abilitites and while Tactics -on the surface- seems more useful than Begging, it all really depends on what you want to do in the game. At the end of the day all skill points are counted equally toward the cap. And while skills are at the base of the game, items ARE the core of the game now.

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

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For crafting skills, it would be nice if the dialog showed your % chances on the enhancement you're trying to make. It already tells you the % chance of making an item, plus we have the formulas you've given us, so this isn't a leap forward in terms of disclosure, just a leap forward in terms of usability and customer satisfaction. Perhaps you can have a toggle that reads "Confirm enhancements", and the % chance for a particular enhancement is diplayed in that confirmation box. If you just want to burn thru items you can turn the confirmation off - Much like the Maker's Mark toggle works, except with valuable information in it.
For timer or distance-based abilities I'd love to know when, for example, a Chivalry spell wears out, or when a creature I used Peacemake on turns aggressive again either because I left the area or it got tired of the bashing. Or a creature that is Provoked gets distracted by someone running by. We have no way of knowing these things except to watch the outcome, and in the case of Chivalry it's nearly impossible.
As long as we have a toggle to turn off the messages we're not interested in (*cough* "You can't gain more Valor" *cough*) , then please add all the information you possibly can!
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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?

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I personally don't see anything wrong with it. It's not a big difference from today.

lokistonecleaver · May 2, 2003

how about making the dang skill gains work like they are supposed to and fix that random number generator?

Guest · May 2, 2003

Heres my $0.02 worth...

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- 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?

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A lot. No. Actually no you wouldnt. Personally I feel that getting a gain shouldnt be "a suprise" but it shouldnt take forever either....

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

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Depends on the skill. No they shouldn't. Creating say a GM thief shouldn't be as easy as creating a GM warrior type char.

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

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Great idea there. Best one I've heard in ages. I seem to remember a while back when I was working my tamer that now and then when I'd tame a regular horse for someone (I was high 90's taming or so) I'd get a message from the animal. Something like "that wasnt even challenging".

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- 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?

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not a bad idea at all. With stat locks in place that will work just dandy.

Well there ya have it. You asked for it, you got it! and its not a Toyota! /php-bin/shared/images/icons/biglaugh.gif

Mara The Mad of Crashapeake

pellaeon99 · May 2, 2003

The stat gain seems intriguing, but how would you determine where the point was placed?

I also like the idea about notification about not being able to gain in skill. Perhaps (for crafting, anyways) you could include a % skill gain in the % success window.

Thunderbird · May 2, 2003

I'd just like to mention, put an option in the options menu that lets you toggle "That wasn't even easy" for difficulty based skills. Because yes, it makes a lot of sense to know if something was way too easy. If I try to improve my drawing skills by drawing completed circles, I'm going to get nowhere. It would make sense to put in a "You don't stand a chance" line too, for certain tasks where you don't stand a chance of success (barding/taming/ect). I mean, we've already got exact numbers for crafting success, I'm sure that's a small thing to ask.

As for automatically gaining stats every 15 minutes, no. Keep it tied in to skill gain.

How long to gm? Should be based on skills. Some should take a day or two (like armslore I suppose), some should take months (like animal taming).

Do away with 8x8? ahhh, plz don't. If you do though, replace it with a system that actually encourages natural play (if there is such a thing), as opposed to a system that encourages you to stand in one spot with your hiding macro held down. I have no idea what this system is though.

Divinity_Pac · May 3, 2003

Hello. I've been playing this game for almost 5 years, and the skill gaining system no longer fits the game. The skills change so much now, that gains should be much faster. AOS changed many skills, and I'm sure another add-on is coming down the pike that will do the same. Why not make skill gain 2 times faster? 10 times faster... The only reason would be to "force" people to play for a longer period of time, so they would stay longer.

If you are asking our opinion based on what we want, I would think a quicker skill gaining system. After all....we are the same people who didn't want PKers or even the ability to attack other players, right? Therefore we want the easy way out, and that is quick skill gains.

If you are asking our opinion based on what EA wants, than we want a long, tedious, painful skill gain, that will maximize profits for EA and keep us glued to the monitor until our eyes pop out. We want to be compelled to get GM in one skill until you change the rules, and make certain skill obsolete again, so we can stay glued again for months.

In reality, it is all a matter of what you want. This question really makes us all feel like you are concerned with what we really want though. On the subject, we all want to wait 2-3 hours for a GM to tell us, "I'm sorry, there is nothing we can do for you at this time." This is something we love...thanks for "asking" though...

Aegean · May 3, 2003

I am curious to know how the developers feel about this issue.

When you did the AoS revisions, did you assume that certain skills are supposed to have a greater reward than others?

Are players supposed to follow a natural progression of skills as the go from newbie to veteran? In the end, is everyone supposed to be a tamer/bard?

If that is the way it's supposed to be, then those skills should definately take longer, but if the goal is to make all skills equally rewarding, then they should also take an equal amount of time to GM. Could a dev give their thoughts on this?

Grommit · May 3, 2003

Late to the party but I'm just going to say that it'd be nice if the Devs didn't keep on trying to "fix" skill gain and concentrate on adding more content. Every time skill gain gets "fixed" it becomes broken in another way. There's no one system that is perfect for skill gain. Your resources are better spent on other things.

athlonio · May 3, 2003

Crafting skills are fine the way they are, I think.

8x8 should be eliminated. But skill gains should be more predictable during "common play". GGS was an attempt at gains during normal play, but it isn't the answer, IMO. Skill gain during normal play (this does NOT apply to crafters, as I don't think there is an easy way to fit "normal play" with crafters at the moment) should be target based, more than it is now. In other words, raising magery should require casting spells on different beasts. I should gain just by hunting or pvping. And should not gain at all on a boat unless I'm killing serps or something. Each spell cast should do a target check. If you've gained off the target, your chance to gain again should be decreased (still allowing you to gain more than once on a dragon or something big, but not gain multiple times off something weak like an ogre). Your chance to gain off a target to begin with should be tied to the level of spell you used, and maybe even the level of the resist of the target. Casting on yourself or a guildmate over and over should not get you gains.

Warrior skills take a while now a days. Not a bad thing, in my opinion. But I think that some of the logic should change. Similar to the mage gains, it should be target based. Maybe tied to the targets tactics or wrestling skill as well. Gaining off a target reduces the chances of gaining off the same target again. You should not be guaranteed to gain off each target, but instead you should have a CHANCE to gain off each target.

This approach, I believe, promotes normal gameplay better than the current system of GGS.

Specialty skills, such as poisoning, remove trap, locks, etc., are probably fine the way they are, with one exception. Poisoning (and maybe some others too) should have the delay between uses reduced a lot. There is no player advantage given by reducing the timer, other than skill gain. This would make the skill a lot better to raise. It's already quite expensive to raise, but it also takes a long time. The combination of both of these issues is too much for one skill.

As far as how long skills should take... I don't think it should take 6 months of normal play to get to GM for any skill. However, I also don't think any skill should be achievable in a week, either. I've been working my new fencer for weeks now, and he's at 76. I just added Spirit Speak to his template today to start my necro training, and he's at 70+ already (and counting). We know how obnoxiously focus is to raise, too. Some skills are way to easy, and, by comparison, some are way too hard. I think they should probably all be brought closer to the middle. I don't want any of the skills to be too hard, but none should be a cakewalk, either. It would be nice to just play the game (at the lower skill levels) and know that the gains are going to come pretty frequently. If I do this for two months, I should probably be GM in a few of the skills.

I like Siege's approach to skill gain (when it works right, that is) in that there is a time delay between gains, and a limit per day. I think something like that would be nice for some of the easier skills to raise that don't require targets, etc (like focus, med, spirit speak), though a lot of people wouldn't like that on regular shards.

Anyway, there's my two gold pieces to chew on (don't mess up your teeth).

aarontsung · May 3, 2003

-8x8 should definately be removed because it's half of what macroers do. I can't go fishing for 5 minutes without a macroers boat crashing into me! Perhaps UO should subclass the usual macroing programs and cause them to close every 10 seconds or so. It's easier to update the UO client with the autopatcher than it would be for the macroing program creators to update then distribute new versions. They increased cost in bandwidth alone would shut them down /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif

-A relatively useless skill such as begging should take far less time to GM than say, Taming, which is the most difficult (in my expierence) to get to 120. I liked it more when I first started playing UO... where after 3 months of playing I was at 85 skill and damn proud of it.

-Difficulty based skills are just fine as they are. Take for example alchemy. The minimum required and %chance are displayed for each item. You should know that if you have a 99% chance of making something (I'm talking to you tailoring macroers with your 10000000 oil cloths) you wont be getting good gains.

-The daily limit is an annoyance. I am toying with my necro macer's stats, and when i want to shift from str to dex and int i have to wait 2 or 3 days to test it.

I honestly think that Vet is broken. I have gained 1 point in about 2000 bandages (which spanned about 15 days). I don't even get GGS gains. Without killing my bonded pets and making them gimps, I can't seem to get any gains.

Guest · May 3, 2003

- 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?

Well.. to be honest.. having not played forever i am still under the impression that the reality is that macro prevention has only made it easier to gain skills..

But removing 8x8 would make people stop going on boats to do their unattended thing which would remove the entertainment of seeing a person stuck for hours near a shore saying "one forward" 8 times, cast earth quake "one right" 8 times.. without going anywhere.. its fun to watch at times, a good laugh (of course.. i should report them.. but a good laugh is hard o find)

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

I think others have really said it.. it shouldnt be the same.. but the way i see it (that is different i guess from anything anyone else would want) it shouldnt be random at all, no dice roll involved. or put another way

There should be a list of how many uses of skills with the easiest applicable thing to do it requires as minimum to gain a skill, then count up for every applicable use.. doing tougher things would give more 'points'..

Skills should then have a multiplier to be applied to the table based on how powerful the skill is in general and how much more generally useful the skill is ( a skill that is a support skill for multiple other skills for example should be somewhat more difficult to gain than the skill would be when examined on its own (anatomy is a good example, in itself its completely useless, however its multplier here would need to be based on the fact that it supports both weaponskills and healing)) Of course some skills need be more easy to gain (for the PvP community) .. but that in reality should mean that their power in PvM need be adjusted down, if people dont want any work then they should not reap the rewards (which is my oppinion on advanced chars and skill jewelry as well)

But i guess i'm just babbling, the problem as i see it is that its too random right now making skill gain dependent on whatever type of flawed die rolls is the flavor of the year.. but i doubt my system (that is truly a sort of an experience point system) wouldnt get a broad following

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

.. personally? the way it barks not even challenging with taming means i wouldnt have known it did if people didnt tell me.. if you want anything of this sort make it a game wizard / codex question that advice you what to do at your current skill level in a given skill

- 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?

If you mean the successful use of a skill gets an independent chance of skill gain and stat gain then it sounds like a good idea..

Zilor · May 3, 2003

If skill gain were more predictable and sane, would you even need it?

I was thinking, and ya know what would be great. Something along the lines of Dungeon Siege, you use items and on every swing you get some experience.

Perhaps make it so you allways get say, 100 xp per sucesfull swing, crafting, casting, etc. Each .1 is a little XP bar, your very first .1 is 25xp, so with one sucesful hit wiht a sword you get .4 swordsmanship. Then as it goes up it takes more and more XP. So rather then have random crap, you have an easilly understood use based system without all the problems of the randomness.

Some balancing would have to be done on whether or not you can get XP from anything or now. Getting XP from a mongbat at 95 doesnt seem right, so some comperative system would have to be put in, i think something like that is in now anyway. Also, past say 80 skill, you should be totally unable to gain an offensive skill off another player.

Also, actually show the XP bars, i know it would freak people out that "Oh no, UO is level based!!!" even though it truely wasnt, it would make it more predictable. Random isnt exactly fun, eing suprised by a skill gain while nice, isnt practical. This way people could work toward a goal when they logged on with actual progress at all times rather then praying for gains.

Chandalir · May 3, 2003

Thats probably the sanest way Ive seen for a suggestion to skillgains so far. Making it experience based (somewhat anyway), so casting spell x would give you xy experience points, and casting spell y would give yz experience points. That way we still have the difficulty based mumbo jumbo we have now, but we can rest assured that we gain within a certain number of actions performed.

Granted, yes, it does promote unattended macroing (specially for current 8x8 skills), but at least it allows you to get gains through "normal" gameplay. You could even make it so performing beneficial acts or hunting in parties gave increased gains (ie, ressing someone would grant you more "skill experience" than casting an energy vortex) to further improve on the social aspects of skill gains.

Of course, if you really wanted to go out on a limb and somewhat prevent unattended macroing, make skill gains in houses/boats require a valid NPC target (for spell casting/weapons gains) and people would have to team up to keep the NPCs healed anyway.

Lots of potential at any rate, and gaining within x amounts of successes would be a hell of an improvement to what it is now. Just wanted to cast my support at that idea.

Zilor · May 3, 2003

I fleshed it all out more here if you or Tact wants to look.

Can't remeber the linky thing, to long away from boards so copy/paste.

http://boards.stratics.com/php-bin/uo/showthreaded.php?Cat=1&Board=uoideas&Number=3949981&page=&view=&sb=&o=&what2=&selv=&vwhich=

Guest · May 3, 2003

<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 remove 8x8, if skill gains were more predictable and sane, the game would probably get too easy.

<blockquote><hr>

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

<hr></blockquote>
I think it should take about a week or 2 to GM an average skill from 30 if you powergame the skill for a while each day. If you powergame the heck out of it over a weekend, I think you should be able to get to 90 or so. But I still think some skills should take quite a lot longer. Animal Taming and Provocation should be tweaked a bit, but not much. It's nice that they take forever because it keeps you playing the character.

<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>
If you mean (for example) taming monbats when you should be taming ridgebacks, yes it would help a bit.

<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 think this is a GREAT idea. Stats & skills shouldn't have been linked to begin with. Plus it sucks having to unlock wrestling, gain a str point along with .5 wrestling, then dropping the skill again.

LadyTalia · May 3, 2003

Eliminate 8x8? *screams* the mere thought of that sends shivers down my spine. Even though i think in the 3 years that I have Played UO I've only actively 8x8'ed 4 or 5 skills on my roughly 6 or so Characters. 8x8 is a decent training method granted it does leave room for people to do unatteneded macroing but my point why punish everyone for those people.

How long should it take to GM a skill? that is reall difficult to answer. You have your people who all they do from the time they get up till the time they go to bed even those who dont sleep is play UO. Then you have your people who log in once or twice a week for a few hours to hunt or train. Granted it took me nearly 2 1/2 years to GM taming and I've heard of people doing it in 4 weeks. Dont I feel silly *grins*

Difficulity based skills? Honestly I think It should. If your for say working Alchemy or even poisoning which are both "diificulty based skills" Perhaps a message like you get from the stealing or training dummies "You can no longer blah blah"

Decoupling Stat Gain? mmm Maybe. I've heard that Stat gain is really hard, of course I havent really tried this myself, just a few minor modifications to chars here and there. If it is a large complaint, then yes. If it is something most people dont see as really annoying then no.

Rhadamanthys · May 3, 2003

i dont know how others feel but I enjoy the game when i actually play and use my skills and not macroing tinkering, wasting time and ressources.
the removing of powerhour was a disaster. everyone who cannot spend hours and hours in the game every day is not capable to GM i.e. tailoring in a reasonable time before he can use the skill nicely.

if skills would be easy to GM ppl would change their chars much more often. i personally prefer to play with 1 char and i would welcome it if i could change his template every now and then without to result in months of tranining before im finished.

i personally cant see why skills should be hard to train. dungeons are camped by tamers already, provokers everywhere. its already "****ed up". so i dont see any point to bother the new startig ppl just because it used to be easy and has to be harder these days.

if i could change my templates without worries of training sessions i'd have much more fun. especially it could be nice for pvp if you could come out with new templates every week.

- add powerhour again
- let us train tactics/melee skills like we used to. sparring a friend up to gm.
- magic resisting has become a stupid joke to train. nicely ****ed up that.
- dont dare to remove 8x8
- difficulty based skills in general take too long to gm. after gm its waste of time.

Citern · May 3, 2003

<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 do not know if you ever played ultima VII any version

but i remember the system for statsgain to be with experience points and npc training, and only that way could you gain stats points

now the current way is not very roleplay friendly and what you suggest is even worse !

player logs in, uses a skill, gets a statgain and logs back out

repeat x times a day

my proposal is:

player has to gain x 'experience' points by doing various tasks

skill-based things, like casting spells, shopping wood, mining, name it and it will have a chance to get you some 'experience'

basically just playing the game will (or should) earn you these experience points

once a certain amount of 'experience' is gained,

go to a certain npc and for a small gold fee and maybe even a quest *wink wink* the npc will let you gain stat(s) in the stats that particular npc trains or that player has chosen to gain

ofcourse you can get only so much exp per x timeframe and the same goes for stats..

at least players will have the feeling they have to 'work' for their stats instead of just getting them for free

and the higher stats you have the more difficuly this 'quest' the npc would give you would become...... (certainly above 225 /php-bin/shared/images/icons/cool.gif )

and ideas or comments/flames anyone ?

KyraMarie · May 3, 2003

I know it wont happen but what if?

The chars that have resist would be able to use it the way it worked while the chars that don't have it can still use the new system?

The following is my very personal opinion, not a way to start a discussion.

I hate training the mules skills (smith, tinker, carpenter, tailor and any other Im leaving out} since we have no more PH is even more boring. Since OSI introduced the advance char, can they introduce a way to GM this boring skills for a reasonable price each? It will be more reasonable than buying them from Ebay and it will be a lot more profitable for OSI. This may even help the unattended macroing, and it will give the players the option to PLAY with their main chars or spend their time raising their mule's skills

Cirianara · May 3, 2003

I think the key to this is, "what is normal gameplay?" It's different for everyone.

Personally I'd like to see skill gain tied to number of uses. After X number of uses, you get a gain. "Uses" needs to be looked at though- a blacksmith should be able to get credit for a "use" standing at the town forge making armor and repairing weapons for customers, not just from making 10,000 plate gorgets. A tamer should get "use" credit for successfully commanding their pet to fight different critters. Poisoners should get credit for a "use" for successfully poisoning their opponents, not just for poisoning an apple. A mage should be able to get credit going out with their guildmates and healing them. Etc. etc. etc. There probably needs to be some sort of multiple target / movement part of it to prevent folks from just standing in their house unattended for hours, but if I want to wrestle chickens all the way to GM, SO WHAT?? If there was a set scale, you get a gain after x number of uses, then powergamers would still gain if they put in the time, and casual users would still gain. The problem right now is that with difficulty based skill gains, you HAVE to do something specific to get a gain, you can't "just play". My brother in law just started playing, and it is so frustrating that we have to take him to go hunt skeletons to get a gain, instead of taking him with us to fight orge lords since we can keep him alive, but he just won't gain. I'm redoing a mage and adding archery- I can't tell you how boring it is to suddenly have to hunt great harts to get gains. People will macro as long as they are forced to do boring tasks just for skill gain, and by now it should be apparent that someone will always find a way to circumvent any anti-macro stuff that is put in. I use 8x8 extensively... and I hate it. If I knew I would gain just going out and playing the character, I would never bother with 8x8 again. I miss being able to take my new character out and just building them up while tagging along with some more developed friends who could help me- but the last thing my 5x GM friends want to do is hunt great harts.

I completely disagree with the concept that "more powerful skills should take longer to GM". Today's uber skill is tomorrow's nerf, and the goal should be to balance out the skills, not make them more difficult to train.

How long should it take to GM? Tough call. However, you can't look at it as one skill- the question should be how long to get a character up to 700 skill points. Perhaps the rate of skill gain should be across the whole character in some way. I'm a semi-casual gamer- I get to play 1-2 hours a day during the week, a bit more on the weekend. I would rather spend my time playing then training. If I could get gains filling my BODs as opposed to just making studded gloves, I'd be filling my BODs. Time is hard to estimate- a warrior uses their skills (example swords, tactics, and anat) a lot more fighting 2 monsters then a bard does. I think you should be able to get one character up to master level in all skills within a month with a reasonable amount of play time... most people don't play to gain skill, they get skill so they can PvP, do champ spawns, hunt high level monsters for good loot, etc.

As for stat gain, it is BROKEN! I post-AOS trained a character up to GM mage, 95+ med, and 90+ eval (all from 30 skill) and did not gain ANY stats. The above mentioned brother in law spent hours working magery- running around killing hinds and such, just to learn the game mechanics- and though he gained lots of magery and eval, he had to switch to wrestling and anat to gain any stats. Stats should be linked to skill gain- you get a gain after x number of skill gains- and you should be able to max your stats at about a halfway developed character, or around 350 non-bought skills- with no time cap. There also needs to be a way for skill-maxed characters to tweak their stats- and for that I can see a time delay, you can get a stat change every hour or such even at 700/720 skills. Most stat changes at that level are tweaks, not overhauls. Stat gain should come naturally as you are building your character- a mage shouldn't have to go out mining to get strength, or a warrior use arms lore every 15 minutes to get a little more mana.

Ciri

KingBlitz · May 3, 2003

well in my humble opinion you need to do a few things

1) stop changing the rules all the time. I am TIRED of redoing characters.

2) probably too late but skill jewelry was a bad idea in my opinion

3) rename GGS. there is nothing guaranteed about it. there is no need to fix it as such but the name is confusing a lot of people (i.e. you can't gain after a week if you haven't logged in and used the skill in that week - and please do consider removing that rule from skills that are not checked for gains during regular game play, like taming and poisoning).

4) keep differences between skill gain rates. that way people can build good characters fairly quick while working on a long term project like a tamer or treasure hunter on the side. Melee skill gains need to be much faster.

5) remove 8x8 and "tricks" like anatomy/music/animal lore gain sweetspots. again, raise the general gain rate to compensate.

6) some kind of a written guide to appropiate difficult tasks for all difficulty based skills would be very useful. Don't bother us with that during game play, but give the GMs an www addy that actually helps people with there problem when they page that they are "stuck".

f.ex. at each 10 point skill interval give three monsters to fight (for melee), three monsters to tame (for taming), three monsters to provoke, appropiate spells and paladin abilities etc etc. Don't forget crafting skills and hints on miscellenaous skills like parrying and fishing.

In general i think skill training should be a lot less of an issue. we are playing a game remember? skill gains should be part of the game... like real RPGs... how would you like an D&D master having you "train" before you could adventure?

hmm

you could even consider handing out some skill gain "points" for completing quests, doing t-hunts, killing player enemies (red must kill blue, blue must kill red and of course opposing factions), killing many different types of monsters (no need to reward camping).

that last bit is just in case you can't find a system to have gains become part of regular gameplay. and that is the biggest issue imo.

Guest · May 3, 2003

At first, I thought this thread was a joke. I cancelled my UO account when they announced GGS (and the removal of powerhour) My brother convinced me to give AoS a go, I did. Other than the initial lag spikes and reverts, I'm pretty approving. I think AoS was a positive step in UO's direction.

I then read this thread. It's got to be a joke.
I don't pay money to re-learn how to play the damn game every few months. Period.

The I ran across something, and found out why this thread even exists.
It's an IRC log from the dev/marketing team at OSI!

#----- Snip -------#
<Marketing> Well, our plan to increase revenue by killing powerhour and introducing advanced characters worked for a little while. But purchases are down again. What's the next phase?
<DevGuy> We could do it again? I mean, make it near impossible for them to gain stats/skills, and then raise the price on advanced character templates.
<DevGuy> Actually, now that we've introduced powerscrolls, we could have 2 sets of advanced characters. The basic one (which we currently have) giving 85.0 points in most needed skills, and fewer points in secondary abilities.. AND have the enhanced version. 7xGM! we could even charge like.. $100.00!
<Marketing> I like it. But, we did lose a lot of clients over the GGS/Powerhour thing, will it happen again?
<DevGuy> Nah, we can take precautions!
<Marketing> Such as?
<DevGuy> Well, we already know what we're gonna do. However we can have one of the guys start a thread on Stratics, so the community thinks they had a hand in the design, development, and implementation. That way, even if it doesn't work as expected, we can claim that we gave them what they asked for.
<Marketing> What if the general concensus is "Don't change it"?
<DevGuy> I'm sure at least one person will announce that they like the idea, and we can use that as our green light.
<Marketing> Hrm, I like it. They'll ask for it, then never know what hit em!
<DevGuy> Yup! It's brilliant.
#--------- snip ----------#

Suddenly, it all becomes clear.
You guys are going to suggest changes, they are going to make skill gain impossible, then charge you for your character. Haven't we learned from the past? History repeats itself!

Oh well, I give up. I left once. I'm sure my time here is limited.

-Drk

P.S. the IRC log is fictitious. It does not exist to be libelous or slanderous in any way to any persons or entities living or deceased.

NunuSpider · May 3, 2003

<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?

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

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

- 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?

So, stuff like that. Please feel free to discuss amongst yourselves . . .

<hr></blockquote>

The law and the code are two separate things. The law should be against unattended macroing (of skills), and GM's can police that. But the code shouldn't make gaining unreasonably difficult.

Time to GM: If all skills were balanced, it should take a similar amount of time for all of them. But there are several factors to take into account.
1) How useful the skill is. Magery is arguable the most useful skill in the game, followed by any weapon skill.
2) How powerful the skill is. Animal taming should probably be the single most difficult, because it's overly powerful. You really don't need any skills but taming, animal lore, and magery to make millions of gold in a matter of hours.
3) The cost of training the skill. While skills like battle focus, tactics, and evalint are essentially free, magery can cost several hundred thousand gold (not counting the whole lower reagent cost item fiasco).

A good amount of time is a tough call. Maybe a risk vs. reward system or some idea of what the character is for should make a difference, or hell maybe even account age. I know it took me over a year to GM magery the first time through passive gameplay.. just a whole lot of fighting and adventuring. Some players may get bored if they plateau too soon. But on the other hand, if I knew it were going to take me over a year to GM magery again, I'd just as soon give up. I've put too much time into the game already, so I think a matter of weeks through powergaming is reasonable.

Difficulty/Information: You can never have too much useful information. But in a system that told you a task is too easy for you, there has to be a switch. For example it gets pretty annoying at a champ spawn getting the message:

You cannot gain any more in valor.
You cannot gain any more in valor.
You cannot gain any more in valor.
You cannot gain any more in valor.
You cannot gain any more in valor.

When my expert swordsman has to kill snakes in order to get to the ratmen, I don't want to see:

You are too skilled to gain experience from such an unskilled foe.
You are too skilled to gain experience from such an unskilled foe.
You are too skilled to gain experience from such an unskilled foe.
You are too skilled to gain experience from such an unskilled foe.
You are too skilled to gain experience from such an unskilled foe.

...Or something similar.

No, separating stat and skill gain is not a bad idea. In fact I wouldn't mind a simple daily limit on skill gain rather than GGS. Go out and get my 5 points of fencing and then go do whatever I want for a couple hours, rather than having to spend a long time training or have multiple sessions every day.

Elise · May 4, 2003

Take out the anti-macro code. You'll eliminate 8x8 and the need for it in one swift clean cut.

I'm not a macroer (I can't even get a tailor macro to work! /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif ), but I really don't see the problem with those who are. Better they're inside their own homes with their script running than out at sea blocking up the fishing lanes. Would it also reduce bandwidth usage? It'd certainly save GM time...

The problem isn't macroing, it's people's reactions to it. Some people see skill gain as a precious thing and a part of playing the game, others see it as a step to actually getting to play the game. Most people will play their first characters from base to GM, but why should they spend this not insignificant amount of time re-learning an already explored skill on another character?

It's about choices. Do it if you want to (without exploiting bugs), don't if you don't.

GM'ing a skill should take as long as you want it to.

For the difficulty based warrior skills, anatomy should be able to give you a rating, taming would be animal lore, mage uses eval int, etc. Bards get a message after they've targetted.

Stat and skill gains need a link to each other. It wouldn't feel right getting a stat gain just sitting on my fat backside watching the world go by (I do that a lot!) Someone said increase the new character stat limit to 150 which is a damn fine idea! Why not give them the full 225 to play with if they choose advanced characters? Give people a choice at character creation to allocate up to the maximum of 225 points. Those who want to work for it can (RP Guilds can lay down max stat for new character rules), and those who don't can concentrate on their skills instead (multi-accounters, vets, pvp'ers).

You've got a hard job. You have a distinguished player-base like no other game. Try not to go down the track of laying restrictions. We get enough of those in real life /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif Give the playerbase the choice to play the game in the way they get the most out of it, and you're laughing.

Good luck,

Elise

warchef · May 4, 2003

""- 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 prevention should be number one on your list.. we should all be able to play the game instead of working the game.. yes it should take work.. but moving 8 tiles forward is not the work it should take.. this invites and other macro programs to become the only way to compete.. 8x8 should be removed.. or if it is not then unattended should be allowed.. make it a lil more dagerous for people to be alone anywhere.. but the damage is done and you guys have no way of telling who is using these programs unless some one rats them out..

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

i so miss the days of waiting over a year to gm a skill.. now the damage done by power hour jsut ruined the game into not much more then a FPS where we are all on the same playing field.. i have spent 5+ years workign on charachters.. not using 8x8.. and your advance charachters are equal to or slightly below my chars.. this is what i like though.. every point i have worked for.. not sailed while i watch gilligans isalnd.. some skills such as taming and prov shoudl be back to thier long long waits.. but some skills like poisoning are way to slow as it is now..

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

i think we should be left in the dark as much as we are now.. this will probably be the best communication forcement that you guys have ever achieved.. "hey i cant gain anat.. what am i doing wrong?"

""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? ""

works well for me.. i hate that stat gains ever since T2A days.. mass camping parties.. lumberjacking on my mages.. why shoudnt i just spend tiem working skills i need and not skills to raise stats..

rschae7717 · May 4, 2003

Mr. Tact,
I am not a real fan of the 120 skills, when i started uo yrs ago it took forever to gm a skill and now we have kids becoming 5x gm's in matter of 2 weeks, where i had spent months upon months accomplishing these goals, i think the stat gain is pretty well the way it is its just the skill gain system that has changed so much from better to worse to better over and over again, it just seems like we never know what to expect anymore, now with the champion spawn and bod system it has led uo even closer to the joked around bout name change to merchant online, I love this game, but lately it seems like my charectors are usless against creaters that i used to be able to kill easily because of these changes, for those of use who like to still have our warriors they have seem to become preety worthless to against alot of creatures, it seems like tamers and bards are now running the entire game, i have been to alot of champ spawns and everytime the majority of people there are the tamers collecting the power scrolls, and blocking other players out using thier pets so they can run to town and sell em for millions leaving most of us out of the loop unless your a major merchant in the game. Also with the new release i have noticed that special items to raise your skill IE: minning gloves no longer give you the +5 minning taking you to 105 minning like they were intially intended for, but there is also no way to raise this skill above 100 besides using them before aos release. Just a insite from an old vet that has been w uo from the beginning. I have had uo accounts since beta, but lost my first 2 accounts when i was deployed overseas on a ship in the navy, which i am still part of and was not able to get online to update my account info when credit card expired so i ended up loosing those hard earned rewards too. But like i said i love this game and have sat through alot of changes and lost millions of gold because of bugs, reverts, and exploits, but i have seen the community split from large groups to individuals no longer working together with people but working to suck the people around them dry in any way possible.

Moonglum · May 5, 2003

Move up the ETA of soulstones. Im so sick of having to rebuild characters constantly. I've been with you guys since 97...gimme a break and let me play a little huh?

KyraMarie · May 5, 2003

Soulstones

Im my case I have 8 accounts, 5 of them active. So It will be great for ppl with mulriple accounts to use the "Soulstones" not only beteewn chard but beteen accounts.

LetAst · May 5, 2003

I'll second Moonglum's comment on Soulstones. Having to retrain isnt a huge problem, using new skills or a new template is interesting, but not if it's at the expense of another skill that's taken u ages to train.

The way things are at the moment, if u drop a 'hard' skill for another more competative one, chances are, two or three months down the line, the game will change again and u need the other skill back, it's a pain in the ass.

So get those soul stones in!

Cheers,
Let.

Burl · May 5, 2003

There's a theme I see in this thread over and over, that I want to strongly disagree with. Many people say that because this is a game, it should be 'fun' and not 'work'. I argue that this is NOT that kind of game, nor should it be. All material wealth and accomplishment in this game is valued according to the amount of 'work' put in to get it. There is no artificial device or system creatable that can magically change this fundamental principle of human endeavors. Anything that is made easy is simply devalued. This is one of the qualities of this game that makes this world believeable, and ultimately, 'fun'. Too many people confuse 'fun' with 'ease'. I see so many people complain about the difficulty of becoming a GM whatever, and then when they get there they complain that being a GM whatever is not so special anymore. We can't have both. The devs have tried to give us both by basing value on blind random luck, but that's just turning out ugly, artificial and frustrating. If you want to have 'fun' in this game, be prepared to 'work'.

DrDolittle · May 5, 2003

Although I agree with some of what you say, I disagree that playing UO should be "work". UO is, after all, a recreational environment that people play for many reasons but "fun" and relaxation are near the top of most people’s lists. The hallmark of a good game is that it has a lot of "fun" things to do. UO has a wealth of fun things to do. Doing these fun things in these good games is, well, fun!

Unfortunately, somewhere along the line, someone decided that building skills in UO should be "work". From the OSI side of the fence, it seemed that they were afraid that if people were able to achieve their skill building goals too quickly the players would get bored and leave the game. That viewpoint is kind of sad, really. It is saying that UO offers nothing beyond a boring, repetitive process spiced only with the Pavlovian joy of a skill gain. I sure don’t feel that way.

Some players felt that, as they had spent many hours building a skill, everyone else should have to do the same. Still others, extreme power-gamers who clamed to be able to build a full featured 7xGM warrior in only two days, argued that skill gain in UO was too easy!

The loud voices of these two player groups reinforced OSI’s predisposition towards "harder" skill gain. Unfortunately, the only thing that OSI could conceive of was to make skill gain even more boring and repetitive than it already was. OSI even decided to turn skill gain into a revenue stream! All this has made the "casual player" an endangered, or at the least frustrated, species and made the game even less "newbe frendly" than it already was.

Bottom line is that, IMHO, building skills should be a "fun" activity in UO regardless of how long it takes. Further, the skill gain system should not literally waste my play-time with a system based on random chance.

Goldenblack · May 5, 2003

Okay. So if everything was too easy, the game would be less rewarding in the end. Fine.

However, there is another human trait which I think everyone, and most crucially the Devs, cannot afford to forget.

That is, to motivate a person to do something which could quite understandably be called repetitive, or even drudgery, the person needs a -fairly- steady diet of small accomplishments. These are rewarding thrills of accomplisment that make one lust for the next one all the more, at the extreme end working a person into a frenzy of wanting to achieve more and more, DEPENDING ON THE FREQUENCY OF THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

Sure, you can draw things out a little. I'm sure EA would like nothing better then for our game experience to take as many months as possible, BUT IF YOU MAKE THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS -TOO- FEW AND FAR BETWEEN, EVERYONE GETS HURT IN THE END. WHY INTRODUCE THE ELEMENT OF DISCOURAGEMENT INTO THE GAME? NEW PLAYERS WILL CANCEL FREQUENTLY WITH A SKILL GAIN TOO REDICULOUSLY SLOW. AND THOSE POOR SOULS WITH TYPICAL BUSY LIVES AND JOBS LOSE OUT TREMENDOUSLY OVER THOSE WHO DO NOT QUITE FIT INTO THAT CATEGORY.

Moderately substantial accomplishments should be daily, whenever a person devotes, say, three hours, they should have a moderately substantial accomplishment that goes beyond one or two 0.01 gains. If the game is made so that a person logs in, slaves away for hours doing things for the freaking ten-humpteen-billianth time, and only sees a measly .01 gain for HOURS of work, and still has many, many, many more little .01 gains to make, that is not cool! That is discouraging! I would not play such a game, however I LOVE the game, as it is, now.

The competition and "challenging" aspect of this game should come from who makes the best quality decisions, not who is an insomniac whose lifestyle enables them to throw away an insane amount of quantitative hours into the game. Quality of in-game-decision-making ADDED to experience should make up the competitive element, and NOT SIMPLY WHO HAS MANAGED TO SPEND THE MOST TIME PLAYING OVERALL--WHO IS THE MOST DOGGEDLY DETERMINED TO MAKE IT THROUGH HOURS OF MIND-NUMBING, REDICULOUSLY UNREWARDING IN-GAME WORK. Some people would snort and laugh at the idea of wasting their life at such an unrewarding and manipulative life-devouring thing.

Make The Work Continuously Rewarding. I think the GGS is close to Perfect.

I know that if skill gain were any slower, I would not waste time playing such a rip-off of a mind-numbingly manipulative game, for determined psycho-fanatics with gritted teeth and high endurance only.

And if I, who -loves- this game, thinks this, you can bet a whole SLEW of potential new players, who do NOT post on these boards, feel the same way.

-Goldenblack, who would be extremely unhappy if GGS were dropped in favor of a SLOWWER skill gain system.

P.S. I have respect for you all who have achieved things that many would not try to achieve, due to boredom, frustration, and discouragement, in days of slower skill gain. But I don't think the great hurdles of the game should be boring and discouraging ones--but rather exciting ones, where progress is substantial, and there is near-endless room for progress.

Goldenblack · May 5, 2003

There should NOT be a daily limit on anything. Stats should rise with complimentary skill use, at about the rate they presently do, IMO.

However, put an end to cooks gaining strength and lumberjacks earning intelligence, will ya?

That's a prime example of how things in the game don't bother to make logical sense, sometimes.

-Goldenblack

Guest · May 5, 2003

I agree with Grommit totally.
There are A LOT of great ideas in the Ideas Den and because the Devs don't post in there, a lot of us just think they are ignoring them and letting them slip off the board. But the Devs have "reassured" us that they do read them, still...

DrDolittle · May 5, 2003

<blockquote><hr>

Make The Work Continuously Rewarding. I think the GGS is close to Perfect.

<hr></blockquote>Not a flame, but I 100% disagree with that statement. GGS was the absolute worst thing that they could have done to make the work "continuously rewarding". At the higher levels it is not uncommon to work a skill for several hours and not see a gain. If one had a hour to play UO each evening then why would one choose to spend that hour on the chance that one might get a gain when GGS, allegedly, has one all ready and waiting for you the next day?

UO’s basic skill gain system is a broken bad idea. GGS is another broken and bad idea. Two broken and bad ideas hacked together do not a reasonable gain system make.

Burl · May 6, 2003

The thing is, I don't think what many are asking for is possible. When someone starts a new character, they do so with a certain goal in mind. Anything they do until that goal is realized will seem like drudgery. Killing orcs? Whaaa, I don't want to have to kill *orcs*! I want to kill *dragons*! The thing is, if you could kill dragons after a week of casual play they would *become* exactly like orcs. You would be saying 'ok, what's next?'.

Nobody *has* to stand in one place and do something over and over, we do it because all we care about is that origional goal that we had set, and we want to achieve it as quickly as possible. You can talk all you want about how that's not fun but here we are!

I often see people with fully developed characters who never see the light of day unless their services are needed to gather resources for some other 'developing' character. I find that funny, it's like, why are you training a tamer when you have a fully functional bard who owns every monster in the game?

I do agree with you that GGS is a good thing. It is a big psychological boost to get see at least some babysteps. I suppose that there may be some psychological tricks that may be used to make the experience more enjoyable, but it has nothing to do with development speed.
<blockquote><hr>

I know that if skill gain were any slower, I would not waste time playing such a rip-off of a mind-numbingly manipulative game, for determined psycho-fanatics with gritted teeth and high endurance only.

<hr></blockquote>
How slow is it? What is the unit of measurement? If it were slower, what would the consequences be? Would it simply change your in game goals? Maybe being a skill 75 swordsmen would be a real acheivement? Why is killing orcs less fun than killing dragons? Could it be because nearly anyone can kill an orc? I believe if you change the 'speed' at which characters develop, other aspects move in to exactly compensate, because we have no ruler to measure our accomplishments except that which we see other players do. The problem with speeding things up is that it makes everyone the same, which does take away any possibility of feeling that you've acheived something, and a great deal of the fun is taken away. This was very noticible during the days of power hour, and that's why power hour needed to be removed.

Anything worth doing is drudgery, it the very source of why this game is fun and why we play. I've played this game for years and I've hated every second of it. /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif

Discordia_EU · May 6, 2003

I only read about half the replies, so excuse me if i missed anything or repeat anything that already has been suggested.

"- 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 don't have problems with people macroing skills, as long as they don't hurt others with it. You SHOULD do something to prevent unattended macroing, maybe introduce more attractive skill gaining methods(like quests) to make it less tempting.
Should you eliminate 8x8? Dunno, never really used it. Best solution would be an enjoyable skill gain method that makes 8x8 unattractive. Funny thing that anti-macro-code is responsible for the most effective, most used skill-gain-method /php-bin/shared/images/icons/wink.gif

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

No way! Some skills are more rewarding than others.. i think the gain rates are ok as they are now... except for a few pretty useless skills.

"- For difficulty-based skills, what information do you need? If a task isn't hard enough for you, should it tell you that? "
Maybe the character should say something like "too easy" if (s)he can't gain from an action... but include an option to turn it off to avoid people complaining about spamming /php-bin/shared/images/icons/wink.gif For warrior skills i think there shouldn't be monsters that are too hard too gain from (too easy is ok though). If a new player is brave(dumb /php-bin/shared/images/icons/wink.gif) enough to hit a balron he goddamn well deserves a little chance to gain before his dirt nap *grins* Try to train a pet with about 0 tactics and you will know how frustrating this limit can be.

"- 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? "

Hm... maybe, maybe not... really not sure about it. A more exciting stat-gain method would be nice /php-bin/shared/images/icons/wink.gif

Guest · May 6, 2003

I read through the first 4 pages of this thread and have to leave now. So i don't know if someone else refered back to the post of DrDolittle on page 3 which is in my opinion by far the best proposal ever made.

<blockquote><hr>

In a use based system, one would accumulate a lower level "skill-credit" each time one used a skill. Once sufficient skill-credits were available, one would get a gain.

<hr></blockquote>

I completely support this "Work vs. Reward" Modell and hope it will not get lost in the many posts to this topic. Anyone who have not read it (and especialy Mr. Tact *smiles*) should look it up.

I would be more than glad if this would be implemented into UO.
Nothing more to add.
Kajethan

jcesare · May 6, 2003

I think one thing overlooked in this thread is that there have been major changes to skills but the cap has remained static. Power Scrolls eliminated the 7xGm and raised the indiviual skill cap. AoS created a bunch of new skills and nerfed others. Most skills are coupled so it becomes very difficult to try new things on an established character without taking drastic measure. For example Magery and EI and Med, Weapon Skill and Tactics and Anatomy, Music and Provoking and Discord and Peace, Animal Taming and Lore and Vet. This leaves very little room to try anything new without screwing up your template. Some skills have been redone and are of dubious value (Magic resist, Arms Lore) but people who have spent lots of time and effort to GM them are reluctant to drop them especially when the devs say they are "looking at making changes in the future." This basicly handicaps veteran players who have full templates. The "soulstone" concept needs to be looked into. There should be some way to "archive" skills and place them on a "holding" character. Maybe the vet reward cap needs to be doubled or the entire cap raised by 100. Im not sure what the solution is but I think a dialog on the subject is needed.

KyraMarie · May 6, 2003

Amen, I want to log and PLAY not to log and have to spent hrs a day building skills, I want an easier way to hain skill so it takes less time and gives me more time to PLAY and USE those skills the little time I have to play.

If I have only 1 hour of play time (due to rl responsabilities) I want to PLAY that hour, that will ne enough reward for me. All the "hard work" is a thing of the past with the jewerly. So for a lot of ppl than DON'T like that system, I'll ask for an easier way to raise skills.

Because of the long time training mules chars I closed 3 of my 8 accounts. And it will get worse for me is something is not done

Something to chew on while I'm gone

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