The Satyr's Sapphire Song

[Llewen]

So I'm in the Healer's Grove, taming great harts endlessly, when suddenly I get an inspiration. What if there was some item which lowered your skills across the board, to make training easier? You could make it difficult to get, perhaps the reward for a challenging quest chain. Make them earrings and call them the Satyr's Sapphire Song. What they do when you put them on is lower all your skills by 20, as if you were under the effects of a song of discord.

But if they become something you can buy from UO Game Codes, I will regret ever having made this suggestion...

 

[Viquire]

I like the fact that training and building suits is a thinking persons game. Make it too simple and it just doesn't mean anything anymore.

I think we may be too close to that already.

 

[Llewen]

One thing I would say is I would probably prefer if it worked exactly as a song of discordance in that every Song would have it's own random musicianship and discordance skills and the amount skills are lowered would be exactly as if you were under the effect of a song of discordance at those skill levels. Anyone who has ever trained using satyrs at The Wealde knows that it isn't an easy button to instant skill gain, but it does make the process take less time.

As long as acquiring them is a challenge, I don't have a problem with them speeding up skill gain somewhat. In the early days of UO skill training was a big part of the fun of the game, and for some it was the game itself. I don't think that is the case anymore. Skill training isn't something that many do for it's own sake. Skill training is something you go through so you can get to the heart of the game for most, whether it is pvp, or spawning, peerless, etc.

 

[kelmo]

I do know taste ID can not be trained above 75 with out some sort of work around... Just saying.

 

[Llewen]

I do know taste ID can not be trained above 75 with out some sort of work around... Just saying.

The same is true of chivalry above 115 skill.

 

[Viquire]

For some, the heart of the game is still building characters and relationships.

That said, somewhere there is code for the training statue, so lets say, maybe the item bound to character, and was usable for a limited time during the day.

Would you allow it to combine with actual satyr song? Or alacrity scrolls?

If you made it so that it activated to allow for a limited time benefit, and that was the only benefit available, and it only was active on dungeon servers, while fighting things that were neither too difficult nor too easy, maybe. But what a nightmare to code, eh?

 

[Llewen]

Well if it actually flagged you as being under the effect of a song of discordance, as it probably should, you wouldn't be able to stack discord effects. As for the rest, you can combine scrolls of alacrity etc. with the benefits of being under a song of discordance already.

 

[Aran]

So I'm in the Healer's Grove, taming great harts endlessly, when suddenly I get an inspiration. What if there was some item which lowered your skills across the board, to make training easier? You could make it difficult to get, perhaps the reward for a challenging quest chain. Make them earrings and call them the Satyr's Sapphire Song. What they do when you put them on is lower all your skills by 20, as if you were under the effects of a song of discord.

But if they become something you can buy from UO Game Codes, I will regret ever having made this suggestion...

Why not just go play Test Center if you need the game to be so easy?

 

[Llewen]

Do I even bother responding to someone whose sole purpose on this forum is to play the role of resident troll? Probably not...

Another option instead of making them the reward for a challenging quest chain is to make them craftable with the recipe being the reward from a challenging quest chain. This could put some of the unused ingredients from the Abyss to good use, such as the claw of that dude whose name escapes me at this moment...

edit: Slasher!

edit again: Or maybe, more appropriately, a rare ingredient you can only get off a paragon satyr. That might be fun. Singing sapphires anyone?

 

[Lady Storm]

It sounds like a nice idea.

Now I will say there are players out there that can race through training a new character in under a day or 2 and be 120 in no time at all. But thats the speed demon who has not a thing to do all day but wiz through UO like a mad man and forgoing life in the real world!

Lest we forget there are people who have maybe an hour a day free to play UO, unlike some of us who can play 24/7/365........

 

[Llewen]

Now I will say there are players out there that can race through training a new character in under a day or 2 and be 120 in no time at all. But thats the speed demon who has not a thing to do all day but wiz through UO like a mad man and forgoing life in the real world!

People who are training that fast are probably using scripts to train, or are training afk. One of the early developers of UO stated about the mess that UO got into in the early years with cheating, and rampant pk'ing and griefing, words to the effect that, "We didn't give the good guys the tools they needed to win the game." Well if something like this was combined with a crack down on scripted and afk skill training, it would indeed be, "Giving the good guys the tools they need to win the game."

 

[LadyNico]

It would make training ludicrously easy.

For such a boon, I would want to see an equally large element of risk.

How about each use/duration of use makes you freely attackable by all, open to thieves, and wholly lootable regardless of facet?

 

[MalagAste]

As someone who has used satyrs to train on NUMEROUS occasions .... I'm liking the idea.

With over 50 characters on GL's (my main shard) alone I really like the idea.

I'm CONTINUOUSLY training skills.

It would be very nice to speed up the process a bit more. Training Bushido over 110 can be a real bear.

Without satyrs I've 120'd the skill twice... after 9 years of working characters and working skills I think I am pretty familiar with how to gain and my characters. What I want now is to be able to use them and if that means getting a bit of help with skill training then SO BE IT.

There are MANY skills you can NOT work with Satyrs... Taming is one of them...

But really at this point in my game-play experience I seriously do not need to take 12 weeks to work up skills on a character.

You know when your young or new YES I do think it's important not only in learning HOW to play..... but getting a feel for your character and the game... to gain at the normal rate... and with hard work... but as a seasoned vet... not so much.

Perhaps this should be a 8 or 10 year vet reward??? And of course only usable by folk at least 8 years.... Maybe that's just my opinion.

 

[Llewen]

It would make training ludicrously easy.

For such a boon, I would want to see an equally large element of risk.

How about each use/duration of use makes you freely attackable by all, open to thieves, and wholly lootable regardless of facet?

I don't know if you've actually ever used satyrs to train any skills, but it doesn't make training "ludicrously easy". It speeds it up a bit, but not in a ridiculous way. Having said that, I could see making their use mean that you can be stolen from on any facet, anywhere. That would certainly make it less likely that they would be used by people training afk.

 

[Xalan Dementia]

skill training is already the easiest thing in the game, well i guess taming gets annoying but other skills are simple. no need for a portable training satyr

 

[mjolnir131]

It would make training ludicrously easy.

For such a boon, I would want to see an equally large element of risk.

How about each use/duration of use makes you freely attackable by all, open to thieves, and wholly lootable regardless of facet?

GREAT IDEA FOR FEL

 

[MalagAste]

It would make training ludicrously easy.

For such a boon, I would want to see an equally large element of risk.

How about each use/duration of use makes you freely attackable by all, open to thieves, and wholly lootable regardless of facet?

GREAT IDEA FOR FEL

*switches to sarcasm mode*

Oh YES lets make noobs more attackable because attacking noobs with low skills is fun, thrilling and challenging......

*end sarcasm mode*....... NOT.

Good grief does everything have to be OMG yes lets make it fel all over... because we can certainly see what a thrill fel is because it's SOOO overly popular that's were EVERYONE hangs out...

*rolls eyes*

 

[LadyNico]

I don't know if you've actually ever used satyrs to train any skills, but it doesn't make training "ludicrously easy". It speeds it up a bit, but not in a ridiculous way. Having said that, I could see making their use mean that you can be stolen from on any facet, anywhere. That would certainly make it less likely that they would be used by people training afk.

It's my own experience with satyr-hugging that prompted me to say I felt it would make training ludicrously easy.

I like the suggestion that it may be used by, say, accounts at least 10yrs or older.

Immediate gratification junkies will always find a way around the time required for natural skill gain, whether it's skill gain scrolls or simply purchasing a vet account old enough to qualify.

Thus, perhaps the Sapphire Song also attracts Thieves, who find they're able to use and train their Stealing skills on folks using it, even while the user may be in a Trammel ruleset facet.

 

[popps]

So I'm in the Healer's Grove, taming great harts endlessly, when suddenly I get an inspiration. What if there was some item which lowered your skills across the board, to make training easier?

We have them already............... PINK and BLUE scrolls.....

Do we really need MORE besides SOTs and Alacrity scrolls to make gaining skills even more a joke in this game ?

No thanks.

 

[red sky]

This sounds too easy. Something like a daily power hour like in the old days (which would encourage people to log on every day) might be feasible. Or spice up fel considering most don't fight over champs as much by implementing something like the blackrock skill gain areas. These areas could be fought over much like spawns except you would be fighting for a chance to get large skill gains instead of power scrolls.

 

[Atheryn]

On one hand, I like the idea - but on the other, an item that discords all skills would make skill training just too easy, especially for skills that can't be trained by using the satyr trick - such as blacksmithy and imbuing.

If they were to impliment a -skill item, it should probably be more restricted. Perhaps the earrings would spawn with a single random -skill at a random value - so you might find a set of earrings with Tinkering -22, or Provocation -19, etc. This, combined with a low drop-rate, and possibly a time or charge limitation on the -skill effect, would at least preserve the value of those skills that are otherwise difficult and expensive to train.

I'm all for making skill-training easier, but I think the ripple effects of making skills like blacksmithy cheaper, easier and faster to train would be damaging to the game.

 

[Surgeries]

On one hand, I like the idea - but on the other, an item that discords all skills would make skill training just too easy, especially for skills that can't be trained by using the satyr trick - such as blacksmithy and imbuing.

If they were to impliment a -skill item, it should probably be more restricted. Perhaps the earrings would spawn with a single random -skill at a random value - so you might find a set of earrings with Tinkering -22, or Provocation -19, etc. This, combined with a low drop-rate, and possibly a time or charge limitation on the -skill effect, would at least preserve the value of those skills that are otherwise difficult and expensive to train.

I'm all for making skill-training easier, but I think the ripple effects of making skills like blacksmithy cheaper, easier and faster to train would be damaging to the game.

Perhaps they ONLY work when a person is in Combat? I am thinking out loud here...which is always dangerous...but since a person can never have the "Satyr Experience" EXCEPT when in battle with a Satyr...which can also be dangerous...

If a skill item afforded the same advantage, then perhaps, as you say, a representative amount of peril on the other side would balance out the abilities it affords?

My .65 cents for the day.