Thank you very much for the feedback about the state of some of the Virtues. I'm not going to get into many specifics here, but if you'd like to be involved in the early testing of some of the new Virtue systems, feel free to join the focus group, where we'll be giving early access to them.@Kyronix
Since it's been said the Virtue System will be completed with the upcoming expansion, I thought it would be a good idea to review the existing Virtues for weaknesses and ways to keep them relevant with today's metrics.
Keep in mind that having Knight in all the Virtues will, I believe, confer an additional reward on top of those already earned. I'm hoping the reward for "Avatarhood" is decently enticing...
The Virtues, being a core concept of the Ultima series, should be as approachable as possible to as many character types as possible...even if the reason for their gaining a Virtue is just for an RP purpose. Right now, too many of the Virtues are geared almost solely for Felucca play, even though the majority of players rarely go there.
My desire IS NOT to strip away their original Fel-based reward mechanics, but to get a good discussion going about how to expand them to have relevance for more playstyles.
Compassion-
This is probably the most well-crafted of the Virtues, with a thematically appropriate reward and many ways to gain points.
Ways to gain:
- Escorts quests
- Prisoner Quests
- Water Purifier Quest (Solen Hive)
- Compassion Sage
Reward:
20/40/80% of max hit points automatically restored to target of resurrection via magery or healing.
Grind Level:
Low to Medium
Ways to improve:
- Bump up the Compassion Sage drop rate to be less grindy
- Remove the 5 daily escort limit *
Honor-
This Virtue is decent, though can be rather difficult to gain for ranged and magic users due to the distance requirement. (A mage who can go toe-to-toe with most of the large mobs is rare.)
Ways to gain:
"Honorable Combat" with high-fame mobs.
Grind Level:
High
Rewards:
Ability to move amongst hostile mobs for a period of time.
Perfection and Honorable Execution bonus with Bushido.
Ways to improve:
- Simplify "Honorable Combat" to be fairer to ranged and magic users. (They're presently at a disadvantage)
- Give a decent amount of Honor points to those who compete in arena duels, capped per day.
Valor-
This Virtue is too narrowly targeted, being rather pointless to anyone who doesn't work Champion Spawns.
Ways to gain:
Killing mobs in Champion Spawn regions.
Grind Level:
Low to Medium
Reward:
Ability to activate (in Felucca) or advance a Champion Altar.
Ways to improve:
Sacrifice-
- Give a decent amount of Valor points to those who compete in arena duels, capped per day.
- Give a small innate amount of DCI or HCI to each path (or some other combat-related stat) to broaden appeal.
This Virtue is relatively easy to gain and has a very useful reward. However, it would be nice if there were more non-combat methods to gain points.
Ways to gain:
Grind Level:
- Sacrificing Great or better levels of fame to mobs to order to redeem them.
- Grizelda the Hag's moonfire brew quest
Medium to High
Reward:
The ability to self-resurrect with all of your unlooted belongings in your pack.
Ways to improve:
- More non-combat related methods to gain.
- Giving blood at a healers (taken directly from Ultima IV)
- Tithing to a Shrine, or specifically to the Shrine of Sacrifice
- Giving food/gold to NPCs in Paws or to peasants and beggars in cities
- Remove the once daily limit on sacrificing fame *
Justice-
Another Virtue with a far too narrow focus, part of the failed carrot-on-a-stick method to lure people to Felucca. However, the reward is rather lucrative.
Keeping it a Felucca-only Virtue makes little sense with the present distribution of players and ease in acquiring forged pardons and forged royal pardons.
Ways to gain:
Killing murderers in Felucca
Grind Level:
Medium to High
Reward:
60/80/100% chance for a Protector to receive a Scroll of Power when a protectee receives one during a Champion Spawn.
Ways to improve:
- Additional ways to gain Justice points outside of Felucca, while keeping killing murderers the top point earner.
- Killing brigand and raider NPCs at the brigand fort west of Britain.
- Rescuing prisoners from their captors (re-enable brigand camp spawns)
- Add the ability to keep a small number of random uninsured items when killed to broaden appeal. (This is just an example, but it should also have a non-pvp-related reward.)
Honesty-
This Virtue feels somewhat quickly kludged together and then forgotten. It is currently a serious grind that rapidly gets annoying/boring. The reward is only marginally useful on large purchases such as High Seas ships or taxidermy kits. (Note: I have currently have knighted Honesty on three characters...but I know of NO other players, aside from Frarc (when it was introduced), that have bothered)
Ways to gain:
Turning in "Lost Items" found around Britannia. Returning the item to the appropriate NPC receives the most points.
Grind Level:
Ridiculous
Reward:
10/20/30% discount on NPC purchases.
Ways to improve:
- DRAMATICALLY increase the lost item spawn rate. The current level couldn't possibly meet the demand should multiple people grind for points.
- Have most of the lost items spawn in logical places instead of the current completely random method.
- I would suggest static spawns around the land's tourist attractions (shrines, dungeon entrances, hedgemaze, moongates, etc.) and along roads.
- Create heirloom lost items that spawn in dungeons (on mobs and in containers) which give significantly more points when returned to the correct NPC.
- Create a Census Official NPC in each city that can be paid a fee to give the general location of an items owner (name must be manually provided by the player)
- Add a button to NPC shopkeeper's menu to toggle the discount (sometimes it's simply not worth the point loss to make a purchase)
- Give the standard explicit system message stating point gains.
Ways to improve the Virtue System overall:
- Enable the ability to see other player's Virtue gumps in the Enhanced Client
- More quests in Britannia should award thematically appropriate Virtue points.
- Each virtue should have a consumable that gives a boost commensurate with Compassion Sage obtained from an appropriate source, useable once a day.
- Consider allowing cooks/alchemists the ability to craft the consumables after a recipe quest and attaining Follower in given Virtue.
- EMs should have methods for awarding Virtue points when thematically appropriate.
- Add this as something gained when killing their mobs, a 100% everyone "drop" for doing any damage to one of their boss mobs, walking through an EM moongate, or a 1-use-per-account clicky (or all methods for variety).
- Add a method to gain some amount of Virtue points when physically visiting a Shrine.
- I would suggest reusing the city unrest trash code and the monster attack code from The Darkness (Candle of Love) quest chain so people can "cleanse" the shrines (picking up periodically spawning trash and clearing randomly spawning, specific mini-invasion mobs (think Ambushers)).
- Give title choices to those who have Knighted Virtue
- i.e. 'Knight of Compassion,' 'the Virtuous'
- Add title for those who Knight all the Virtues associated with a specific Principle, 'the Loving,' the Courageous,' 'the Truthful.'
- * Removing the daily gain caps on Compassion and Sacrifice's main gain methods for those who willingly want to grind them (In view of the fact that the other gain-un-capped Virtues can have a direct impact on shard economies, capping the two related to actual gameplay seems...odd.)
I'd like to hear the rough outline plans for Spirituality and Humility before they're set in stone so we have a chance to comment and make suggestions. I'd like to know the concerns over the obvious confusion regarding the difference between humility and humiliation, a la the Virtuebane banishment event, have been acknowledged. (Humble Pie is an expression for apologizing and facing humiliation for an error, which is only humility if you squint real hard...)
At this point in the cycle we also won't be revisiting any of the existing virtues. I understand some may have lost their relevance since their original introduction, but there simply isn't time at this point. That doesn't mean we won't take your feedback into consideration when the schedule permits such a revisit. We also are still "concepting" what happens when you Knight in every Virtue. When we implement that, it may be a good time to revisit some of the issues you've pointed out with the existing Virtues. Not promising anything, just giving some context how various features make it into the publish schedule.
As far as your feedback on the existing Virtues, I wasn't on the team when the Virtuebane event was done so I can't say what the impetus was behind the decision for the pie. I did have an interesting conversation with more than a couple people at the 15th Anniversary Party some years ago who did the Honesty content to take advantage of reduced vendor prices, something they especially enjoyed.
I think sometimes people are quick to think that their immediate circle of friends, playmates or forum buddies represent the pervasiveness of a feature game wide. The fact of the matter is that all of us are just a small part of a much larger community, that despite reports to the contrary, is as vibrant as ever. That being said, making existing content more attractive with small tweaks is something that is an easy win for us, and is only easier with excellent feedback like you've provided.
I also think that we are sometimes too quick to call something a grind. Finding a balance between replay ability and reducing the "grindy feel" is an extraordinarily challenging task. UO is an MMO after all, a virtual world in which you live. Take Honor for example, I don't think it's fair to call the method of gain for Honor a "grind" when at it's really just an added step during normal combat, with a movement restriction. I can see the concerns with Archers/Mages, but they also get the benefit of kiting mobs where as melee classes do not. Repeating the same task in order to maximize the reward of course is going to get boring and give that "grindy" feel, there is, however, only so much we can do to make it fee varied. Keeping that variety within playtime is just as much up to the player as the design itself.
Thanks again for the feedback!