NEWS [UO.Com] Ask & Answer No. 16

[UO News]

From the Devs
2013 Mar 05 22:27 GMT
It is time for another Ask and Answer and our developers have answered another set of your excellent questions. Keep them coming!

UO Mania​

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Is there a cap for "Clean up Britannia" points? (ake)​

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Kyronix: Yes, the cap is at 10,000,000 points​

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The bankbox is overflowing on Test Center. Could we have more specific commands, for example "give black pearls"? (clorenz )​

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Kyronix: There are no plans to change how the bank boxes are filled on TC. When certain situations dictate we give specific materials (like the armor refinements) utilizing other methods of delivery.​

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UO Japan​

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Please add wine racks that store bottles of wine. I want to see my bottles laid in the rack. (Nickname: s)​

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Kyronix: This is a good idea, you never know when you might see this in game =)​

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Please make the glass/snow tiles and the Thanksgiving foods stackable. (Ageha)​

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Kyronix: When time allows we can make additional items stackable. We can add grass and snow tiles as well as the foods to the list.​

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UO Forum​

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Dealing with the Mythic site is a nightmare. Simple tasks are blown up in to major ordeals. With no phone support and lackluster online support, its driving off players that are new, returning and veteran. Are there any plans to fix this? (Quintus Batiatus)​

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Mesanna: No one is going to disagree with your statement it is difficult to understand. But a step by step guide was made to help guide people thru this difficult procedure. Along with all the helpful players most people can get the answers they need to get thru this. The only other thing I can think of to maybe help is to do a step 1, step 2, step 3 guide of a how to guide. If you feel this would be helpful please let me know.​

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UO Stratics​

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Can you provide a list of UO skills ranked in order by how resistant each skill is to decay? The list of skills at the bottom of this post is one I copied from an old fan site and supposedly lists the skills in order from easiest to decay to hardest to decay, but I have no idea how accurate it is. It is also missing several skills (i.e., Bushido, Chivalry, Discordance, Focus, Imbuing, Mysticism, Necromancy, Ninjitsu, Spellweaving, Stealing, and Throwing).​

Can you confirm whether it is true that if you are trying to gain in a skill that decays easier than a skill you have turned down to let it decay, your gains will be slower and in some cases stop altogether?​

Can you also explain how the game decides which skill to decay when multiple skills are turned down, your character is at its overall skill cap and then gets a gain in a skill that is turned up but not yet capped?​

Here is the old list of skills referenced in the first paragraph above, supposedly ranked in order from easiest to decay to hardest to decay.​

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Alchemy​

Anatomy​

Animal Lore​

Item ID​

Arms Lore​

Parrying​

Begging​

Blacksmithy​

Fletching​

Peacemaking​

Camping​

Carpentry​

CartographyCooking​

Detecting Hidden​

Evaluating Intelligence​

Healing​

Fishing​

Forensic Evaluation​

Herding​

Hiding​

Provocation​

Inscription​

Lockpicking​

Magery​

Resisting Spells​

Tactics​

Snooping​

Musicianship​

Poisoning​

Archery​

Spirit Speak​

Tailoring​

Animal Taming​

Taste Identification​

Tinkering​

Tracking​

Veterinary​

Swordsmanship​

Mace Fighting​

Fencing​

Wrestling​

Lumberjacking​

Mining​

Meditation​

Stealth​

Remove Trap​

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Thanks!(Tina Small)​

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Mesanna: Due to the fact its really easy to adjust the gains and lose of points in UO why would we need to worry about what the decay rate is?​

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I have currently found something that could use a good updating there are a number of things that dont appear or 1 that apears wrong on your buffs debuffs bar. here are some examples​

1. criminal status-if you're red or grey you have no way of knowing
2. combat Status-currently no way of knowing is you are still engaged
3. invis pot - currently has same icon as hiding where should be like the spell (non perm) (ReaperNI)

For those who want to engage in the game as a rogue or similar character, would it be possible in a future publish to have your criminal status shown in your buffs and debuffs display. Because lets face the inability to recall or gate is a definite debuff. (Whitestar4016)

(supplementary information. There is a 'criminal act' debuff icon, but it only triggers if an npc notices the crime (stealing), and not at all in Exodus dungeon, It also has no timer. Inability to recall is not dependent on the crime being noticed. - Petra)​

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Bleak: Publish 80 added the criminal status and heat of battle debuff icons which provide most of the requested information above. We will look to add more cases where the criminal status debuff icon is applied in a future publish. The invisibility potion will be properly updated as well.​

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Will it ever be possible to craft or imbue Fey slayer on a weapon?..Good reason to keep the fey wings from Abyss... (T-Hunt)​

Mesanna: I agree, look for it in a future publish​

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I really like the Ankh Pendant and I use it on several of my characters, however it means I must sacrifice properties for that equipment slot.​

Is there any chance the Ankh Pendant might be made Imbuable? It would of course lose its Blessed property in the process. (Fink)​

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Mesanna: This would only benefit the gargoyles, I don’t feel it would be fair for only one race to be able to get this.​

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A. Is it possible to have a trash chest at the queen's soulforge? (Ivory Norwind)​

B. Would it be possible for our candles blessed by love to have a flame?(Falseprophet)​

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Mesanna: Yes its possible to get a trash chest at the quests soul forge. As far as the candle it seems that when the art was done for that the animation was not done. This would have to be added in the future but I can not promise you when.​

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Remember; If you have something you want to know about Ultima Online and the team, post your questions on your fansite. All interesting questions will be collected and sent to our team, so we can continue to answer them.
en

Continue reading...

 

[Lady Silverbrook]

i no longer play UO but I still read up a bit here and there. Its nice to see that the UO Team has continued to put these out and not drop the ball.

 

[Merus]

I really like the Ankh Pendant and I use it on several of my characters, however it means I must sacrifice properties for that equipment slot.
Is there any chance the Ankh Pendant might be made Imbuable? It would of course lose its Blessed property in the process. (Fink)
Mesanna: This would only benefit the gargoyles, I don’t feel it would be fair for only one race to be able to get this.

Since when are gargoyles the only ones who can wear an Ankh Pendant? And this from the UO PRODUCER

 

[CovenantX]

I'm pretty sure this should have been, Ask & Answer no. 16

 

[Tina Small]

I deleted my previous response because someone probably would have found it just another excuse to rip me to shreds here. So I'll just restrict myself to saying I'm disappointed with Mesanna's reply to my question. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt, however, and just walk away assuming she's super-busy and just didn't think the question was worth any more time than the time it took her to type her reply.

 

[MrMightySmith]

I think that the decay rate for a skill is just for the decay rate. If i have 10 points in all the skills and try to raise a skill the system just has a order in which each skills are reduced with all things being equal. Picture the equation like this, your raising taming and you get a .1 skill gain. If Alchemy was the EASIEST skill to decay it just loses .1 first. And if you have no alchemy then anatomy is next. I think there just separate formulas with no connection to each other. How would the game know if Anatomy is the easiest skill that decays when your taming? When the taming skill gain point is obtained thats when the game decides where to take the .1 away if you at the skill cap. And for the most part skill decay in UO was not present when i played uo at all and that was late 99/00, but i do recall that when the game started that over time you would lose skill points but i think that was taken out rather quickly. I mean skills dont even technically decay in the game, they only go down you either gain another skill or remove them your selves.

 

[flappy6]

they prolly dont know the answer,not that they should its such a detailed thing that was prolly put in place long before they stepped into the room,

 

[Tanivar]

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I guess the heart of my question was overlooked and is never going to be answered: "Can you confirm whether it is true that if you are trying to gain in a skill that decays easier than a skill you have turned down to let it decay, your gains will be slower and in some cases stop altogether?" ​

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Years back the rate of skill decay could be dramatically improved by shifting unwanted skill points to Alchemy or Animal Lore using the NPC trainers, then training the desired skill. Without a doubt, there were skills that did a good imitation of the fabled death sloth in frozen molasses at times unless this was done. Just visit the NPCs and train some Alchemy or Animal Lore as needed unless your on Siege or Mugen and effectively SOL.

 

[Lord Frodo]

I deleted my previous response because someone probably would have found it just another excuse to rip me to shreds here. So I'll just restrict myself to saying I'm disappointed with Mesanna's reply to my question. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt, however, and just walk away assuming she's super-busy and just didn't think the question was worth any more time than the time it took her to type her reply.

I think that the decay rate for a skill is just for the decay rate. If i have 10 points in all the skills and try to raise a skill the system just has a order in which each skills are reduced with all things being equal. Picture the equation like this, your raising taming and you get a .1 skill gain. If Alchemy was the EASIEST skill to decay it just loses .1 first. And if you have no alchemy then anatomy is next. I think there just separate formulas with no connection to each other. How would the game know if Anatomy is the easiest skill that decays when your taming? When the taming skill gain point is obtained thats when the game decides where to take the .1 away if you at the skill cap. And for the most part skill decay in UO was not present when i played uo at all and that was late 99/00, but i do recall that when the game started that over time you would lose skill points but i think that was taken out rather quickly. I mean skills dont even technically decay in the game, they only go down you either gain another skill or remove them your selves.

they prolly dont know the answer,not that they should its such a detailed thing that was prolly put in place long before they stepped into the room,

Years back the rate of skill decay could be dramatically improved by shifting unwanted skill points to Alchemy or Animal Lore using the NPC trainers, then training the desired skill. Without a doubt, there were skills that did a good imitation of the fabled death sloth in frozen molasses at times unless this was done. Just visit the NPCs and train some Alchemy or Animal Lore as needed unless your on Siege or Mugen and effectively SOL.

There use to be a page here on UOStratics (pre UOStratics2), maybe a MOD could find it. If I remember right it was in the Skill Training section. You can also use a Soulstone, Soulstone Frag or a crafted one. Just xfer skill to stone and then wipe it, does not use any charges to do this.

 

[KLOMP]

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UO Forum​

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Dealing with the Mythic site is a nightmare. Simple tasks are blown up in to major ordeals. With no phone support and lackluster online support, its driving off players that are new, returning and veteran. Are there any plans to fix this? (Quintus Batiatus)​

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Mesanna: No one is going to disagree with your statement it is difficult to understand. But a step by step guide was made to help guide people thru this difficult procedure. Along with all the helpful players most people can get the answers they need to get thru this. The only other thing I can think of to maybe help is to do a step 1, step 2, step 3 guide of a how to guide. If you feel this would be helpful please let me know.​

That stupid guide throws around terms like "Mythic Master Account" as if we know WTF they mean. I still don't know what a Mythic Master Account is, or how it's different from an EA Account, or if I have one, or where my UO account fits into this. I did some voodoo to make my UO work and ever since I have only touched the billing system when absolutely necessary.

Your guide needs to be rewritten from the perspective of "I haven't played UO since before the new system, I don't remember any terminology, and hey what is all this?"

 

[claudia-fjp]

I really like the Ankh Pendant and I use it on several of my characters, however it means I must sacrifice properties for that equipment slot.
Is there any chance the Ankh Pendant might be made Imbuable? It would of course lose its Blessed property in the process. (Fink)
Mesanna: This would only benefit the gargoyles, I don’t feel it would be fair for only one race to be able to get this.

Since when are gargoyles the only ones who can wear an Ankh Pendant? And this from the UO PRODUCER

It's even funnier when you take into consideration she WEARS an Ankh Pendant on her human character...

 

[Cetric]

What Mesanna was probably referring to, is only gargs have craftable IMBUABLE - therefore, useful... necklaces. Humans do not.

it wouldnt hurt really to have a craftable human necklace... but i think the question just got read into wrong.

 

[Merus]

What Mesanna was probably referring to, is only gargs have craftable IMBUABLE - therefore, useful... necklaces. Humans do not.

it wouldnt hurt really to have a craftable human necklace... but i think the question just got read into wrong.

Pendant of the Magi... I know its not imbuable, but its still a necklace slot with properties... and it isn't the only one. Got read wrong is polite... lazy... another, but uninformed is a shame from our UO Producer. What a sloppy effort for something that is being posted on the game website!

 

[Luvmylace]

UO Japan

Please add wine racks that store bottles of wine. I want to see my bottles laid in the rack. (Nickname: s)

Kyronix: This is a good idea, you never know when you might see this in game =)

Please make the glass/snow tiles and the Thanksgiving foods stackable. (Ageha)

Kyronix: When time allows we can make additional items stackable. We can add grass and snow tiles as well as the foods to the list.


US shards would love to get yes answers as quick as they do

 

[Lore Denin (GL)]

Glad I wasn't the only one thrown by the Ankh Pendent answer, I was thinking there was a a bug that allowed Garg's to somehow double stack an ankh pendent with a Garg necklace.... I tested and no its not possible so yeah agree the question was misunderstood...

I deleted my previous response because someone probably would have found it just another excuse to rip me to shreds here. So I'll just restrict myself to saying I'm disappointed with Mesanna's reply to my question. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt, however, and just walk away assuming she's super-busy and just didn't think the question was worth any more time than the time it took her to type her reply.

Also to Tina I aboslutely understand where you are coming from and maybe this will help.... I think currently there is a forced decay so that gaining a point in any skill will not be limited to what skill is turned down. That has been my experience....

If I wanted to train Focus (fast) but had to turn down a slow decay skill Remove Trap, my skill gain would not be limited to the slow rate of Trap removal decay as the forced decay of raising my skills would override the slow decay of the Remove Trap skill....

Though we could give it a try on Test to see if you really do gain more slowly if the skill turned down is slow decay.

 

[Spiritless]

I think it's pretty obvious you've failed if you need to refer people to a GUIDE on how to use a website or make/merge accounts. How ridiculous. It should be self explanatory; in no other game have I had to read a guide to administrate my account.

 

[Spiritless]

I deleted my previous response because someone probably would have found it just another excuse to rip me to shreds here. So I'll just restrict myself to saying I'm disappointed with Mesanna's reply to my question. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt, however, and just walk away assuming she's super-busy and just didn't think the question was worth any more time than the time it took her to type her reply.

I don't think she understood your question, tbh. But quite frankly I think it could have been worded a lot better than you did. Presenting her with a 250 word mini-essay and a huge list of skills which was largely irrelevant didn't exactly promote clarity.

Just saying.

 

[Pawain]

I really like the Ankh Pendant and I use it on several of my characters, however it means I must sacrifice properties for that equipment slot.
Is there any chance the Ankh Pendant might be made Imbuable? It would of course lose its Blessed property in the process. (Fink)
Mesanna: This would only benefit the gargoyles, I don’t feel it would be fair for only one race to be able to get this.

Since when are gargoyles the only ones who can wear an Ankh Pendant? And this from the UO PRODUCER

I dont imbue so I could be wrong. From responces here, it seems only garg necklaces can be imbued. Maybe if the ankh was made imbuable it would turn into a garg necklace.

 

[Picus of Napa]

I don't think she understood your question, tbh. But quite frankly I think it could have been worded a lot better than you did. Presenting her with a 250 word mini-essay and a huge list of skills which was largely irrelevant didn't exactly promote clarity.

Just saying.

She says that she has played the game for a decade. Without reading more than 5 words of what tina wrote I knew exactly what she was asking and why she presented a list. It's called playing all aspects of the game, I'd think the producer should know this simple stuff.

 

[Logrus]

Tina Small
Regarding decay, I would guess its a pretty simple explanation. The game probably just lowers the first one in the skill list which is pointed down.
The list isnt necessarily alphabetical and so skills like chiv and necro that were added later in the game would probably before or after something like alchemy depending on which way it reads the list first to last or last to first.

 

[Lord Frodo]

Tina Small
Regarding decay, I would guess its a pretty simple explanation. The game probably just lowers the first one in the skill list which is pointed down.
The list isnt necessarily alphabetical and so skills like chiv and necro that were added later in the game would probably before or after something like alchemy depending on which way it reads the list first to last or last to first.

There use to be a list on UOStratics and I think old UO.com of which skill would decay first, it didn't matter what skill you were training. At 700/720 skill points it was used by many when training harder skills to go buy one of the the easy decay skill to lower a harder decay skill. Not sure if it was intended or not but it did appear to make the harder skills to train to go faster. Did the new GGS do away with this?

 

[G.v.P]

Please make the glass/snow tiles and the Thanksgiving foods stackable. (Ageha)
Kyronix: When time allows we can make additional items stackable. We can add grass and snow tiles as well as the foods to the list.

Grass/snow stackable, now, please. lol

Can you provide a list of UO skills ranked in order by how resistant each skill is to decay?
[...] Thanks!(Tina Small)
Mesanna: Due to the fact its really easy to adjust the gains and lose of points in UO why would we need to worry about what the decay rate is?

Why would you guys pick this question out then not give any answer? lol

Will it ever be possible to craft or imbue Fey slayer on a weapon?..Good reason to keep the fey wings from Abyss... (T-Hunt)
Mesanna: I agree, look for it in a future publish

Yay. Now we won't have to ever use artifacts with Fey slayer again.

I really like the Ankh Pendant and I use it on several of my characters, however it means I must sacrifice properties for that equipment slot. Is there any chance the Ankh Pendant might be made Imbuable? It would of course lose its Blessed property in the process. (Fink)
Mesanna: This would only benefit the gargoyles, I don’t feel it would be fair for only one race to be able to get this.

Dude. It's a human/elf necklace. How would it only benefit gargs? Are you forgetting the Pendant of the Magi?

 

[Cetric]

i dont have a fricken clue what this talk about decay skills is and i've played for 14 years or something. If i need to point a skill down i point it down, if i have two skills i point one down, buy up skill until its at the level i need, and then go to the other one.

wow.

I've never experienced any sort of "skills raising slower depending on what is pointed down" either.

 

[Viper09]

i dont have a fricken clue what this talk about decay skills is and i've played for 14 years or something. If i need to point a skill down i point it down, if i have two skills i point one down, buy up skill until its at the level i need, and then go to the other one.

wow.

I've never experienced any sort of "skills raising slower depending on what is pointed down" either.

Took the words right out of my mouth (so to speak). The answer they provided makes sense. Why should we worry about which skill is going to decay? If we don't want a certain skill to decay when training another, either lock it or set it to go up. We have complete control over this aspect now.

 

[Spiritless]

She says that she has played the game for a decade. Without reading more than 5 words of what tina wrote I knew exactly what she was asking and why she presented a list. It's called playing all aspects of the game, I'd think the producer should know this simple stuff.

I think as evidenced by the responses above by other veteran players, you are perhaps overestimating how widespread this knowledge was and people's recollection of such.

For what it's worth, I do think this disappeared around AoS and the response given and my own personal experience kind of suggests that skills have equal, or no,"resistance" to decay these days. I think a similar mechanic that makes it harder to gain skills on the whole as your overall skill points increases still remains, though.

 

[Gospel]

Good thinking guys! Piss and moan about how the dev team never communicates, and when they do, piss and moan about what they say and pick it apart while insulting their intelligence.

Kinda makes me wonder who the real idiots are.

Someone tell me again how UO's greatest strength is its community. Well done.

 

[HP_Zoro_HP]

I think it's pretty obvious you've failed if you need to refer people to a GUIDE on how to use a website or make/merge accounts. How ridiculous. It should be self explanatory; in no other game have I had to read a guide to administrate my account.

was going to reply and say something but its pointless . I do agree with you though. But due to favoratism i've decided not to voice my opinion.

 

[HP_Zoro_HP]

Good thinking guys! Piss and moan about how the dev team never communicates, and when they do, piss and moan about what they say and pick it apart while insulting their intelligence.

Kinda makes me wonder who the real idiots are.

Someone tell me again how UO's greatest strength is its community. Well done.

because without the community that you are flagrantly refering to as "idiots" (not refering to the paid staff) there wouldn't be a UO? Sure they help produce/develop the game but without these "idiots" they would be twiddling their thumbs at "the desk".

 

[Viper09]

was going to reply and say something but its pointless . I do agree with you though. But due to favoratism i've decided not to voice my opinion.

Favoritism? Oh dear... Just voice it for crying out loud. People already have conflicting opinions on every single topic, why let your belief in favoritism get in the way of speaking your mind?

 

[Gospel]

because without the community that you are flagrantly refering to as "idiots" (not refering to the paid staff) there wouldn't be a UO? Sure they help produce/develop the game but without these "idiots" they would be twiddling their thumbs at "the desk".

And that gives people the right to insult developers? Interesting perspective, but if you have a point you failed to make it clear.

 

[Petra Fyde]

Everyone is entitled to express an opinion. It's HOW you express it that causes problems.
Personal attacks are unacceptable, whether against the dev team or other posters.
Please keep your posts courteous.

 

[Warpig Inc]

Wipe skills using the soulstone's store/clear ability. Then store few skills already done and train in desired skill. Lower skill total makes you look more desperate for gains.

Forgot the Luck Necklace

 

[KLOMP]

Been playing since T2A. No idea what all that "skill decay" talk was about.

On another note, it fills me with a delightful sense of the commonality of all mankind to think that in faraway Japan, a person whose life, culture, and outlook are very different from mine is nevertheless sitting in front of a computer, listening to that little UO chest squeak, and thinking "GOD WHY DOESN'T THIS ****ING **** STACK?!"

It's like we're all the same.

 

[claudia-fjp]

Tinkered Necklaces, Lucky Necklace, Ankh Pendant, Pendant of the Magi, Gorgets, Mempos etc basically the NECK SLOT. All races have NECKS, its the same slot. Now most people use the the slot for armor or Pendant of the Magi since they have mods and you really screw yourself if you want to use the slot for something like a necklace or ankh. So the question is "hey can we imbue our ankhs with mods" may be taken even further to give tinkering some love via crafted necklaces and ankhs with resists and imbuable.

 

[Dag Nabbit]

I really like the Ankh Pendant and I use it on several of my characters, however it means I must sacrifice properties for that equipment slot.
Is there any chance the Ankh Pendant might be made Imbuable? It would of course lose its Blessed property in the process. (Fink)

Mesanna: This would only benefit the gargoyles, I don’t feel it would be fair for only one race to be able to get this.

I do not understand this answer. How would it only benefit gargoyles? Anyone can equip the ankh pendant.

 

[Aurelius]

Good thinking guys! Piss and moan about how the dev team never communicates, and when they do, piss and moan about what they say and pick it apart while insulting their intelligence.

Kinda makes me wonder who the real idiots are.

Someone tell me again how UO's greatest strength is its community. Well done.

There's no place for rude comments - but despite your one suggesting we are the 'idiots', I also suggest there's no space for calling things 'communication' when they are often just misunderstood, poorly explained or outright irrelevant 'non-answers'. The replies to questions we raise frequently seem to be rushed out as part of the work of an already overloaded person who is not getting chance to think through what is being asked, or construct a genuinely useful answer.

Communication is two way - we're getting closer to it than we have been for a long time, but there are still problems......

 

[Ron Silverbeard]

FTW!!!

 

[Warpig Inc]

Now you know they wont make wine racks stack.

 

[IanJames]

I have to say that I'm pretty put off by the answer regarding the account management. If it's so complicated that anyone has to write a guide for how to do it, then it should be redesigned. It needs to be easy enough for people signing up or coming back to just be able to do it. It's a hassle, and it's stupid, and the design of it probably has nothing to do with the UO Devs, but the answer to the question is condescending and provocative at best.

About the decay, I never even knew about that, so it's an interesting question. I just wonder if they didn't really understand the question from Tina.

 

[cazador]

Wine racks will only benefit the UOPixel Lushes I vote NO..unless I can earn a sobriety chip by keeping my wine rack empty..

 

[Petra Fyde]

That stupid guide throws around terms like "Mythic Master Account" as if we know WTF they mean. I still don't know what a Mythic Master Account is, or how it's different from an EA Account, or if I have one, or where my UO account fits into this. I did some voodoo to make my UO work and ever since I have only touched the billing system when absolutely necessary.

Your guide needs to be rewritten from the perspective of "I haven't played UO since before the new system, I don't remember any terminology, and hey what is all this?"

from this page: http://uo.com/Ive-logged-Account-Management-page-now-what-do-I-do

Note for Ultima Online accounts: You have been assigned a Mythic Master Account. It is your Game Account with ‘_uo’ added. (If your Game Account is called “myaccount” your Mythic Master Account will be “myaccount_UO”.)

 

[Storm]

FTW!!!

View attachment 12946

I dont know but I like that wine Rack

 

[imported_Falon of Eldor]

I deleted my previous response because someone probably would have found it just another excuse to rip me to shreds here. So I'll just restrict myself to saying I'm disappointed with Mesanna's reply to my question. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt, however, and just walk away assuming she's super-busy and just didn't think the question was worth any more time than the time it took her to type her reply.

(Remebers at one time reading that some skills were easier to lose...)

Your question is something that has been on mind since i started training imbuing and to raise the skill, it has to deduct from two other skills i have set to decrease. I am not getting gains like i should and i think its because of those other skills. Soulstones are all full so i can't just wipe those two skills.

Thank you for your question Tina and I hope Mesanna reflects a little more on it. *bows low*


Thanks Warpig (below)....But there are only like 20 points each in each skill...i cant eat a full stone as it is to wipe those few points.

 

[Gorbs]

Took the words right out of my mouth (so to speak). The answer they provided makes sense. Why should we worry about which skill is going to decay? If we don't want a certain skill to decay when training another, either lock it or set it to go up. We have complete control over this aspect now.

I'm greatly disappointed by Mesanna's response on that one. I'll agree with people that this isn't a particularly important question given the arrows, but why "dignify" it with a response unless the objective was humor / snarkiness?

 

[Warpig Inc]

Are those two skills total is more then a skill you have on a stone? Keep the two skills arrow down your getting rid of. Pull a skill off a stone lowering them and then put that pulled skill back on the stone. Free sailing till your sucking points off whats left of those skills.

Account control is nothing like it used to be. Still had to make a phone call to figure out how to get at my accounts. My first and maybe last purchase from the store still needed a phone call to complete. True real security confort if members have big hurdles to clear just to get at THEIR accounts.

 

[Tina Small]

(Remebers at one time reading that some skills were easier to lose...)

Your question is something that has been on mind since i started training imbuing and to raise the skill, it has to deduct from two other skills i have set to decrease. I am not getting gains like i should and i think its because of those other skills. Soulstones are all full so i can't just wipe those two skills.

Thank you for your question Tina and I hope Mesanna reflects a little more on it. *bows low*

I stumbled across an old article a few years ago about skill decay and kind of kept it in the back of my mind for a long time. I don't know if the site it came from is even still around. I didn't start to play UO until late 2004 and if I remember correctly, by the time I found the site, it didn't even look like it was still being maintained. I think a guildmate might have referred me to the site because I was having trouble understanding the mechanics of using the 8x8 method to get skill gains. (Never did bother with 8x8 more than 2 or 3 times because it was too tedious and as a new player I needed gold more than gains. Not long afterwards, 8x8 was made ineffective.) The article intrigued me at the time, because at that point, everything about UO was still fresh and new to me, but it didn't really influence how I was training my characters because almost all of them were still below their skill totals and I had none where I was trying to get a skill to actually decay while another skill raised.

A few years later, I went looking for the site after SA came out and I was trying to jam imbuing skill and item ID onto my existing crafters on a few shards, and finally bite the bullet and put arms lore on them too. I'd just paid an arm and a leg to update several accounts for SA, so buying soulstones was out of the question and I really didn't have at that point a lot of vet rewards to use for soulstones. I'd decided to sacrifice evaluate intelligence skill completely and part of their meditation skill on those crafters and wondered which skill to let decay first as imbuing went up.

I also had a lot of partially-trained characters on other shards that I'd started from scratch and that really weren't worth spending money on to buy soulstones because I knew it was going to be years before I ever got them finished. They all desperately needed gold and power scrolls and materials, however, so I was taking the approach that I would train every character by actively going out and using them to gather gold or materials, whatever suited their template, and every character had to gain its own foothold in the world and at least get enough gold in the bank to cover the cost of insurance several times over. That meant that I was using pure crafter characters to go out and use magery to kill sheep, cows, etc. and they needed magery, meditation, some moderate level of evaluate intelligence, and maybe focus to help get their stats up and to give them enough mana to give their spells a bit more oomph and keep their mana up. I knew that those crafters would eventually have no focus, no eval, and not much meditation skill, but I really wanted to have some kind of a plan for raising those skills to a reasonable level and then letting them gradually decay as their crafting skills increased and their need for resources decreased.

Anyway, that's really what prompted me to ask those questions. The site I found the information on was old and not being maintained and didn't address any skills added with AoS or later expansions.

It wasn't until very recently, long after I originally posted the above set of questions in the Ask the Devs forum, that I stumbled across someone's tip on buying up alchemy to replace a skill you want to have decay, since it apparently decays the easiest if you're trying to gain in another skill with an already capped out set of skills.

I'll probably be trying that method now where I can, since I sure can't afford to buy soulstones in the quantities I'd like to. Iwas still too green in UO and only playing on 2 or 3 shards when we got soulstone fragments as gifts and therefore have none of those either on the shards where I could use them. And I really don't have the characters, skills or the experience to gather the materials to make the craftable soulstone fragments on the shards where I could put them to use. And I'm just NOT interested in spending what little bit of gold I have in the game on trying to buy soulstone tokens or paying real life cash to a broker somewhere to buy cheap tokens of questionable origin. I'd rather just get the skill training done in what feels to me like a natural and interesting fashion, i.e., doing it while actually playing the character that needs the skill, and not by macroing up a skill on a throw away character and then transferring it over to another character.

Unfortunately, if I ever decide to revamp my Siege characters, I guess I'll just have to invest in more soulstones there if I don't want to go through the head-bashing, hair-pulling process of raising skills from 0 and hoping the skills I want to have decay will do so gracefully, as you can't purchase skill training from NPCs on Siege. I don't know where the "newer" skills (some of them were added with AoS ten years ago, so are they really "new" now?) fit into the scheme of things, however. I suppose it's something that could be verified on Test Center. However, the original article said that kind of testing was very tedious, as they had to put all the skills on a character, set all but one to lower and then raise one particular skill by .1 and see which skill from the list decayed first, or something along those lines. I don't remember all the details of the article, but it sounded horrendous and doing it now would require including even more skills.

The subject of "skill decay" is not important, I guess, unless you are still in character-building mode and don't like to spend money on soulstones and/or want still-useful skills to fade away slowly as they are replaced by other more desirable skills. These days, I wonder how many people are still in the process of doing that. Not many, I guess.

I was disappointed with the answer, of course, after having submitted those questions about three years ago when there were still people on the dev team who had a little more time in their schedules to dig into the code and sometimes come back with suprisingly informative and thoughtful answers in the Ask the Devs forum. However, that's just the way things go sometimes. There are obviously more important things for the UO team to spend their time on at this point, so I can't begrudge Mesanna picking that set of questions off what is apparently still a long list of outstanding questions and trying to clear up some of the backlog with a quick reply.

 

[Picus at the office]

You asked that three years ago? Sorry to say but I would have deleted that question and moved on to a more current question. Granted the person who asked still plays and posts on a updated website but this is hardly record breaking client relations

 

[Tina Small]

You asked that three years ago? Sorry to say but I would have deleted that question and moved on to a more current question. Granted the person who asked still plays and posts on a updated website but this is hardly record breaking client relations

Well, it's not like she actually ANSWERED the question, did she? All she did was reply to it. Probably took less than 30 seconds to type her reply.

 

[Cetric]

Mesanna replied to a question from 3 years ago, essentially stating that it doesn't warrant a reply?

This keeps getting better.

 

[Petra Fyde]

You asked that three years ago? Sorry to say but I would have deleted that question and moved on to a more current question. Granted the person who asked still plays and posts on a updated website but this is hardly record breaking client relations

I'm sorry, the question has now been moved back to the Ask the Devs forum. http://stratics.com/community/threads/list-of-skills-ranked-by-decay-difficulty.262671/
We've been trying to clear up some of the backlog - it's hard to know which questions no longer need to be answered.