You just don't seem to get the fact that UO has always been about starting out with the basic necessities and then working towards bigger goals.
I entirely fail to see what nerfing quality loot AFTER some players already benefitted from that quality loot might have anything at all to do with working towards bigger goals....
I mean, let's make an example just for the sake of discussion, shall we ?
We have player A who is an established player, already with a good stock of items, gold and blah blah.
There is a game change which "ups" the quality of loot. This player, having already a well established template (possibly more then just 1...) jumps on the new change and farms loads of exceptionally great items to make his or her suits even better.....
Thanking to these exceptional items, this player clearly has an upper hand in PvP.
Then come the Developers and nerf the new loot quality. End of the great loot or, at least, end of the ability to get many drops of exceptional quality in a shorter farming time.
Now, not only the quality of the items have decreased, but the time to get great drops has increased tens of folds, perhaps to the point to scare away other players from even trying to......
Player A could not care less about the nerf as he/she already got lods of exceptionally good items to last for a good while....
Then comes player B who perhaps, for the sake of the discussion, is a returning player.
Not only he/she will need to build up skills, get powerscrolls, gather resources to imbue a PvP competitive suit (which will already take a whole lot of gaming time....), but he/she will ALSO have to farm those specially exceptional pieces which really can make the difference in a PvP fight.
This, too be competitive, since the PvP engine happens to give quite some importance to numbers, over fighting tactics....
Unfortunately, because of the quality loot nerf, while Player A was able to easily and fastly build up a large stock of uber quality items, Player B on top of all that he/she needs to do to get "on par", will ALSO have to spend way, but WAY more time to farm for those exceptional pieces which truly can make the difference in a PvP fight.
This is not working towards a goal, this is just running uphill with a ton of overweight on one's own shoulders while other players had it much easier simply because they were there for the right spawn before the quality loot nerf kicked in.
Well, to each his/her own opinions, but to me not only this is not fair, but I am worried that the uphill might deter too many players from even trying, especially when they get to know that, while they have to struggle to get the really exceptional pieces, players before them who did it before the nerf got them in loads, much faster and with way more ease......
I am convinced that spawns should be the same for all players
regardless of the time when the spawns are hunted by different players, and quality of loot should not change as there should never be early or late birds but simply birds...
This is why I have always said and will always say that loot quality should NEVER EVER be nerfed.
Loot quality for new content should ALWAYS start conservatorily (i.e. start with worse quality or slower drop times) and then, slowly be increased to a better quality of loot or higher drop rates with fine tuning from the Developers to the point where it stops and
stays there for all players to take advantage from.
But NEVER EVER loot quality or drop times should be nerfed because doing it, would only benefit those players who jumped on that spawn early on and punish all players who came to it later on, after the nerf.
That's at least as I see it.
