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Where did EA mess up with Siege?

Speedy Orkit

Grand Inquisitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
With AoS, period.

The implementation of that patch was a nice addition on production shards. Insurance was implemented, sure, but so was an item based system that assured to be competitive you would need the items. Great for those shards with insurance, but not so great for Siege.

We're stuck between a rock and a hard place. If you run the high end gear, it is expensive, hard to find, and a hassle to replace upon death, which occurs often on our shard because of the all Fel rule set.

Now take the other side of the coin, what if in a perfect world, everyone agreed to not use faction artifacts? I believe this is a problem in itself, and here is why:

The current PvP system is developed to be balanced between the templates available, and items available. Meaning this: A player like a bushido dexer is only killable because of the high end items other players can get.

Imbuing aside, try to imagine this scenario: a dexer using jewels and a weapon bringing DCI to 40 and HCI to maybe 30 is fighting.... any other template. He is a bushido dexer using a war fork. The parry chance he has gained from skills, coupled with his bonus from a pair of so so jewels has given him the ability to evade, the ability to be missed about 70+% of the time, and even the ability to heal instantaneously. He can utilize confidence, as well as bandages with the following template:
120 fencing
120 parry
120 Bush
120 resist
100 heal
90 tact
50 med
90/120/45

His lightning strike is going to allow him to hit another player with 35 point lightning strikes for minimal mana, while evading their offensive attacks, leaving them running for mana, or their lives. All he needs is a good warfork, something like DCI, SSI, Lightning, DI and maybe HLD. A pair of crap jewels, 25 or so HCI and 25+ DCI between the two.

Put him against a mage with no faction arties. It isn't easy to find a set of 1/3's with DCI on them, and a high end no DCI shield isn't easy to find without using artifacts either. What happens to a parry mage against this character? Coming from a mage's perspective, I am probably going to get whooped, due to my lack of either offense, or mana, break it down:

120 mage
120 EI
120 resist
120 parry
100 anat
Either 120 med, or mess around with something like scribe and lack mana.
90/50/115

If this warrior evades an explosion/ebolt or some such combo, a mage with no artifacts and the base barbed no mod suits everyone lusts after is hurting on mana. He is now at about 75 and the dexer just has to eat up cures and heals while hitting his self bandage macro, did you forget with dex pots he will be 150 dex, at the healing cap?

And that is the problem with people hating these artifacts. They balance the game. Some templates are built for slow play(bushido characters) and others are built for speed(Ninja type chars with DS, necro, etc)

I'm not saying we need insurance here, or we need this or that. I am just trying to explain to people why these base suits everyone misses so much won't work any more. Templates have changed, you need the ability of fast play to take down slow play templates. I don't mean this as a rant, this is just coming from someone who understands PvP. Right now PvP is pretty balanced with faction artifacts, as balanced as I have seen it. Don't forget the double axe pain spike necro's of AOS, or the stun mages of P16, or axers of Ren. As it stands right now, any template can beat any other template. I don't want to see a world where moving shot archers destroy all but parry mages, parry dexers destroy everyone or are at least unkillable, parry mages can't kill anyone due to lack of offense, etc.
 

Damien Softstep

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
smoke bombs
place siege on shard list
greater dragons
faction items
dismount specials
bolas
etc
etc
etc

i say items introduced into the game ruined siege...
 

Sir Morder

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I have to disagree with parry dexxors being unkillable. Maybe for a mage, perhaps. No so for another dexxor template. What about another parry dexxor? Neither has to run arties to be able to kill each other (this is where player skill actually comes into play, something a vast majority of the shard has forgotten). I myself can kill any parry dexxor on the shard and i dont use parry in my template. And don't say i cant, cause i've been makin em run for years ;)
 

Damien Softstep

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I have to disagree with parry dexxors being unkillable. Maybe for a mage, perhaps. No so for another dexxor template. What about another parry dexxor? Neither has to run arties to be able to kill each other (this is where player skill actually comes into play, something a vast majority of the shard has forgotten). I myself can kill any parry dexxor on the shard and i dont use parry in my template. And don't say i cant, cause i've been makin em run for years ;)
I would NEVER play a parry/dexxer just for the fact i cant chug pots...
 

Damien Softstep

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Oh i also forgot one thing too vollem held in a crystal...

A creature that acts as a nightmare that casts spells for 2 slots and you can use two of them with no taming or lore and their bonded...ridiculous...
 

Damien Softstep

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Hell they get rid of DISMOUNT ganking and not HAVE to have ninjitsu to counter it ill make a shown template tomorrow...
 

Freelsy

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I would NEVER play a parry/dexxer just for the fact i cant chug pots...
You dont run a shield and a sword...You usually just run a one hander. Helps block alot.

One hander - 30% to block
Two hander - 35% to block
 

Speedy Orkit

Grand Inquisitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
If a dexer running that template dies to any template, they are very, very bad.

Every 10s they heal with:

Pots:25-30
Healing skill: 52-106
Confidence: 40

Best case scenario, on a dexer if you hit 50% of the time, and have enough mana for 3 AI's(unlikely, since we are talking base suits) you will swing about 7 times in that same 10 seconds, hit we will say 4, and let's assume the spell hits every time:

35+8
35+9
35+8
14 + 8

You do 152 damage over 10 seconds. If their bandage heals them, you are out of mana, and against a maxed out parry dexer, you're probably not going to hit 50% of the time. Just doing it by the numbers, you pretty much need items to kill most templates.
 

Damien Softstep

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
If a dexer running that template dies to any template, they are very, very bad.

Every 10s they heal with:

Pots:25-30
Healing skill: 52-106
Confidence: 40

Best case scenario, on a dexer if you hit 50% of the time, and have enough mana for 3 AI's(unlikely, since we are talking base suits) you will swing about 7 times in that same 10 seconds, hit we will say 4, and let's assume the spell hits every time:

35+8
35+9
35+8
14 + 8

You do 152 damage over 10 seconds. If their bandage heals them, you are out of mana, and against a maxed out parry dexer, you're probably not going to hit 50% of the time. Just doing it by the numbers, you pretty much need items to kill most templates.
This must be the reason everyone runs a heavy crossbow with a greater dragon around their neck...no ninjitsu your dead to a DISMOUNT gank...
 
H

Hawkind

Guest
I think there were a few key turning points where EA went wrong.

-Not addressing the Personal Bless Deeds fast enough(fixes should come in weeks, maybe months, not years)

-Instanced Peerless Encounters(basically added a small bit of trammel to siege)

-The combination of overpowered bonded pets with no passive detect being added to siege

Faction arties were good in some ways and bad in others. The good was that they lessened the gap between the have and have nots. The bad was that having it so only the player who bought it could use it was a mistake. It created the scenario in place now where people are more concerned about their arties and buybacks than actually playing the game.
 
B

Bruin

Guest
Agree totally in principle with your post Speedy. All these changes make sense for prodo, not for Siege. You're right faction arties sort of balance out bushido, but to me the problem is lightening strike on bushido. If it only gave say 30 HCI instead of 50 OR took 20 mana instead of 5 we'd be fine.

And I don't think pvp is balanced. You can tell if pvp is balanced by looking at the mix of templates out on the field.
You've got ninja tamers
ninja somethings
some bushido warriors
and some parry mages.

With all the skillsets available, that's a pretty **** poor mix of templates. Before AOS we had:
Eval/fencers
med/fencers
parry/fencers
fence/macers
heal mages
scribe mages
tank mages
nox mages
an archer here or there

and this was before they added several skills almost purely made for pvp, and all they did was restrict the viability of other templates.
 

Damien Softstep

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I think there were a few key turning points where EA went wrong.

-Not addressing the Personal Bless Deeds fast enough(fixes should come in weeks, maybe months, not years)

-Instanced Peerless Encounters(basically added a small bit of trammel to siege)

-The combination of overpowered bonded pets with no passive detect being added to siege

Faction arties were good in some ways and bad in others. The good was that they lessened the gap between the have and have nots. The bad was that having it so only the player who bought it could use it was a mistake. It created the scenario in place now where people are more concerned about their arties and buybacks than actually playing the game.
GREAT post...
 

GoodGuy

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Bolas and or Bonding

It ALL went downhill with the introduction of bonding to siege perilous.

A group of reds used to be able to walk into moonglow and look for a fight. Without the worry that nonpvpers/unexperienced pvpers being able to gank them in a matter of seconds.

After bonding game around, there was 5-10 tamers in moonglow all the time stealthing around throwing bolas and ganking the **** out of actual pvpers.

Once any naked noobie could kill a fully geared person with absolutely no risk of items, thats when siege perilous took a ****.

The mindset of the players changed, a new group of "PVPERS" came to the shard and wanted to do nothing but gank, it was sometime around when AB and WAKA were both playing on siege that this change really occured.

NOBODY wanted to fight and lose, it was all about ganking and winning, and even if you had to pair up with some naked blue tamer hugging luna guardzone, if it meant getting loot from someone, then that somehow meant winning. And thats when siege became GHEY.

since then it has been downhill. Now the community has turned on itself with all the cheaters, liars, and fake pvpers that can pretend all they want they are uber and pwn everybody, but really anybody who has fought them knows they are just griefing gankers. True pk'ers quit siege a long time ago.
 

Sir Morder

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I agree 100% that pvp in general is way outta whack on siege. What really bothers me is how EA goes about nerfing certain aspecs of the game, and then completely ignores others. Take for instance when mages didn't have to use 90 tactics to be a bok/mage. This template destroyed dexxors like there was no tomorrow. TOO op'd, nerf it... Lets not forget being able to be in ninja animal form and still use specials. TOO op'd, nerf it... Greater dragons fireballing too fast. TOO op'd, nerf it... Necro's spells being too powerful. TOO op'd, nerf it (make all spells garbage with one apple). Use a lance for dismount, whoa, lets not even go there LOL. TOO op'd, nerf it... The list goes on and on. Does anyone realize that before any of these nerf's, people actually played siege? Now we have all this crap to deal with, and still no action is being done to prevent more people from leaving this shard! Seriously, everyone is complaining about smoke bombs/stealthing. But what if they do nerf it (if it's really a nerf)? Are we gonna lose "X" amount of players because those that do choose to use smoke bombs/stealth are gonna just say f**k it, im out? We don't have that many more people to lose and this shard is gonna be dead. If there's is to be any resolution to the problem, i'd like to hear it. I don't wanna see the shard shrink...Lets get it growing.
 
E

Elmer Fudd

Guest
Bolas and or Bonding

It ALL went downhill with the introduction of bonding to siege perilous.

A group of reds used to be able to walk into moonglow and look for a fight. Without the worry that nonpvpers/unexperienced pvpers being able to gank them in a matter of seconds.

After bonding game around, there was 5-10 tamers in moonglow all the time stealthing around throwing bolas and ganking the **** out of actual pvpers.

Once any naked noobie could kill a fully geared person with absolutely no risk of items, thats when siege perilous took a ****.

The mindset of the players changed, a new group of "PVPERS" came to the shard and wanted to do nothing but gank, it was sometime around when AB and WAKA were both playing on siege that this change really occured.

NOBODY wanted to fight and lose, it was all about ganking and winning, and even if you had to pair up with some naked blue tamer hugging luna guardzone, if it meant getting loot from someone, then that somehow meant winning. And thats when siege became GHEY.

since then it has been downhill. Now the community has turned on itself with all the cheaters, liars, and fake pvpers that can pretend all they want they are uber and pwn everybody, but really anybody who has fought them knows they are just griefing gankers. True pk'ers quit siege a long time ago.
Ill repost this with Goodguys response, Were saying the same thing but in different ways....lol


Are all the hiding stealthers finally tired of trying to find each other on this shard now that the only Shown template PvP guild is finally having fun doing what it does best, actually PvPing???

Some people will never ever get it, no matter how much you hint/Spell it out/ slap it in there face...

It takes a change of mindset....and 90% of the PvP populace on siege risks nothing and wants to gain everything, because we wouldnt want to actually have to learn how to fight huh???

But whatever... this little post I made will vanish like a fart in the wind to everyone that needs to take a good strong wiff of the stinky truth
 
B

Bruin

Guest
EA messed up when they took over the game.
Ea has been a major backer for ultima online since the beginning if it wasnt for ea there would be no uo...
Vortex is correct to an extent. It seems that when EA buys a developer, there's a period of time where they are hands off the developer, leaving OSI to do what OSI thought best. Then EA takes an active role in 'cost cutting' by moving OSI from what, Austin TX to VA, then from VA to CA, or however the heck it went.

It's when EA gets active like that, taking over the game, that they quash the creativity of the developers and screw it over. My guess one of the big reasons EA isn't doing so well, they seem to do this with a lot of their development teams.
 

Uvtha

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
When they though that a different ruleset wouldnt need its own dedicated dev.
 

Vortex

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
So... when they bought out OSI in 1992?
I said when they TOOK OVER, thus when Garriot left in 2000. Until that time he was still the Producer/Director for OSI.

Later came the start of the downfall, Lord British's Revenge, which brought mechanical creatures to the world. Pretty much everything since then was downhill.

*Edit* Sorry, just saw you already explained this Bruin.
 

TheScoundrelRico

Stratics Legend
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Nah, the biggest mistake is the first wipe of Siege they made. There were many players and guilds who quit the shard when that happend. From that point forward, Siege has been in a death spiral...la
 

Spree

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
EA messed up when they took over the game.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_Systems

History

The company was founded in 1983 by brothers Robert and Richard Garriott, their father Owen and Chuck Bueche after Richard had terminated his contract with Sierra On-Line to publish the third part in Richard's Ultima series, Ultima III: Exodus.[citation needed]
In September 1992, Electronic Arts acquired the company.[citation needed]
In 1997, they released one of the earliest and most successful graphical MMORPGs, Ultima Online.
 

Spree

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Nah, the biggest mistake is the first wipe of Siege they made. There were many players and guilds who quit the shard when that happend. From that point forward, Siege has been in a death spiral...la
I quit siege for a few years after they did that.
 

N49ATV

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Everyone complains about bonding. However bonding is needed with the current pet system. Since there is a fair amount of time you have to invest into a pet to get it trained up, bonding makes sense. Now I dont care for tamers in PvP. I have died several times trying to run from a spawn when raided, cause I dont use my pet for PvP. I have maybe used it 2 or 3 times, and not in an active PvP situation (i didnt go looking for it), just as a defence.
 
F

Førsaken

Guest
Give me Pre-Publish 16 aka Stun Mages, Dexers able to randomly (1 out 4'ish?) land para blows, concussion blows, crushing blows, etc with certain weapons.

I've already made this rant long ago though, so this thread and the other threads asking for a Siege wipe and re-introduce a T2A+ era are a bit late.

Won't happen, it's too much money for them to waste, and it would need its own developer team.
 
B

Bruin

Guest
Give me Pre-Publish 16 aka Stun Mages, Dexers able to randomly (1 out 4'ish?) land para blows, concussion blows, crushing blows, etc with certain weapons.
QFT

It's the RNG that really was nice that they got rid of with AOS. It meant anyone had a CHANCE. Pre-pub 16, if I hit you with a kryss, I could do between what, 1-31 damage? Today, if I hit you with a kryss, I know I'm going to do 9 damage.
 
V

Vaelix

Guest
Give me Pre-Publish 16 aka Stun Mages, Dexers able to randomly (1 out 4'ish?) land para blows, concussion blows, crushing blows, etc with certain weapons.

I've already made this rant long ago though, so this thread and the other threads asking for a Siege wipe and re-introduce a T2A+ era are a bit late.

Won't happen, it's too much money for them to waste, and it would need its own developer team.
Arnt those the days of Naked Mages running around with Hally going..

Flamestike (Hold) wait until hally hit.. Target FS. Win?

One spell combos and extremely "Slow" pvp doesnt exactly sound like the "Good Ol Days" to me.

:heart:
 

Freelsy

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Siege is just fine. Its the vagina's that play this shard want it to be some super old form of UO. Siege Perilous is a shard where you can kill each other anywhere and have no item insurance....its not a pre-aos shard, its not old uo, its nothing like that. Its prodo without insurance.


All you cry babies that want pre-16 ****, there are plenty of free shards that have this rule set with 2342432432234 times the population.



EA isn't ruining the shard. Its your all's perception of what this game "should" be that's ruining your fun.
 

Vortex

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
All you cry babies that want pre-16 ****, there are plenty of free shards that have this rule set with 2342432432234 times the population.
Guess it didn't occur to you why they have so much more population?

In your mind its better to cry about having no one to fight then look at ways to change that?
 

Damien Softstep

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
All you cry babies that want pre-16 ****, there are plenty of free shards that have this rule set with 2342432432234 times the population.
Guess it didn't occur to you why they have so much more population?

In your mind its better to cry about having no one to fight then look at ways to change that?
Good point i was gonna tell freelsy the same thing only if you want a production shard continue to play on atlantic and leave SP alone...considering EA offers 2342432432234 production servers...
 

Sprago

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Siege is just fine. Its the vagina's that play this shard want it to be some super old form of UO. Siege Perilous is a shard where you can kill each other anywhere and have no item insurance....its not a pre-aos shard, its not old uo, its nothing like that. Its prodo without insurance.


All you cry babies that want pre-16 ****, there are plenty of free shards that have this rule set with 2342432432234 times the population.



EA isn't ruining the shard. Its your all's perception of what this game "should" be that's ruining your fun.
Man i agree with you
 

Sprago

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Everyone complains about bonding. However bonding is needed with the current pet system. Since there is a fair amount of time you have to invest into a pet to get it trained up, bonding makes sense. Now I dont care for tamers in PvP. I have died several times trying to run from a spawn when raided, cause I dont use my pet for PvP. I have maybe used it 2 or 3 times, and not in an active PvP situation (i didnt go looking for it), just as a defence.
well in my opinion to bond a pet should require your siege bless to bond it
 
C

CroakerTnT

Guest
Without all the upgrades, updates, new content, we'd all have gotten bored and moved to WOW by now.
 
F

Førsaken

Guest
All you cry babies that want pre-16 ****, there are plenty of free shards that have this rule set with 2342432432234 times the population.
Hey, **** you buddy. :) I loved me some pre-pub 16. I pretty much owned at that too.

As for the free shard bit, they're not the same, they will never be able to match OSI coding 100%. :(

As for Dante's little Hally + Fs bit, that was strictly T2A era. I prefer to go slightly past that, where you had benefits in running other melee type mages for the specials you were able to get off.

It was no longer Insta hally hit mages after T2A.
 

Petra Fyde

Peerless Chatterbox
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Hypothetically speaking, what do you think would happen if no artifact type items spawned on Siege? No replicas, no faction arties, no ilsh or ML minors, no 'treasures of tokuno', just normal loot and crafted items, tweaked with imbuing?
All existing artis/replicas/treasures converted into the best possible normally spawning version of that weapon type?
 

Tiberius

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Hey, **** you buddy. :) I loved me some pre-pub 16. I pretty much owned at that too.

As for the free shard bit, they're not the same, they will never be able to match OSI coding 100%. :(

As for Dante's little Hally + Fs bit, that was strictly T2A era. I prefer to go slightly past that, where you had benefits in running other melee type mages for the specials you were able to get off.

It was no longer Insta hally hit mages after T2A.
Yea I think UOR era would be great. They really had balanced pvp pretty well back then.

Asty, I hate to disagree with you but I would love to play an osi run UOR era shard with a siege rule set. I've tried free shards; it's not the same.
 

Tiberius

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Without all the upgrades, updates, new content, we'd all have gotten bored and moved to WOW by now.
Then why do so many play free shards that offer those old rules?

Is football, basketball, and baseball "boring" because they are played the same way as they were 50 years ago? UO was a huge success based on the pre-aos game play. I honestly never understodd why they flipped everything upside down with aos to be honest.
 

kelmo

Old and in the way
Professional
Alumni
Supporter
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Dread Lord
Your sports analogy does not hold water. The have been major changes in all of those sports in the last 50 years.
 

Speedy Orkit

Grand Inquisitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I just think UO worked better as a game not based on items solely. It is very fast paced, and thus the time out to reequip can be a pain.
 
H

HaHa

Guest
Nah, the biggest mistake is the first wipe of Siege they made. There were many players and guilds who quit the shard when that happend. From that point forward, Siege has been in a death spiral...la
I remember playing when the shard wiped, but cant remember their exact reasoning for the wipe.
 

Tiberius

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Your sports analogy does not hold water. The have been major changes in all of those sports in the last 50 years.
Nothing so drastic as the aos changes brought to UO. Two different games with a similar theme imo.
 
S

Sunchicken

Guest
Arnt those the days of Naked Mages running around with Hally going..

Flamestike (Hold) wait until hally hit.. Target FS. Win?

One spell combos and extremely "Slow" pvp doesnt exactly sound like the "Good Ol Days" to me.

:heart:
Id pwn your jib with a heavy crossbow mage vs your hally mage 100% guarentee...

and to be clear it was exp hold thunk ebolt. Fs took to much mana and if their magic resist kicked in it was tuff to finish.
 
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