You can never balance skills in an item driven game!

[Velvathos]

World of Warcraft has this issue of constantly nerfing all the classes in the game to even them out... UO has had this issue since AoS, did anyone really complain before then? No, cause the game was not item driven..

This is a response to the Five on Friday where it was said that skill cap increases are being looked into, but skill balances come first. The only possible way to balance the skills in UO is if there were never AoS in the first place.. Am I right??

In a item driven game, whoever has the best items, will normally win, because items matter over skills.. Just wanted to put this out..

 

[Arch Magus]

I disagree. It can be done.

WoW just nerfs so much because they have assloads of abilities.

 

[Velvathos]

I disagree. It can be done.

WoW just nerfs so much because they have assloads of abilities.

I'm sayin, skills need to matter over items, this is where Seige Perilous wins, they have no insurance, attack anyone anywhere, this is what makes the game less item based.. Seige Perilous PvP is indeed more balanced because of this..

There is multiple things they can do though. For example, leather armor, most of it, is better than metal armor, it is just as good, this makes no sense.. Metal armor should take more damage from melee attacks and magic attacks, while leather armor does not, this is how you balance Mages and Warriors.. Warriors on the other hand, are not as fast with heavy armor, peraphs they run slower and swing slower, and don't have as much staminia? But they are a hell of a lot stronger.... By adding realism, the devs can make UO perfectly balanced. But they took all that realism away from UO during AoS and took away the sandbox feel of the game, and that is what made UO unbalanced..

 

[G.v.P]

Depending on who you ask, metal armor is the best armor in the game when made with a val hammer. Of course, barbed kits are much more common to obtain.

I get where you're coming from, though. Gargoyles will be pretty interesting if there are no armor adaptations. I think what screwed the game up the most, armor was, was the introduction of Elf Only, but it's been somewhat resolved by Factions.

Some people think imbuing is going to make it so people will be able to hit all caps, and by doing this, you create a level playing field because everyone will meet their caps. Ideally, we need to have everything, or nothing, like Siege, for an ideal PvP landscape, and then once everyone is at cap, we'll have to look at the caps to see if they are right.

 

[Inspector]

World of Warcraft has this issue of constantly nerfing all the classes in the game to even them out... UO has had this issue since AoS, did anyone really complain before then? No, cause the game was not item driven..

This is a response to the Five on Friday where it was said that skill cap increases are being looked into, but skill balances come first. The only possible way to balance the skills in UO is if there were never AoS in the first place.. Am I right??

In a item driven game, whoever has the best items, will normally win, because items matter over skills.. Just wanted to put this out..

Plenty of people complained about things being overpowered back then.
Remember axers with a vanq axe? They could damn near one shot people.
Or when conc blow first came out and it was pretty much a double strike... That did one shot people.
Sadly most of the complaining was due to item/skill combinations that made these things possible and the devs still took the game in an item based direction... sucks.

 

[Velvathos]

Plenty of people complained about things being overpowered back then.
Remember axers with a vanq axe? They could damn near one shot people.
Or when conc blow first came out and it was pretty much a double strike... That did one shot people.
Sadly most of the complaining was due to item/skill combinations that made these things possible and the devs still took the game in an item based direction... sucks.

Yah, but back then, a VANQ AXE was something you never saw much people use, when you died, if you died in battle with a vanq axe, it was gone! Yu'd see people mostly using it in PvM.. And those items were very, very expensive.. So not much people would use them, everyone mostly had crafted armor and weapons..

 

[Sunrise]

Throwing in my two cents...

Lets get rid of power scrolls... Why not?

Someone who has lets say a magery of 120 has a better chance at casting than someone from 110 right?

Since its almost next to impossible to do a champ without getitng raided by the big wigs who have the powerscrolls and you need the PS to survive in this game.....

Either that or put PS in Tram. Na can't do that the PvPs or whos left would scream bloody murder.

Also cant get rid of champs for the pvpers would scream bloody murder.

How about this

Game is 11 years old. Been buggy as heck for those 11 years. The devs have tried and still are trying. Lets just kick back, drink some ale, and enjoy this funky game...

For no matter how much ya scream and yell...will it really be fixed???

Looks at some of the past event fires from years gone by..that are still on fire..

 

[laurlo]

I do agree that if there weren't properties on the items than it would be far easier to balance...

 

[Dragon Slave.]

I'm sayin, skills need to matter over items, this is where Seige Perilous wins, they have no insurance, attack anyone anywhere, this is what makes the game less item based.. Seige Perilous PvP is indeed more balanced because of this..

There is multiple things they can do though. For example, leather armor, most of it, is better than metal armor, it is just as good, this makes no sense.. Metal armor should take more damage from melee attacks and magic attacks, while leather armor does not, this is how you balance Mages and Warriors.. Warriors on the other hand, are not as fast with heavy armor, peraphs they run slower and swing slower, and don't have as much staminia? But they are a hell of a lot stronger.... By adding realism, the devs can make UO perfectly balanced. But they took all that realism away from UO during AoS and took away the sandbox feel of the game, and that is what made UO unbalanced..

Before aos, players ran around pvping naked. Where was the realism in that?

 

[Nexus]

I'm sayin, skills need to matter over items, this is where Seige Perilous wins, they have no insurance, attack anyone anywhere, this is what makes the game less item based.. Seige Perilous PvP is indeed more balanced because of this..

There is multiple things they can do though. For example, leather armor, most of it, is better than metal armor, it is just as good, this makes no sense.. Metal armor should take more damage from melee attacks and magic attacks, while leather armor does not, this is how you balance Mages and Warriors.. Warriors on the other hand, are not as fast with heavy armor, peraphs they run slower and swing slower, and don't have as much staminia? But they are a hell of a lot stronger.... By adding realism, the devs can make UO perfectly balanced. But they took all that realism away from UO during AoS and took away the sandbox feel of the game, and that is what made UO unbalanced..

Yea but Leather Armor should royally suck and cause a bigger slowdown of swing and movement rate than Plate realistically. Plate helps support it's own weight, added to how it's supposed to be jointed it's much much more flexible than Leather Armor since to actually turn leather into something durable enough to be armor you have to harden it making it very inflexible and hard to move in.

Chain is burdensome due to weight and lack of support, Studded? Same as Leather. Ring? Same as Chain. Plate should be the absolute Best Armor in the game with Wood coming in Second since it would have to be jointed like Plate to function just it wouldn't be able to take the abuse Plate would.

 

[AesSedai]

"You can never balance skills in an item driven game!"

- Yes, yes you can.
And you shared how in your first paragraph.
In order to balance one must buff & nerf variables.
And the people rejoiced & whined.
But it must be done.. in order to balance.

 

[gjohnson5]

"You can never balance skills in an item driven game!"

- Yes, yes you can.
And you shared how in your first paragraph.
In order to balance one must buff & nerf variables.
And the people rejoiced & whined.
But it must be done.. in order to balance.

Sounds like me tweaking send and receive windows on my backup server to make faster backups...
That type of work sounds like alot of trial and error and due to the number of variables would end up being scrapped

 

[AesSedai]

- Obviously it wouldn't ever be a perfectly balanced rock-paper-scissors situation as there are very many variables to account for; but I'm confident I could do it (and that means I'm confident some of our Devs. could do it too, if given the time... but if they need me they can find my number, heh). I've already done it with my armor/weaponry on excel, even though it is about a year out of date.

 

[Dragkiris]

Different weapons should have different swing caps. No one should be able to swing a heavy mace at the speed of a dagger. Archery should have more variables built into its hit chance (such as targets movement and distance). Swinging weapons itself should consume stamina the same was as casting spells uses mana. Mages should be able to cast lvl one and 2 spells on the move. Mages should get somekind of blessed reg back like archer quivers. Mages should have a large incentive in wearing a spellbook in pvp. Chiv spells should be slowed down and be skill based on effectiveness in conjuntion with karma.

 

[Dragon Slave.]

Different weapons should have different swing caps. No one should be able to swing a heavy mace at the speed of a dagger. Archery should have more variables built into its hit chance (such as targets movement and distance). Swinging weapons itself should consume stamina the same was as casting spells uses mana. Mages should be able to cast lvl one and 2 spells on the move. Mages should get somekind of blessed reg back like archer quivers. Mages should have a large incentive in wearing a spellbook in pvp. Chiv spells should be slowed down and be skill based on effectiveness in conjuntion with karma.

Play a mage much?? With mr, lmc, etc.. mages hardly consume mana. Incentive for wearing a spellbook? whats sdi on a spellbook? or LMC, or MR, or LRC, are those not incentives?

 

[Anakena]

Plenty of people complained about things being overpowered back then.
Remember axers with a vanq axe? They could damn near one shot people.
Or when conc blow first came out and it was pretty much a double strike... That did one shot people.
Sadly most of the complaining was due to item/skill combinations that made these things possible and the devs still took the game in an item based direction... sucks.

Yes but the balance was in the fact they could die and be looted. You can also in Siege make suits like you have on other shards but it doesn't happen because they would lose it. It is just a matter of time.

 

[Sarphus]

Depending on who you ask, metal armor is the best armor in the game when made with a val hammer. Of course, barbed kits are much more common to obtain.

I get where you're coming from, though. Gargoyles will be pretty interesting if there are no armor adaptations. I think what screwed the game up the most, armor was, was the introduction of Elf Only, but it's been somewhat resolved by Factions.

Some people think imbuing is going to make it so people will be able to hit all caps, and by doing this, you create a level playing field because everyone will meet their caps. Ideally, we need to have everything, or nothing, like Siege, for an ideal PvP landscape, and then once everyone is at cap, we'll have to look at the caps to see if they are right.

I agree