by Azaroth | March 30th, 2010
The previous topic was good. I suggest reading over the comments section for discussion about third party programs, Factions and Order/Chaos wars, and even RoT skillgain and how it might fit into the new IPY.
Two polls that I’d like to collect opinions on. One was something not brought up in that topic, however. Instead, it’s something that I’m re-deciding on based on recent events. And really, something I’d like to see votes on regardless.
The other is RoT. Siege Perilous veterans may recognize the term.
Loading ... Loading ...So you don’t need to dig too far for context on the RoT poll, I’ll repost one of my comments.
A few thoughts:
Now, I like the idea of RoT. In fact, I like the idea so much that I’m giving “Resources over Time” some thought.
However. RoT, while seemingly very functional, is also very unfun. I do remember starting on Siege when it had RoT before the wipe (I have no idea if it had RoT afterward). I remember thinking “Wow, this SUCKS!”.
However, the idea was functional then, and it’s damn functional now. How to catch up is certainly a problem, of course… but I think that if you leave RoT in, people have more connection to that character they built, and will likely stick around longer. Things can be done to ease the curve for genuine newbies without kicking RoT out and making all of the veterans feel ripped off, I think.
Which can be done, mainly, I think because something like dungeon scrolls meshes so very synergistically with a RoT system.
RoT – Benefits actual gameplay, restricts macroing. Automatically. No need for detection or police.
Downfall? I’m playing, I’m not macroing, I want to gain more skills and I’m stuck. This sucks. Even if I go play normally, there’s no skill to be had.
Skill scrolls works here. Perfectly. When you’re done gaining, go jump into a dungeon and look for them as long as you want. Drop rate is pretty low, so nobody is forced to… but if you really want that edge, or even if you just want to put thirty minutes in and try your luck… go ahead.
I also, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I remember RoT being very literal. As in that there was a limit on how often you could gain 0.1 skill – period.
While that sounds good from my chair, I know it doesn’t sound good from yours. Because I sat there and played it as a player, and I hated that shit.
At first glance, I’d suggest a cleaner RoT system with an absolute daily limit on skill gains. Something achievable by the average player (especially at the lower levels), and no point-by-point restriction. You can get on and gain your skill points every day in any way you’d like, though skill gain would still be relatively slow and the gain cap would be fairly low (again, something that gives it purpose… not something that a normal player would never, ever attain). If the maximum daily points are left something like they were in the original system, I’d probably like to add a dragging negative gain modifier to make gains slower as you reached the upper levels of the daily limit. You can call it gain fatigue if you like, but I’d rather do that instead of a straight up time limit on individual skill gains. Mainly because you punish those who want to hit those upper echelons of skill gain (while still allowing it), and all of the more casual players get to gain as normal.
On top of that, you still offer skill scrolls and double skill gain in dungeons, and, hopefully, you watch as the general game becomes more active instead of everyone just macroing to the top.
Now, it’ll backfire if people REFUSE to play the system and aren’t at all interested in UO without autopilot, sure. But that’s okay, really. I’ll take that chance if we’re working toward making a better UO.
I like the idea, I like the thoughts in this thread, and I hope you guys keep posting. Perhaps I’ll hold a RoT poll at some point.
I didn’t vote on the first poll because pvp changes are something I need to know about before I can decide how freaked out I am.
I gave RoT a thumbs up.
You’d probably get pretty freaked out, actually.
Why?
Re reading your point about people getting frustrated by ROT and logging out made me give it some thought. This is a valid point, I know of a few guilds that didn’t play SP just because of ROT.
However, the community that did evolve on SP was tremendous. It was exactly what we had experienced years earlier. Here is a great story page made by Glendor of BLD whom I fought against and with on both Sonoma and SP. His stories tell the tale of SP and its community, the uprising of massive alliances and the tumbling of guilds. Note how resource based many of these stories are, and how vintage SP was.
http://www.pusateri.org/blood/pictures.htm
I am not expecting IPY to be Vintage 1997 UO. But what I am expecting is if done right the sense of community to return for all of us to enjoy. Something that dwindled ever so slowly until it was completely lost..
I’ll either foster the community or destroy the game trying to!
I can’t vote on the first poll because I am not currently allowed to test IPY’s current PvP mechanics, so I don’t know what is good and what is bad about them. I don’t remember the nuances specific to the original IPY well enough to make a decision in that regard. That was a long time ago.
Can you release some specifics about what you’re thinking with ‘pvp changes’?
I know you are well aware of the freaking out those two words cause.
Yeah. It puts a smile on my face.
Giant chunks of the population quitting doesn’t put a smile on my face. This is usually the result of drastic pvp changes, regardless of the intention or whther or not the changes are actually for the better.
Well, then I think you have your vote decided. ;)
Can’t really expect people to vote when you havent given any hint towards what pvp changes take affect.
For all I know ev could be one hit killing people and when you cast energy bolt dragons spawn and attack everyone in town and guards turn off.
I think it’s more asking whether you’re resistant to change in general.
I posted in the last thread that I quit UO right when the removal of precasting was announced, and how really I was only quitting because I was resisting change. Not because I knew whether the result would be better or worse.
That’s kind of the point.
How you vote might tell me whether or not I’m starting off on the wrong foot with most of you – whether or not I’m behind the eight ball if I make changes, you know?
Change is good and like you said if it totally freaks people out it can always be reverted.
It didn’t let me vote on the RoT poll, but I am for the idea. With this system in place can you still gain skills in dungeons outside of the few pts you can gain per day or few hours or whatever it was?
Yeah, I don’t know. That’s the second time the polls have closed on their own. This time it was only that one.
The only thing I can say is once you have a PvP system in place, don’t make drastic changes after everyone adjusts… that’s how you lose player base. Changes after release that impact PvP bother people a lot more than simply a fresh start.
Totally true Robin. Get it right the first time.
I said leave PvP as is but I would be open minded about changes. And I dunno if RoT is perfect but it’s definitely not terrible.
I’m not settled on any changes. Just looking at opinions.
I actually voted against the changes until I read your post. Might want to edit it so that people have to read it first.
Anyway, your SP argument changed my mind. I’m an Orc, and I quit Shadowclan after 3 years when they suddenly said my character name wasn’t acceptable (to this day I have no idea why). I really was attached to my character- so attached that I stopped playing the game rather than delete my Orc that I had spent so much time training.
You’re going to get tons of resistance with what you’re trying to do… but most people who play UO right now play to PVP as 7xGM mages and can’t imaging playing any other way. So go ahead and do it, we’ll play.
Vote with your hearts, sirs. If my explanation changes your mind afterward, that’s okay. But I think your initial reaction is just as important.
Besides, I’m surprised at how positive the results are. We can handle a few more negative votes. ;)
The point is that you’re not going to come to the website, look at the features, and see things like RoT then follow a link to read my fourteen paragraph explanation. So I really think your first reaction is just as good as any.
If you then change your mind and come to the comments section to explain that, it’s even better.
I voted “No” to PvP changes but really it would have to be on an individual change basis. Precasting change: no, change polymorph so it’s worth casting – sure why not.
I haven’t voted on RoT as I’m confused as to what it means. If it means what it did on SP: Only .1 skill per hour or whatever then no – I don’t like that. If it’s on a per day basis and that skill can be gained in just an hour or so – then that kinda levels the field between casual and more serious players. I’m ok with that.
But then the field was also level when we were all 7xGM.
Ox, RoT was both. A delay between your ability to gain 0.1, and a total limit per day.
I’d be getting rid of the first part, and likely adding a dragging negative modifier to make skill gain slower as you reach your daily limit.
The purpose is to even the ground between casuals and hardcores, as well as to control macroing and exploits/abuses.
On top of that, the skill scrolls would still exist – the drop rate becoming quite rate as your skill level is higher. The point here being to give people something to go hunt for even after they’ve reached their RoT daily limit if they’d like to.
But they’d have to play the game.
I could definitely deal with that, especially if the timeline we’re talking about is like 1-1.5 hrs to reach that 90% of daily possible gains. I cant stand those stupid additions to new MMOs that require I play for 6 hours at a time – WoW raids + battlegrounds or Darkfall’s sieges. But then that’s me just making up my ideal game like that twitter post I just read.
Although I really don’t think I will like PvPing with a lower then necessary skill set. The game is so much different for people who can not cast 6th circle spells. It’s going to make a veteran status on the shard that much more advantageous.
Imagine in 6 months fighting a character that’s 1 month old. The people that would quit from that situation might be a sizable proportion of your potential players.
Maybe. But unlike if you’re behind in a PBBG where you can never catch up, there is an end to working your character in UO. Areas simply need to be provided that are newbie friendly so that people aren’t constantly feeling like they’re stuck in mud and unable to catch up to the people are are wtfpwning them.
Catching up to established characters is a definite issue, though. People will just have to be aware that I’ll want to give newbies a bit of a break. I’m sure some will get angry that they can’t victimize them 100% of the time, but that’s okay.
I was actually the first person to vote on this poll, but I’ve waited to let my thoughts settle a bit before commenting.
There are two things I hope that you’ll factor into your decisions about setting up skill gains:
1) There don’t have to be diminishing returns on play time.
The more people online and playing the game the more fun it will be to be online and playing the game. We don’t want to make the game mechanics discourage people from playing. Hopefully it’s possible to create other benefits to playing aside from just skill gains.
2) Most people want there to be a relatively level PvP playing field.
At this point we’ve all played 7x characters almost exclusively. It’s pretty much what we expect from ourselves and our opponents. Even the people who are going to be playing constantly generally don’t play so they can get a competitive advantage in the field.
I believe that individuals and groups will find ways to set themselves apart, aside from just jumping ahead in skill gain. These are my thoughts, but I fully expect (and hope) some of you will disagree.
RoT and the scroll system will get people playing the game more often than they would have before. Diminishing returns will increase that playtime further without having to neuter RoT and set the limit to 10.0 points have have people making characters in five days.
I don’t see diminishing skill gain as discouraging people to play. I see it as allowing those who want to get ahead to get ahead, while not leaving casual players TOO far behind – with all of the benefits of RoT and Scrolls/Dungeon increases.
That’s my opinion, your mileage may vary of course.
I agree. Just to clarify: I voted for change, and also in favor of RoT. I just wanted to make it clear why it was that I voted that way.
I don’t think that skill gain being too slow has ever been an issue on any of the freeshards that I’ve ever played. If anything, it’s the opposite in a not very noticeable way. The decision to quit usually takes place after character creation is finished, based on my experience of quitting and knowing people who have quit.
If anything, slower skill gain helps a server. Even if everyone is just macroing, they still need to get out and “play the game” at least enough to fund their macro progression. Players being “up and coming” is an important part of UO. Be it your first house, or your second castle, people need to need, and slowing their skill gain increases the need.
The mindset of today’s UO (Post IPY Fresshards) is basically you get your character to 7x GM and then you go PvP or do what you wantever it is you want to do in the game.
I’m all for this RoT system the more I think about it. I personally am definatley looking for more then another fast track to 7x GM and a couple of months of PvPing and I hope most of the UO vets here are too.
The harder skill gain is and the harder it is to make money the more people play and the longer they will play because there is always something to do.
There will always be, in every game, people who reach higher skills (or levels) faster then others. The beauty about UO is a 7x GM wont win 100% of the fights against a 7x 90. Man we didn’t even start seeing 7xGM’s all over the place in UO well into late 99/00 and hopefully we can see that again.
I mean, it “might” cause some people to hesitate before playing but the better a shard is promoted and the more people we get to play initially the more we will end up having.
But a 7×60 will almost never beat a 7xGM as they will fail the majority of offensive spells in PvP and sometimes fail the important defensive ones. On top of that the calculations on hit percentages with melee weapons will make it something like a 4 to 1 hit ratio if two dexxers went shot for shot.
Although that melee calculation is from memory I might be way off.
Also, will the RoT be on a per individual skill basis or will it be over all skills? Twenty points per day for all skills or two points per day per skill?
Just to clarify I meant in a 50ish vs 100 sword skill. The 100 skill guy would hit the 50 skill guy twice as often as he would vs a 100 skill character.
The second time thinking it through it actually works out to a 3 to 1 hit ratio. Still I might be way off.
also I meant what would RoT theoretically look like on if it were incorporated with my last sentence there.
I think the point is that everyone ends up at nearly equitable levels of PvP viability, in terms of skills. The guy who plays 10 hours a day for the first month will inevitably have an advantage over most people, but the guy who plays 10 hours a week can still be competitive. The powergamer will be better equipped, and probably have a skill advantage, but it won’t be an insurmountable one, and he won’t simply wipe the floor with the more casual player just because of his skill/item advantage. That’s the way most of us want it to be at this point. We’ve all played enough UO with everyone being 7xGM that we’re used to a level playing field, and we expect there to be one, regardless of how much more or less time we’ve put into our characters compared to our opponents. Even the powergamers are here for competition.
The special thing about RoT, or some other adjustment to skill gain is that we have people out and about doing things in the world, rather than setting up complicated resource macros, or macroing PvP skills, or grinding away on a PvM character. None of which are appealing parts of the game for any of us, but have become a near necessity as things currently stand.
As I understand it, the point of all this is to create a system in which we’re incentivized to play the game the way we used to when we first started, but to alter things so that playing involves doing all the things about UO that we’ve come to appreciate the most, rather than the silly trivial things that we had to do as newbies. For most of us that’s PvP; group fighting, 1v1, field strategy, etc. If we can make that kind of stuff fit into character development, then we’ve got people out in the world interacting and doing the stuff that’s the most fun for all of us.
Yes, I don’t know if anyone bothered to read the epic comment I made last on the previous O/C discussion but I believe the ROT system by allowing people to actually play the game and “get outside”, it will generate more Player driven content and let players experience more of the organic and unpredictable gameplay that UO was famous for. So basically, ROT will make people enjoy the game more.
It’s very interesting how votes against PvP change and votes against RoT were dead even for the first day or two, and now they’re really diverging. What’s MORE interesting is that votes against RoT are jumping ahead of votes against PvP change.
I’d have never expected that.
So either you guys have way too much faith in my intelligence, or some people just really hate RoT. Or both.
In addition to this comment I’d like to urge people to, again, read my comment on how RoT fits into the scheme of this server.
If you STILL DON’T AGREE – Please, please make a comment. I can hardly consider your point of view if you don’t comment. Even “IT SUCKS!” is a comment, really, because I understand. That’s how I felt when they release Siege Perilous – but at this point I honestly feel like it jives with this server’s direction, so please let me know why you think it doesn’t.
I think RoT would fit perfectly with skill scrolls in dungeons. The point of these things is to not have people in their house macroing either it be for 1 week(fast skill gain) or 1 month(slow skill gain)
by having RoT and skill scroll you force the players to “play” the game and making it more enjoyable for a longer period of time. The only people that wouldnt want that are these that would stay in their house for few weeks macroing, go out pvp 1-2 hours a day after and then quit the server out of boredom.
Well, I hate to generalize like that but you’re right.
Besides, while skill gain will be slow, it’ll be doubled in dungeons – and there’ll be scroll drops. The bone wall will be much more fun with doubled gains and a chance to loot that sweet ass rare golden .3 skill scroll.
Even though the gains are doubled, RoT still takes effect as caps the amount gained correct?
Also, would RoT kick in once your skill is a certain level? Say 60 or 65ish? Or is it RoT right from 0.
At the moment there are no caps on the development server.
If I decide on RoT, then yes, the doubled skill gain would essentially amount to you being able to get to your RoT daily limit faster – not bypass it.
The details of when it’ll kick in, how it’ll happen, what the caps will be, and so on… undecided. My guess is that you’d see something pretty reasonable or even largely unnoticeable when it comes to new players.
So in the end, when you factor in the unpredictability of dungeons and so on, deaths, wasted time, the use of reagents that aren’t on spells that are going to create gains – macroing may be a reasonably viable alternative. It’s just not vastly superior like it was before.
In the end, it’s all about balance. During beta, the entire skill gain system will be balanced out so that macroing is more expensive and requires more time than playing the game. But it won’t be balanced so that it’s impossible to macro a character, I don’t think.
For ROT is it just a max skill cap that includes all the skills? OR Will you gain one skill up then it caps out for the day for that skill then you can move on to a different skill and cap that out too all in the same day?
What’s your opinion?
I’m undecided as of yet.
both. Cap on max per speciffic skill and total points gained per day.
The individual cap would have to lower as your skill got higher.
For example: Daily ROT cap = 10% of Remaining skill or 1.0, whichever is greater?
Or what about just having it low the entire time? Maybe harder to raise the higher you are?
Maybe that would be a litttle too hard though?
Actually yeah, scrath that.
That’s exactly what “should” happen. I’m sure your beta will weed any issues that you are already thinking of out and if the system flat out doesn’t work, well, you can always explore other options.
I do have one question about RoT. Does the system only cap you on gains per skill per day or total skill points gained aswell? Do stat gains have a cap too?
Looks like King and I have the same question, I guess I missed his post.
I was also thinking of ways you could encourage people to drop their skills down once they reach gm. Say you get to gm then you get an option to drop your skill down and it’ll give you a new title and maybe some sort of decoration, kind of like how call of duty you can keep restarting your rank when you reach the top for special badges.
I’m not a fan of stat loss for killing but I think it would be a good idea to have stat loss in many forms so that the game can survive once people start to reach the end game.
yeah that would be cool…
something like once you reach gm in a skill or maybe 7x you have the ability to select to start your char from 0 again to get a benefit applied to the character…
either maybe something done to characters appearance (clothing, skin color, hair color) and/or 20+ of X stat(s), or a 800 point skillcap instead of 700…
How about some virtue points.
Humility and Sacrifice?
I have made all my points for ROT and I am glad we are seeing peoples opinions against it.. but I have one more suggestion.
Start the ROT cap high, meaning 5.0 per day in the 70′s, or 4.0 in the 80′s, 3.0 90-95 and 95-100 1.5.
But don’t make it guaranteed. On SP those gains were guaranteed, meaning you logged in and casted one spell equal to that skill level and you got the .1. So give people that higher cap, but just increase the difficulty to gain skill substantially. So there is still the potential, and it would even be worth it to macro for 3 hours to get that 5.0 in the 70′s IF YOU HAVE THE RESOURCES.
But people will still have to farm to get those resources.. this will give people both options. I think this is the direction you were hinting at anyway, but I just wanted to clear up the Guaranteed Gains. This gives both play styles a chance.
And it’s like everyone has said, the bugs can be worked out in beta but I think that at least trying the ROT system would be worth it, even if it is a very toned down version.
I think the 60/40 split regarding RoT is interesting.
It’s too bad more people that voted no didn’t leave an explanation, though.
I voted No but the poll isn’t going to be completely answerable until specifics are put in place. First impression when I see RoT is a no, for me, as it was when SP came out in 99.
I don’t want to be forced to wait 2 or 3 months for a complete character or a end-game level PvP character.
If it takes a month and everyone (hardcore and casuals) has to level at the same pace – that’s not so bad. But still the issue with late-comers being way behind will still be present.
Also I don’t know why everyone is so pumped to PvP with less then end-game characters. It’s just not fun. I know everyone and their mother who posts on here wants to PvP right from day1 with a complete gimp of a character… but the UO I know and love starts when you reach 6x GM (resist can lag behind).
“Also I don’t know why everyone is so pumped to PvP with less then end-game characters. It’s just not fun. I know everyone and their mother who posts on here wants to PvP right from day1 with a complete gimp of a character… but the UO I know and love starts when you reach 6x GM (resist can lag behind).”
The problem is that when you can get there too quickly and easily it kills the atmosphere of the server. Let’s agree that the PvP we all know – with everyone at 6xGM – is great. That’s why we’re all here. However, we all want the server to have some sort of life to it. We all know what happens when we macro chars to 6xGM in our houses for a week before playing the game. We hit hot spots for a few months, then get bored and stop playing because things get old.
We’re just trying to come up with a way to have that competitive playing field, but also allow the server to have a community of players that do things other than hit the same 5-10 hot spots and log off. The big thing we like about UO is the PvP mechanics, but another part of UO that a lot of us miss is that feeling we had on OSI of interacting in an actual world. That second part is a little more nebulous, but we’ve been dealing with the game for long enough that we know it’s important.
We’re pumped to PvP with less than end-game characters because we believe that’s part of what helps to create the sort of atmosphere that’s been missing since OSI.
I too am getting a little worried about all the focus on PVP. I’m Not going to repeat all of a post I made on the O/C, Razor thread but basically, UO is SO MUCH MORE then PVP. If you are looking to attract wolves, you don’t need to try because they are everywhere. It’s the sheep you need to be concerned about, and start bringing in features and gameplay mechanics for them. End of the day, it’s them that will make or break the shard.
“Me and a lot of players out there are looking for that Classic UO world back again, not necessarly a clone, but an active, thriving server where PvE, crafting and PvP are all feasable alternatives to the average player (without having to be a 5 times PvP tournament winner from Hybrid). End of the day, if you want fast paced PVP these days in games you can just load up WOW, WAR, Guild Wars, Modern Warfare, Bad Company 2 the list goes on… If your looking for an authentic virtual world, with politics, an in-depth & rewarding crafting system; skills/character development, social mechanics with player housing & boats, a Player driven economy and content (Insert UO features here) ; There’s just nothing out there even now after 13 years that can compete with Ultima Online of old.”
I don’t think Azaroth is neglecting the other areas of UO at all, I think he is finding ways of improving them every day, and one of those ways is through PvP.
Review what we have discussed, ROT can be used as a means to get people into dungeons, if there is some type of stat loss or harsh penalty for Player Killing (which I think we have established there should be), you will see an active population in the dungeons with few reds sprinkled in between. This would remind me of Deceit post rep patch. An active dungeon community, many times you can see the same name in the same monster spot on a regular basis, with the added thrill of the possibility of PK’s. This makes the need for more established anti’s to patrol dungeons or react to the call out for help when these PK’s strike. Skill scrolls do the above as well.
Now, to balance economy or create an economy you need an active monster bashing group that creates the gold (this is through legit sources, we all know UO had a lot of illegal sources for gold). By promoting dungeon crawling and dungeon PvP you are also promoting the economy by creating a habitat where players WANT to be. They won’t sit at Brit West waiting for people to come and fight and watch and say eww awwwe.. they will go to Shame or Deceit and kill liches in a group, train at the bone wall because they know there is an active group of players there to protect them from possible PK’s.
I am not blind with flowers in my eyes, I know that many of these people will still get killed and get greifed, but it was a group effort, a mob mentality if you will (Power of Influence) that will help create an atmosphere in the dungeons that can see an economy flourish through collective gathering of gold and various other resources with relative safety.
Not sure if I am explaining this right, but this is how I see it.
I totally agree with you, and I know Azaroth does as well, you don’t want a free shard of c00l d3wds, I know a lot of us think that is what made UO turn because it is all we exposed ourselves to in the early days.. but there was always that back drop of RPers, monster bashers, crafters, economists that ACTUALLY made the world turn. We just provided the entertaining and leached off of their already established system.
Read this and you will see what kind of vision Azaroth had for the original IPY, and how it was ruined.
http://azaroth.org/ipyuo/ipyuo.html
I think this is a clear sign of what will NOT be done this time around.
You just brought a lot of good memories to my brain. The dungeon “community” is something that I always forget about when thinking of how I would like a server to be. They were the universal meeting grounds. Good times.
can we get any sort of IDEA even to an ETA of the shard so i can stop checking the forums every day to maybe get a glimpse of some hope that it will come out this year?
Don’t remove precast and insta hit please, and no special hits. Other than that you can do whatever you want as far as I’m concerned.
*Prydwen receives a crushing blow*
I personally don’t much care for the Rot system, well not for all skills. Weapon skills/ Magery I personally wouldn’t like having this burdened on me. I absolutely despise making my first character on shards cause i just wanna play the game. But then after that I dont care as much cause i can play Uo (more efficiently i can play as a newer character but i find it so annoying that it almost turns me away from playing) so i can easily toggle between chars then. Like i personally dont mind if the ROT kicked in at around lets say 80 skill for some skills. But instead being a bit rougher on that point that it would have been usually. Then game could be played with a chance of fighting completed characters and people can get that extra advantage they want. As for other skills for ROT i feel it sounds right and i wouldn’t mind it. For example i plan on making a tamer and a bard later. So its just mainly the factor of just wanting to be able to play with the more active gamers without having to sacrifice hours of my life to do so. (Also sorta typing this while im like out of it… im half asleep so sorry for any illogic)
hero, again, the point is that you would be able to play without having to have a finished character before you can do so.
No the point is that you would be FORCED to play without having a finished character. I do see the logic behind this, but I don’t know if its totally sound.
And I think there’s going to have to be some serious balancing in beta with respect to this, if RoT gets the green light.
yea, in opposition to being FORCED to macro up a 7x character before you can play.
domnu has the right idea here.
Fast, macroable skills is a bit like having a level cap of 3. There’s no room for advancement, and obviously everyone is expected to be level 3 to PvP.
UO used to have a level cap of 5000 in 1997. Nobody had 7xGM. Nobody. A GM Mage was… incredibly rare. If you knew 50 people, one would have a friend of a friend who has a GM Mage. Two of the guys you knew would have GM Swords or something. There wasn’t a grind, because everyone played the damn game instead of macroing. If you wanted GM skills, sure, you grinded them out. But isn’t that sense of satisfaction better than anything else in the game? On a real, serious, true server… wouldn’t investing that time and being one of the few GM Blacksmiths be worth 500 7xGM characters on some 3hour7xGM server?
Hell, maybe I’m wrong. But to me it would be.
Why is an end to the game so necessary? Well, because everyone wants an even PvP playing field so they can play Quake.
It’s not Quake.
Also, because building characters SUCKS. Because you have to macro them. So you macro tailoring, then buy regs, then macro your character.
That’s an awful game. Really. That’s a stupid ass game. What new player would ever want to get involved in that kind of bullshit macrofest.
So, I don’t know. Perhaps a skill gain poll is necessary at this point. But it needs to be understood that this isn’t a skill gain poll about MORE MACROING… it’s a skill gain poll related to a server that’s working to incentivize actual play and make macroing possible, but highly inefficient.
Early UO worked as beautifully as it did because most people didn’t know how to macro. Right now, we have to be a bit more sophisticated about the problem. We have to actually plan and design to make the game good. There’s no striking gold because it’s the first time anyone has done this and the basic design is great.
Man, I remember when I first started playing UO and some guy was casting firefields off this keep I was at. I asked him how long it took to make a good character, he was like an easy 3-4months of gameplay. By good, we are talking 60-65magery, 80ish in 1 weapon skill and tactics maybe 70ish in another weapon skill, some hiding and no resists.
The game has to be played and not macrod in order for us old-Schoolers to get the feel we are looking for. It’s simple. This whole end game talk came from World of Warcraft and DaOC. (SB Doesn’t count because #1 you pvpd all the time and #2 It took a few days to make a character)
Seriously, any true Darktide AC player here knows we didn’t wait until a certain level to PvP. If anyone played Rallos Zek in EQ knew there was Chaos as soon as it was possible. Any true old school UO player damn well knows they never once thought about being under skilled then anyone on the field and the last thing we thought about was macroing up so we can be a better pvper. I use to run around as Dread, with 75 archery 80tactics, 70 swords, 53 magery and 60 hiding.
People should keep in mind that I’ll probably want to find a middle ground. I won’t really make it take six months for you to 7xGM a character.
Yeah, nor would that be expected at this day and age
I’m not sure it’s totally sound either, but I think it’s better than the current development concepts in UO.
And Az, it’s April. Time to start complaining about release!
Nothing is totally sound in MMOs.
Give me 50 years and a legion of designers and testers and I could make the perfect MMO systems. When you expose stuff to the wild (that’s you guys), it gets used, bent, and abused in ways you don’t anticipate. Just how it is.
As far as complaining about release… go ahead. You complain about the weather if you want, too. ;)
Nay sir. Weather is fantastic here. :)
Read your last post, and it’s refreshing to finally see someone who understands and agrees with what I’ve been telling staffers of freeshards for like the last 81293812 years.
Don’t really need to add anything to it, because doing so would just be repeating myself for like the 19th time.
Actually I lied. I’ve seen other types of things on free servers that I view as detrimental as well. Things like forum threads dedicated to sharing skill guides for auto-pilotting any character class. That’s retarded. Everyone knowing how to make any kind of character they want to in a matter of days is a terrible… terrible thing.
In short, whatever system we go with here, if you find a good way to efficiently raise your skills, don’t post it all over the place so that anyone else with eyes can do so if they choose to. If you feel the need to do that kind of thing, (assuming there might at some point be a forum), don’t create a venue to facilitate and/or promote such ass hattery.
Sorry but even in 1997 you could find websites that were dedicated to skill gain methods. This isn’t a free server thing.. skill guides have been around since release.
It is a flaw of the game if you can build a character that fast, not the person posting the guide. This is what Azaroth is trying to eliminate with slower skill gains and/or ROT and/or Dungeon Scrolls.
This is a very silly request.
point taken. I suppose those things would only be applicable if macroing were efficient, which at this point, I’m pretty sure we’ve decided it won’t be.
But, it is a free shard thing. I guess I was more referring to things like, “Hey does anyone have a macro or script they use to raise .”
Then someone posts it, then the person just copies and pasts it, runs it, and a couple days later their character is done. If the staff of OSI shards created venues which encouraged that, I guess I missed them. Again though, won’t be a problem if macroing is inefficient.
Az a few days ago you brought up how UO wasn’t designed for Quake-style end game. Well, unfortunately as MMOs evolved, so did the players and their playstyles. As a result, at this point in UP’s life cycle, the game has been mastered and the natural gentrification of player arch-types has been smoothed over. The only thing left to do if you want the players to experience a different end game is to change the focus and thus change the players behavior. A lot of the ideas that we’ve tossed around would be more than helpful in that regard. Blend it well and we’ll have a brand new classic on our hands; 2.0 baby!!! Don’t rush it, either…
I haven’t finished reading all the comments, but I’ve been thinking:
I’m always worried about a vote on these kinds of things.. Back on Divinity a lot of people voted to have PvP changed, but it didn’t seem that it was actually what a majority wanted. People may vote for things like RoT and PvP changes based on nostalgia or “woah, man, that is what UO used to be like”, but then realize later on that they are much more accustomed to the pre-UOR PvP ruleset that was initially created by shards like IPY and Div. From what I understand most of the people being attracted to this shard aren’t 12 and 13 anymore, and they aren’t coming to play the game right after middle school. Mostly college students or working people are interested in UO, especially pre-UOR UO shards.
I voted for RoT and PvP changes, but after I cast my vote I’m beginning to wonder if I’d have the time to be attended and play my character long enough to be a viable PvPer a few months after the shard has been up and running. Maybe the “everybody can be 7x” was actually a better way of evening the playing field? Although there comes the problem of everyone having their own 7x crafters and their own 7x provos/tamers thus pushing out all of the people who play the game for that sole purpose. Hmpf. Delicate.
I partially say this because I’m expecting the shard to be opened up as a beta or released some time during the summer, and I know that I personally want to have at least a working character before I head back to school. I just don’t have the time or desire while at school to play the game for more than 2 hours, if even 2 hours. I know some of the people I play with will think similarly.
Although it actually would be fun running around with 7x ~80 and PvPing with a chance that the person I picked a fight with was 7xGM. I’d feel like superman when I killed him/her.
The idea here isn’t to have everyone running around with 3 and 4 characters at 7x GM. Those who chose to be crafters will go that route, those who will do a PvP template will go that route. Eventually, after a while folks will have secondary chars up. Part of the problem I see, post shards like Divinity / UOSA / IPY is the fact that a lot of players are use to being able to make everything themselves, run 4 accounts at once, and basically get set up with little challenge.
I hear ya on the time sink, I don’t think anyone expects to be playing 5 and 7 hours a night. What I think people need to ask themselves is, are they really wanting to play the game? If it’s just a quick fix at UO to do a little bit of pre uo:r mechanics dueling, field pvp then quit, there are a lot of places to do that.
Well I wasn’t implying that I wanted a “quick fix” of UO, I played Divinity since before it got publicity up until I headed back to school and the population was falling below ~100 a day again.
I wonder if the RoT could be implemented on a character by character basis per account though. So the first character you make gets skills a little faster/more efficiently than the rest, and then the next one a little less and so on until the last one becomes really hard. Could maybe even weight certain skills more than others, like make Blacksmith get less points and take longer per day than a skill like swords or meditation. That way the people who want to PvP and will buy the goods from the crafters and PvMer’s will be kinda perked into staying and the crafters will be held to higher esteem because they are harder characters to make.
As I said, I voted for RoT, I just don’t want to spend 2 months making my character into 7x ~80 and being just barely viable on the field. I get the “play the game” argument, but I remember building my character on OSI and being really happy to get that phase over with..
I liked the point about no one wanting to start playing a new game when everyone just macros and doesn’t ever play it. That makes a lot of sense and I hadn’t thought of the excessive macro dependence being something that keeps people away. I haven’t really heard of any of the well publicized free shards ever implementing slow skill gain, let alone RoT it’d be a fun experiment if nothing else.
Would the skill scrolls be allowed to bring you over the daily limit then? So if the limit is like X skill points per day and you reached that limit and get a scroll that was like +0.3 would you be able to get X+0.3 in that day?
I’m sorry I keep forgetting to say things in the post before and posting a few messages in a row, but what about allowing someone to have less character slots on their account in order to have a slightly higher chance of gaining a skill and a slightly higher daily skill gain limit?
Eh maybe not, that might just sound good in my head now that I look at it written down..
Yeah. Under the modified RoT system, skill scrolls would be dual purpose:
To gain skill normally and speed things up further in dungeons, and
To provide an avenue of continued play and gains beyond the daily limit should a person desire that.
The drop rate is low, though.
Like, low. It’s also randomized, so when I was testing it in the Britain GY with an apprentice swordsman, I expected things to pan out a certain way. In the end, I was grinding skeletons for MUCH longer than I expected and wondering if the system was broken.
I started complaining to the coder, and then one dropped.
So that can work two ways. While you could possibly score three 0.3 scrolls in a row (there’s no cooldown), you could also go five hours without anything. Or ten. Or a month. There’s no point at which one is guaranteed to drop for you.
So the point is that while you CAN go hunt scrolls after your limit is reached, you’re not guaranteed anything and it can be a frustrating experience.
Just to clarify, how are you determining what skill the scroll is for? Are people going to be able to get magery scrolls? What about eval int scrolls?
For the record I think the skill scrolls are an awesome idea.
For the record I think Jackstraw’s idea about less alts increasing ur main’s rate of skill gain. Then again I think the exact opposite is also a good idea, where less char slots used increases the main’s grind period (since they’re only into 1 char rather than 5). I doubt either would work in UO’s architecture, but it’s interesting nonetheless.
Increasing the grind is fun but there’s a couple tradeoffs – impatient greenhorns are less apt to stick it out, and it annoys some old timey powergamers that equate a perfected build order with a realistic and immersive developmental period (which, obvs, it’s not [and hasn't been since 99-2000]). Word.