Messages

Thanks for the fix. 

The P-coin store stone for Transcendence Scroll Books gives you a Stat book instead.  I now have 2.

-Unholy Knights BP
-Black plant dye


Let me know, thx.

-Gil'thalas Armgo

Very nice Tys, excellent post.

Did my best with that line from Eddard stark in the first season, threw in a little Illidan from Burning Crusade for spice. I don't own the books.

...Enclosed is your brother Gonfalone's favorite toy.  He cried when I took it from him.

*apologies for any small spoilers* If you havn't seen GoT or read the books your missing out.

Taking over my body and killing people is leaving me psychologically distressed.

HODOR HODOR HODOR!!

Pandorians

You have been blessed with a long and fruitful summer. This land has been one of peace and prosperity, yet you feel change in the air. 

Storm clouds mass on the horizon and a pack of wolves are at your door.  Have you done enough during times of plenty?

You are not Prepared!!

...Summer fades..

...Winter is Coming...

-Hooded Figure

Nigel your talking about the magic short bow.  Lighting arrow is the weapon ability for PvM mainly. Great PvM weapon.  Also what blackmyst was using in that big doom coliseum scrap before I killed him.

Thank you guys for all the additions.  Special thanks for jumping on the shard crashes/reverts right away.

Nollkoll, what level spells and above did you adjust? Just want to know where I should start my testing.  Are just the magery spells adjusted, or do we need to test all the spells across the other schools as well.

Thanks.

Thanks Datrav.  KDL is an excellent example of a guild that understands the mechanics of the shard then uses solid teamwork and what i assume is VoIP target calling to make them even more formidable in the field.

That said i believe we can work together to expand the system from what i feel is a very narrow focus.  Its natural to lose some of the options with open stats and skills, but that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be more than one viable path to victory. 

Its disappointing archery has some random miss modifier added as well.  A well prepared archer, not just someone spamming AI from a comp bow should be a force.  If i am able to position myself to dismount you with a heavy, poison your mount and then take advantage of it, have i not earned it?  I will miss of course against similarly geared opponents of similar skill.  This is acceptable.  Adjusting the system was unnecessary due to the fact that you can disarm from range.  If someone is shooting you with a bow, disarm them. 

Pandorians, disarm is a super powerful tool.  Are you using it? The primary and secondary abilities of open hands are disarm and paralyzing blow. Why do you think this is? 

****

1. Simply test AI at different decreased modifiers.  A reasonable damage can be reached quickly in this way.  It should still be a direct damage ability that will always do high damage COMPARATIVELY due to the weapons players will use to inflict it. 

2. Remove added miss modifier to bows.

3. Adjust high circle spells back to reasonable damage levels.

We can debate the merit of adding additional systems once the current system is updated to be relevant with our current health pool.

Im mainly concerned with getting magery and weapon abilities in line with our current health pool. People should be penalized as in the past for letting you freecast on them.  As Datrav alluded to we have weapon abilities that deal with AI.  We have weapon abilities or spell abilities to counter whatever else someone is throwing at us.  If someone is hammerpicking me I am disarming them period. 

I do however disagree that pvp is "fine."  I have no incentive to combo or cast anything past ebolt.  The time to cast a flame strike, explosion, bombard, etc. is not rewarded.  I will do far more damage just standing in someones face and AIing them, or standing in someones face AIing them while my buddy fireball spams them etc. 

If a damage modifier was added to the 6-8th circles and their equivalents magery would become useful again.  Allowing a mage to cast multiple high level spells on you should be a bad idea.  The way archery was changed on this server makes that less than ideal as a primary, magic being weak makes that less usable as a primary, so we are all dexxers that might use a bit of something else.  Instead of the open skills and stats allowing for even more useful "templates" or play styles we are now very limited because nothing is on par with weapon abilities, in particular AI.

I believe it is entirely possibly to bring the damage dealing abilities in line with our current health pool while still keeping spells and abilities in their respective primary lanes. 


Some spells that are fun to use tactically simply don't work.  Thunderstorm does not seem to lower SSI.  Purge Magic Seems to do nothing.  Spell Plague doesn't seem to function correctly.  Essence of wind is another.  I tested these out with a guildy using an unguilded character.  I will post more information on it as I have time.  Been busy this holiday weekend.

I think increasing the duration slightly would actually function more as intended.  Slipping for slightly longer might account for some of the extra health.  Your only looking for the bleed to give you time to open up into something else after all.  I am just wary of of how it will affect the bandage slip of pvp if damage is increased, I am not trying to disparage anyone on the forums idea(s).  I hope the spirit of the post does not come across that way.

Players should definitely be taking extra damage from undead slayers while in vamp form etc and the appropriate weaknesses to resist.  Risk vs Reward if someone notices your pasty.

On a seperate note i am aware of several spells in several magic schools either dont work, or don't work like they should.  Its early AM here in the ATL and i got to get moving.  I will test later today and post those as well.  I don't want anyone to think im just here shitting on ideas and not doing legwork myself.

Great ideas in this thread.  One bit of concern?

What exactly are we looking for bleed to do here? As it stands it is an interrupt.  It causes bandages to slip on occasion which is really its purpose in pvp.  I have never thought of it as a direct damage spell in the vein of AI, double strike, etc.

Bleed Attack:
Mana Cost: 30
Successful use of the special move inflicts 15-31 points of Direct Damage over 10 seconds, with the rate of damage slowing as time passes.

Mortal Strike:
Use of a Mortal Strike will render it impossible to initiate the healing of damage on your target for several seconds. It lasts for 6 seconds in PvP combat or 12 seconds in PvE. Characters under the effects of a Mortal Strike can still cure poisons and staunch bleeding.

Poison:
Being poisoned causes your character to take damage over time, the frequency/power/length of which is determined by the type of poison inflicted.
A poisoned character's life bar will change from blue to green. This over-rides the yellow color that would usually appear if the character is also Mortally Wounded.

I pulled these skills off UOguide, trimmed some of the unimportant stuff to shorten the post.  As you can see, bleed, mortal, poison are healing interupts.  They are not meant so much as high direct damage.  Especially to the point that they are a threat to directly kill you in pvp unless one person is severely unprepared or undergeared/outmatched.  I am not arguing from the point that the well timed usage of these skills could net a kill, simply that this is not their primary use by design.  This leads into that combination system that Tys alluded too. 

I am simply advocating that "abilities" stay in their respective lanes. If you make bleed do all sorts of damage then everyone will be constantly slipping bandages in pvp, bleed will become the new AI. 

My war fork says yes but my heart says no.

I concede to Biggums 100 should be pvp cap then.  Most people will run around with the items you mentioned imbued with SDI.  It gives those actively using a book a tactical advantage over those wielding a weapon etc. when mana dumping. 

On a side note no one should actively fireball you to death, they should die to your magic arrow and harm.

Biggums, my point is not that u can't get higher SDI, it is that magery should be viable in pvp.  We do not want to tinker and make some 400% SDI fad of the month template.   It simply opens of a can of worms that isnt there with uncapped PvM SDI.  No one wants to be one shot in full tier gear by weapons/magery.

Here is my problem with increasing the SDI cap that far.

SDI is imbuable via runes with a stat value of 15 on 4 pieces of jewelry, your talisman, and your spellbook as far as I know.  The cap should therefore be no higher than 75.  Not everyone wants SDI on their talisman, they might be tempted to switch dress when setting up spell dumps via tali or equip a book into their hands which i consider to be a fair tradeoff for the SDI. 

If you have much more SDI than 90 as is when equipped as described it is due to basically one of three reasons:

-You have donated for stats on your shroud.  You benefit from increased farming with the uncapped SDI during PvM.

-You have a set of mace and shields with stats now not possible to imbue on them, as they were previously considered jewelry and are now imbued under armor characteristics.  Its still fine, your a vet, things change, your PvM farm is increased.

-You have a crystalline ring which has SDI increase on it.  A ring obtained from a mob only spawnable in a PvE area.  Again, for your time, the reward is increased farm.

PvP is built around balance, you cant increase things 100-150% and not expect problems.  Further, I feel it unwise to cap the PvP SDI at such an otherwise unattainable level.

I am not against increasing the SDI cap slightly for pvp.  Let me ask you if we can maybe arrive at the same conclusion: an increase in the effectiveness of magery by a different tactic.

Simply add or adjust the damage modifer for PvP spell damage.  This way nothing has to be tweaked on the PvM side.  Maybe the modifier should be 1.5-2.0, it will need to be tested.  PvP SDI cap can remain the same or be increased slightly.  The end result is more damage gets through per spell to the player, making magery more viable.   This achieves the same goal without the problem of requiring every available slot be used for SDI which reduces character choice.  Everyone following the same template is one of the problems we have now, as TP pointed out. 

Donation rewards should be limited in the affect they can have on PvP interactions. This shard has a nice balance in that MOST of the donation items are luxury or make you better at grinding the PvM train.  You don't want to stray into Pay2Win levels for PvP.  Many people will find that unacceptable.

Yeah, I agree Biggums that's really all there is to do.  Test the system and report back.  Nollkoll wants to improve the system and is open to player feedback.  I can't fault him for that and am appreciative he is open minded towards the player base.  We all want to see the shard thrive it is not an us vs them situation as might be the case on an osi shard.

I sincerely hope Jags and some of u other more dedicated crafters hang tight as I'm am certain this will be made right.  It may be slightly different but the key is making sure the time involved equals an adequate reward given.


Bodding is also a tremendous resource sink, that should be seriously thought upon going forward.  Infinite resources has always hurt UO.  We should actively encourage systems that remove stockpiles from the server.  This might eventually make resources have value.