Imbuing System

[Enfo]

Enfo -First - When you say people - state who you mean. (like yourself)

Kontact 1 - next, xeen, yes people want the prop cap to be raised to 10. this is because most of the additional shit stirring people have been doing is because they are making comparisons between what is obtainable and what exists (by the hard work of vets).

people want a HIGHER failrate as a trade off for a LOWER break rate.

Kontact 2 - stated 'everybodies vested interesteds' - read.

Kontact 2 -
no as i stated i wanted a lower chance to succeed and a lower breakrate. - again read.

Enfo Quote - Third - LOWER it to what it is on this new system? You have tried all of like 10 items most in the 20 hour period where you voiced your opinion and said it was broke. You are not the expert on it. Xeen tested for 2 weeks on this system, along with any helpers, and Statistically this current system thats not even 2 days old outshines the old system.

Kontact - im not the expert? with all my overcap gear? oh my bad enlighten me with your wealth of experience based knowledge, yes, the whole 2 weeks of it.

Enfo - Fourth - Hard work Of vets? Does this include the crap they(vets with the items) were given freely by police? How about the rough stone piles? How about all the free stuff they(Vets with the items) given? I know that some people did earn their equipment the legit way with the broken system (JAXson, the guy that the rest of your guild calls derp? He admitted it(gear), and knows what he has, and is a pretty standup guy that seems to have the shards intrests at heart, in my honest opinion.)

Kontact - how police's shit was dealt with was handled at the time by staff and has nothing to do with us. and yes people like myself and jaxson have legitimately made our gear on what might be considered a 'broken' system (because it had no caps).

Kontact 2 - next, xeen, yes people want the prop cap to be raised to 10. this is because most of the additional shit stirring people have been doing is because they are making comparisons between what is obtainable and what exists (by the hard work of vets).

Enfo -Fifth - Xeen is gonna have a lot of work regardless, and I have a gut feeling that no matter what he does, you will still complain. First it was to many hits on weapons, now you want more proprties on equipment so your not penalized. Next, you will want people that have the max props have reductions in intensities - Oh WAIT - thats more work for Xeen ( And you said that yourself on vent, pointing out Stillwater as an example to needing a nerf)

Kontact - fyi, i never pointed out stillwater as an example so get your facts straight. i never complained about hitspells on weapons, and i never said i wanted more properties on my equip. so um i dunno where your getting this transcription :/ coz its all shit. i have already built my suit to how i want it and dont need any futher imbuing fyi.

Yes you did. Multiple Times. And yes we know your suit is perfect because if you loose any 1 attribute - you cant play the game. Your words yourself.

Enfo -Sixth - Eight proprties can already make you godly with everything you want on it with a little bit of time, now you want 10? Overkill? You might as well also request a script that lets you auto-heal to full ever 2000 seconds. Did I type seconds? I meant MILLISECONDS. Cut it down to 500 heck. - Oh, scripts already out, just some people actually coded it for themselves. When you gonna whine about that?

Kontact >what did i say about constructive feedback. suck it easy. <

what ever happens xeen has done alot for this shard and people need to support him and give him "CONSTRUCTIVE" feedback.


Facts stomp a mudhole in peoples Bullshit. Sadly, plenty of players will believe their unsupported bullshit and claim it as truth.

Kontact - sounds rich.

ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY ENFO!!!!!! >.>

Fact still stands, You are now just showing that your a hypocrit like the rest of your guild.

You make it TOO easy bro.

http://img808.imageshack.us/img808/8408 ... ttalk2.jpg

Your canabilistic guild talks shit behind their own members backs. Great Job

And Repeat it over and over when you sleep -
 ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY ENFO!!!!!!
ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY ENFO!!!!!!
ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY ENFO!!!!!!

Oh Kenny, Hi there - Dont be Skared - come join me in vent.

Lets throw out a few things for Kenny.

Enfo - Second - You have failed for the 3rd time to understand Sarcasm. Your lack of comprehension is distributing.

Kenny -Yet he gets ridiculed and called a cheater all day long on vent, when, quite obviously, the fingers should be pointed in other directions.

Even kenny sells you out that you dont understand sarcasm. Your English comprehension skills are also lacking.

Kenny - Its easy to disagree with a lower failrate system when youre already geared and enjoying the advantage.

Hi Kenny, Im enfo, I am the 2 week old god on this server that Kontact loves. Youve heard of me because we have talked quite often on vent. You know that I have stated, over and over, that I am against easy systems. Can you please edit your post so that even ungeared people disagree with making a, and I quote, "noob gimme gimme want everthing on a silver platter play style" That you are asking for.

Thanks Kenny!  

[Drax-GVA]

As a newbie both to this shard and to the imbuing system, but a long, long time player of UO (up until 4 years ago or so), I need a bit of information before I can even begin to think/discuss this change to the imbuing system:

1)  What's the goal here?  Attract (not scare off) new players?  Keep short term players?  Balance PvP?  What?  Because, from what I've seen, neither the changes nor the previous system really accomplished any of these goals.

2)  What's the problem?  Imbalance in PvP?  PvM?  If there's an imbalance, what is its cause (i.e., hit-spell effect or what)?  In other words...are there game caps on properties such as HCI, LMC, MR and whatnot so that, for the most part, it simply doesn't matter a great deal about how many properties an individual item has since you ain't gonna get more than 40% LMC or 12 MR regardless -- or are those attributes uncapped so that it DOES make a difference?  This distinction is important, because, in PvP, there really isn't a whole lot of advantage skill can't overcome EXCEPT for damage/second caused by hit-spell effect if there are property caps. (I can get to 40% LMC, 70's (or better resist), 2/6 (4/8?) casting, 100% LRC, 12 MR with FIVE properties or less, leaving the only major distinction being hit spell effect.

So, if someone can answer those questions, then maybe I can put in my two cents, but, unless the problem and the goal are clearly identified, frankly, we're just yammering at one another.

[Kennedy]

KR3W tries to bring fun pvp to the server, despite the odds against us. We get flamed for voicing our opinion and for trying to provide constructive feedback to make the server a better place for everyone...and NOT just for our own private agenda.

Ive got mats to burn when the time is right, things are more balanced, and the success chances are more realistic to create even competition for both new players and veteran alike.

Until that time, no hard feelings, but I wont be pvping.

Dont waste your time with the provo...

[Kennedy]

I think anyone will agree with me in saying that I think Jax was out of line for saying..

'I guarantee not one pvpr can kill me in the field 1v1'

and followed by his

'I dont even really pvp'

I was face palming for jax is all...

[Enfo]

As a newbie both to this shard and to the imbuing system, but a long, long time player of UO (up until 4 years ago or so), I need a bit of information before I can even begin to think/discuss this change to the imbuing system:

1) What's the goal here? Attract (not scare off) new players? Keep short term players? Balance PvP? What? Because, from what I've seen, neither the changes nor the previous system really accomplished any of these goals.

- The goal overall is to keep the Vets and Attract new players. As you can see, the group that is bitching the most believe that if you have not put in several months ont this shard, your opinions do not count ( this applies just for the whiners). I agree that the balance (overall ) is not affected.
Also, note that the new imbueing system is less than 48 hours old. The people most vocal that it does not work imbued just a few items ( 6? 8?) and decreed it a failure and have become that squeeky wheel.

2) What's the problem? Imbalance in PvP? PvM? If there's an imbalance, what is its cause (i.e., hit-spell effect or what)? In other words...are there game caps on properties such as HCI, LMC, MR and whatnot so that, for the most part, it simply doesn't matter a great deal about how many properties an individual item has since you ain't gonna get more than 40% LMC or 12 MR regardless -- or are those attributes uncapped so that it DOES make a difference? This distinction is important, because, in PvP, there really isn't a whole lot of advantage skill can't overcome EXCEPT for damage/second caused by hit-spell effect if there are property caps. (I can get to 40% LMC, 70's (or better resist), 2/6 (4/8?) casting, 100% LRC, 12 MR with FIVE properties or less, leaving the only major distinction being hit spell effect.

From my 2 weeks on the shard, with my completely invalid opinion, the problem is in just a few sections ( as note to KR3W and the noisy wheel) And that is that their main rivals - the Ultimate OwnagE guild, Beats them on a semi regular basis, and has items that are over the property limit. (Note: KR3W also has this problem, but has asked for Xeen to personally shift around their properties on their gear instead of delete it so that they can still play - From Kontact in vent last night ) The other problem is that you are either 1 hit killed by some players ( Not just with weapons, but spells can do the trick with low resistances) Or if you try to kill players that know how to script, they can chug pots, use bandages in 2 seconds, and are very hard to take down. Ive tested in a full resist suit personally and Lightning hit me for ~9 and fireball for ~8. The weapon alone did 40 damage. So it does add up.
Most property values, as you have noted, do have a cap. You will still find people complaining that their weapon doesn't allow them to go over the 100% damage increase cap from items when they have it on everything. These people also ask for locations and don't know the true value of google.

And you are correct - you can get those values listed with 5 imbues, but other things are mana regens, stat points, and Luck and such ( Which, people have asked for many things such as luck, night sight, ect. to not count towards the cap) People want as well. As close to godly as possible.

A side note - If you read some of my posts, even though they are long, there was a time when there was no caps on imbues, and a corrupt GM gave out resources to imbue to peoples hearts felt good.


So, if someone can answer those questions, then maybe I can put in my two cents, but, unless the problem and the goal are clearly identified, frankly, we're just yammering at one another.

Im sure other peoples opinions will vary. Also - To get you up to speed on a variety of peoples opinions - hop on the ventrillo. I promise you that you can hear my side, other peoples sides, and most everyones side of their story that way and come up with your own conclusion.

[Drax-GVA]

Thanks for the reply, Enfo.

So, if all the properties are capped, then, other than hit-spell, from a balance perspective, there is no major malfunction.  If you want all your stuff (luck, etc, in one suit, then you can -- or, you can do what you do on OSI and have different suits for different purposes.  

Accordingly, from a balance perspective, getting rid of the hit-spell effects (really should be only 1 allowed on a weapon -- I hated velocity when IT came out...) will do enough to "balance" PvP.  If you can't put together a suit with great resists along with the necessary mods for PvP (LMC, HCI/DCI, LRC, MR with some stat increases) you ain't even trying.

But, from a newbie imbuer perspective, there needs to be some attribute which gives 60% or 70% chance (not 90%) chance for gains which do not use anything other than residue.  Getting from 75 to 120 with .1 gain out of 3-5 attempts is gonna be EXPENSIVE and extraordinarily time consuming.  Things like night sight, luck, hit dispel, durability, and whatnot which -- generally -- aren't going to be much used, should be used for training and the costs and chance of success set accordingly.

[Enfo]

Your in luck Drax - Xeen went through and changed that, there are I think 6 or 7 things you can get gains on with just residue.

Xeen worked tirelessly on this script that is out for the new imbueing, and I thank him for his work. With that said, as I have stated, it was out for just a few hours and people were complaining that it was horrible, trash, garbage, and are boycotting aspects of the shard because of it. ( They tried, as mentioned by them in vent, 6-8 items or so, and they were destroyed from 3-5 properties on it, and deemed the whole thing a failure)

"Things like night sight, luck, hit dispel, durability," Just read that - Luck, Night sight, durability, and few others are just residue, no rough stones needed. Few more higher up take residue and essense, not relics, so you can gain to 120 with this new system a LOT easier.

But, many of the great things ( the whole system, in my standpoint from what ive been told by staff and people who are using it right now is that it is WAY better than previous ) are being thrown off as garbage. The whole Bathtub and baby thing.

But Remember, your only a few weeks old, your thoughts as the newbie they want to keep don't matter. (As per Kontact and KR3W )

[Kontact]

firstly, im on the same buzz stillwater is on, he knows where im coming from as a vet who worked for their gear. i vote the 10 prop cap with those fail/break rates etc.

second, enfo this is my final reply to you, all you seem to want to do is be a cunt so gg. i will no longer respond to you in any form either ingame or on forums. i wont grant you the satisfaction of pushing my buttons. tyvm.

[Jaxson]

I'll set the record straight...even for my own guild.

I still stand by what I said. As a joke today I even went and let Bud Light straight out kill me without putting up an effort.

Why?

To prove a point.

When I get killed in the field , its never one on one. I've sat my ass in fel fighting mobs, with pkers trying to gank me, without even paying them any mind. It's just one more bandie I have to put on.

By the way...i'm not saying Bud Light can't kill me. I know damn well he can. I was saying that I...who does not pvp by any stretch of the imagination, cannot simply be run up to and pk'ed. Not even by my own guildmate Kontact, who's stuff has more props than Jay-Z at a rap convention.


See,that's why I made my gear. Because it's how I figured out to counteract 4/8 mages, and gank squads. I didn't want to pvp, I just wanted to be able to survive when attacked.

If it takes 22 properties to give you a .00001 better chance to kill someone and your dependent on it...then you're not really getting how this works.

For all these properties on people's items , you know what I've noticed? They still miss.

Three , four times in a row.

Sometimes they hit back to back and guess what? I'm dead. A little insurance money and and ankh...and I'm all good.


What does everyone really want? Dex, dci,hci, lmc,fc,fcr. You have those on jewels and you can compete. That's only 6.


Weapons? Hitspell, leeches, hla,hld sc. Hci and DCI. 9 props. I can drop it to 8 by wearing Mace and Shield glasses. SO it comes down to weapon choice.



As for pointing fingers at legal and illegal...Bud wasn't the only one who had to fess up when the Police incident happened. Directly or indirectly most imbuers benefited from the mass materials that were available at that point. Even now I still see people selling mass relics, claiming to have hundreds of them. And this is on chat.


The point is...it was that event that led to mass explosion of the OP items, and regardless of whether you made your items before or after that event...the problem remains that they exist, and you can't nerf one without the other.

I've said it time and again, that while I don't agree with having to do it, that I feel it stifles thinking outside of the box, and that it discourages crafters from choosing that route for fear of it being taken away later, I also understand that without a change, there will be no shard period to even have discussion about.

I've volunteered to go first. I've paged Xeen countless times to come change my items.


I could care less what anyone on the shard says. That includes my guildmates.



At the end of the day, whatever changes that happen will happen, and we will move on, same as when the changes happened the time before, and the time before that.

I'll adapt...and find something new for Xeen to nerf.




Thanks again Xeen for having the patience to hear everyone out.

[Enfo]

Kontact - firstly, im on the same buzz stillwater is on, he knows where im coming from as a vet who worked for their gear. i vote the 10 prop cap with those fail/break rates etc.

second, enfo this is my final reply to you, all you seem to want to do is be a cunt so gg. i will no longer respond to you in any form either ingame or on forums. i wont grant you the satisfaction of pushing my buttons. tyvm.

Sorry to hear that bro, I didnt know that by placing what you said against what you have stated would hurt your feeling that bad. I promise to never use your own hypocritical words against you! I also hope you see how ludicrous your thoughts and opinions on breaking the system really is, or calling it broken after only 20 hours and 6 item breaks... Hardly "Expert knowledge".  

Also - Like Drax the new player whose opinions mean nothing - How you think all the new players feel when they show up and see people with 10 props on their weap.. each piece of jewelry.. and then each peice of armor... Its not like limiting just 2 hitcaps is gonna stop people from running up pre-casting flamestrike and one hitting new players (Especially the Koreans that didn't know how to insure - Loot em dry! )

I would have very much liked for any changes that are now imminent (regardless of how good/awesome they will be ) to have been viewed over by a bit more than the vocal vent community. Luckily, there are some calm heads that can think outside of being selfish to make feasible suggestions. These people know who they are.

- note - I forgot, but remember now that Xeen does talk to players in game and gets more opinions that what I give him credit for, my bad. Keep up the good work.

[Balthazer]

I started playing text based Muds in the mid-to-late 80's.

From there to the birth of MMORPGS I have seen more nerf's than one could count.

People stomp their feet and flail their arms in the air and say its the end of the game if this or that is done. They go on rampages about how if "this" is done they will stop playing.

Granted there is player loss in ANY thing that is done. This is the nature of the beast. The old saying "You cant please everyone" comes to mind.

Those of us that see Konstantine and Xeen as two fair and caring individuals, know that in the long run if something is not working, they will correct it.

For the argument that when new people log in and see these uber weapons and leave... When I saw them it just made me want to stay and try and get to that level.
I may never be EXACTLY at that level but I dont give up just because I cannot be Number 1.

[Domos]

I too remember when TOTs were shut down because they we too easy to harvest, seems funny that the gear people have now make tots look like junk loot. I have been on this shard as long as many of you, I didnt spend the time into doing all the imbuing (legal or illegal) because I knew this would happen. Come on people, even those who claim to have done the hard work to get the gear, did you really ever think that this gear was reasonable? That somehow if everyone puts the time in and get their maxxed out suits and weapons it would make everything right? Like I said before, this is the kind of stuff that ruins a shard, maybe Im just too reasonable but I saw this comming from a mile away and decided not to waste my time. Why? Because either this gear will get nerfed and it all would have been for nothing OR the op junk stays and I get to go somewhere else. And its not that I dont want to put the time in either, its that I feel this gear will and does make general gameplay and pvp boring. Lets play WOW in 2d everyone.
Oh and btw, nice healing script, u know who you are. 2s bandaid plus lesser heal running outside of your main macros with top mana regen and over cap hp, you really are a pvp master.

[Xeen]

First of all, allow me to say publicly that I thank everyone (read:  EVERYONE) for their thoughts, feedback, comments (both nasty and positive) about the changes to the imbuing system.  My own personal opinion is that 98% of the players on shard are here because they love Pandora and want to see the shard thrive and grow.  I think everyone understands the ramifications of what one overpowered system (be it inside of PVP, PVM, Wealth, etc) can do long term to a community.  That being said, allow me to outline some of the changes and explain the why's behind them.  I will also repost, lock, and sticky this topic once the ALL the revisions go into place.

First of all, why was the system changed?
The prior imbuing system was put together shortly after it was released on OSI, and was one programmers idea of how to emulate an enchantment system on "free servers" that were not updated all the way through Stygian Abyss.  The early system was a little rough around the edges and had high success rates and allowed you to imbue things that never should have been imbuable (artifacts, for example).  It was also based on the inscription skill.  Gizmos revision a while back removed the ability to imbue artifacts and also added in the Imbuing skill that we all know and love today.  However, his new system still had gaps in it.  For example, there was a hard fail rate of 20% that, if you worked out the math and had enough wealth, you could get into an imbuing streak that would allow you to create some of the items that exist on our server today.  When you did fail, you lost both the rune AND the item.  There was also no property cap and no intensity cap on these items.

So the first reason the system was changed was to put property caps on items, put intensity caps on items, and make your chance of success based on a number of variables that YOU control.  In short, it was to give control of the system to the PLAYERS.

Revision One: What Changed
First of all, the success rate of applying a rune to any item is based on three factors in this order:  Base Imbuing Skill, Amount of properties that already exist on the item, and the random intensity that is attempting to be applied.  It goes from a guaranteed or almost guaranteed chance for the first few properties at 120 skill, to a much, MUCH smaller chance the more items you add to the item.  While I will NOT post the math, I will post several examples so you get a better idea.

Second, I decreased the item break chance when you DO fail at applying a rune.  More on this later.

Third, I added in several bonuses that improve your odds, and have two more planned for implementation down the road.  There is a 10% success bonus to Gargoyles, a 10% success bonus on player crafted items, and a 10% success bonus on exceptional quality items.  Each of these is factored off of the base success rate.  The math behind this:  Lets say that, after factoring in your skill, your property county, and intensity, you have a base 50% success chance.  Then add in being a gargoyle.  That would give you a 55% chance to apply a rune.  Then if the item is player crafted, that would give you a 60% chance, and if the item was exceptional, you would get up to a 65% chance to apply the rune for a total bonus of 15%.

Revision Two -- The changes based on your (in my opinion, premature) feedback
Let me just get it out of the way now:  Cuemif, myself, and a few testers that do not play Pandora applied HUNDREDS of (if not several thousand) runes in the old system and in the system that is live now on my Test Center (which I have had an open invite to everyone desiring to test and give feedback in the development period) and the system WORKS.  If you tried it 10 times, and failed 8, guess what, you've got bad luck.  You need a large base sample to fully understand the innerworkings of the system.  Please talk to Astroman for a lesson in statistics.  

HOWEVER, BASED ON YOUR FEEDBACK, I have made several minor revisions to the system that I am happy to release to the community.

First, I have a changed the break rate from 50% to 25% across the board.  This may or may not stay at this number down the road.

Second, I have increased the property cap from eight to ten items.  The ONLY reason I did this is so peoples gear can appear more "1337", as it has already been pointed out by i think Drax that our server does have hard property caps in it.  It will also allow new players to have the opportunity to get close to some of the legacy items from older systems.

Third, I added a small (very small) increase to the success rate of attributes 1-8.  Attribtues nine and ten will continute to be extremely hard, but as several people old and new alike have commented, the greater the risk the greater the reward.

Fourth, (and this was part of revision one) we have added a hit spell cap of two to each weapon.  All legacy weapons will be brought in line with this new system.  To clarify, this only refers to hit harm, hit lightning, hit harm, and hit magic arrow.  

Fifth, also part of revision one, items with Spell Channeling can no longer contain FC1.  If you put Spell Channeling onto an item, it will automatically remove 1 FC point, bringing your item to either 0 or -1FC.  If your item is 0 FC and has spell channeling, it counts as two properties.

Sixth, I have added the ability to remove properties yourself without needing staff involvement.  I am still testing this system, but have finished programming it and it will be ready for implementation during the next publish.  This will allow you to remove unwanted properties to increase your chance of making your gear more tailored to what you prefer.  While the system is being balanced, this will have a 10% chance to fail, but will not break your gear.  It will also be relatively cheap to imbue.  After a time, I will make this more difficult, more risky, and more expensive, as removing magical properties should be.

A Math Lesson
Lets take a quick look at the math in both the old and new system.  This assumes that most every Rune takes between 3 and 5 runes to get to max intensity (if that is your goal), so lets average that at 4.
The Old System
Lets assume that you want to make an item with max intensity at 8 attributes.  Knowing that this will take ~ 32 runes to complete and that you WILL fail 20% of time, a typical imbuing run would go like this:  imbue on dummy gear until you fail, start imbuing real item, after four successes switch to dummy gear until you fail, rinse and repeat for all properties you want on your gear.  Now, remember, this was just the best way to try and not break your gear, it was no guarantee that you wouldnt and, as any vet will tell you, people broke several pieces of nice gear before they got their Ub3r gear they have now.  Without having hard, solid math behind this, lets just take the base of 4 runes per prop, 8 props per item, and you failed 7 times each item.  Thats a minimum of nearly 40 runes, 7 pieces of dummy gear, and lets say you got half way through and broke your NICE gear and had to start over.  now you are up to 60 runes, over 10 pieces of dummy gear, one piece of awesome gear, without any guarantee of whether you will succeed.
The New System
Because I actually have the math to support this, I will give you examples at 1 prop, 4 props, 6 props, and 8 props at 120 Skill, assuming max intensity
Prop one - 100% guarantee for all four runes.
Prop four - ~90% success chance (negligible unless you are really unlucky)
Prop six - ~65% to succeed.  So, of this, applying 10 runes with 5 props already on item (which I cannot think of any attritbute that takes 10 runes to get to max), you would fail 3.5 times.  Lets round this up to 4.  Of that, you only have a 1/4 chance to actually break the item.
Prop eight - Very risky here.  ~30% success chance adding prop 8, so out of 10 runes, lets say you fail 7 times.  Out of that, there is a good chance to break your item (rounded up) 2 times on a 25% fail rate.

So, as has already been stated, the greater the risk, the greater the reward.  Imbuing should not be easy, as it is easly the most powerful skill in the game.  Let me say it again:  IMBUING SHOULD NOT BE EASY (or cheap, for that matter)!!  You have to ask yourself, what do I really NEED?

Whats Coming Next
As I have made public, I will be nerfing items down to two hit spells.  Please do this yourself with the Removal Runes I am putting in place, as it will save me hours of time that I could be writing more content for Pandora =)
There has been a HUGE request by old and new players alike to nerf all over property cap items down to 10.  While I am not 100% decided one way or the other, we will do what the community wants.
There has also been a request to nerf all over cap properties (for example, MR over 2 on non artifacts) down to their cap.  PErsonally, I dont think this matters nearly as much as you think it does, because for many properties we have a hard cap coded into the server.  For the properties that do not have a hard cap coded, I will again do as the community desires.

Thanks for reading my novel.  Hopefully this clarifys a lot.  My thanks go to Cuemif Sampset, Agent Jon, Exodious, Galron, ChroniC BomB, ChroniC BowL, Enfo, Stillwater, Balthazar, Kontact, Kennedy Curse (and everyone from KR3W), Jaxson, and the dozen other people who intentionaly sought me out to voice their opinion, give feedback, and in the case of the first few, actualy take time out of their lives helping me test the system, record their results, and offer their nots that drastically impacted the system we know today.

[Xeen]

Still, thanks for the feedback.  The beauty of Pandora is that we can tailor it to our players needs.  I understand the desire for a lower break chance considering your chance to apply a rune is based solely on the item you are applying it to, not a 20% fail.  people thought 50% was too much and, while I disagreed, I will try this for a bit and see how it goes.

Maybe we will change it down the line

[Abraxus]

Very interesting thread.

I'd like to bring to your attention some meaningful posts I quote from the threads that have sprung up from the whole Imbuing issue:

"I think the problem with the old imbuing system wasn't the low fail rate; it was the fact that there was no limit on magical properties. The people with the over-powered gear are all vets; it wasn't a bunch of newbs rocking 4 hit-spell weapons, they all worked hard for their gear. The problem with the system, however, was that it allows them to become too overpowered."
- Mahavira

"Is it possible that Everyone on this server has grown too used to the op gear. That even gear at a 8 property cap is barely good enough. Think about where you were before imbueing, back when a HOTM and an Orny and you were well off. I do not know for sure, but I assume the reason imbueing was developed was to make available an alternative to acquire good gear without buying/farming for artifacts or burning through 100s of kits. Good gear meaning what would have been considered good before imbueing was implemented. I believe some individuals need to take a minute and step back to think about how well they have it."
- provomarshal

"I also propose the question, "Would a less overpowered imbueing system draw more players to the shard or repel players?" From a point of view that has not experienced uo with imbueing I think having a smaller gap between the newish player base and the vets could help attract new players and keep them playing on the server."
- provomarshal

"The new imbue system and the other ideas to fix it: "10 properties and less likely to break," is only going to make overpowered gear more prevalent. Sure, people would be able to compete with the older players if their items were less likely to break, but that doesn't change the fact that overpowered gear would be everywhere. It completely destroys the reasoning behind fixing the imbuing system."
- Mahavira

"Come on people, even those who claim to have done the hard work to get the gear, did you really ever think that this gear was reasonable? That somehow if everyone puts the time in and get their maxxed out suits and weapons it would make everything right? Like I said before, this is the kind of stuff that ruins a shard, maybe Im just too reasonable but I saw this comming from a mile away and decided not to waste my time. Why? Because either this gear will get nerfed and it all would have been for nothing OR the op junk stays and I get to go somewhere else. And its not that I dont want to put the time in either, its that I feel this gear will and does make general gameplay and pvp boring."
- Domos

I'm only a few weeks old on the shard, but I'm not new to UO. I also have no experience with Imbuing - I've only played UO without the effects of Imbuing. This shard has grown on me and I like nothing more than to contribute to its longevity.

But without needing to experience Imbuing, I can already tell it's a force that can potentially unbalance the whole way we play UO. If not implemented with careful and deliberate consideration, it'll open a very big can of worms.

Reading this thread, it's become obvious that the nerfing of Imbuing hurts vets the most. They have put in the time to get the items (OP or not) and they have grown fond of them. Separation anxiety is natural when the nerf bat comes calling. But understand that the real fault here lies in the broken system having been implemented without the consideration required. Now we're trying to fix that mistake in the interest of having a shard that is both balanced and welcoming to new players.

Players come and players go; it's the quality of the shard that retains players. We should always strive to make the shard better, even if it means making some players unhappy. In making changes to the shard, developers shouldn't pander to the whims of any one group - be they veterans or new players. In this particular case, even if the handful of veterans were to up and leave, you would still have a balanced and better shard when they're gone. And the word will still go around that yours is a balanced shard. And the players will still come. Life will go on. Life will thrive.

I have the utmost respect for the players that do stand to lose a lot of hard work if the Imbuing system gets nerfed and yet are willing to take one for the team to make the shard a better place. It's the opinions of these level-headed individuals that are most reliable, for even when they have a vested interest they're willing to do what's right.

Xeen, I urge you to take a step back and reassess the implications that you want Imbuing to have on the gameplay of the shard. It's not in keeping with the philosophy of balance when you let one skill determine the level at which the game is to be played for one to be competitive. It's all about deciding how good you wanna let Imbuing potentially be; the ceiling, so to speak. Because whatever the ceiling is, people will reach it.

Take the power away from Imbuing. Return the emphasis to the skill of the player. Do this, or we'll never get off this slippery slope.