Will you leave UOSA if the hally mage is nerfed?

[Matty]

...

[Matty]

Many many hally mages use a macro that auto unequips / equips their Hally, maybe you don't, but the good ones do.

sandro, fede, ishmael, nightshark-- 4 of the best alltime one v one pvpers waste hally hits by wrestling all the time. so the ones that are using this macro, can you name any of them? because i make it pretty deep in some tournies and have yet to go up against i guy who i can't steal some punches from every so often.

[Faust]

So they are finally getting around to fixing the great Faust screw up? Yay!

That is very funny Brules... My question still has yet to be answered here. How can you pull off the infamous explosion, ebolt, hally combo without being able to cycle your hally? Hell, even Nighthawk remembers a hally working in this manner but you don't, lol...

Question is still in the active pending status.

Please answer folks.

[tanmits]

Not sure why you think that's a smoking gun. Is it so hard to imagine that you actually had to wait more than two seconds between swings using the slowest, most powerful weapon in the game at only 35 dex? A weapon, by the way, that is one of the only ones that can't be stolen? How many more advantages do you want?

Here's one possible mechanic idea: Instead of using the wrestling timer, perhaps there was a longer default swing timer that, once depleted, allowed you to instantly swing all weapon types. Its exact interval could be tweaked so as to maintain your leet dood advantage in PvP while still being slower than it is now.

That was hard...

[Roser]

My question still has yet to be answered here. How can you pull off the infamous explosion, ebolt, hally combo without being able to cycle your hally?

Evidence points to your combo being out of order Faust.

It was Explosion, Hally, Ebolt (or fs).

In order to do that, the prep time with the halberd is likely to have had an effect on the swing counter. So equipping the hally sets your swing timer ahead just enough to be able to synch with your explosion. If the hally connects, then drop your pre-cast Ebolt (or fs).

Right now people should really be focusing on finding evidence for "Holding hits". That is the most important thing for the desired pvp I believe. Cycling your halberd off of the wrestle timer is blatantly wrong and there is a lot of evidence to back that up, so please focus on "Holding hits".

[BlackLeaf]

lol who cares about the omg leet hally mage?
i left t2a (and therefore uo) when they nerfed the thief

[Halbu]

My question still has yet to be answered here. How can you pull off the infamous explosion, ebolt, hally combo without being able to cycle your hally?

Evidence points to your combo being out of order Faust.

It was Explosion, Hally, Ebolt (or fs).

In order to do that, the prep time with the halberd is likely to have had an effect on the swing counter. So equipping the hally sets your swing timer ahead just enough to be able to synch with your explosion. If the hally connects, then drop your pre-cast Ebolt (or fs).

Right now people should really be focusing on finding evidence for "Holding hits". That is the most important thing for the desired pvp I believe. Cycling your halberd off of the wrestle timer is blatantly wrong and there is a lot of evidence to back that up, so please focus on "Holding hits".

Explosion, e bolt, hally was doable. The question is how did it all work?

[Telamon]

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[Light Shade]

I'll actually PvP more if these changes go into effect...as it is, I fell asleep in my last duel due to boredom...seriously. Perhaps duels going forward will be equally or more drawn out, but at least it will be different. That, at least, may keep me from falling asleep in a duel.

[Brules]

My question still has yet to be answered here. How can you pull off the infamous explosion, ebolt, hally combo without being able to cycle your hally?

Evidence points to your combo being out of order Faust.

It was Explosion, Hally, Ebolt (or fs).

In order to do that, the prep time with the halberd is likely to have had an effect on the swing counter. So equipping the hally sets your swing timer ahead just enough to be able to synch with your explosion. If the hally connects, then drop your pre-cast Ebolt (or fs).

Right now people should really be focusing on finding evidence for "Holding hits". That is the most important thing for the desired pvp I believe. Cycling your halberd off of the wrestle timer is blatantly wrong and there is a lot of evidence to back that up, so please focus on "Holding hits".

Amen.

[Faust]

Again, the majority of you are not familiar with basic UO functions when it comes to an 'explosion, eb/fs, hally' combo. I don't know why you would even mention using FS since that only boosts the delay up another half second making it even more harder to sync Rose.

The equip/arm delay automatically adjusts your SwingCounter variable(the combat timer) to zero every time a weapon or any layered item for that matter is dragged or equipped to the paperdoll. That means a hally mage at a perfect 25 stamina(the time only extends further when stamina decreases) would take a full 19 ticks upon equipping it AFTER Ebolt or Flamestrike spell was intitiated for casting. Explosion has a total of 12 ticks to land upon targeting the spell. The equip/arm delay is well documented to exist through out t2a and still exists to this very day functioning in the same manner as it did in '97 when it was first patched into the game.

Please explain to me how you are going to A) bypass 19 ticks immediately to sync the well known combo or B) perform another action via cycling the hally using the wrestling timer that happens to sync it perfectly and many veterans remember using for a tactic.

Not sure why you think that's a smoking gun. Is it so hard to imagine that you actually had to wait more than two seconds between swings using the slowest, most powerful weapon in the game at only 35 dex? A weapon, by the way, that is one of the only ones that can't be stolen? How many more advantages do you want?

Here's one possible mechanic idea: Instead of using the wrestling timer, perhaps there was a longer default swing timer that, once depleted, allowed you to instantly swing all weapon types. Its exact interval could be tweaked so as to maintain your leet dood advantage in PvP while still being slower than it is now.

That was hard...

How about first learning the code for the original swing timer that OSI used to see how ridiculous it is to even suggest such a comment in the first place?

Second, let's see you put this 'suggestion' into the original swing timer with any sustainable logic/information for the reason that OSI would have in the first place.

I have been pain stakingly working on numerous versions of the original swing timer with different code phases based on pinnacle changes in patch notes for the past two years now and it's still just as difficult to implement as it was two years ago.

There is not one single version that has been developed with some sort of exploit that could bypass the equip/arm delay to be able to pull off the combo. The only versions that has worked for pulling off such a combo has always involved the manipulation of the wrestling timer for your hally hits. Batlin, Derrick, Kaivan, and me have worked on this for years and it's not a simple process by any means.

Would be nice if others would actually join in with some of their ideas and develop something as well. The process is quite simple if you want certainty.

1. Use the original OSI combat timer code.
2. Implement Patch Colored ore, granting karma, and combat changes Feb 2 1999 10:57AM into the code.
3. Update timer using Patch Mini-update with small fixes Feb 26 1999 11:25AM
4. Take Patch Mini-Update Apr 28 2000 3:30PM CST into consideration for how little the code actually changed.
5. If a double hit exploit does not exist, you are wrong.
6. Finished, era accurate insta hit combat code.

These are the only major updates from Point A to Point B that existed.

Definitely looks like a simple process but way until you actually try it.

Thanks,
Faust

[Roser]

I don't know why you would even mention using FS since that only boosts the delay up another half second making it even more harder to sync Rose.

I mentioned it because I've read (and posted) news groups postings that talk about it being the "insta-kill" combo, and claim that it was a commonly used tactic for mage pvp. Note that the FS is interchangeable with any fast damage offensive spell, especially Ebolt.

I realize there must have been some way to cut down the halberd speed, how that was done I really don't know.

Kaivan made a suggestion that equipping a weapon sets your swing counter to 0 ticks, however the "prep time" when initially equipping a melee weapon may have set your swing counter forward by a certain amount of ticks. So a low dex hally user could swap out a portion of his swing timer for a small prep time delay, effectively reducing the length of his swing counter. Although it seems unclear as to how far, if at all, the "prep time" would advance your swing counter.
(did I get that right Kaivan?)

My thoughts on this were, the "prep time" should at least set your swing counter forward far enough to cut down the halberd speed to sync with the explosion spell delay. This would allow for the heavily discussed Explo/Hally/EB combo to be executed.

It is important to note that without "holding hits" you can pretty much guarantee that using the halberd with any kind of spell combo, in any particular order, is not going to happen.

5. If a double hit exploit does not exist, you are wrong.

I agree with this, in the sense that double hits are part of the T2A era and should be recognized as so.

[Kaivan]

First, to answer Rose's question, yes that's sort of how it might work.

Second, just to point out something rather important, without literally completely rewriting the code so that it looks nothing like the original OSI code, there is exactly one way to produce 'hally cycling'. The issue is that this method is so deliriously broken, that any implementation that wasn't specifically tailored to make 'hally cycling' work would produce 1 second swings at a maximum with all melee weapons. On top of that, this method doesn't produce double hits (not like we even have any real information about exactly how it worked in the first place - we just now it doesn't happen at random).

Third, extending on the second point, assuming that hally cycling existed in the first place, it seems pretty obvious that it was fixed with the February 26, 1999 patch which states the following:

An exploit for getting slow weapons to hit faster has been fixed.

Without being able to effectively contend with that patch (we need conclusive evidence, not speculation), the entire concept seems dead in the water. It just doesn't work.

Fourth, the talk about the explosion/energy bolt/halberd combo flies right in the face of not just one, but two patch notes. First, in order for such a combo to work in that specific order, it is necessary for some sort of hally cycling exploit to exist, which violates the patch note above. Second, not only is that necessary, but the patch that clearly states the following:

Equipping a weapon now causes a short "prep time" before you can start swinging.

would also need to be violated under any rational interpretation. This is necessary because in order for the combo to have no delay between the exp/energy bolt and the halberd (just like the explosion, hally, energy bolt combo), the swing must necessarily happen as soon as possible, which is clearly at odds with the existence of any 'prep time'.

Finally, extending on the fourth point, this combo practically requires that swings are held or that some movement restriction existed. Operating under the assumption that no movement restriction existed (which is the point of our investigation in the first place), and that explosion/energy bolt/hally was possible, the fact is that you would need to be on the exact tile next to your victim at the moment that the spells hit in order for the combo to be possible. This is necessary because, without swing holding, your swing would immediately begin moving forward as soon as the explosion hit your opponent. Thus, you would have approximately 0.75 seconds under ideal circumstances to be right next to your opponent, halberd in hand. Otherwise, your swing would evaluate while you were out of range and you would miss the combo. Of course, this again requires that two combat specific changes are literally ignored just as background support for this last piece.

[Boondock_Saint]

SHouldn't the poll be..

"Are you going to miss the people who only log in for tourneys?"

[Faust]

Third, extending on the second point, assuming that hally cycling existed in the first place, it seems pretty obvious that it was fixed with the February 26, 1999 patch which states the following:

An exploit for getting slow weapons to hit faster has been fixed.

Without being able to effectively contend with that patch (we need conclusive evidence, not speculation), the entire concept seems dead in the water. It just doesn't work.

I don't really buy any analysis that the February 26th patch ends the discussion with this well known exploit in all honesty.

First, it does not necessarily mean it fixed the wrestling portion of the exploit and could have easily been associated with swapping fast/slow weapons or even layered items like armor that is known to modify the swing counter. On a side note... it would be nice to know if other layed items on production shards still functioned in that manner like it does in the demo by the way.

Secondly, my personal experiences(even though we know it means nothing in reality) with this mechanic went WAY past 20 days of isnta hit. The summer of '99 was heavily played on my part along with many other vets like Roger and Bob that clearly remember it as well. Third, the Japanese article written in the fall of '99 clearly dictates some sort of exploit to either cycle/bypass the equip delay at that time as well.

I am still not even fully convinced that melee weapons did not save their swings during t2a. For all we know the original code before insta hit could have easily been swapped into the mix from saved code/scripts leaving it out until it was retroactively fixed only hours later after UOR published. We don't really know and probably never will in all honesty. There are many articles in the news groups that contradicts swings not saving from the '99 time frame. One major reason that makes this at odds with me is mostly a personal note. Running up and making someone wrestle when performing the equip/arm exploit was critical during pvp. However, if swings did not save what point would there be in performing this tactic? Standing away would have just been as effective and actually more ideal in reality.

I am in no way entirely certain you could swing a hally every 2 seconds but most certainly positive beyond any doubt that there was a way to time spell casting with energy bolt to have a hally swing directly after by the time the damage landed using some sort of equip/arm exploit.

That is why I believe in creating three versions of code based on that item list that was produced by me in my previous thread which would be the closest way of ever getting it right. If you can't sync it all together logically in this manner than it is more than likely not the right code and very much incorrect.