Archery Mechanics, as explained in 99
Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2012 5:14 am
Hi all,
I've been alerted to this shard by a friend who recently started playing. He told me about this suggestion form and I was impressed with the attention to accuracy. I thought I could help out. I have a bunch of materials I saved in an old folder from the era. I played from release (Sept 97) until Dec 31, 1999 (I quit UO as my new year's resolution for the year 2000)
I read through the archery mechanic thread on here and remembered that I had a text file from the era where a well known forum user on Greybeard's site posted the facts on archery. The text file is dated 6/19/1999. I don't remember who posted it, but I remember it was a well known user and many users had found it informative, myself included (or I wouldn't have saved it into this file for future reference). Here is the text:
"Many of you seem to be lost about the facts about archerys nature. This post is to inform any of you who don't know this. Ever since the archery patch in february of 1998 archery has ignored the opponent in the formula when damage is being determined.
This means armor, tactics, wrestling, reactivate armor, and any other possible damage reducer are not put into effect when the damage is calculated. Archerys range use to be 10, now it is 8. There is a 2 second delay before the oncoming weapon delay(so if a bow takes 5 seconds to shoot, you have to stand still for 2 seconds, then the 5 second delay starts)
Now keep in mind, The area of a charectors vision is 120 tiles. (From west to east vision is 10 tiles, from north to south its 12)So you get more than half the screen to shoot an opponent. Anatomy does increase archerys damage, and because of archery ignoring the opponents defenses, it does solid (same) damage. With 0 Anatomy, the first bow shot does 20(EVERYTIME)the second does 25(EVERYTIME)the third does 30(EVERYTIME) and this is repeated (ie the fourth shot will do 20, fifth shot will do 25, sixth shot 30.... it goes on like that) So an archer with 0 anatomy will be able to kill a person with 100 str in 5 shots.
The archery skill itself, like the other 3 weapon skills, determine the chance of hitting, and since the opponent dosent have a deciding factor in archery of course, its solid also (75 archery= 74.5 % chance of hit, the skill is always .5 less percantage wise so 100 on any skill means 99.5 %)Now some people might say then how come I miss so much if I have 100 archery? Well a really old patch in a vain effort to reduce the effectiveness of archery a few months after the archery patch that made archery supreme came out (those few months were the absolute golden age of archery february-april 98) made it so when you move while your archery delay is running it reduces the chance of hit by 50%.
Archers right now do try to run when confronted with a melee weapon because they cannot size up to one, so that is the reason the effectiveness is so poor. This is how archerys shoot timing is set up: ok after your two second delay you have your weapon delay, I already explained this. Think of it this way, in order to hit with a melee weapon, you have to be standing next to your target until the weapon delay is complete. A good example of this is a slow weapon like a halberd where you can understand the effects because of its sluggishness, every second you stand next to them is another second you charge up your weapon for the next hit, so lets say the halberds weapon delay is 15 seconds, you stand next to them for 2 seconds, they move, you stand next to them again for 5 seconds, they move, you come again for 8 seconds and finally hit them, this is because you have charged up for a total of 15 seconds if you count those numbers up. Now since archery is ranged, you can be running around all over the place and charge up!(anywhere as long as you are in 8 tile range of your target)
So if the weapon delay is 5 seconds, you run around for 5 seconds, then stand still for 2 seconds and then you shoot instantly after those two seconds, but this is where the penalty for doing that comes in. If you have been running for the complete five second you will get the complete penalty (50%) The less you run and stand still for the delay the more accurate you will be. So standing still, not moving an inch ever since you pulled out that bow will get you the 99.5% chance to hit. Now heres where the anatomy part comes in. Anatomy gives 25% more damage at 100 anatomy, an archer will hit their target for 25 the first time, 35 the second time, 45 the third. This will kill any player if three hits are accomplished.
Ok, so these are the complete facts about archery. For one to argue about archery vs other things like my other post about "the unstopable duo" you must know the facts, take them into consideration, then reply. (BTW no I did NOT copy this off any website, I wrote every word myself off of what I KNOW IS TRUE FOR A FACT from my own experiences and calculations)"
I hope this information is useful to your shard. I can confirm from my own memory that the typical archers would kill you in 5 hits no matter what armor you wore, and the damage sequence was exactly as predictable as this post states.
I'll be digging through my UO archives to see if I have anything else for you guys.
I've been alerted to this shard by a friend who recently started playing. He told me about this suggestion form and I was impressed with the attention to accuracy. I thought I could help out. I have a bunch of materials I saved in an old folder from the era. I played from release (Sept 97) until Dec 31, 1999 (I quit UO as my new year's resolution for the year 2000)
I read through the archery mechanic thread on here and remembered that I had a text file from the era where a well known forum user on Greybeard's site posted the facts on archery. The text file is dated 6/19/1999. I don't remember who posted it, but I remember it was a well known user and many users had found it informative, myself included (or I wouldn't have saved it into this file for future reference). Here is the text:
"Many of you seem to be lost about the facts about archerys nature. This post is to inform any of you who don't know this. Ever since the archery patch in february of 1998 archery has ignored the opponent in the formula when damage is being determined.
This means armor, tactics, wrestling, reactivate armor, and any other possible damage reducer are not put into effect when the damage is calculated. Archerys range use to be 10, now it is 8. There is a 2 second delay before the oncoming weapon delay(so if a bow takes 5 seconds to shoot, you have to stand still for 2 seconds, then the 5 second delay starts)
Now keep in mind, The area of a charectors vision is 120 tiles. (From west to east vision is 10 tiles, from north to south its 12)So you get more than half the screen to shoot an opponent. Anatomy does increase archerys damage, and because of archery ignoring the opponents defenses, it does solid (same) damage. With 0 Anatomy, the first bow shot does 20(EVERYTIME)the second does 25(EVERYTIME)the third does 30(EVERYTIME) and this is repeated (ie the fourth shot will do 20, fifth shot will do 25, sixth shot 30.... it goes on like that) So an archer with 0 anatomy will be able to kill a person with 100 str in 5 shots.
The archery skill itself, like the other 3 weapon skills, determine the chance of hitting, and since the opponent dosent have a deciding factor in archery of course, its solid also (75 archery= 74.5 % chance of hit, the skill is always .5 less percantage wise so 100 on any skill means 99.5 %)Now some people might say then how come I miss so much if I have 100 archery? Well a really old patch in a vain effort to reduce the effectiveness of archery a few months after the archery patch that made archery supreme came out (those few months were the absolute golden age of archery february-april 98) made it so when you move while your archery delay is running it reduces the chance of hit by 50%.
Archers right now do try to run when confronted with a melee weapon because they cannot size up to one, so that is the reason the effectiveness is so poor. This is how archerys shoot timing is set up: ok after your two second delay you have your weapon delay, I already explained this. Think of it this way, in order to hit with a melee weapon, you have to be standing next to your target until the weapon delay is complete. A good example of this is a slow weapon like a halberd where you can understand the effects because of its sluggishness, every second you stand next to them is another second you charge up your weapon for the next hit, so lets say the halberds weapon delay is 15 seconds, you stand next to them for 2 seconds, they move, you stand next to them again for 5 seconds, they move, you come again for 8 seconds and finally hit them, this is because you have charged up for a total of 15 seconds if you count those numbers up. Now since archery is ranged, you can be running around all over the place and charge up!(anywhere as long as you are in 8 tile range of your target)
So if the weapon delay is 5 seconds, you run around for 5 seconds, then stand still for 2 seconds and then you shoot instantly after those two seconds, but this is where the penalty for doing that comes in. If you have been running for the complete five second you will get the complete penalty (50%) The less you run and stand still for the delay the more accurate you will be. So standing still, not moving an inch ever since you pulled out that bow will get you the 99.5% chance to hit. Now heres where the anatomy part comes in. Anatomy gives 25% more damage at 100 anatomy, an archer will hit their target for 25 the first time, 35 the second time, 45 the third. This will kill any player if three hits are accomplished.
Ok, so these are the complete facts about archery. For one to argue about archery vs other things like my other post about "the unstopable duo" you must know the facts, take them into consideration, then reply. (BTW no I did NOT copy this off any website, I wrote every word myself off of what I KNOW IS TRUE FOR A FACT from my own experiences and calculations)"
I hope this information is useful to your shard. I can confirm from my own memory that the typical archers would kill you in 5 hits no matter what armor you wore, and the damage sequence was exactly as predictable as this post states.
I'll be digging through my UO archives to see if I have anything else for you guys.