monster speeds/AI

[Artemis]

Casting mobs should also be instantly dispelling any summoned creatures upon being attack by the summoned creatures, if they have the mana to do so

Definitely false. Only high level mobs could dispel and I seem to remember your ability to withstand their dispelling having to do with either your magery or eval. I remember dragons could insta-dispel occasionally but also sometimes you could bang out two ev's and take them down before they dispelled either of them. I don't think daemons dispelled them at all. Balrons might dispel or might just beat them with melee, same with wyrms. I don't think blood/poison ele's or anything lower could dispel at all, or maybe they just couldn't dispel against a GM mage. Sometimes you would see their failed dispel spell, it was like blue orbs on the summon.

Wow, definietly true, you had to use bugs in order to get EV's to NOT get instantly dispelled. Map elevation spots/bugs, like the ledge in deciet or the pillar near the Poison el spawn in shame. That was one of the big reasons lich lords where so popular easy to kill if you used the right method. You dont remember that stuff? Wow
Using blade spirits was essential in killing big mobs like wryms because of their instant dispels(but the dispels would cost the mobs mana). The blades would get one hit in, guarenteeing a greater poison on the mob, then they would instantly dispel them. Why blade poison? Cause it lasted unusually long compared to the 3rd level spell even for a GM magery, and one poison from blade could take anywhere from 1/5 to 1/3 of an ancient wryms life bar over the course of 1-3 min before it wore off. Super safe, super easy to land and super cheap to use and was the solution for killing virtually any mob in the game that people would usually have trouble with. EV's never poisoned so it was a waste to use them until after you had drained their mana. Maybe thats what you remember, draining their mana 1st, THEN you could EV stuff an kill it. If a mob had the mana they would dispel everytime, later in this era they added a one shot resist to dispels on Summoned Deamons only. Meaning they would resist one dispel everytime but the 2nd dispel was guarenteed to work.
Which Lich lords had 500-ish mana but using the elevation bug it could kill lich lords without needing to drain mana cause they couldnt get LoS on the EV's but the EV's could still hit them. That how I made 99% of all my money, EV bug used on Lich Lords in deciet. Perhaps the fastest money spawn on the shards.
In the T2a era mobs had finite mana, if this shard is set like Divinty, mobs have nearly infinite mana which is totally wrong. No mobs should have any meditation skill what so ever. With infinite mana mobs you couldnt drain enough mana to prevent dispels as when mobs used to get very low on mana, they would keep wasting all their mana on low level spells 1st level ect. and never regen enough mana to cast higher level spells like dispel, ect.
Also infinite mana mobs make bards insanely powerful

Having an open discussion and not totally dismissing input can be valuable to getting the right settings since there is no concrete evidence on a lot of this stuff.
I would also like to point out I only played this era of UO and I was in my 20's and not 8-12 when I played so my memory is significantly better than most on this subject as I dissected every aspect of this game.
And judging from the detail of my posts that should validate some of what I say, Im not making this up, I remember some of this stuff like it was yesterday.

The more I read on the boards the more I realize this is just a Divinty clone with the exact same problems Divinity has. Very frustrating, mobs, loot, melee combat and spell timers set wrong. The only real difference I hear of is mounts

[Derrick]

The only real difference I hear of is mounts

I think you'd be quite surprised then.

[Gilgamesh]

So you're telling me I never casted ev's on mobs without them instantly dispelling them during t2a? That I never double ev'd a dragon and took it down that way? Gotta be kidding me, this is a clear memory.

[alatar]

players got smarter over 7 years, mobs should get that chance with AI efficiency increases as well..

if i had it my way i'd make them even smarter.. why should farming be easy..

[Artemis]

players got smarter over 7 years, mobs should get that chance with AI efficiency increases as well..

if i had it my way i'd make them even smarter.. why should farming be easy..

Couple reasons, this era should be about player VS player, monsters shouldnt be much of a factor. Newer UO has better AI cause they dont have to worry about PK's anymore. Pk's are significant factor when going to a dungeon and shouldnt be taken lightly. Better AI makes it even easier for Pk's to kill people, plain and simple. You want tough AI go play a game like everquest, any mob in this era was very easily soloable if you knew how to fight them an how to take advantage of the terrain. More often than not the terrain decided how you fought mobs. Daemons, wyrms, liches
Monsters had dumber pathing/movement and slower casting but had lower loot tables and way slower spawn times. It should take time to make lots of cash, that means more people at the spawns more often. Which equals more player interaction
15k-20k and hour should be considered a lot, and few spawns(1-2) should even support that amount of cash flow. Next best spawns should be half that or less . . . not including T2a lands.

[Artemis]

So you're telling me I never casted ev's on mobs without them instantly dispelling them during t2a? That I never double ev'd a dragon and took it down that way? Gotta be kidding me, this is a clear memory.

Instantly meaning they casted a spell to dispel them. Mobs would cast spells every 5-10 seconds or so if they had mana. If a summoned attacked them their next spell would be dispel, even shades an lower casting mobs would dispel if they had the mana, but again shade only had like 40-60 mana.
If you happen to drain a dragons mana then you could EV them to death. That was the best way to kill deamons, blood elementals, regular dragons, ect.
Which Mana drain 4th level spell would actually work sometimes(1 out of 6 times) an actually lower mana by 30%-50%, or you could keep casting lower level summons an with each dispel (20mana) mobs would lose mana pretty fast that way as well. Dragons didnt have a large mana pool, I wanna say no bigger than 100-120? But I think I didnt fight them much because they had an innate ability to dispel without mana after they ran out? But I dont think they used it too often
And you needed 2 EV's to kill Balrons and dragons because they had so many hps one was never enough. Are you sure you didnt drain their mana 1st before you EV'ed them?

[Krug'gruk]

The monster A.I. here seems pretty dumb already. I've been killing harpies with a bow in covetous all day because they're too dumb to walk around a couple stalagmites.

Also, monsters did not retreat in T2A (at least not in the beginning), this I remember clearly.

Another thing, the speed of the order guards has got to be off, they step like 1 tile every 2 seconds.

[Dashiva]

Couple reasons, this era should be about player VS player, monsters shouldnt be much of a factor.

First of all, you are imposing what you believe the game should be like on others. Unbeknownst to you, even during this timeframe people from all walks of life played UO, not just PKs.
I play here because there should always be risk for reward, not because i'm great in pvp.

You've been generalizing this whole thread about the playerbase, and making assumptions about what the game was supposed to cater to. In reality, it catered to many different playstyles, not just (your) pvp mindset.

[Gilgamesh]

Couple reasons, this era should be about player VS player, monsters shouldnt be much of a factor.

First of all, you are imposing what you believe the game should be like on others. Unbeknownst to you, even during this timeframe people from all walks of life played UO, not just PKs.
I play here because there should always be risk for reward, not because i'm great in pvp.

You've been generalizing this whole thread about the playerbase, and making assumptions about what the game was supposed to cater to. In reality, it catered to many different playstyles, not just (your) pvp mindset.

That's a good counter but he's right in that the AI was stupid to allow fights in dungeons. Or rather the AI was allowed to stay stupid because no one complained because pvp happened in dungeons and you don't need good AI when you have pk's to worry about. Farming without the chance of pvp is NOT a play option, that's a single player game.