Poison Part 2

[Faust]

Was referring to the UOR publish change not something on UOSA.

Poison was a lot more effective after the UOR publish.

[nightshark]

Poison does damage based on a percentage of the target's current hit points, at low levels, poison was less effective. If the formula that determines poison damage is less than the minimum associated with the poison, then the target will take the minimum value for damage.

Are you sure this patch note only refers to UO:R? It sounds more to me like it's saying "this is how poison works and how it has worked. We're now introducing a minimum damage so it will be more effective at low hit points".

The giant spider episode, was of course, in 1999 - a reflection of pre-patch to this note.

[Kraarug]

...

With all do respect, if you don't see the point I'm making here, we've probably found the cause for our disagreement on this issue.

I have no problems with counter arguments but I do respond in-kind with comments I feel are snarky.

I may have read too much into your post but it does seem pretty deep on the snarky scale.

In any event, the purpose of this post is to try to find other sources which may either help correct or better explain the current mechanics if they are proper.

I know we can look at formulas and precisely replicate what the math dictates, but there may be something that we are missing that wasn't quantified in documents we have now.

Look, it's kind of hard to call anything 'deadly' if it can't kill a player in less than 5 mins. It just doesn't seem to jive.

Perhaps they should have called the poisons...

• lessor minor hassle
  hassle
  greater hassle
  Minorally greater hassle

Because the term poison and deadly just doesn't seem to apply and doesn't seem to speak to the trouble that players who played in era report.

[Mikel123]

In any event, the purpose of this post is to try to find other sources which may either help correct or better explain the current mechanics if they are proper.

Yes. And my quotes, from the same site you're quoting, are my explanation. Things simply *seemed* tougher back then, as opposed to how they feel now - or maybe they were tougher, due to ping, packet loss, and lack of information & preparation. That is my explanation.

My explanation reconciles patch notes, the actual math of the poison, our own memories, and the memories of the players on the sites we both quoted.

They should also call mind blast "Mind Whimper", mana drain should be called "Automatically-Resisted Spell", and the elemental spells should be called "We Couldn't Think of Anything Else #1" through #4.

[Hicha]

http://web.archive.org/web/199911040027 ... sessay.htm

Dated November 4, 1999 (well within our cut-off):

Deadly Poison damages approximately 10-40% of remaining hit points per 5 seconds and, when the victim of the Deadly Poison reaches about 25% of total health remaining, the poison starts to take away stamina as well…making it exactly as the name implies…deadly. The poisoned victim will get "You feel extremely weak and are in severe pain!" messages.

UOSA is currently set at 13% instead of 10%-40%.

Generally, the Cure spell is sufficient to cure Greater Poison and below, although I myself am almost a Grandmaster Mage, so that tends to help a bit. The most powerful potion is difficult to Cure even with this high of a Magery skill; in my personal experience, I've had to cast Cure three to four times before eliminating a Deadly Poison in someone's system. This spell seems to be somewhere between Deadly and Greater Poison in terms of effectiveness.

Store bought cure potions and anyone with some magery can cure Deadly Poison.

[RazitalJiminez]

http://web.archive.org/web/199911040027 ... sessay.htm

Dated November 4, 1999 (well within our cut-off):

Deadly Poison damages approximately 10-40% of remaining hit points per 5 seconds and, when the victim of the Deadly Poison reaches about 25% of total health remaining, the poison starts to take away stamina as well…making it exactly as the name implies…deadly. The poisoned victim will get "You feel extremely weak and are in severe pain!" messages.

UOSA is currently set at 13% instead of 10%-40%.

Generally, the Cure spell is sufficient to cure Greater Poison and below, although I myself am almost a Grandmaster Mage, so that tends to help a bit. The most powerful potion is difficult to Cure even with this high of a Magery skill; in my personal experience, I've had to cast Cure three to four times before eliminating a Deadly Poison in someone's system. This spell seems to be somewhere between Deadly and Greater Poison in terms of effectiveness.

Store bought cure potions and anyone with some magery can cure Deadly Poison.

amazing find ... hopefully we try and incorporate at least some of this into relevant accuracy of T2A, or at least adjust it more to what it SHOULD be to reflect those days on Chesapeake OSI when I had my long spear DP ... but we shall see ...

and for those of you too lazy to click the link, he highlights most of the relevant points, but the T2A poison breakdown is as follows:

Lesser Poison is the weakest poison in the land. Slimes and small snakes carry this venom within their bodies, and with a successful strike can deliver it into the body of a hapless adventurer. Fortunately, this poison does very little damage, and is more of a nuisance than a hazard. A beginning alchemist can make this poison with little effort, but little effort provides little results. Lesser Poison is known to take approximately 2-5% of the victims remaining hit points every 5 seconds, thus delivering nothing more than a need for a cure, or some patience in waiting for the poison to wear off. The poisoned victim will get "You feel a bit nauseous..." messages.

Regular-strength Poison is slightly more effective than Lesser Poison, but is still, nonetheless, rather ineffective. This blend inflicts about 5-10% damage per 5 seconds, rendering it somewhat tame also. The poisoned victim will get "You feel disoriented and nauseous!" messages. These 2 poisons, Lesser and Regular, should really only be used for 1 thing:…gaining poison skill.

Greater Poison is likely to be the best bet for an aspiring assassin to use on weapons and food. This poison damages approx. 15-25% of the victims remaining hit points per 5 second span, which within the course of 1 minute can add up to some serious damage. The mage spell of Poison or Poison Field is exactly as potent as this particular variety of potion. The poisoned victim will get "You begin to feel pain throughout your body!" messages.

Deadly Poison damages approximately 10-40% of remaining hit points per 5 seconds and, when the victim of the Deadly Poison reaches about 25% of total health remaining, the poison starts to take away stamina as well…making it exactly as the name implies…deadly. The poisoned victim will get "You feel extremely weak and are in severe pain!" messages.

5th level poison is produced by Poison elementals and cannot be created by players. 5th level poison is almost guaranteed death. Four cures by a Master mage can't remove the poison and death usually results within 15 seconds. If you get hit with this type of poison you get a "You are in extreme pain, and require immediate aid!" message. Other people will get a "[your name] begins to spasm uncontrollably" message.

[Kraarug]

I agree with the 13% of remaining life per 5 second tick with a 33% chance of recalculation. There is a December 1999 poison damage essay that has it spelled out.

My issue is that the other essay clearly marks and states that Deadly Poison begins to ALSO take ADDITIONAL stamina away at less than 25% of health.

Now, I believe that was toyed with this summer and then argued away with by a staff member saying that anything below 25% hps begins to take hit points away.

I believe that one of the chief properties that made DP deadly and set part is the fact that it took additional stamina away. If DP didn't take an additional amount of stamina away at <25% why was it mentioned in the first place?

[quote=”stratics”]...when the victim of the Deadly Poison reaches about 25% of total health remaining, the poison starts to take away stamina as well…making it exactly as the name implies…deadly. The poisoned victim will get "You feel extremely weak and are in severe pain!" messages.[/quote]

Can we revisit this?

Also, can we confirm that the damage from DP is direct damage not mitigated by any factors. 13 HPs of calculated DP damage should remove 13 hit points and cause interruption of spells.

And, despite popular believe, there was a minimum damage even during T2A. It was 1 HP but it was a minimum number.

[Mikel123]

I agree with the 13% of remaining life per 5 second tick with a 33% chance of recalculation. There is a December 1999 poison damage essay that has it spelled out.

My issue is that the other essay clearly marks and states that Deadly Poison begins to ALSO take stamina away at less than 25%.

Now, I believe that was toyed with this summer and then argued away with by a staff member saying that anything below 25% hps begins to take hit points away.

I believe that one of the chief properties that made DP deadly and set part is the fact that it took additional stamina away. If DP didn't take an additional amount of stamina away at <25% why was it mentioned in the first place?

...when the victim of the Deadly Poison reaches about 25% of total health remaining, the poison starts to take away stamina as well…making it exactly as the name implies…deadly. The poisoned victim will get "You feel extremely weak and are in severe pain!" messages.

At this point, we're just completely rehashing the entire previous thread(s) on poison, right?

Here's the quote:

Deadly Poison damages approximately one part in eight of remaining health every 5 seconds and, when the victim of the Deadly Poison reaches about 25% of total health remaining, the poison starts to take away stamina as well

Let me rephrase:

Energy Bolt damages approximately 22 hps, and when the victim of the Energy Bolt reaches about 25% of total health remaining, the Energy Bolt starts to take away stamina as well

That's why I, and I assume others, took this to be referring to the effect of *ANY* damage on stamina.

The other big takeaway from the previous giant thread on poison was the comparison between a few poisoning essays, which said a mixture of things in terms of poison damage and damage intervals, versus the evidence which I think was ultimately used, which was this:

In 1998, the actual UO code had a certain poison damage calculation and interval.
In March 2000, a poisoning essay had the exact same calculation and intervals listed.
Therefore, we assume since we have no documents of poison calculation and intervals changing, it was the same from 1998 to March 2000. And since we have the precise OSI code from 1998, we've implemented that here.

[Kraarug]

Here's the quote:

Deadly Poison damages approximately one part in eight of remaining health every 5 seconds and, when the victim of the Deadly Poison reaches about 25% of total health remaining, the poison starts to take away stamina as well

Let me rephrase:

Energy Bolt damages approximately 22 hps, and when the victim of the Energy Bolt reaches about 25% of total health remaining, the Energy Bolt starts to take away stamina as well

That's why I, and I assume others, took this to be referring to the effect of *ANY* damage on stamina.

Oh Mikel,

You can never take quotes away from context.

In that quote about poison there was a COMPARISON between poison levels.

Let's use your replacement of variable technique shall we?

Lesser EBOLT is the weakest EBOLT in the land. Slimes and small snakes carry this SPELL within their bodies, and with a successful strike can deliver it into the body of a hapless adventurer. Fortunately, this SPELL does very little damage, and is more of a nuisance than a hazard. A beginning MAGE can make this SPELL with little effort, but little effort provides little results. Lesser EBOLT is known to take approximately 2-5% of the victims remaining hit points every 5 seconds, thus delivering nothing more than a need for a HEAL, or some patience in waiting for the SPELL to wear off. The EBOLTED victim will get "You feel a bit nauseous..." messages.

Regular-strength EBOLT is slightly more effective than Lesser EBOLT, but is still, nonetheless, rather ineffective. This blend inflicts about 5-10% damage per 5 seconds, rendering it somewhat tame also. The EBOLTED victim will get "You feel disoriented and nauseous!" messages. These 2 SPELLS, Lesser and Regular, should really only be used for 1 thing:…gaining poison skill.

Greater EBOLT is likely to be the best bet for an aspiring L33t OMG MAGEZ to use on weapons and food. This SPELL damages approx. 15-25% of the victims remaining hit points per 5 second span, which within the course of 1 minute can add up to some serious damage. The mage spell of EBOLT or EBOLT Field is exactly as potent as this particular variety of SPELL. The EBOLTED victim will get "You begin to feel ELECTRICITY throughout your body!" messages.

Deadly EBOLT damages approximately 10-40% of remaining hit points per 5 seconds and, when the victim of the Deadly EBOLT reaches about 25% of total health remaining, the SPELL starts to take away stamina as well…making it exactly as the name implies…deadly. The EBOLTED victim will get "You feel extremely weak and are in severe pain!" messages.

In this context and using a replacement variable, one can see that Deadly Poison/EBOLT is stood apart from the others and took additional stamina away.

Also, notice that is says that the POISON/SPELL takes stamina away, NOT THE LACK OF HIT POINTS which would be common in all conditions.

Please, use quotes in context. It makes a difference.

[Kraarug]

I have a question:

Does the fact that you are poisoned stop normal hit point regeneration in the DEMO?

I wonder if this is a over looked fact.

I ran 50 iterations using the following assumptions:

Code: Select all

13% of remaining life per 5 second tick with a 33% chance of recalculation and no HP regeneration.

This seems to suggest there is a good chance that DP could be deadly at times.

Iteration Seconds till Death
1 120
2 125
3 105
4 80
5 130
6 85
7 115
8 105
9 125
10 125
11 115
12 85
13 105
14 120
15 85
16 120
17 50
18 110
19 125
20 115
21 105
22 110
23 120
24 45
25 120
26 85
27 85
28 110
29 115
30 120
31 120
32 115
33 120
34 100
35 115
36 45
37 80
38 85
39 105
40 120
41 105
42 85
43 110
44 115
45 120
46 80
47 120
48 125
49 115
50 45
Average Seconds till Death 103.7 1.728333 mins

[Hicha]

amazing find ... hopefully we try and incorporate at least some of this into relevant accuracy of T2A, or at least adjust it more to what it SHOULD be to reflect those days on Chesapeake OSI when I had my long spear DP ... but we shall see ...

It won't change; there are too many people who don't use DP and don't want to see it become an effective tool in PVP. People don't like change, especially when it involves a skill or item they don't deploy. You should've seen the amount of research and effort to get DP corrected to what it is now.

The funny thing is that the original DP calcs were based off of the demo, yet they were completely different. Before we got the change implemented, it was impossible to die from DP (it would literally take 2-3 minutes to get below 10hp, and at this point your health regenerated faster than DP would damage for.) You would die from DP in the demo.

DP still doesn't affect stamina the way it should, there is no system message which says "You feel extremely weak and are in severe pain!", the damage ticks are far from making it deadly, and your basic cure pot cures it 99% of the time.

I've just given up on it entirely; regardless of what "proof" you provide, someone will find a random article somewhere else, claim it to be more "accurate" than yours and then they hope you just leave things alone.

[Mikel123]

In that quote about poison there was a COMPARISON between poison levels.

Fair enough, good point, I forgot about the rest of the post.

In this context and using a replacement variable, one can see that Deadly Poison/EBOLT is stood apart from the others and took additional stamina away.

Well, no. YOU read it that way; I don't, and it appears most other people don't. I mean... if Lesser Poison never gets you down below 70% health, then it's going to appear that it never saps stamina. I interpret that line to instead reflect the fact that DP was the only poison that really risked getting you below 25% health; the behavior of other poisons at below 25% health is sort of irrelevant if they never get you that low (or if the writers never got that low from being inflicted with that poison). According to here, which is the worst-case scenario (that you lose every 50/50 chance of poison recalculating) http://web.archive.org/web/200012050023 ... mage.shtml

...DP takes 30 seconds to get you from 100 down below 25%, when it begins sapping stamina.
GP takes over 90 seconds. And that's the worst case scenario.

Also, bear in mind, stamina-sapping from any damage was related to the amount of damage it did, as well as the health level. So DP could have been the only poison level doing big enough damage amounts in order to trigger the very same stamina loss that is present in every other damage type.

Anyways... still... nothing new in this thread.

[Derrick]

I have a question:

Does the fact that you are poisoned stop normal hit point regeneration in the DEMO?

I wonder if this is a over looked fact.

Interesting, looking into this.

[Faust]

I've just given up on it entirely; regardless of what "proof" you provide, someone will find a random article somewhere else, claim it to be more "accurate" than yours and then they hope you just leave things alone.

The problem with this notion is that a random article wasn't used in determining the poison system here. The formula from the demo is being used here that MATCHES up with pin point precision with a patch description discussing the new cure and arch cure changes. This write up specifically states the cure spell success chance is being reduced WHILE the arch cure spell maintains its current form that it and the cure spell held before this patch. It ALSO lists cure percentiles at different levels that MATCHES up perfectly with the demo formula values at those levels... Mind you that the cure and arch cure patch was inacted during or around the AOS expansion... The rest of the evidence from "random articles" backs this notion up stating how useless poison is on UOHOC chat logs, google groups, and stratics articles. Cure potions is even possible to discuss for being inaccurate since the UOR publish clearly lists how insignificant it was to cure different levels with even lesser cure(that mysteriously coincides with the demo too...).

When you have precise information that backs up the formula's used from actual OSI code like this it's a slam dunk or homerun, period.

[Kraarug]

...

In this context and using a replacement variable, one can see that Deadly Poison/EBOLT is stood apart from the others and took additional stamina away.

Well, no. YOU read it that way; I don't, and it appears most other people don't. ...

Mikel,

The sentence says 'ONE can see'. That's not a absolute statement.

And, speaking for the thoughts of others is never a strong position to take. How can you back up your statement of 'most people'. Did you take a poll?

It would be better stated if you just say "I don't read it that way" and then describe your disagreement.

Let other decide for themselves what is of value and if there is anything new in this thread.

I'm interested in what Derrick finds concerning regenerative hit points while poisoned.

You see, I'm trying to look into what may be making the little differences in the feel of things rather than attacking the formula that I have already agreed to accept. I race karts and am a drive coach. I know that what makes the differnce between winning a race and losing are minor differnces on each lap. They add up and so perhaps these minor things are adding up to a poor feel.


Besides, I have the December 1999 essay about poison some where. I'll find it and share it as soon as I can so that UO:R table can be dispelled.