I would like to Re initiate the Farmer Strike

[Sandro]

Not to de-rail your complains here, but we did kill you (and your 2 (?) dragons) in cove gazers, and got 7800 gold from you. I was talking to clyde just after we recalled out, and the first thing I said was, "why does he only have 2 dragons, I wouldn't of even bothered going in there if he had 4 or more.."

The real solution is understanding how being a stat-loss pk works. If there is a greater loss at risk for us than there is to benefit by killing you, we'll bounce out. Your measly 8000 gold doesn't compare to the -20.0 all skills I take if I die, and doesn't even buy the regs required to train back up.

To skip to the point, GK, you're a tamer, you should have at least 4 dragons with you if you're going to solo-farm, especially in such a high-traffic area such as Covetous Gazers.

Just my .02$, coming from the most active pk here. Also, to note, the spot we killed you is the only place I have ever died on Total Darkness, and it was dragons fire-breath I died too, after being archer-turreted.

You were just under-manned, that's why we came in. 2 Dragons won't stop me and clyde, not when we can cross-heal the damage. Also, I don't think you have wrestling, I would substitute hiding for wrestling asap.

[GuardianKnight]

Been through this the last go around when i started. I traveled with 5 dragons at a time and while i may have been safe.....everyone agreed that it was a weak way to stay safe. I then lowered it to 3 and still took crap for it because it was too much for people i guess. I lowered it to 2 and now I'm undermanned?

I tend to want to make everything fair but for some reason it only bites me on the A#$.

[Sandro]

Uh, why would you give 2 shits about what people think?

Once my pk-tamer is complete I will be trolling with 8 (eight) wyrms. I don't give a damn what people say, I still loot their corpses (dry) and kill their mount.

That's just how I roll. And I suggest you follow suit if you want to survive our next encounter. 2 Dragons just don't cut it.

[Rhaps]

Wise has a great point here. With the massive turnover in goods from people being so frequently PKed and drylooted there is never a better time to get into the crafting business.

As far as the whole farming strike goes. Well on my bard I've found that keeping reactive armour, magic reflect up at all times alongside a peacemake recall macro (yeah my farmer is one of those weird peacemaker bards) I very rarely get killed. Also having the good sense not to farm places like Destard at peak times and checking the myUOSA PK guild rosters to see what squads are on means I avoid the grief for a good part.

The PKs are creatures of habit and each guild has their own favourite hunting spots much like the farmers. By keeping note of what PKs I see, when and where and checking the guild rosters to see who's online I can easily rotate my farming spots to be one step ahead. I also don't solely farm dungeons, I have a dexxer for farming overground hot spots when the dungeons are too busy and if I get bored of that I've got my gm tinker for trade or my stealth thief for farming farmers & reds alike (especially fun with my gm boom boxes). Basically although I can see how getting constantly ganked is an utter pain you aren't an idiot, why are you putting yourself in a situation like that when you can avoid it by adapting your gamplay and varying what you do?

So in the end no matter how rampant the PKing becomes I'll always have places to farm, things to do and money to make. Just gotta be flexible.

ps. I'm also a massive UO noob who did play in era but only ever had a 3xgm macefighter and couldn't pvp to save his life, still cant. So if I can manage no problems, anyone can.

[GuardianKnight]

Uh, why would you give 2 shits about what people think?

Once my pk-tamer is complete I will be trolling with 8 (eight) wyrms. I don't give a damn what people say, I still loot their corpses (dry) and kill their mount.

That's just how I roll. And I suggest you follow suit if you want to survive our next encounter. 2 Dragons just don't cut it.

Why would i care what people think? Contrary to popular belief on a griefer friendly shard....i'm the good guy. It's not easy being the good guy. Anyone can be a pos ahole and let loose....that takes no mental ability at all.

If you are traveling with 8 WWs, you are begging to suicide. Mass curse ftl

Also if you are going to use 8 you will need to set macros for each name, otherwise you will lose pretty quick. I took on a guy with 4 dragons earlier and my 2 did just fine.

[Sandro]

I know how it works.

I used 8 wyrms before the "all kill" was nerfed, and I did just fine. All stop works 90% of the time @ 100 taming, and it's not a big deal at all. I am the king of razor macros so issuing individual commands to kill is not an issue what-so-ever.

I used to frequently duel Choppa X and his tamer (8 dragons) at the ancient wyrm when he would try to jump my kills. This was way back when the wyrm drop 4000+ gold though. His dragons would kill me with firebreath, but my wyrms would dominate him with magic. Using all guard me I was able to kill all of his dragons while still dead, only losing 3-4 wyrms depending on how many threw out mass curse.

Wyrms are far greater in PvP because they move much faster, and even 2 fireball, 1 lightning, 2 ebolts, 2 fs, etc from them is enough to drop anyone.

[KydVicious]

Actually making ghost's screens unable to see players (not npc's such as healers) after being dead for a certain period of time would be an easy fix IMO. It really wouldn't hurt the mechanics of the game at all.

[Sandro]

It wouldn't hurt, but that isn't accurate now is it..

[nightshark]

The ghosting issue is a dead horse.

Unless accounts are restricted to 1 per IP with certain exceptions (which they won't be), ghosting will continue to happen.

[Flash Hardstar]

Pk's are a part of UO. Get more friends when you Farm and take turns killing mob .. or better at pvp really. I used to farm with Ginger at the LL and I remember taking out waves of reds, 3 and 4 at a time. We'd get an hour or 2.

Only thing I'm against is the quad clienting, ghosting every spawn in the game

[Mikel123]

GK does have wrestling; hiding actually makes him a huge pain in the ass to kill, needing to be only 8 tiles away to hide. I had a heck of a time killing him with my dexer, because he'd just stick near his dragons and if I ever needed to back off to cast a heal or get out of claw range, he'd hide. Even with Tracking, by the time I figured out approximately where he was with purple potions, I'd be getting whacked and firebreathed the whole time.

Sandro, it's clear you don't have a lot of experience with this; you're incorrect on most points regarding taming. Dragons are much better to hunt with than white wyrms. First off, as GK says, with 8 wyrms, you have 4x the chance of one of them Mass Cursing as you'd have with 2 wyrms. And, 8 wyrms doesn't kill things that much faster than 2, especially with no "all kill". Not to mention, 7 wyrms attacking the Mass Curser will possibly kill it before you can rectify the situation. And, for like the 4th thing you're incorrect about on this, "all stop" doesn't work like you think it works. It's identical to "all stay" in T2A. Doesn't delete their commands or their intentions, it just makes them stand still. Then a second later, they re-attack whatever they were attacking before.

Firebreath from dragons (which by all accounts, will be getting slightly better, with a faster cycle between breaths) makes them much more effective for PvMing, and PvPing. Claws can miss; wyrms cast magic arrow all the time. Firebreath is guaranteed, unblockable, unreduceable damage.

I agree with Sandro about taking more dragons to face off PvP threats. I'm a huge advocate of not taking more than 2 dragons for PvMing. You just don't gain too much faster kills by taking more dragons. And 2 dragons is usually plenty to fend off 1 PK, whether it's a mage or a dexer. Having 4 there will take much more meat and time spent on controlling, Loring, etc, but it would make it much less appetizing to attack you. But... still... as a tamer... if I see a red name, even one inept PK, I gate out. Not worth trying to fight people, dragons are a pain in the ass to control and if there's 1 person getting their ass handed to them by your dragons, they'll call 3 more friends to harass you.

Lastly...

When I first started here, which was only just over 2 weeks ago, for the first few days I didn't see many PKs (I was probably just lucky). Now every time I goto Covetous lv3 I am attacked within a 10 minute span.

My basic re-equip on my dexer costs
900gp - chain dex suit
500gp - basic regs (cures and recall)
~120gp - bandaids
a few gp for a few pouches/rune/magic trap regs.
(800gp - horse - probably 80% of the time my horse is killed or left to die in a bad position)
----------------
So on average (0.8 * 800 for horse) = 2160gp

The PKing started getting so frequent that I wasn't even breaking even on loot from liches for a while. The majority of the time PKs won't res or gate out, so to get back to square 1 takes about 20 minutes (running to healer, ressing, vendor buy)

Now I just hunt liches with a precast recall (scroll). It's weird to do and can be difficult, but it's definitely possible. It's about the only way I can avoid being PKed against explosion pots. With 0 wrestle it's impossible to cast a recall when you get attacked by a dexer, and almost every PK group I've been attacked by had at least 1 dexer in it.

There really needs to be a better anti-PK attitude. When players are actually making a net loss from hunting, it really discourages activity on the shard. It's a pain in the neck when a single PK recalls in and everyone recalls out. I'm usually the last one left because I actually attack the PK.. I usually escape from that situation though.

This attitude of "look how much I lose when a PK comes in and I die" is exactly your problem (and that of others). I'm glad you bring pouches, use a horse, etc. But for like 100gp more, you will survive way way way more PK attacks. 3 Yellow Potions, 3 Footstools/Tables, 3 Red Potions, and 3 Orange Potions. Don't expect to die; expect to LIVE. And prepare like it. Props to you for fighting back, but you really need a lot of potions to fight back against a PK who knows what they're doing. Like, 45 potions (10 yellow, 10 orange, 15 red, 5 white, 5 blue). And add 15 purple potions and a poisoned weapon or two, if you actually want to kill them when they turn and run.

[Mikel123]

Also... if you're having trouble breaking even by killing liches... try the Liches by the Yew crypt. It's a pain to PK people there, because they can just run north and get into guard zone within 6 or 7 screens. Dexers have no chance of killing prepared players, and mages have a pretty low chance too, if you carry potions and pouches.

Do yourselves a favor, and take your next 30 minutes you have to play UO and set up a really extensive hotkey and macro list. I put this off forever, and ended up paying for it many times over. It's the best investment you can make. If you carry a silver weapon for killing liches, and a different weapon you'd use when fighting off a PK, and you don't have an Arm/Dress hotkey for each, you're not well-prepared. You're less prepared than the PK. And you deserve to die.

[tekai]

I never once traveled with less then 4 dragons. Not once.

Let the laysayers go to hell, your a tamer for god sakes GK, bring 10

[nightshark]

This attitude of "look how much I lose when a PK comes in and I die" is exactly your problem (and that of others). I'm glad you bring pouches, use a horse, etc. But for like 100gp more, you will survive way way way more PK attacks. 3 Yellow Potions, 3 Footstools/Tables, 3 Red Potions, and 3 Orange Potions. Don't expect to die; expect to LIVE. And prepare like it. Props to you for fighting back, but you really need a lot of potions to fight back against a PK who knows what they're doing. Like, 45 potions (10 yellow, 10 orange, 15 red, 5 white, 5 blue). And add 15 purple potions and a poisoned weapon or two, if you actually want to kill them when they turn and run.

I think you underestimate the difficulty of surviving a PK gank with a 300 ping and as a dexer who has shit skills. A single PK I can deal with (escape) unless they have explosion pots. 75 healing just isn't enough to survive in the long run, eventually a bandy will fail and then explosion pots > heal pots, so it really doesn't make a difference if I am carrying heals.

Before you criticise the fact I haven't bothered to macro GM healing - take into account that since I started playing UO again, I have become a casual gamer, rather than my old hardcore gamer style. I log on once every few days, and macro when I can be bothered. Yes, this is my fault - but I'd say it's also a common attitude of people who want to play UO in 2010, and these are also the people who are being turned off the shard (don't worry, this player isn't giving up that easily).

Honestly, if others got in on the action and fought back with me (3vs1 solo pk... cmon), maybe PKs would actually start worrying... hence an anti-PK movement. You don't need to be well equipped to survive 3vs1. The amount of damage being dealt out by 3 people shouldn't give anyone the chance. People seem to fail to realise that when a PK dies, that takes him out of the action completely for a while. Recalling might save your ass a few times, but fighting back is going to save your ass in the long run.

Anyway... I'll eventually make enough gold to round off the last 2 skills (magery/resist - both currently at 50) on my tank mage, and then I won't have to worry so much about PKs, since I'll have a decent character worthy of fighting back or recalling without being interrupted every single time.

[Van Raily]

I'm curious: what do footstools and tables do to help you escape a PK attempt, and how do you use them?

(Sorry for the de-rail, but I've seen it before.)