UO Second Age

Derrick wrote:Yes the bad shot and ammo consumption if you don't "plant" until the hit is expected, however the bow will still be ready to fire again after you stop. This is the same pre-t2a behavior seen in demo. Archery was pretty easy to set up because it's not believed there were any changes at all between demo an our timeframe. The was archery works on demo is exactly as it works currently on test.

The delay is described to be precisely one second elsewhere, but the OSI code verbatim causes a 1.25 second delay :/

The archery timer is effected by both movement and equiping, and like for melee combat equiping at the wrong time in the swing cycle has introduce a long wait.

No matter how Ive timed it i cant get around the equip delay for bows. Even if I haven't swung with any other weapon or bow. For instance, I am not armed and I am in bow range of my target. I go into war mode and double click my target. I then arm my bow and I still have to wait for the timer to recharge event though there was no shot fired or weapon swung. Is this accurate?
When in the "swing cycle" are you supposed to equip?

Eaglestaff wrote:No matter how Ive timed it i cant get around the equip delay for bows. Even if I haven't swung with any other weapon or bow. For instance, I am not armed and i am in bow range of my target. I go into war mode and double click my target. I then arm my bow and i still have to wait for the timer to recharge event though there was no shot fired or weapon swung. Is this accurate?

The code is straight from OSI, and the Feb 1999 changes "insta hit", "short prep time", etc were for melee weapons only. Bows remain untouched and should be functioning just as they did mid-1998. The behavior of bows matches the demo perfectly and it's belived this should be the case. Personally, my confidence level in archey being 100% correct is very high.

Derrick wrote:

Eaglestaff wrote:No matter how Ive timed it i cant get around the equip delay for bows. Even if I haven't swung with any other weapon or bow. For instance, I am not armed and i am in bow range of my target. I go into war mode and double click my target. I then arm my bow and i still have to wait for the timer to recharge event though there was no shot fired or weapon swung. Is this accurate?

The code is straight from OSI, and the Feb 1999 changes "insta hit", "short prep time", etc were for melee weapons only. Bows remain untouched and should be functioning just as they did mid-1998. The behavior of bows matches the demo perfectly and it's belived this should be the case. Personally, my confidence level in archey being 100% correct is very high.

I thought this patch was supposed to help archers not hurt them? That's what everyone has been saying isn't it? Now they cant equip and shoot right off anymore. On the live shard they can equip and fire right away if its their first shot... Im all for era accuracy but am I missing something? Where is the silver lining?

Wow, that's fantastic, I remember those features of archery. My first character on UO was a lumberjack/bowyer/archer, and I remember that. Nice job getting the framework for the phantom arrows implemented.

I think that the way archery is used will change in terms of how it's used on UOSA now however overall my impression is that it will be more effective. This isn't something we implemented though, this is straight up copied.

Eaglestaff wrote: I thought this patch was supposed to help archers not hurt them? That's what everyone has been saying isn't it? Now they cant equip and shoot right off anymore. On the live shard they can equip and fire right away if its their first shot... Im all for era accuracy but am I missing something? Where is the silver lining?

Swings hold in a held state on the live shard... This didn't apply until the UOR publish. The damage delay on the live shard for bows is applied after the end of the weapon's delay instead of during it. This saves a loss of one second during every shot fired now. That is one positive addition that didn't exist in the other swing timer.

A bow will fire instantly upon attacking someone but that is only if the bow has been equipped for the duration of the weapon's delay after being armed.

Derrick wrote:I think that the way archery is used will change in terms of how it's used on UOSA now however overall my impression is that it will be more effective. This isn't something we implemented though, this is straight up copied.

Faust wrote:

Eaglestaff wrote: I thought this patch was supposed to help archers not hurt them? That's what everyone has been saying isn't it? Now they cant equip and shoot right off anymore. On the live shard they can equip and fire right away if its their first shot... Im all for era accuracy but am I missing something? Where is the silver lining?

Swings hold in a held state on the live shard... This didn't apply until the UOR publish. The damage delay on the live shard for bows is applied after the end of the weapon's delay instead of during it. This saves a loss of one second during every shot fired now. That is one positive addition that didn't exist in the other swing timer.

A bow will fire instantly upon attacking someone but that is only if the bow has been equipped for the duration of the weapon's delay after being armed.

Im glad weve gotten things more era accurrate so congrats on that. That one second is a slight boost but I don't think there is any reason to expect bows to be more effective. That equip delay is going to gimp them even more because now you cant combine archery with spell casting.

You should check out a lot of the sources that I have produced for the equip delay that was clearly disgusted with the mechanic when it came to archery.

The T2A era when insta hit was implemented was the downfall of the well known dominant pre-t2a archers. :/

Faust wrote:You should check out a lot of the sources that I have produced for the equip delay that was clearly disgusted with the mechanic when it came to archery.

The T2A era when insta hit was implemented was the downfall of the well known dominant pre-t2a archers. :/

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. Im not saying that its not era. I believe the evidence you have provided is sound. Congrats on the progress there and keep it up! I'm just saying that people have been talkign about how this patch is going to help archers when its not. This patch, although accurate, hurts archers. The only archers that benefit are pure archers who don't also use melee weapons or magery.

No, that wasn't it Eagle. I was just pointing out how your feelings about the situation with archery greatly reflect those that didn't like the situation with it and the equip delay back in the day. For example, here is a post in early January '00 that recaps on few changes to archery that made it less effective since the inception of Ultima Online in '97.

Taran of Yew GrandMaster Bowyer, Assistant Pig Keeper, Chesapeake Shard - January 15th 2000 - http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.computer.ultima.online/search?group=rec.games.computer.ultima.online&q=equip+delay wrote:The nerf on archery included removing the ability to drink potions with a bow equipped and then adding a horendously long equip delay for all types of bows. " We're not going to nerf archery!" -- Raph Koster .

There are tons of these posts even making comments about how it's ineffective to produce a combo with spells as you mentioned in your post.

I was merely pointing out the similarities with your comment and those that made posts about it during the t2a era too.

the new changes on test are great, thank you very much. can't wait to see this on live shard.

Ive been able to do some double swinging with the hally. It only seems to happen on the first two strikes then it goes back to regular speed. If you try to tab out, re-equip, or off-screen it doesn't seem to work twice. I haven't tried Peacemake tho, perhaps calming the fight might work to reproduce the same effect. What happens is the second swing will come noticeably more quickly than the third. If the swing timer is already looping then it doesn't work. It just when you initiate combat with the first insta-hit that the second swing comes faster. Im not sure about all the different conditions the code interprets as active combat and how it decides that combat is over and to stop looping the swing timer.. Things like going off screen and tabbing out... basically any way to make the swing timer go back to whatever state it is in before it starts looping. So anyways its not faster once the loop starts going but the first swing of the loop after the initial insta-hit seems to come a bit fast to me. It seemed pretty noticeable swinging with a hally and 25 dex.

Changes are looking good. Test center is officially better than current pvp on live shard!

Ok, Nice.

I'll look for you this weekend to see if we can jump on test and check it out.

Awesome = )