monster speeds/AI

[Lajon]

For what it's worth, every NPC, mob, animal, etc moves faster than I remember. I also agree that they follow you much farther than they did on the OSI shards during T2A. The spell-casting mobs didn't cast on you until you performed an agressive act on them. Such as attacking with a weapon or a spell, or just double-clicking them in war mode. The AI is much more sophisticated as well.

Is all of this intentional due to players running better hardware and internet connections?

[Ronk]

The only speed thing I remember in T2A is them blasted silver serpents. If one got on your tail and you were on foot you were toast...fast little boogers

[Derrick]

For what it's worth, every NPC, mob, animal, etc moves faster than I remember. I also agree that they follow you much farther than they did on the OSI shards during T2A. The spell-casting mobs didn't cast on you until you performed an agressive act on them. Such as attacking with a weapon or a spell, or just double-clicking them in war mode. The AI is much more sophisticated as well.

Is all of this intentional due to players running better hardware and internet connections?

We're going to fix the spellcasting mobs as soon as we can, this has been on the list of fixes for a while now.

As far as the mob speeds, the only thing we have to go on is feel, and yes, without the lag that was ever present in the day, the "feel" is quite different to begin with. We're continuing to adjust mob speeds as we can. Same for AI. The Ai engine we're using is worlds more advanced that what was even possible in 1999. The follow distance will be shortened soon.

[Some Dude]

To add a bit of information to whats here, on OSI monsters couldn't navigate around trees, bushes, and walls during T2A. They always took the most direct path to get to you, and if that path ran them right into any impassable object, they would simply sit there and look dumb (it made archery extremely good for taking out big stuff). Also, the movement speed for monsters on OSI was substantially slower than it is here (it was about half as fast as a rough gauge).

[Gilgamesh]

To add a bit of information to whats here, on OSI monsters couldn't navigate around trees, bushes, and walls during T2A. They always took the most direct path to get to you, and if that path ran them right into any impassable object, they would simply sit there and look dumb (it made archery extremely good for taking out big stuff). Also, the movement speed for monsters on OSI was substantially slower than it is here (it was about half as fast as a rough gauge).

I agree to a point but I believe they could navigate around obstacles that were 1 tile, maybe even two, but nothing past that. I remember this because I used to position blood elementals behind walls of rocks in Shame and cast energy vortex on their side and they could never get around. Also Ogre Lords in Wrong. But monsters could follow you around a tree or something, at least I believe they could. I'm close to sure that at 3 tiles the obstacle would completely stop them (assuming you're in the middle of it and they're in the middle on the other side) but they could get around corners if you led them by walking to the end of an obstacle.

Wow it's hard to explain how this worked and it's been like 10 years.

[benny-]

I agree that it might not be accurate...but personally I like the ai and the monster speeds....makes up for the the lack of 56k connections and such =)....while it might not have been technically part of the era, I think it does give it a similar feel, plus its a nice balance to the shard having mounts, slower/dumber ai and mounts? pvm would be way too dull

[johttenn]

I agree, it's nice when pvm is a little challenging and not repetitive gold farming.

[Gilgamesh]

That's now the point of the game though. At least imo the crappy AI leaves dungeons open to massive pvp. If the farming itself was challenging and fun then it would have created a dynamic different than the massively pvp aspect t2a had. For example I remember fighting 2v2 or more at the balron spawn and that simply wouldn't be possible (to be successful I should say) with the AI here.

Remember this game should mostly be about competing with human I not AI. Solo farming with no pvp going on in dungeons is NOT the way t2a was and should not be strived for. You want farming to be relatively easy so there's plenty of people in the dungeons for pk's and other pvp situations; and also so that people can relatively easily gather resources to spend on stuff for pvp.

[benny-]

I realize a large percentage of people who still play on old osi servers are strict pvpers, but why dumb down other aspects of the game in order to cater to just pvp? If this shard consisted of only pvpers, it'd blow. Remember on OSI? The majority of people weren't pvpers, they were blues, monster hunters, rpers, townies, crafters....thus pking was possible. Make spawns boring so l33t pvpers can manage through dungeons safer? Well, you'll have empty dungeons. I too think dungeons should be filled with players, not just solo pvmers, but I think harder AI would do such, encouraging groups of people when dumber AI could be handled by soloers. The era and this shard were made to have a good balance of multiple playstyles. I think having challenging AI is an attraction to pvmers and creates a better game in the end. Thus it should be kept the same.

[Gilgamesh]

I realize a large percentage of people who still play on old osi servers are strict pvpers, but why dumb down other aspects of the game in order to cater to just pvp? If this shard consisted of only pvpers, it'd blow. Remember on OSI? The majority of people weren't pvpers, they were blues, monster hunters, rpers, townies, crafters....thus pking was possible. Make spawns boring so l33t pvpers can manage through dungeons safer? Well, you'll have empty dungeons. I too think dungeons should be filled with players, not just solo pvmers, but I think harder AI would do such, encouraging groups of people when dumber AI could be handled by soloers. The era and this shard were made to have a good balance of multiple playstyles. I think having challenging AI is an attraction to pvmers and creates a better game in the end. Thus it should be kept the same.

You keep saying "change" and "dumb down" but in reality you should be saying "create very inaccurate AI mechanisms as compared with t2a."

Am I incorrect in assuming that this shard "thesecondage" has as it's first priority attempting t2a accuracy? If you want better AI (as was created after UO:R) then maybe you should play a UO:R or later shard?

[benny-]

no need to personalize your argument...whats next "trammy"? all Im saying is the advanced ai speeds make up for the higher connections we now use and add flavor and difficulty to make more exciting pvm, two things that make this shard more like a t2a server...you can scream t2a accuracy all you want, Im all for t2a accuracy...but it being a 10 yr old game there are some things that could make it more similar to the playstyle of that era by going away from such details

I dont see anything wrong with the current ai...Im not going to scream "INACCURATE" because an orc moves slighter faster than he did 10 yrs ago.

[~|~Damaja]

I will back gilgamesh on this one. I have been talking about monster ai since joining here as it was one of those big things I noticed change right when the UOR patch went in.

Since UOR patch - AI tracked you longer and moved around objects more then 2 tiles wide and the spawns were basically doubled in most dungeons. They had their hps linked to their movement speeds. Full hps they could move fast and when they started to lose hps their speeds dropped as well. T2A they always moved at same speed no matter their health.

differences on this server compared to osi t2a. All of the above mentioned plus the cast speeds on monsters here is crazy. It seems they spam alot more small stuff when they would cast more higher spells at a slower rate... meaning asoon as the last spell they casted was done they start casting another asap. Also when they start to do the uor track thing on you they will pop their steroids and run after you basically no matter where you go at double their speeds until they finally get a hit on you.

Even if ai was upgraded during t2a it must have been uber dumb when the game first came out and couldnt even pathfind 1 tile then. I started uo like right when t2a came out so I have no idea what it was like before t2a but I can tell you how it stayed until uor came out.

[Gilgamesh]

no need to personalize your argument...whats next "trammy"? all Im saying is the advanced ai speeds make up for the higher connections we now use and add flavor and difficulty to make more exciting pvm, two things that make this shard more like a t2a server...you can scream t2a accuracy all you want, Im all for t2a accuracy...but it being a 10 yr old game there are some things that could make it more similar to the playstyle of that era by going away from such details

I dont see anything wrong with the current ai...Im not going to scream "INACCURATE" because an orc moves slighter faster than he did 10 yrs ago.

It's not slightly fast, it's more than double the speed I remember. I am 100% sure you could outrun monsters in t2a walking, just barely outrun them. Here you must run, and even then they stay on you for a while.

Changing things to "spice it up" is a slippery slope that I've seen almost all t2a free shards go down before they disappear. Where's IPY? How's Metropolis doing? Divinity got a huge population jump when they opened 2.0 and it was advertised on wtfman.com as t2a accurate, and then when people realized it wasn't everyone quit except the former IPY players and their population went from almost 2000 online at peak times to 100.

Also it's true I had a dial up modem during t2a and now use FIOS but I didn't experience any "lag" in the game that compared my running away from monsters then to how it is here. They had like 20 servers so you could pick one very close to your location (assuming you lived in USA or a select other places in the world) so I would say I moved just as fast on Catskills as I do here (since this server is probably farther away from my location of NJ very close to Philadelphia PA). The only time I had significant lag on OSI was when they were lagging, UO is not very demanding of bandwidth even in old terms (I remember Diablo II taking way more resources and it wasn't even massively multiplayer).

In short I think it's silly to have better AI to make the game more fun in a way that wasn't played during t2a. With that logic why don't we overhaul the crafting system (since it's pretty boring and repetitive) so that it's more fun? Or if lag is the reason to increase monster speeds why don't we increase our running speeds as well? These kind of ideas are ridiculous.

Back on OSI I played a tank mage, only. I had a crafter/mule guy that I never really worked on because playing my main was so damn satisfying. I farmed every piece of gold and resource in that game I ever had with my tank mage. I could take down any monster in the game with my tank mage solo (although some took a while and were a little dangerous) because the AI was poor. A tank mage cannot reasonably take down stuff like balrons and ancient wyrms with the AI here. Why should the play style I was able to enjoy during t2a NOT be available to me here in a t2a copy free shard named "thesecondage?" Just because some people who didn't even play during t2a want harder mobs to farm?

I know nothing is ever perfect, including ever free shard and even original t2a, but original t2a to me was as close to a perfect online game as I've ever played. After UO:R things got progressively worse, and every other online game has paled in comparison to early UO imo. Why on earth would you want features from UO:R to be adopted here?

[benny-]

A tank mage cannot reasonably take down stuff like balrons and ancient wyrms with the AI here. Why should the play style I was able to enjoy during t2a NOT be available to me here in a t2a copy free shard named "thesecondage?" Just because some people who didn't even play during t2a want harder mobs to farm?

I play a newb tank mage (4 days old actually)...70 magery, 65 str...Ive been taking down wyrms and ice fiends all morning...I really dont see the ai here as all that difficult *shrugs*.....and dont assume things, I started in 97 =)

[Derrick]

It's not slightly fast, it's more than double the speed I remember. I am 100% sure you could outrun monsters in t2a walking, just barely outrun them. Here you must run, and even then they stay on you for a while.

A player walks faster than a skeleton runs here by at least 20%, I assure you that "double" is way more than minor exageration. Silver Serps moved at a speed not far below run speed, and slower creatures moved well befow walk speed. that is the case here in general terms. However testing some of the medium speed creatures does seem way fast.

As I stated earlier I know our monster speeds are wrong in some areas and we intend to correct them. And the AI range also.