Lessons from the Demo: Monster and Animal stats

[Mikel123]

So I got some data from Faust and Batlin from the demo about creatures, their spawning statistics, etc, and found some interesting tidbits. Bear in mind, this is all from mid-1998, so some of it probably was changed between then and late 1999 (or changed specifically for the demo), but here goes:

1) City Guards have Detect Hidden and Forensics skill. Why? I have no idea.
2) Town Criers are equally strong as city guards. They would whoop your behind if you were ever able to engage them.
3) Daemons have a wide-ranging AR - nearly every npc has a static AR, but daemons spawn between 3 and 18.
4) Air Elementals and Fire Elementals are fast as heck - like 150+ dexterity.
5) Ogres hit hard - harder than drakes, harder than almost any other critter.
6) the code rates monsters in difficulty on a scale of 1 to 11. The 11's are: balron, ancient wyrm, and poison elemental.
7) dragons and ancient wyrms have the same HP range - 700-1100 and the same AR. Defensively, they are almost identical; the ancient wyrms have a slightly higher wrestling skill.
liches don't have a code line to give them wrestling skill or macing skill; this may imply that they had 0 wrestling.
9) drakes used to require GM skill to tame; dragons were 99.
10) summoned daemons hit harder than dragons, but of course don't have firebreath.
11) poison elementals had the strongest AR in the game and the 6th highest HP
12) dire wolves and hell hounds were identical twins, statistically, except for the firebreathing
13) reapers could only cast up to second level spells; a bunch of monsters could cast up through level 8. Though this is just a numerical cap. I'm still working on getting the code for the actual spellcasting AI.

The abyss shard statistics are largely accurate (http://web.archive.org/web/199910130013 ... index.html). For AR, they are identical to the demo. Some of the values for STR are higher than the demo, but it's a real good reference point.

Anyways, I'll add to this as I discover more fun facts and info.

[ClowN]

interesting. i cant imagine liches having no wrestling skill. i used to farm liches alot back in the day, and while they were easy to kill on a newb dexxer, you would not hit them EVERY time as i remember it. to me this would imply that they atleast had SOME wrestling.

this is all good info though, hopefully this will all get looked into. id be pissed if we found out 99 taming was required to tame dragons, im building a tamer right now and getting close to the 90s lol.

[Faust]

A lich uses an equipped gnarled staff which is why they don't have wrestling.

[Mikel123]

I don't believe this is the case. For one thing, they don't have any macing skill either. For another, their damage doesn't cause stamina loss like a gnarled staff. And from another standpoint, every creature has a "naturalwc" value, which I believe refers to the die roll damage of it's hands (wrestling). Balrons and daemons were the only monsters that I knew of that supposedly used a weapon and the corresponding weapon skill, and I bet that's not true either.

Actually, now that I notice it, liches and lich lords in the demo code actually are invulnerable to fencing, archery, swords, and mace weapons, as well as poison. So maybe they served some quest-related purpose in the demo. It seems like they can only be damaged by magic (City Guards, for example, are immune to magic).

[Batlin]

Actually, now that I notice it, liches and lich lords in the demo code actually are invulnerable to fencing, archery, swords, and mace weapons, as well as poison.

The invulnerabilities are not active, I believe they are more or less remainders from a system they planned but never came to be. It's similar to the food/shelter/desires etc. you find defined in the data files (and which are also in the original UO strategy guide).
http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/03/uo ... ce-system/
http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/04/uo ... em-part-2/
http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/06/05/uo ... em-part-3/

[Eulogy]

10) summoned daemons hit harder than dragons, but of course don't have firebreath.

I've been saying this forever.
They used to hit more like an ogre lord, but not as much.

[Derrick]

10) summoned daemons hit harder than dragons, but of course don't have firebreath.

I've been saying this forever.
They used to hit more like an ogre lord, but not as much.

The stats on the summoned deamons were adjusted in the big mob stats and skills fix a few weeks ago, both regular and summoned daemons have the same base damage, both higher than an ogre lord. Other stats do vary though.

[Mikel123]

Our daemons do hit really hard (the natural ones; I've never summoned one). I want to say they hit for 27-33, while dragons hit for maybe 24-30.

[virtue]

The UO demo is not completely accurate to most of the era we knew in 1997-1998.

SOme things probably are, but we need to stop trusting the UO demo. Seriously....Faust is singlehandedly causing the shard to become worse. I think he is a ridiculous fanatic that puts too much trust in the UO demo.

And what's the proof? Look at the pvp here, it's not even popular nor very accurate. I remember UO being a very popular PVP game.

This shard has everything except PVP, what people don't realize is if we make the PVP here playable, accurate and fun then our playerbase will double. Right now there is hardly any pvpers and that was a huge part of what UO was.

[Homie]

The UO demo is not completely accurate to most of the era we knew in 1997-1998.

SOme things probably are, but we need to stop trusting the UO demo. Seriously....Faust is singlehandedly causing the shard to become worse. I think he is a ridiculous fanatic that puts too much trust in the UO demo.

And what's the proof? Look at the pvp here, it's not even popular nor very accurate. I remember UO being a very popular PVP game.

thats a good point! (except the faust thing)

the demo was meant to be a demo and nothing else.

i would rather trust in the "memories" of oldschool players than the demo source - just human logic

[Mikel123]

I guarantee the demo is more accurate than player memories.

Some of the values from the demo are strikingly accurate. For example, if you compare those values to the Abyss shard values, all of the ARs are exactly identical. All of the stats are within the die roll ranges, with rare exception (Balrons being the biggest one I found).

85% of player "memories" are either from UO:R or pre-T2A. My preferred method of exploring these things is to look for instances in which player memory matches what we find in the demo or in Stratics. Not the other way around.

People are going to complain about the PvP and the economy "going to sh!t". That's not only T2A-accurate, it's happened constantly throughout the entire life of UO. So I don't see how whining and complaining is going to help. And to assume that PvP was "a huge part of what UO was" is certainly biased. Virtue, just because you played with a bunch of PvPers doesn't mean that was the majority of the shard. Why was Felucca a ghost town the very SECOND that Trammel appeared? Because you were in the vast minority. If you have specific points about what's inaccurate, by all means tell us. But this is the second post I've seen from you this morning that includes whining about how everything's accurate but the PvP... and you have yet to offer one piece of the system that is broken or inaccurate.

[Sentinel]

Everything up there seems to be right except for the part where Ogres (at least regular ones) hit harder than Drakes and Reapers only cast up to level two spells. I can say from memory that Reapers definitely casted up to an E-Bolt back in the day. Good finds.

[Homie]

mount stamina ?!

[poogoblin]

Everything up there seems to be right except for the part where Ogres (at least regular ones) hit harder than Drakes and Reapers only cast up to level two spells. I can say from memory that Reapers definitely casted up to an E-Bolt back in the day. Good finds.

Again the demo proves to be only partially correct, and we use it as our "bread and butter".

I can't ever remember a time reapers couldn't cast lightning.

[virtue]

People are going to complain about the PvP and the economy "going to sh!t". That's not only T2A-accurate, it's happened constantly throughout the entire life of UO. So I don't see how whining and complaining is going to help. And to assume that PvP was "a huge part of what UO was" is certainly biased. Virtue, just because you played with a bunch of PvPers doesn't mean that was the majority of the shard. Why was Felucca a ghost town the very SECOND that Trammel appeared? Because you were in the vast minority. If you have specific points about what's inaccurate, by all means tell us. But this is the second post I've seen from you this morning that includes whining about how everything's accurate but the PvP... and you have yet to offer one piece of the system that is broken or inaccurate.

Felucca didn't turn into a ghost town, what shard did you play on? In comparison it had less players but that's because felucca was only for PVP, that means if you were pvming, trading, socializing then you had to goto trammel.

Felucca was hardly a ghost town, I recall faction battles every night and some nights 100+ people raiding our stronghold. And that was just factions....

IPY, UOR and UO Divinity have all proven that pvp is a popular aspect to UO.

If we're trying to be era accurate then we need to fine tune all aspects of the game, not just PVM. And I am offering my thoughts, I am not whining. What's the deal with you people and saying everyone is whining just because you don't agree with their statements.

So I don't see how whining and complaining is going to help. And to assume that PvP was "a huge part of what UO was" is certainly biased.

I am no longer a huge pvper, in 1998 I was...I still want the spell mechanics to be as accurate as possible. There are already posts out there that have point out the flaws in our system.