Insight for DEVS!

For ideas on how to make Second Age a better shard. Can it get any better? Maybe.
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Flash Hardstar
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Insight for DEVS!

Post by Flash Hardstar »

O.k. I've been on the shard for some time and started UO in 1998. I have a fond memory of what I still believe was the best MMO, and pretty much lived by it throughout highschool. I'm the nerd who bought the playguide and read it during reading time in 9th grade <--- loser i know. I just thought i'd psot some of my insight on this shard with some issues I believe are not as it was in the T2A era. This post not to criticise as I feel Derrick does a wonderful job, but to inform. I know some of this is just my very accurate memory as well, and will begin to search for proof of some of these insinuations, but i'm fairly certain they are accurate.

1. Parrying
While succesfully parrying an attack from a giant serpent, terathen avenger, scorpion ect., you still will become poisoned. Succesfully parrying an attack was just that, and never used to poison. Also, however i'm not quite sure of this one myself, but getting hit with macing weapons while succesfully parrying them still takes your stamina away. (not 100% sure if that happened in the Origin shards, but im assuming not)

2. Swing Speed
Swing speeds of katanas/lryss's are a bit too slow. The current swing speed of a kryss on this server is the swing speed one would have with 89 dex on the Origin servers. Once one hit 90 dex, their swing speed would increase (the same swing speed at 100dex). The current swing speed at 100 dex with a kryss or katana on this shard is what it was on Origin shards with 89 dex. So the swing speed should be increased slightly with atleast these weapons (not sure of swing speed of other weapons cause i only used these on the origin shards)

3. Attack Accuracy
I was fighting a ratman yesterday with 100 fencing and tactics, and missed 6 times in a row. I've noticed CONSIDERABLE missing on low level monsters, and many high ones that I never remember happening. I have even been missing on scorpions, earth eles, ect. The "wiffing" rate with weapons at gm skill seems much higher than it used to be on the Origin shards ~ it's like warriors barely stand a chance in PVM like they used to. Also, tossing the attack accuracy in with the swing speeds at gm dex makes it near impossible to pvp with a warrior against a mage here. This era WAS the tank mage era, however warriors held their own.

4. Stealing
I have been shocked by the amount of thiefs and how succesful they've been on this shard. Thiefs are essential to this game, I believe, however something is amiss. When a thief steals with a high enough skill and you don't notice it, this is normal -- but you were still able to call guards on them as I remember when I thiefed. All the high skill did is hide the "you notice joe sixpack stealing bloodmoss from you!". Once you stole, no matter your skill, if you were in guard zone you were always vulnerable to a guard whack for that 10 seconds or so ish. I've been so confused at the thiefs who clean people out at brit bank and if they get attacked are so powerful they will kill you.

5. Spawns/Loot
The fix to Dungeon shame was close to accuracte, however there are wya too many scorpions on the first level. It used to be only a couple scorpions and you have the earth ele count about right. Terathens as well, there was a matriarch spawn and avenger spawn just a little higher than what is there now (upstairs keep). the warriors and drones are about right. The loot, however at terathens is still not accurate. When T2A first came out tera keep was a hot spot because the warriors always dropped a magic wep. I've killed about 60 of em today to see and best weapon was of force. Warriors had a drop rate with weapons at vanquishing level, not common but also not industry rare ~ this is what made tera keep such a hotspot.

7. Weapons
War forks by the UO playguide ignored armor in this era, was a perk of fencing. Does this apply to this shard as well?

6. This is just a personal preferance, but in your pvp tournaments you dont allow us to use poisoned weapons (gimping some such as myself, who have the poisoning skill) but mages (already somewhat elite in this era) can cast poison as much as they want with spells. Maybe let warriors with the skill use poisoned weapons or disable poisoning alltogether in tournaments?


These are just some things I wanted to point out... Still have much to explore as I haven't been here THAT long yet. Feel free to agree, disagree and comment... I'd love everyones feedback as well as the devs. As I said, I will work to find ways to prove some of what I posted, More in the weeks to come as I play more.
Ciao 8)
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Derrick
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Re: Insight for DEVS!

Post by Derrick »

Wow, thanks. Nice post.

The posion/parrying problem we're aware of, will be fixed soon

The kryss speed was nerfed in early 1999, this was been a subject of some debate in wither threads, but we did finally get to the bottom of it. I looked a little for the specific patch on this but didn't come right across it, the difference is shown in these two diffent stratics pages:
May 1999: http://web.archive.org/web/199905022020 ... m/arms.htm
Oct 1999: http://web.archive.org/web/199910130704 ... m/arms.htm

The hit chance is something I'll take a look at. The calculation is correct, it's possible the weapons skills might be a little high on these particular creatures.

Dungeons are undergoing changes, we'll try to get these spawns more correct.

I have the UO Playguide in my hand, I can't see this about Warforks, I was never aware of this but is very interesting. Please send a reference on this if you can find one. Currently, on UOSA, Warforks do not ignore armor.

On the tourney rules, there's been some previous dission on what you're suggesting. More feedback on this is very welcome, in the end tourney rules are entirely up to a player consensus.
Here's another thread on the subject: http://forum.uosecondage.com/viewtopic. ... 27&p=10077

Again, thanks much for the post!

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Re: Insight for DEVS!

Post by Malcoda »

4. Stealing
I have been shocked by the amount of thiefs and how succesful they've been on this shard. Thiefs are essential to this game, I believe, however something is amiss. When a thief steals with a high enough skill and you don't notice it, this is normal -- but you were still able to call guards on them as I remember when I thiefed. All the high skill did is hide the "you notice joe sixpack stealing bloodmoss from you!". Once you stole, no matter your skill, if you were in guard zone you were always vulnerable to a guard whack for that 10 seconds or so ish. I've been so confused at the thiefs who clean people out at brit bank and if they get attacked are so powerful they will kill you.

I completely agree with this. You were always able to get guard whacked when you stole, regardless of doing it while being unseen. I have been wondering about this from day one.
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Re: Insight for DEVS!

Post by Flash Hardstar »

Thanks for the prompt response dev! Yes, the poisoning, if you have the skill, should absolutely be allowed. it's just way to gimp for warriors - plus would make the tournaments more well rounded considering 100 of my 700 points lie in this skill... Also, I don't see how mages could cry about it they just drink a potion.. Try having to wait 20+ seconds to heal yourself if you get poisoned :P

Anywho, I'm still wondering about the stealing question.. I'm fairly certain of what I had posted I was an active thief for years.
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Re: Insight for DEVS!

Post by kill drizitz »

Malcoda wrote:
4. Stealing
I have been shocked by the amount of thiefs and how succesful they've been on this shard. Thiefs are essential to this game, I believe, however something is amiss. When a thief steals with a high enough skill and you don't notice it, this is normal -- but you were still able to call guards on them as I remember when I thiefed. All the high skill did is hide the "you notice joe sixpack stealing bloodmoss from you!". Once you stole, no matter your skill, if you were in guard zone you were always vulnerable to a guard whack for that 10 seconds or so ish. I've been so confused at the thiefs who clean people out at brit bank and if they get attacked are so powerful they will kill you.

I completely agree with this. You were always able to get guard whacked when you stole, regardless of doing it while being unseen. I have been wondering about this from day one.

funny, the only char i ever had on OSI was a thief on europa, and can say with almost 100% certainty this was never the case. if no one noticed, you werent able to get wacked. you have it completely backwards.
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Re: Insight for DEVS!

Post by Derrick »

Yeah, sry, I forgot to address stealing. This is also something I'm currently looking into.

It is the case that if you don't get caught, guards cannot be called and the time out it 30 secs for calling the guards. A lot of the people who are getting robbed blind at Brit Bank are AFK, and it was certainly never advisable to be afk in town especially unhidden. I banked in Ocollo during the era simply for the thief problem in Brit.

I will look into the theiving/guards question, you're not the first to raise it today. I'll make sure everything is working correctly.

I thought it was 30 secs, this says it whould be 15 secs:
http://web.archive.org/web/200002011019 ... /town.html

More info on stealing:
http://web.archive.org/web/200002010729 ... every.html

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Re: Insight for DEVS!

Post by Flash Hardstar »

I think the gentlemen from Europa is a little fibber. If thiefs could succesfulyl steal and never be guard whacked, they would have been a serious problem for OSI, not a nuisance - what they were meant to be. The link post by Derrick (second one) claiming people CAN'T seperate themselves from their characters it isn't fair to let them watch something be stolen from their bag and no retribution. I was a thief, and no matter 1 stealing skill or 100, if i stole, i had a 15 second window for a guard whack, it's why I would steal and BOOK IT. It made stealing a real skillful art, not a go to brit bank on slow times and clean somebody out, and if they attacked them, they are a 7X gm and they kill them. Never seen that happen till I came here... also from the first link post by Derrick

"What actions will summon guards in town?
Any action that flags a character as a Criminal. The guards must be called within 15 seconds after the crime is committed. Note that NPCs can call guards so sometimes it may seem that no one witnessed your crime but there is probably an NPC nearby. "
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Re: Insight for DEVS!

Post by Derrick »

The difference here is that stealing is supposed to be an agressive act for the purpose of a murder count. Something doesn't seem right here. Looking into it.

Thieves wouldn't fight back if they were attacked after stealing because if they killed their vicim, the count was theirs.

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Re: Insight for DEVS!

Post by Wise »

I think the NPC sight range is a problem, I noticed that you have to literally be right on top of an npc to use the vendor buy command, also I cant use vendor train unless I have previously have gotten their attention via vendor buy, and even then I have to be quick about it, I was also PKed this afternoon I left my comp for 10 minutes and my guy afk at paupa bank, I was PKed and looted with 3 NPC's in the bank, so when I got back I was dead and looted :/
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Re: Insight for DEVS!

Post by Faust »

Actually the NPC recognizing vendor buy is the opposite for how it worked during t2a. They should only respond to it when you are directly next to them or on top of them. It handles it differently on here by responding within 2 tiles intead of the 1 that its suppose to be doing.

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Re: Insight for DEVS!

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Wise wrote:I think the NPC sight range is a problem, I noticed that you have to literally be right on top of an npc to use the vendor buy command, also I cant use vendor train unless I have previously have gotten their attention via vendor buy, and even then I have to be quick about it, I was also PKed this afternoon I left my comp for 10 minutes and my guy afk at paupa bank, I was PKed and looted with 3 NPC's in the bank, so when I got back I was dead and looted :/

You've always had to be standin rightnext to them to buy, or sell. To get it to train, simply type the npc's name first (ex. Bobby train). Papua bank does not have npc's hanging around it, usually. I'd advise never leaving your character afk away from visible npc's. If you weren't INSIDE the bank, chances are they wouldn't have seen it. AFK killing players sucks but it is so classic to UO, really.
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Re: Insight for DEVS!

Post by Wise »

there were 3 NPCs when I came back, yea I was hidden actually, was just making food in the kitchen, I couldn't care less about died, I just didn't know if it was a problem or not with the NPC's sight
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Re: Insight for DEVS!

Post by Derrick »

NPC's do need line of sight to call guards, but usually a window in the wall will give that to them as long as the windows aren't too high above you, like potentially at papua bank.

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Re: Insight for DEVS!

Post by kill drizitz »

Flash Hardstar wrote:I think the gentlemen from Europa is a little fibber. If thiefs could succesfulyl steal and never be guard whacked, they would have been a serious problem for OSI, not a nuisance - what they were meant to be. The link post by Derrick (second one) claiming people CAN'T seperate themselves from their characters it isn't fair to let them watch something be stolen from their bag and no retribution. I was a thief, and no matter 1 stealing skill or 100, if i stole, i had a 15 second window for a guard whack, it's why I would steal and BOOK IT. It made stealing a real skillful art, not a go to brit bank on slow times and clean somebody out, and if they attacked them, they are a 7X gm and they kill them. Never seen that happen till I came here... also from the first link post by Derrick

"What actions will summon guards in town?
Any action that flags a character as a Criminal. The guards must be called within 15 seconds after the crime is committed. Note that NPCs can call guards so sometimes it may seem that no one witnessed your crime but there is probably an NPC nearby. "

u sound ridiculous. the reason it was never so serious on osi was because stealing was soo hard to GM making it much harder to successfully steal. this is a freeshard were people make every template available with 3 accounts to work with. like derrick said, go to occlo to get away from thiefs and stop complaining!

EDIT: yes thiefs COULD be guard wacked. u make it seem like i said they will never be wacked, just not if they went unoticed. go to brit bank and check out all the thief corpses...

also, welcome to freeshards.
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Re: Insight for DEVS!

Post by Flash Hardstar »

Welcome to being rude, rather than constructive. Just trying to help out dev's and accuracy. Sounds like you make a fortune stealing and wouldn't like it to go back to the way it was. Anyway, GM stealing wasn't so difficult with dye tubs on a packhorse. I'm not going to flame the boards, good-day.
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