Swing timer error

[Jaster]

Swing timers during the T2A era worked a little different than they do here. Currently, the swing timers do not reset if you are not standing still. This goes for Archery as well as all melee skills. Archers were a big part of the T2A era because it was an alternative to insta hit. It allowed players to stay away from the hallys/war hammers and stop for a split second and shoot. Currently, I haven't seen an archer mage, nor a fencing mage, nor an archer period (other than Robbo, whom also has fencing).

If the timers are fixed to reset on movement, it will bring more weapon diversity to the server, and it will also bring the feel of T2A back. T2A was loaded with Archer Mages on Atlantic (my home shard).

[Kaivan]

Swing timers did not advance while moving during T2A. This is one of the major defining traits of the T2A period. Unfortunately, the results of the system rendered archery and fencing nearly useless compared to the consistent behavior of swordsmanship and the stamina damage bonus of mace fighting.

[Jaster]

I think people are failing to realize that you want to call this the T2A era ... certain changes were implemented into the T2A era whether in the beginning, middle, end. Changes like the swing timers, which weren't in during the beginning, were in fact during that era, just towards the end.

One other thing I would like to bring up is Magery doing damage in towns. That also happened during the T2A era, just not until the end. Certain changes like this will not disrupt what T2A was, just enhance certain aspects of the game, without destroying others.

Magery in town = more Guild War town raiding, Order/Chaos action.

Swing timers fixed = not only Hally Mages and War Hammer mages and Kryss/Q staff dexers ... allows for Archery to fit into the game.

Also gives a reason to have a Bowcrafter/Fletcher because of more archers.

[BloodyBandage]

Without a doubt weapon timers advanced on the move...why would anyone pick up archery otherwise? I played an archer heavily and I remember running around, stopping to shoot and continue *kiting* my opponent. Spells did damage in town for a large part of t2a as well. Jaster has played UO since dreadlord days as well and has extensive knowledge of the game. These are solid suggestions that should be looked at again.

[Derrick]

The timers on archery did have some distinctions from the regular weapons timers. I think this warrants looking into.

[Faust]

Combat timers didn't elapse while moving.

Players using melee weapons in combat will now hold their swing until their target is in range. Additionally, the timer that determines melee weapon swing times (combat timer) will now advance as the player is moving. Thus, melee weapon users will no longer be required to stop moving before swinging.

That is an update from a patch directly after the UOR publish. This was a huge factor for t2a pvp being successful. This same feature exists in the demo as well.

Here is a patch note also involving the movement delay during '98

The delay before the first swing or shot will be much shorter; also, the time it takes to recover from movement in archery will also be much shorter (though the firing rate overall remains the same). You will not need to get new weapons for this change.

[Jaster]

No disrespect, but can you please link me to where you are getting your information from Faust. I would like to read up a little on some things, because if what you say is true, I must have my timing off. Hard to remember every specific time when you only quit playing production a few months ago, and have played since Beta.

[Derrick]

All of the OSI patch notes through the T2A era are available on our wiki, http://wiki.uosecondage.com
Sometimes, we can glean info from post T2A pathes notes as well when the document the removal of existing system, those can be found at http://update.uo.com

There are a lot of sources used for documentation of era systems. Here's some archived stratics pages:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://uo.stratics.com

[Faust]

I have all the patch notes gathered myself used for research for scripting. I got them several years ago from a website that no longer exists that was called Mengaxe.com. However, all these patch notes are also up on UOSA's t2a wiki page as Derrick stated. For anything else that was changed from the UOR publish and up I simply get from the actual UO site like Derrick stated also. I also have a huge amount of data saved in my UO programming folder ranging from pictures, text documents with a massive amount of links, the UO demo, and much more. I have been working on and off with t2a shards since the end of 2001, so there is a lot of data collected over the years.

Edit:
I confirmed on the demo a few minutes ago that movement restrictions on the combat timer does not apply to archery. In all other cases it still applies.

[platy]

omg! r u gonna UNnerf archery?!

[Derrick]

Looks it.

[Faust]

The equip reset on the combat timer will still apply though.

[Jaster]

Yea that makes more sense, because I knew for a fact that I saw plenty of archer mages back in the day to complement the insta hit hally/warhammer mages. They still will have to stop to shoot, but they can move while they wait for the timer to reset ... that was the purpose behind the archer mage. It's downside was no insta hit though.

[Artemis]

Archer mages existed BEFORE dex monkeys did. The dex monkey patch destroyed the archer mage template. Go to Wtfman.com and watch the commando vids. Archery then became a DEX fighter template as you could use potions while holding a regular bow and therefore you could use potions without having to disarm, so you were not subject to the extra long rearm delay that all bows during this era had. That extra long rearm delay prevented you from ever combo-ing spells and bows. That retarded form of play only existed in player run shards never on OSI. At no point in any era on OSI could you combo spells AND bows, it was either just spells or just bows, then the dex monkey patch came out an bows didn't make sense for mages anymore, everybody dumped archery and hidding for meditation and eval.

[Faust]

During t2a archery was only good for it's first shot for an archer mage. After that the reset to the combat timer upon equipping while the delay was active rendered it almost impossible to pvp with.