Gargish Runes, Slayer Armor -- An effective implementation of interesting system

[jkg8787]

Holy title batman.
This thread is intended to be an analysis of Gargish Runes and tangentially Slayer Armor and how the current as implemented system is an effective gameplay mechanic that could be mirrored for other things.


Slayer Armor
Slayer Armor in my opinion is an underutilized item. While purely anecdotal I remember recently trying to find a "Public Crystal Workbench" going to the Yew area, finding about 5 or so, BUT they were all pre-patched meaning they couldn't be used until updated. Well how much frigging "Public" Slayer Armor is being made if the ones in Yew dont even work? Not much I imagine.

I suppose that's probably because of mainly 2 things:
1) the availability of armor/runes
2) the fact that losing a set could be quite costly and time consuming (due to #1 incidentally).

Either way the benefit from Slayer Armor in PvM is enormous and at the cost of maybe having one of my new favorite Dungeons get blown up with Blues and Reds (Hythloth) want to discuss:

Gargish Runes
I've recently taken to hunting Gargoyles in Hythloth for Runes. Sort of as something new to do (I enjoy all aspects of UO) and cause I have a secret desire to fill my Rune Chest up full of runes. I quickly found Hythloth great for gathering runes. For those that don't know it seems all (or at least maybe greater than a mongbat) monsters have a chance to drop Gargish Runes, but Gargoyles themselves drop them crazily. It seems like it's 60% some times. I'll have streaks where 6 gargoyles in a row have them (but to be fair I've definitely had streaks in the other way too). Either way the drop rate is plentiful.

This I find great for a few reasons.
1) it makes crafting slayer an actual attainable goal for most players
2) it creates a localized area where certain resources can only be found. Thus creating possible dynamic scenarios around that fact
3) generic Skinner-Box/Dopamine reasons. The drop rate is so plentiful that farming them is pretty rewarding. You're bound to walk away with at least a handful in only a few minutes of hunting.


Really I think Slayer Armor and their ingredients are a great welcome to the UO PvM experience. The fact that the best way to get them is farming Hythloth means that there is a localized area where players can interact. Slayer Armor also gives advantages that are reasonable for a reasonable price/amount of time. For instance I was against Talismans having advantage in PvP and part of the "crusade" that caused changes. However I am ok with Slayer Armor giving similar advantages. The reason why is because a suit of Slayer is gonna cost what 50k? Compared to Talisman/Relics which cost millions plus a time investment. One is simply too much for me. But Slayer Armor is a happy medium.


CONS

About the only cons I've come up with, aside from the aforementioned fact that losing the armor when you die sucks, is that crafting a Slayer Armor set largely relies on your store of "Vowels". I'm not sure if it equals out to Gargish Vowels being as important as English vowels but I know that specifically GARGISH-A is much sought after and incorporated in the spelling of over half of all Slayer-Armor Gargish words.

This means that ultimately the supply of Slayer Armor is based upon the number of "vowels" given out. I'm not sure if this is an intentional bottleneck or perhaps an oversight. Either way I would be a proponent of possibly increasing the drop rates of "vowels" (A i know for sure, cant think of others at the moment) to make crafting Slayer Armor an easier task. I know currently in my chest its not uncommon to see 8,9,10,11 "consonents" in my chest but 0 "vowels".

 

[Blaine the Gypsy]

Sadly the power words aren't even Gargish. Which is something I've brought up way back when...
Anyways here's how many times eat letter is used. Most are actually junk letters.

That's how I based my pricing guide for them.

 

[jkg8787]

Sadly the power words aren't even Gargish. Which is something I've brought up way back when...
Anyways here's how many times eat letter is used. Most are actually junk letters.

That's how I based my pricing guide for them.

The data is much appreciated.

Any thoughts on the drop rates? Do you perhaps have experience in the Gargoyle Hunting trade? I obviously do not know the data for rates but feel that there is quite the bottleneck on creating certain Slayer types. While I don't think slamming the lever the other way and having everything be an "A" or similar rune is the better idea, I think the "vowels" should be increased somewhat.

edit: tbh A really is the problem i suppose. Its maybe a thread to say hey give us more A's... I really dont see the harm in more users having Slayer. If anything another spawn would be cool too. I think the Abyss has gaygoyle-like spawns as well but thats it.

 

[Blaine the Gypsy]

Yes... yes I do have plenty of experience.
The drop rate for the runes mostly used is horrible. You may walk out with a hand full of runes sure or even from an RDA, but the vast majority are junk runes. Only the SUPER SLAYERS are in demand and really worth the time. Sadly whoever made this system (not being Gargish and such) didn't have in mind that the Lesser Slayers could possibly use more/cost more than the SUPER SLAYER to make. I've been chasing this gargoyle around since the Alchemists ran the dungeons/system was introduced. A lot could be fixed and a lot addressed.

 

[jkg8787]

Yes... yes I do have plenty of experience.
The drop rate for the runes mostly used is horrible. You may walk out with a hand full of runes sure or even from an RDA, but the vast majority are junk runes. Only the SUPER SLAYERS are in demand and really worth the time. Sadly whoever made this system (not being Gargish and such) didn't have in mind that the Lesser Slayers could possibly use more/cost more than the SUPER SLAYER to make. I've been chasing this gargoyle around since the Alchemists ran the dungeons/system was introduced. A lot could be fixed and a lot addressed.

So far my experience has mainly just been focused on getting a Double set for t-mapping. And then I ended up stupidly going grey without thinking by looting Arch Daemon and died with my 5/6 Double-Slayer set. Since then ive been kind of holding off on the Gargoyle Hunt.

Its funny up UNTIL that point I was meaning to make this thread. I wanted it to essentially be everything but the CONS section. After dying and realizing I had 12 of everything BUT the things you actually need I kind of got bummed out.

Don't get me wrong the above stuff all rings true. Its just after you find out the whole A or Bust scenario instead of being happy every time you loot a Rune, you now just look at it thinking PLEASE BE A PLEASE BE A PLEASE BE A.

So this is secretly an A-Buff-Whine-Thread but I believe it's well based! Why not give A some love. Or re-arrange the dictionary! Let the players have more Slayer. Slayers for all!!!!



EDIT: Oh i forgot to ask. So what else could you suggest for changes. You seem wise in the Gargish market and trade!

 

[Blaine the Gypsy]

I suggest making it actual Garish for starters...

 

[Elizabeth Gold]

I tried to make a value calculation on runes with a excel sheet. This is what I came up with

How does it work?
First of all you need a base runeprice. At the bottom left you I set the gold value to 1800.
Than you see the farm values column, the highter the value, the higher the desirability.
The number that you entered there, is being spread over the runes being used to craft that armor.
At the bottom you see a desirability indicator for each rune.
The base gold value of 1800 is weighted against the rune desirability which leads to a gold value per rune.
In the Cost column, you can see the cost to create one armor piece based on the rune price.

It might give you 'some' indication of what slayer armor is worth.

 

[Blaine the Gypsy]

I tried to make a value calculation on runes with a excel sheet. This is what I came up with

How does it work?
First of all you need a base runeprice. At the bottom left you I set the gold value to 1800.
Than you see the farm values column, the highter the value, the higher the desirability.
The number that you entered there, is being spread over the runes being used to craft that armor.
At the bottom you see a desirability indicator for each rune.
The base gold value of 1800 is weighted against the rune desirability which leads to a gold value per rune.
In the Cost column, you can see the cost to create one armor piece based on the rune price.

It might give you 'some' indication of what slayer armor is worth.

Have I told you that I love you?

 

[account51]

Excellent discussion, I would like to see more slayer armor used, increase the drop rates of glowing runes or offer other ways to gather. I recommended they be a low end reward for BOD's.

 

[jkg8787]

Excellent discussion, I would like to see more slayer armor used, increase the drop rates of glowing runes or offer other ways to gather. I recommended they be a low end reward for BOD's.

Interesting idea. Personally the lowest thing I'm interested for BS BoD is Powder of Fortification. The pickaxes are worthless (grab yourself an Orcish Pickaxe off an Orc Warden) and the Prospectors tool is worthless to anyone with specific-ore-runebooks marked. For Tailoring BoDs the different levels of Cloth is interesting I suppose, but in the end its essentially like 12 shades of green and then a couple cool colors in actual Tier 4 Tier 5 etc.

I believe both Tailor/BS also have low low BODs that just give money as well. Would be interesting if you got 3-5 random Gargoyle Runes instead.

Or even just another hunting ground for Gargoyle types.

 

[RipGrip]

Thank you Blaine and Elizabeth for your work on the charts. Others as well have weighed in with valid problems on drop rates on specific runes .