Some Thoughts On Coming Back To UO:F

[Trokair]

I love this game. I have come back to it over the years because of how intricate and immersive it can be. I love the grind, the idea that your practice truly makes perfect. That your time and choices mean something. On top of that I do love that there is a sense of danger whenever you are beyond safe areas,. There are contested things like Champ spawns. You can be killed anywhere other than in sight of the guards. This shard does a good job of bringing that danger but I have to ask, once again, as a non-pvp character, where is that risk for the PK?

Let me be clear, the risk of running into a PK in a dungeon absolutely adds to the experience for PvM. From the side of someone that has never and will never play a pk (it is just is not in my nature) I get a rush when I juke a PK and I also realize when I have just been caught. My problem has always been with the advantaged side. I might spend 30 minutes grinding mobs just to have a PK come in and wipe me out, take all of my gear and loot, and recall away in less than 2 minutes. I get that they spend time looking for targets however when they do find me, I am at a distinct disadvantage as I am engaged with a monster. I am under the impression that at one time mobs switched aggro to reds (I read that, it does not seem to be the case currently from my experience) but I can get wiped out because I am fighting something which is a challenge itself, only to have a red come in behind and kill me with an immediate advantage. I have to build my template just to fight the mob on this shard, any additional work towards a template or a talisman does not work for PVP so I am stuck between killing the mobs that are at my level and PKs. Clarification, I am playing a melee character, not a tamer. I understand that tamers have more possible insulation against this issue versus melee characters (no pet ball for slayer armor/weapons)

I am not pitching a fit, threatening to leave, or any of that melodramatic stuff. I realize that my play style is not for everyone and that is really the beauty of UO along with the risk, that everyone can find a place. My issue has always been risk versus reward. If you have a red and a blue on your account you are basically side-stepping what should be the risk of playing a killer. You should not be allowed in a town, to buy from vendors, and it should be account wide otherwise being a murderer is meaningless. If clicking 2 buttons on login no longer makes you a killer, the designation has no repercussions. I think we can agree that UO is not exactly lifelike but the systems were meant to carry a certain amount of balance for their use. Easier to do when it is linked to a credit card I suppose.

Again, I realize that i am not all players and I only speak for myself. I am looking for input. I have spent a few years talking about game theory and UO is always my go-to for good design outside of having multiple characters per person (my design is one character per person, builds a character and an economy if everyone isn't allowed to do everything)

So this is some feedback to the dev team and to spur some talk. Trammel killed the game, I think we can all agree on that but my point is that there can be additional balance and repercussions without wrapping everything in bubble wrap. I appreciate any feedback. What would you change?

Yarr.

 

[DrSaso]

Not actually been in a dungeon for a while, just house refreshing, but i believe mobs will still attack reds over blues..... but that's only when both the red and blue players are first spotted by the mobs. So if you're already engaged in exchanging blows with the mob, they won't switch target unless you hide or provo/peace them off you. I think any way


But i know what you mean. I try and time my bank runs after collecting about 10-15k app i don't lose too much if set upon. And as soon as i see a red name ill hide or run till i can hide, recall out, and come back ready to lose next to nothing haha....provo archer here

 

[drasked]

I hardly see any reds, why would you want to punish the few people sacrificing themself to play this scuffed playstyle?

 

[khajja]

as a dexxer, work on your running. between bandages and gheal pots, you cannot be potted down. if you can run better than your aggressor, you win.

what would you propose as a down-side to the red playstyle?

 

[lollo]

it's beyond me how someone can die 1v1 using a dexer. Like seriously, there is no mount stamina, bandages take like 7 seconds and you can carry pots. Plus if you start running for the dungeon exit, all mobs will aggro on the red first.

 

[Trokair]

Amazing what a few hours of sleep will do for you.I realized this morning that I did not articulate this in the best way.

What I am really looking for is some ideas pertaining to making the choice to be a "murderer" (or any other similarly important decision) have actual consequence. It is sticking point for the departure for realism in a game that has puzzled me from a design perspective and I have been discussing it for some time with several people outside of UO.

My version of game design would have each person bound to one character only. Due to that you would need to have consequence for your choices, which is already in UO from my understanding. I do realize however that having everyone stuck on just one character is extremely limiting which UO covers by having multiple characters per account but then the repercussions of the decisions made by a player become functionally meaningless.

So how best to get around this? I'm using UO as a framework not suggesting these things come to UO:F by the way. My original idea was flagging an entire account. In that case you are a known affiliate of a murderer so guards will not respond to your request and vendors will not sell to you. In my discussions this usually boils back down to the problem where one character effects an entire account so you should only need one character and a skill system similar to Eve Online in design. I like the idea of murdering as a choice I just want it to be a big choice and build a community around that versus a player logigng out to log into their blue character and carry on without that decision mattering.

 

[Trokair]

it's beyond me how someone can die 1v1 using a dexer. Like seriously, there is no mount stamina, bandages take like 7 seconds and you can carry pots. Plus if you start running for the dungeon exit, all mobs will aggro on the red first.

In my experience over the past few weeks mobs do not shift aggro on to reds. I saw some discussion about this and thought it was that way but in practice I have not seen that happen. I have tried to "lure" a group of mobs in a attempt to flee but they stayed focused on me. Could have been a fluke, just my experience.

For me, it typically comes down to who makes a mistake running first. If a red gets caught on a rock or something then I might get out, if I get caught on a rock you can pretty much call it a day. That isn't really the important thing, I am not looking at that portion of the design. PvP balance is a whole other can of worms.

 

[Trokair]

as a dexxer, work on your running. between bandages and gheal pots, you cannot be potted down. if you can run better than your aggressor, you win.

what would you propose as a down-side to the red playstyle?

That is the thing. From a design perspective I want it to a be a real choice, not something that does not matter if you just log into your other character. I also do not want it to cripple the player/account so there needs to be a balance. My issue with how I perceive the current design is that the choice is meaningless on the one side. Part of the reason that I have posted here is because my group that has been having this discussion does not include any characters who are red so I do not have any input from that perspective and I figured I could get that here.

 

[AreYouKidden]

Well said Trokair, I hope a proper discussion forms out of this, I've tried to have it many times in the past. It always boils back to "I never see reds" or "Reds already have the potential to lose soo much" and yet all of the reds I know seem to do quite well with their play style.

I too think being red should have a consequence, and here there really is not much of a consequence.. But I have no answers today, only the same questions you are asking.

I'd love to see a system that promoted the PK hunter.. That's me in a nutshell, I don't PK, I'm not that type of person, but I would like to help protect those who are getting PK'd. My problem is in the risk vs. reward. I share the same risk as the PK, in dying, by chasing the PK's from dungeon to dungeon, but my reward is only going to be a bag of regs / pots / maybe a mid range PvP weapon like an exceptional power... The PK's potential reward can be high end slayers, slayer gears, slayer spell books, piles as high as 15k gold on players.. Once he has those, he's recalling out and stashing them, so that the PK hunter doesn't get anything for his effort. Oh the hunter can charge the PK to buy his head back you say? If I ever ask for more than 5k, I get denied. The PK doesn't feel the 48 hour statloss is a real repercussion, and why would they with up to 15 characters across 3 accounts at their disposal. The reality is, stash that char, grab another one, and go again.

In the end though, I think self policing would be the best policy, but it needs to feel rewarding for the guy hunting the PK for that to work.

 

[K A Z]

I love how in these kinda situations people always pretend as if "reds" are super hardcore power players when in reality mosten times they are just casual players themselves. Why should they be overly punished? It's not as if a PK gets something super good when he actually kills someone (which in times of super big game windows and recall macros doesn't happen all too frequently) and not being able to play your char for 2 days straight is quite the penalty imo?! And if PVMers were doing bad on this server then prices would certainly not go up and up and up.. A somewhat established player has all kinds of weird custom shit to his disposal with which he can _easily_ kill even high end mobs.. champ spawns are usually done within 20-30 minutes.. I really don't think that we need to dumb down the game even further.

 

[drasked]

I like the idea of murdering as a choice I just want it to be a big choice and build a community around that versus a player logigng out to log into their blue character and carry on without that decision mattering.

I think it is a choice, people who specialize in PKing will have a lot of character slots dedicated to red characters.

While others may be making bank using those character slots for BOD chars.

 

[K A Z]

as for the "risk and reward".. your typical PK is probably a dexxer. He carries a decent set of armor (usually dragon armor) which costs 12-15k. A bag full of pots which is probably to be priced at 4-5k? (dunno exactly) Some regs (500gp), a bronze (3-6k) or golden (15k+) or even agapite (60k+) weapon and when he dies he can spend 25-35k to avoid statloss. That's.. a lot of gold right there.


Your typical PVMer carries a bag of 30 regs, 5 recall scrolls and a cheap ass regular slayer wep that costs 1k gold.

 

[Kyain]

as for the "risk and reward".. your typical PK is probably a dexxer. He carries a decent set of armor (usually dragon armor) which costs 12-15k. A bag full of pots which is probably to be priced at 4-5k? (dunno exactly) Some regs (500gp), a bronze (3-6k) or golden (15k+) or even agapite (60k+) weapon and when he dies he can spend 25-35k to avoid statloss. That's.. a lot of gold right there.


Your typical PVMer carries a bag of 30 regs, 5 recall scrolls and a cheap ass regular slayer wep that costs 1k gold.

whoa whoa whoa. How dare you even insinuate that I carry a weapon jerk. 30 of each regs and all my clothing is blessed thank you. You'll get about 50 bandages though too

 

[AreYouKidden]

well the meta mages & dexxers carry much more, but you are right when it comes to tamers, they dont' carry much, just have to deal with pet statloss, if they care to consume SS to level them back.

 

[K A Z]

well the meta mages & dexxers carry much more, but you are right when it comes to tamers, they dont' carry much, just have to deal with pet statloss, if they care to consume SS to level them back.

most meta dexxers are naked berzerkers, no? lol.. and meta mages carry one of those stupid books that cost 2-3k (and people are crying about prices in suggestions+ideas, so I'm already prepared for staff to add slayer book bless deeds or some abomination)

 

[girana]

everyone who died to a pk die a huge mistake with selection his farming locations.


just watch few min all the streamers like poptart or blacklisted and you know what places to avoid.

 

[batman]

everyone who died to a pk die a huge mistake with selection his farming locations.


just watch few min all the streamers like poptart or blacklisted and you know what places to avoid.

Lmao if you're dying to those 2 1v1 you need to stay in town

 

[AreYouKidden]

most meta dexxers are naked berzerkers, no? lol.. and meta mages carry one of those stupid books that cost 2-3k (and people are crying about prices in suggestions+ideas, so I'm already prepared for staff to add slayer book bless deeds or some abomination)

The cost to make a book is 3.5k, but you have a 1 in 27 chance to get the slayer you want, and only about 10 of them actually sell on a vendor. Generally you pay 20-30k for a decent slayer book, if you aren't making them yourselves, and if you are making them yourself, you've got a chest at home of 300 crap books that no one will buy...

I hate slayer deeds, it's too easy mode, but I do think some control over what you are making would be better - like if you could focus on the exorcism line, or the elemental line when crafting.

 

[halygon]

First I would like to say that we have seen this topic many times during UOF's lifetime. So because of that, I can say that staff (and Shane in particular) has always kept a close eye on the red/blue balance. We have done all sorts of changes over the years to keep things balanced. We have seen it go both ways -- over population of blues vs reds and vice versa - each with interesting effects.

We have learned that this isn't a topic that will go away, ever, and so requires constant management by staff.

Understanding how things are comes from looking through both the PK's and the PvMer's eyes. For example, it may feel to a pvmer that all reds do is come in, wipe out all blues, then make off with a ton of loot. That happens for sure, but what is more common is the red dying 5x times before having a "good run". Also, usually there isn't much good loot other than stock on pvmer's.

I think another perspective to understand is that while we do not want reds running the shard, we also don't want to lose them. They create the ecosystem of UO and gives much risk to the reward granted by hunting mobs, killing bosses, and doing champs.

All of that said, we will continue to keep an eye on things and tweak as necessary for each group.

 

[Nappaca]

I keep my red/ blue gear the same gear even lose on both