[Poll]Bring Back PvM?

Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Thu Jan 03, 2008 7:53 pm

Thats the thing though, loot already is good compared to other servers (that don't go overboard).

Theres rune books that go to newbie areas, theres books with tips (which I plan on adding more) and lot of stuff to help newbies get started, not to forget the 300 point skill deeds.

Then theres dungeon chests, they actually have stuff worth looting, which is a rarity on any other shards, so a newbie could even just make a lock picker and get stuff that way.

Then theres the enhanced bod system, makes it actually possible to get runics and such.

So really, I don't know why its considered so hard to start - it is, but way easier then any other server out there.

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Logan · Post by **Logan** » Thu Jan 03, 2008 10:17 pm

Let's keep it cool guys. I love this community and I'd be sad if it crumbles. Let's just make this thread a constructive debate.

Red, before the recent monster AI tweak, our mobs are already way smarter than those in D*****. I'd say by a fair margin. I understand that you want pvm in AoV to become more challenging. I appreciate that, but Indi and d. also has a point. For a player who has already good equipment, this may not pose a problem. However, for newbies and veteran-UO-players-who-are-new-to-AoV, it can be a factor for not staying long.

IMO, it's really challenging, but becomes frustrating at times like what happened to my tamer at the Fire Temple. My AW was ignored by 3 Daemons, 3 Dragons, and 2 drakes. They instead ganked my defenseless tamer-bard who died on the spot. Good thing the AW was tough enough to avenge my tamer who is wearing a 70s luck suit. It wasn't a big deal for me, but I doubt if a newbie would take it that way.

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theindigothief · Post by **theindigothief** » Fri Jan 04, 2008 1:17 am

Red Squirrel wrote:Sorry that was maybe uncalled for, but it just frustrates me to no end when I've been working for months on something (the AI is in continual development) and get people complain about it and threaten to quit. Makes me ask myself if its even worth my time and effort.

Maybe? Like I am maybe an exploiter that tries to promote other shards?

Red, you acting like Evil D and telling me to basically gtfo and stuff and trying to say Im Neo is like 10x worse than anything you can code.

I left D not because I was banned or because I lost my wealth like so many here. I am here on my own accord and prefer it here because I hate how the staff there is.

Unfortunately I hear haunting similarities between how you treated me(Don't like it gtfo and you have no right to disagree with me.)

I, like many people here, love it here because of how nice the staff is and whatnot. Hopefully people will still discuss their views and not just kiss ass like on the D.

We still appreciate everything you do, I mean hell obviously you did a bang up job on the AI since it rocked out socks off. But we should still be able to express our views because unfortunately everyone has a limited perspective. Noone can see every side to every topic.

Im not half as pissed as I was earlier when you said that. Some people are suprised that I am still here and to be honest: I kinda am too.

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Logan · Post by **Logan** » Fri Jan 04, 2008 1:24 am

Because you love us!

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theindigothief · Post by **theindigothief** » Fri Jan 04, 2008 1:26 am

Yeah I guess I do.

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Death · Post by **Death** » Fri Jan 04, 2008 1:31 am

theindigothief wrote: Maybe? Like I am maybe an exploiter that tries to promote other shards?

Red, you acting like Evil D and telling me to basically gtfo and stuff and trying to say Im Neo is like 10x worse than anything you can code.

I left D not because I was banned or because I lost my wealth like so many here. I am here on my own accord and prefer it here because I hate how the staff there is.

Unfortunately I hear haunting similarities between how you treated me(Don't like it gtfo and you have no right to disagree with me.)

I, like many people here, love it here because of how nice the staff is and whatnot. Hopefully people will still discuss their views and not just kiss ass like on the D.

We still appreciate everything you do, I mean hell obviously you did a bang up job on the AI since it rocked out socks off. But we should still be able to express our views because unfortunately everyone has a limited perspective. Noone can see every side to every topic.

Im not half as pissed as I was earlier when you said that. Some people are suprised that I am still here and to be honest: I kinda am too.

Contrary to popular belief, red is human. Although he may code like a robot he does get angry and frustrated and occasionally snaps although for the most part he's usually calm. He appologized earlier so I really would not take what he said too harshly. Something you posted in particular set him off, it happens.

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Plastic Man · Post by **Plastic Man** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 2:04 am

Ok so i finally got around to starting to read through the forums or I woulda said something before.

As I write this my oldest account is turning 11 days old. That said I think its pretty obvious Im fairly new to the shard, but not UO. I would like to say that the PvM difficulty here is pretty insane. Now I don't think thats a bad thiing, at least not in some areas. But if I hadn't had Belz to help me out when I first started to walk me throough some coons, help me PS up a char, and get me outfitted in a decent suit on my first char, I would not have stayed on the shard. It's just to insanely hard to start out from scratch even with the 300 Skill Scroll.

It took me 2 days of running around the december elf area, looting them as they killed each other(because it was way to intense for me to be able to kill them on a regular basis with a sill fey slayer bow belz had layin around), 3 events where I got real lucky and pulled like 7-8 arties outta, and like 4-6 coons before i had beginer suit for a new necro mage char. And its not like I'm a skilless player. i had a Bard Archer with peace and Legend Disco and legend Archery.

Now that said. Now that I have a 70 suit on my archer and Horselord and a runic bow I made thats pimpiliciously godly, now that a got a 60s LRC suit with some MR and LMC on my mage, and a tamer with a lame LRC 700 luck suit that has a reptalon and some other critters (thanks again to Belz) I feel like I can actually start to do some farming solo.

But thats kinda sick. I mean without someone else propping me up till i got my feet on the ground and going, I don't think i coulda done it here. And while I really appriciate someone helping me that much, It woulda been nice if I coulda done it solo. (still luv ya bro, just sometimes you like to be able to do it yourself). And there is NO WAY as someone new to this shard I woulda been able to do this all myself in an amount of time id be willing to invest into a hobby.

See the thing is. Indigo is right about alot of it, its all risk vs reward. Well see the thing is risk is subjective. Whats EZ PIE for a vet char all artied out and fighting with runics and whats easy for a new 7x char with basic GM made equipment with maybe the odd Shadow Runic made armor item here and there, are completely different ballparks. Also, whats easy for a vet of valor who put on that newbies suit and goes out into the world, and a new player to the shard. are completely different ballparks.

Now that said.

Say you go to Dungeon X. Your like "this is EZ PIE. Man wtf are these Monster Bs dropping this loot for????" so you Nerf the loot.

Ok enter ImaNewbie, fresh out the gates with his char hes played for a day and is 7x on. He goes into Dungeon X. He gets walloped by Monster B in 10 secs flat. Hes like wtfomg this thing is tuff well I think I can do it with out dieing too many more times. So he does. 15 mins later he kills monster B and he get jack shit worth 15 mins on one mob. Hes like wtf man, all that work and all those deaths and I got a ring with 10% energy resisit!!! Wtf. Whatever bad luck

So he goes on and he fights epic battle with his newbie self against Monters C-G. He gets out of it 1 thing maybe worth keeping since his gear sucks so bad. he gives up. He quits the shard.

now I know that was verbose as hell and only like 2 people that see it will actually read it but I think its important. I mean without alot of help in the last week and a half, I woulda quit.

I wouldn't have stuck around and i wouldn't be to the point where i can actually see what a great shard this truly is. Because UOValor is a great shard, with good people who like to work together on bosses and mess with each other, great staffers who actually listen to their players when they have a complaint, and great implementation of ideas.

The one thing this shard lacks is population, and the way to gain that is not a simple matter of adding 1 mil checks to new peoples accounts. Its not as simple as killing a crow = Orny. It takes work and input from everyone. It takes well balanced gameplay and a great community like we have. (And sometimes it takes advertising but thats a whole nother can o worms)

-Plas

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theindigothief · Post by **theindigothief** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 2:15 am

To be fair I believe most of the AI is at a more acceptable level. A few things are still kinda gimpy but overall it is a lot better then what it was.

To be honest, I don't see how we are going to pick up a player base here though. What is amazing on most servers suck balls on this server. You can be maxxed out in everything and still feel like a nooblet hunting most of the mobs.

Atleast we are getting more pvp then ever. We just need the retards to stop crying over template differences. If everyone played one template the game would suck.

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Finlander · Post by **Finlander** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 10:39 am

hmm, nevermind

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 11:35 am

This shard is actually easy to startup a new char compared to others.

What people just have to realize is don't try to get the super rare artys right away, start with easy ones like tots minors, and 10th anniversary, then with that gear and by working skills more, then try to get the harder to get stuff.

Theres also more to the shard then artys. With crafting you can still make quite decent suits here, as runics are easily obtainable.

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theindigothief · Post by **theindigothief** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 12:05 pm

Well your Supra AI liches can kill you inside of houses now. NEAT.

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 12:21 pm

How did that happen? They should still be following InLOS rules, so was it actually through a wall?

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sliptongue69 · Post by **sliptongue69** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 1:09 pm

Red Squirrel wrote:How did that happen? They should still be following InLOS rules, so was it actually through a wall?

Probably EQ and other area spells.

Red Squirrel wrote:Theres also more to the shard then artys. With crafting you can still make quite decent suits here, as runics are easily obtainable.

If it weren't for Eby, Brunus, and Cho, I would probably still not be half of where I am at now. With one half assed suit, I was able to rampage the server starting from Tokuno to Gaunt to Coon to Demitels. This, however, is only possible because I've been playing UO since '97.

Any new guy would have to spend a week or two gathering runics and putting suits together. On that note, tho, you don't even need runics to make a full 70 suit. So dexxers, no need to start out with runics, just have GM tailoring/smithing and GM arms lore.

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Death · Post by **Death** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 5:54 pm

I for one 100% agree that the AI is a little WTFPWN on monsters it should not be on. Overall, the AI is awesome and makes for better battles. I've had some great laughs and many more surprises at some of the things the AI has done to me (Getting my face executed by a changeling that turned into me was just golden).

The problem with the ai is just the intensity of the attacks is not balanced for some of the creatures. Lesser creature like wraiths for example, tossing magic like they got their own mana pool in Florida.

I would love to see them use more tactics like noxing you when you're thinking of healing but the intensity of their attacks should be nothing over and beyond the scope of the mobile.

We are constantly tweaking the AI which makes for some interesting tactics and non-patterned battles, but I feel we haven't concentrated so much on making sure the intensity is accurate. That's something we will be doing in the future to fix that issue.

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Plastic Man · Post by **Plastic Man** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 9:17 pm

My thing is not that I don't like the AI, I've been playing since UO was in Open beta so for me the Ai here is pretty kick ass. But my main problem is what Death just said, the Intensity of the AI on some Critters. Like Death said wraiths are one example. I mean town GY are supposed to be Newbie hunting grounds. And another that springs to mind is the rat men by Ish Compassion gate. I took my newbie tamer char there with a Ru i tamed and bonded (I got 7 bonding deeds from the December area) and proceeded to watch a hiryu get WTFPWNed by rat men. I mean cmon. Thats stupid. Its a freakin Ru, and wild the WTFPWNed My Tamer 4 or 5 times before I got one tamed, not that its tame rat men can own it?

Its just small stuff like that, I mean a newbie char should feel relativly safe at a GY or fighting rat men (now a Ratman Mage Para WTFPWNed me to but I aint gunna rail about that I mean its a Paragon they are supposed to, Explo + Poisin + FS + Harm + Poisin + MA + MA to kill me. That is like a player combo thats hot)

Anyhow, i appriciate all the work you guys do, this shard is awesome. I also appriciate you listeneing to all the players regaurdless of whether you make changes we suggest you do at least listen to us unlike some shards. *cugh*bigd*cough*

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 9:33 pm

The intensity is based on the mana so did not realize those smaller mobs had that much mana to ditch out. I will look at maybe putting a basic check for fame, so that intensity is higher for a certain level of mobs. I can maybe divide it up in like 3 groups or something.

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theindigothief · Post by **theindigothief** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 12:26 am

sliptongue69 wrote:
Red Squirrel wrote:How did that happen? They should still be following InLOS rules, so was it actually through a wall?
Probably EQ and other area spells.

Doesn't explain the curse on me :/

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Gaiava Arkkaza · Post by **Gaiava Arkkaza** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 11:43 am

Hmm. Well, looking from a complete newcomer perspective, I can tell that a lich lord is as hard as Humus is for a veteran.

A suggestion, maybe, is to make two separate AIs. SuperAI and... ModerateAI. ModerateAI would have some superior smartness in comparassion to the BaseAI, but not as hard as SuperAI is atm. I dunno, maybe it would work.

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Death · Post by **Death** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 12:18 pm

Gaiava Arkkaza wrote:Hmm. Well, looking from a complete newcomer perspective, I can tell that a lich lord is as hard as Humus is for a veteran.

A suggestion, maybe, is to make two separate AIs. SuperAI and... ModerateAI. ModerateAI would have some superior smartness in comparassion to the BaseAI, but not as hard as SuperAI is atm. I dunno, maybe it would work.

That's not a bad idea but would involve fixing up each monster script and that can get lengthy.

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Gaiava Arkkaza · Post by **Gaiava Arkkaza** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 1:32 pm

Seer Death wrote:
Gaiava Arkkaza wrote:Hmm. Well, looking from a complete newcomer perspective, I can tell that a lich lord is as hard as Humus is for a veteran.

A suggestion, maybe, is to make two separate AIs. SuperAI and... ModerateAI. ModerateAI would have some superior smartness in comparassion to the BaseAI, but not as hard as SuperAI is atm. I dunno, maybe it would work.
That's not a bad idea but would involve fixing up each monster script and that can get lengthy.

Yeah, definately.

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 2:14 pm

Think I'll just lower default intensity for monsters with less then say, 10k fame.

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