Melee Characters & Bosses

[mignuts]

It seems to me that melee characters aren't on par versus mages and archers in PvM, I have yet to see a melee character in action in PvP so I won't comment on that.

Archers and Mages are able to take much harder bosses (demitel or other bosses) with a lot less trouble (or solo) than if you were using a melee character, which would normally just get ripped apart in less that 5 seconds after hitting the monster. Heck, even non-boss characters seem to rip up melee, the sith lords on the way to Anakin just eat up melee characters, whereas it takes a mage 2-3 spells to kill it.

I actually haven't even seen any of the veteran players using melee characters (are there even any melee'ers are there?) If there are, perhaps a few tips on what to do, what to avoid, and how to play in general to bring up melee viability.

It also seems so much harder to gear melee characters vs archers or mages... or maybe that's just me?

-- on bosses, Demitel to be specific:
Can people give tactics or tips on how to kill them?
Humus or Malkilus seem to be the hardest for me. Any tips on how to fight these bosses?

Thanks for your time and sorry if the post seems whinny.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:5149, old post ID:33182

[Death]

That's actually a very large problem in Ultima, it's not just here that exists.

Melee characters get the short end of the stick, because they take more damage from melee + specials and spells. Yes, it is unfair. OSI's solution to this is to have players rely on life leech both with necromancy and life leeching weapons. This, however, is not a very good solution.

In order to make a successful melee character, you currently require high resistances, some form of parrying/dci and life leeching or numerous forms of healing. Sampires (Necromancy + Bushido) are the most successful melee class.

Melee has been talked about on AOV for years, amongst the devs. The challenge is how to give protection to melee without giving the same advantage to non-melee classes as well as melee classes who can already fair well (sampires). It involves breaking apart what exactly determines a melee character, and to find out where the weakness lies. There are a lot of issues with giving everyone the same resistance and armor bonuses but forcing some to fight close while others can fight at a distance and not get hit by melee.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:5149, old post ID:33183

[mignuts]

Actually, my melee character is a sampire.
His stats are decent enough, and yet I still seem to get my ass handed to me. :/

DI 100%
HCI 28%
DCI 41%
LRC 100%
LMC 28%
SSI: 33%
HLL: 33% (100% in vamp)
HML: 33%
HSL: 33%
MR 7~ ish?
all 70s resist, in vampire form.

using a 2hander, Muramasa Hellblade.

I just got the leggings that gives 45% HCI, -10% all resists, I'll try to configure my suit again to see how I can further improve it (if i can with the gear I've picked up) and hit all the caps.

Playstyle is: Honor something, consecrate arms, Enemy of one, run up to it and start whacking, if its a caster hit evade, if its a melee hit confidence.
More often than not I survive, but against Demitel bosses or Supreme Dragons or other hard hitting bosses/monsters, I don't last 10 seconds. Even with a healer on spamming heals on me

Am I doing anything wrong?

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:5149, old post ID:33187

[mignuts]

Melee has been talked about on AOV for years, amongst the devs. The challenge is how to give protection to melee without giving the same advantage to non-melee classes as well as melee classes who can already fair well (sampires). It involves breaking apart what exactly determines a melee character, and to find out where the weakness lies. There are a lot of issues with giving everyone the same resistance and armor bonuses but forcing some to fight close while others can fight at a distance and not get hit by melee.

how about giving Swordsmanship, Macefighting and Fencing more damage boosts into the skills, instead of it being mainly a chance to hit? These are the skills only melee characters would use. I think being able to do more damage at the expense of taking more damage (since you're in melee range) would be a nice benefit.

It also solves another issue I read about melee PVP just being kited, and pelted with arrows or spells, makes all your running toward them worth it when you lop of their arms

And if those damage boosts (say +20% damage per skill at GM (30% at 120): mace, swords, fencing) would stack, it would open up fun builds again, such the "pure" warrior, who could use any weapon they pick up.

I say +20%-+30%, since this isn't much vs say anatomy at 120 which gives +65% or Tactics at 120 which gives ~85% damage increase

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:5149, old post ID:33188

[dprantl]

It takes 2-3 spells to kill a sith lord? :

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:5149, old post ID:33189

[mignuts]

well 3 flamestrikes or 4 energy bolts to kill if he doesn't heal I sorta exaggerated with 2-3 spells, its more like 3-6 and depends on what resists it spawns with

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:5149, old post ID:33190

[Death]

how about giving Swordsmanship, Macefighting and Fencing more damage boosts into the skills, instead of it being mainly a chance to hit? These are the skills only melee characters would use. I think being able to do more damage at the expense of taking more damage (since you're in melee range) would be a nice benefit.

It also solves another issue I read about melee PVP just being kited, and pelted with arrows or spells, makes all your running toward them worth it when you lop of their arms

And if those damage boosts (say +20% damage per skill at GM (30% at 120): mace, swords, fencing) would stack, it would open up fun builds again, such the "pure" warrior, who could use any weapon they pick up.

I say +20%-+30%, since this isn't much vs say anatomy at 120 which gives +65% or Tactics at 120 which gives ~85% damage increase

It's quite a bit more complex than that, and I believe that the solution would have to be a series of changes rather than just 1. There's a lot of issues in terms of weapons and armor since AOS. There is too much emphasis on quick weapons, one handed weapons and light armor when we should be seeing players making use of the diverse array of weapons and armor the game provides.

At the same time, too much emphasis was put on "monster" damage, in order to make them difficult. This doesn't work very well as not all classes fight the same, yet are treated on an equal basis for 80% of monsters. There are far better ways of making monsters difficult other than pelting people with melee and spells.

The first step would be to analyze the current state of damage and correct it then find ways of reducing damage for melee fighters who follow a certain path that is not shared by other classes (archers, necromancers, etc).

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:5149, old post ID:33192

[mignuts]

Oh I see, so instead of upping player damage, you choose to give melee a way to lessen monster damage. I suppose this makes for a more diverse play style then.

With regards to the heavier armor and slower weapons, maybe we can make them carry +1 or +2 extra magical property, so the trade off would be heavier and slower for more effects / abilities?

Although, I always thought that the trade-off for using heavier weapons / armor would be more damage reduction and bigger swing damage for slower weapons. I remember a time when halberd-lumberjacks were the king melee damage.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:5149, old post ID:33196

[ggkthx]

While I enjoy UO specifically FOR it's freedom, in terms of character skills etc, this is where WoW et al really shine because classes help define roles and offer balancing tools that a freer system simply does not.
Caps help balance this in UO, but all they do is make everyone the same without taking into account that my archer might get hit once in awhile if I'm not careful but my warrior gets hit constantly. When these two chars have the same gear/stats one is clearly 'better'.
Is there a good solution to this? I don't know. And really, I don't much care, if only because I personally don't mind building/playing whatever the flavor of the week/most powerful build is. Obviously not everyone feels the same. (Though most pvpers feel that way about it, with PvE players concerned with flavor, etc and not simply raw power.)

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:5149, old post ID:33197

[Death]

Oh I see, so instead of upping player damage, you choose to give melee a way to lessen monster damage. I suppose this makes for a more diverse play style then.

With regards to the heavier armor and slower weapons, maybe we can make them carry +1 or +2 extra magical property, so the trade off would be heavier and slower for more effects / abilities?

Although, I always thought that the trade-off for using heavier weapons / armor would be more damage reduction and bigger swing damage for slower weapons. I remember a time when halberd-lumberjacks were the king melee damage.

The damage formula itself is being revised to match OSI's a little more closely. This means that melee damage will be slightly higher. As a comparison, on full 70's, a balron should be doing about 40 melee.

On top of which, we would like to give more incentive to heavier armors as well as slower and 2 handed weapons.

So far, here is a rough idea of benefits to give:

The main problem with harder hitting weapons is they offer little benefit over weapons such as cleavers and daggers. They are slow, often miss, heavy to equip and their damage bonus can easily be made up with spells. Here's a few solutions:

Weapons:

-2 Handed Weapons will increase the chance to parry up from 40% to 45%-50% at max level. The "balanced" property on non-ranged weapons may be removed to balance overall fairness.

-Leeching capabilities will be directly proportional to how quick your weapon swings. Faster weapons = less leech. This system is already in place on OSI and gives harder hitting, slower weapons a bit of a boost.

-Weapons will have an innate hit chance bonus that is governed by the base speed of the weapon. The slower your weapon, the better your chance to hit. Whether quick weapons get a hit penalty is up to debate but we may just have weapons over 3.5 weapon speed receive a hit bonus.

-Harder hitting weapons will have damage bonuses that are fair enough to make up for a loss of speed.

-Slower weapons will give a chance to stun your opponent. This will slow down their attacks for a short period of time, similar to Lady Melisande's "putrid nausea" attack where she slows you down. This will likely only occur in PVM to balance things out.

Armor:

-Heavier armors will provide "absorption" bonuses. These bonuses are intended for warrior type classes.

-Different types of armor will have different types of damage absorptions. Some armor types will absorb fire damage better, while some absorb energy damage better. This will give all armors a more specialized use. Whether or not we want to go this route or just make everything melee absorption is up to debate.

-Heavier armors will change depending on the "mage armor" attribute. Players will only benefit from the damage absorption if the piece does not contain the mage armor attribute. This is an effort to benefit close up melee classes that do not rely on life leech while at the same time, not giving away free bonuses to magic users who often fight at a distance.

-Heavier armors without the mage armor attribute have certain penalties in place to prevent overpowering certain classes such as sampires:

1) Reduces the capability of leeching
2) Reduces the effectiveness of ranged combat (archery)
3) Cannot meditate in heavy armor. Passive meditation also suffers
4) Interferes with spell casting

These are all just ideas but I think the main point is to find a way to counter all the cons of using a heavier weapon and heavier armor but at the same time, not adding fuel to the fire and overpowering certain classes.

Another big thing would be to ensure that the system is easy to follow. There are a lot of hidden game mechanics in UO, which makes things confusing. The information about the benefits of weapons and armor would need to be accessed easily in the game and be fairly common knowledge.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:5149, old post ID:33198

[mignuts]

OMG! those ideas are really exciting to look forward too just adding in my 2cents

Weapons:
The parry chance increase for slower weapons sounds like a great idea, also the extra chance to hit on slower weapons (it really hurts when you *wiff* on a slow weapon).
Removing Balanced property on these weapons sounds like a decent compromise.
I agree with the leech scaling as obviously the faster weapons leech more:
e.i. a 1.25 second swing speed weapon hits for 30 damage, leech will be about 20% 6 life per hit. meaning in 2.5 seconds you heal the normal 20% (12hp), a slower weapon with 2.5 swing speed will hit for say 45 damage, healing for the normal 20% (9hp).

the stun, or daze effect might be a nice benefit, but won't it be a little overpowered in pvp? (specially with jousting heavy damage melee dexxers)

Armors:
The absorption bonus is really a nice idea! I vote for melee and other damage type absorption, like say a valorite plate would absorb 4phys 0fire 3cold 3energy 3poison per piece on (LOL I just got the numbers from : http://www.uoguide.com/Ingots).

A reduction on leeching would hurt, specially the battle-necromages who would like to run in full plate and just use leech (wraith form) to get their mana back...

hampered archery in full plate is acceptable, but maybe instead of damage why not swing speed/hit chance, or will it be a combination? It is harder to fully draw a longbow with full plate on, much more keep your arms steady to aim and fire with all that metal pulling it down... (or maybe you can offset this if you have say 10str more than what's required for the armor?)

I hope these gave you more ideas to think about of course in the end its really up to you guys and we'll go with what you think is the best course

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:5149, old post ID:33221

[Death]

OMG! those ideas are really exciting to look forward too just adding in my 2cents

Weapons:
The parry chance increase for slower weapons sounds like a great idea, also the extra chance to hit on slower weapons (it really hurts when you *wiff* on a slow weapon).
Removing Balanced property on these weapons sounds like a decent compromise.
I agree with the leech scaling as obviously the faster weapons leech more:
e.i. a 1.25 second swing speed weapon hits for 30 damage, leech will be about 20% 6 life per hit. meaning in 2.5 seconds you heal the normal 20% (12hp), a slower weapon with 2.5 swing speed will hit for say 45 damage, healing for the normal 20% (9hp).

the stun, or daze effect might be a nice benefit, but won't it be a little overpowered in pvp? (specially with jousting heavy damage melee dexxers)

Armors:
The absorption bonus is really a nice idea! I vote for melee and other damage type absorption, like say a valorite plate would absorb 4phys 0fire 3cold 3energy 3poison per piece on (LOL I just got the numbers from : http://www.uoguide.com/Ingots).

A reduction on leeching would hurt, specially the battle-necromages who would like to run in full plate and just use leech (wraith form) to get their mana back...

hampered archery in full plate is acceptable, but maybe instead of damage why not swing speed/hit chance, or will it be a combination? It is harder to fully draw a longbow with full plate on, much more keep your arms steady to aim and fire with all that metal pulling it down... (or maybe you can offset this if you have say 10str more than what's required for the armor?)

I hope these gave you more ideas to think about of course in the end its really up to you guys and we'll go with what you think is the best course

Everything is just theoretical now, as there is no way to know for certain how something will pan out until it is actually implemented on either beta or live. Any additional ideas/comments/criticisms are welcome but the main goal is to create a use for heavier weapons and armors without unbalancing things and overpowering a certain class. Also, when possible, make it a seamless transition so that people aren't confused or overwhelmed.

As for the stunning portion, it's likely more a PVM thing as opposed to a PVP thing. It would be given a trial run in PVM only and then from there, the possibility of some kind of test PVP implementation.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:5149, old post ID:33223

[mignuts]

Time to wait patiently for implementation If there's anything I can do to help, just say so

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:5149, old post ID:33228

[Death]

Time to wait patiently for implementation If there's anything I can do to help, just say so

Not much you can really do right now as development is pretty much halted except for a few side projects and overall shard planning. In the meantime though, you can feel free to experience melee and see how it fares you and what problems you've encountered versus other fighting methods. Your feedback will help us decide the best route to take in the future.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:5149, old post ID:33230

[mignuts]

I'll continue to post on the boards what I find and my experiences with the sampire I'm building

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:5149, old post ID:33234

[Anonymous]

i know I am reviveing this topic. Wondering if there is any plans for it in the future.
Sick of my max resist sampire getting single spell pwned time and time again.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:5149, old post ID:34857