Patch 83 - September 25th, Minor Hotfix for Faction Atrophy, Critical Issues

Discussion in 'Patch Notes' started by Chris, Sep 13, 2018.

  1. Chris

    Chris Renaissance Staff
    Renaissance Staff

    Joined:
    May 14, 2012
    Messages:
    3,385
    Likes Received:
    6,195
    patcj.png

    Bonded Pets
    - Disabled pet skill loss on the death process and moved it to the resurrection process.
    - Gave administrative staff the power to resurrect a bonded pet avoiding the pet skill loss step.
    Note: This change is only to assist our players who have pets who die during a confirmed DDOS attack. Should your pets die during a DDOS issue do not resurrect your pet and wait for a staff member to assist you. ​

    Events
    - Fixed a problem with Level 7 Treasure Map Exit gates being of the public variety and not directing to the event lobby properly.
    - Also fixed the gates for the wild tamers event to do the same.
    - Corpses and pets will now auto eject to the event lobby when the instance ends and they are left behind.
    Note: Remember to always wait a few minutes in the exit zone if you are missing a corpse or pet.​

    Faction Mechanics
    - Faction Atrophy will now be checked once every 14 days.
    - If a player is not active in this time, 10% of their faction points will decay.
    - Atrophied points will no longer be randomly distributed to active members of that faction. Thanks PaxRomain
    Note: This was causing certain players to get a ton of points randomly out of the blue.
    - Removed a random check that was used to determine if a player was active in factions when undertaking certain actions. ​

    Runebooks
    - Fixed a problem with some 6th Anniversary Runebooks not having the correct names;
    - They will also be corrected to have 10 max charges. Thanks CaptainMorgan & Others

    Misc
    - Fixed a problem that was allowing certain event monsters, that were tamable and bonded to be repeatedly killed and resurrected in order to gain various rewards.
    Note: We believe the effect from this trick was minimal as two players caught exploiting it were caught quickly and all the items they created were deleted. The investigation is still ongoing and any items created via this trick will be addressed. We will be reviewing the kill history of various bonded pets to see if any other situations were not noticed before this one. ​
    Last edited: Sep 25, 2018
    Airin, Hadrian and Ahirman like this.
  2. merlin8666

    merlin8666 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 6, 2017
    Messages:
    2,336
    Likes Received:
    1,892
    What constitutes as being "active"? Also, there was a lot of solid advice and suggestions in the faction discussion thread. Can you give any indication if and on which recommendations you're working on and perhaps when these could be realized through next patches?
  3. Chris

    Chris Renaissance Staff
    Renaissance Staff

    Joined:
    May 14, 2012
    Messages:
    3,385
    Likes Received:
    6,195
    Sure. This is just a first step to solve the base atrophy problem otherwise fixing anything else would be pointless. So we wanted to resolve it first.

    Active means engaging in faction combat and a few other factors. One of the changes to be added with the faction update (down the road a bit) is all new menus for faction actions to make some of this stuff more clear.
    Althorn and One like this.
  4. Zordak

    Zordak Member

    Joined:
    May 24, 2014
    Messages:
    46
    Likes Received:
    28
    Chris, fix Tracking, please.
    Kiryana and Blaise like this.
  5. Chris

    Chris Renaissance Staff
    Renaissance Staff

    Joined:
    May 14, 2012
    Messages:
    3,385
    Likes Received:
    6,195
    Tracking will see some changes as soon as we finish fixing all the dungeon regions so that each level of a dungeon is identifiable from another. Disallowing people from finding "sweet" spots in which they can track 3-4 levels of a dungeon in a single go.
    Baler, Hadrian, eherruh and 4 others like this.
  6. Zordak

    Zordak Member

    Joined:
    May 24, 2014
    Messages:
    46
    Likes Received:
    28
    Honestly, I don't see why that was such a problem that it justified destroying the Tracking skill for 1-2 years. If you want to "fix" the problem, that is fine — history perfected, and all. But it doesn't seem like any serious issue. I would much rather have Tracking work, and have some people find some sweet spots, than not have Tracking at all, which is what we have now.
  7. Chris

    Chris Renaissance Staff
    Renaissance Staff

    Joined:
    May 14, 2012
    Messages:
    3,385
    Likes Received:
    6,195
    Sure. However there is precedent for the change. And while players, of course, will miss the T2A mechanic of 100 tile tracking, zero kill checks. The correct mechanic for a UOR server is a range of 10-20 tiles based on tracking skill.

    Our goal is to find a happy medium between the mechanics of both Era's that do not allow a single player in 60 seconds to track every single player in 9 dungeons. Given how once a player is tracked there is no way to escape that tracking as long as the tracker stays in range of you it can easily be an overpowered skill. Our plan at the moment is to change the menu around so that when a player uses the tracking skill they are given much more information about what is found. But also requiring appropriate skill checks in order to track a player.

    One idea at the moment is to allow you to be aware there are "traces" of someone nearby. But not enough information to successfully track them. Allowing you to know when repeated use of the skill might find someone at a larger range, that is hidden, or is stealthing.
  8. Zordak

    Zordak Member

    Joined:
    May 24, 2014
    Messages:
    46
    Likes Received:
    28
    Where are you getting that information? I have scanned EVERY "Publish" note from that year (at uoguide.com), and I don't see any changes to the use of the Tracking skill for Renaissance. In fact, 10-20 tiles would only be about one screen away, which would be crazy and completely useless. I'm not an expert on how many tiles it scanned during Second Age, but whatever that number was, Renaissance should be the same. If the proper number is 100 tiles, then so be it.

    Further, I have searched this very forum on this issue about why the skill was rendered broken. The only explanation I have seen given for any change was an allusion to the fact that some people whined about being pk'd in a dungeon. I haven't seen anyone posting anything about era-accuracy — until now. Era accuracy would be to have Tracking actually work.

    Even if you could track every single player in every dungeon, you would still lose your quarry once you recalled to the different dungeon.

    OptimisticSam and Rextacy like this.
  9. UrinalCake

    UrinalCake Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 27, 2016
    Messages:
    828
    Likes Received:
    947
    Thank you for quickly addressing the exploit.
  10. Dash

    Dash Active Member
    UO:R Donor

    Joined:
    Oct 31, 2017
    Messages:
    228
    Likes Received:
    230
    This explains why I lost one of my first great house spots. I used Tracking at least 10x before re-deeding/re-placing a new home and sure enough, a stealther on the same screen placed as soon as I re-deeded. I remember wondering wtf was up with that and now I know why.
    Leopold, One and Zordak like this.
  11. OptimisticSam

    OptimisticSam Well-Known Member
    UO:R Subscriber

    Joined:
    Dec 17, 2016
    Messages:
    869
    Likes Received:
    884
    I agree here. 10-20 tiles would be basically worthless. I think 80-100 with the regions fixed is better. The skill check with that might negate the value though... as @Syntax mentions
    One and PaddyOBrien like this.
  12. Erza Scarlet

    Erza Scarlet Well-Known Member
    UO:R Donor

    Joined:
    May 24, 2015
    Messages:
    1,896
    Likes Received:
    2,197

    100 tile tracking is OP, and its nowhere realistic if you can track players farming bloods if you stand on the White Wyrm spot, just saying.
    Given the shards motto, its also not the goal to be 100% era accurate, its rather to adress certain imbalances (like tracking in this case) and balance them properly ("history perfected")

    Tracking will undergo futher changes in the future that i would love to see more than anybody else, but lets face the fact - regular tracking was OP, current tracking is useless.
    In the end it will be somewhere in the middle, although i believe that 20 tiles might be too little. My suggestion would be to allow 3 tiles per 10 skill points + additional 5 at GM (35 Tiles at GM tracking)

    I did run a Pirate Guild in the Past, which became a realy hard thing since youre basically unable to track for people - you can be creative however and track for sea serpents / pvm monsters instead and check if theres a player there, just saying that the same trick would be possible at the previously mentioned WW spot... Try to track for Bloods instead... nothing found? then you might have a high chance that a player will be there.

    Another suggestion would be to increase the distance of individual dungeon levels so they are basically 100 tiles away.. But to my understanding the regular UO Map should be hard coded and its hard to make changes like that (+ link every level / exit properly again)
  13. jumpman

    jumpman Well-Known Member
    UO:R Subscriber

    Joined:
    Aug 1, 2016
    Messages:
    1,297
    Likes Received:
    1,196
    This explains why my neighbor had 15 fluffy corpses laying around his keep.
    One likes this.
  14. Earsnot

    Earsnot Well-Known Member
    UO:R Subscriber

    Joined:
    Jan 20, 2018
    Messages:
    1,732
    Likes Received:
    3,195
    Aaaaaaaahhhhh it all makes sense now!!
    OptimisticSam and jumpman like this.
  15. anightmare

    anightmare Active Member

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2018
    Messages:
    240
    Likes Received:
    75
    Lol that was a good bug! Cudos for exploiting it! Haha!
  16. Zordak

    Zordak Member

    Joined:
    May 24, 2014
    Messages:
    46
    Likes Received:
    28
    It's not OP. 100 tiles is how the game is supposed to work. Breaking that entire function just because someone whined about getting pk'd while killing bloods is not history perfected. It's just stupid.

    If you want to fix the dungeon glitch, go ahead. That makes no difference to me. But while we're waiting around for that bug to get fixed (I assume another 2 years), Tracking should stay at 100 tiles.
  17. Chris

    Chris Renaissance Staff
    Renaissance Staff

    Joined:
    May 14, 2012
    Messages:
    3,385
    Likes Received:
    6,195
    Like I said before. The T2A mechanic was Tracking Skill = Tracking Range. With a max range of 100 tiles versus players, with zero chance of failure.
    The UOR Mechanic was Tracking Skill / 10 + 10 = Tracking Range. With zero change of failure.

    We will revisit the mechanics sooner than later. But there will still be a discussion on the impact of tracker and trackee skills, factored over range. The reason it was changed initially was to address the performance issue of the server checking a 100x100 range, adding mobiles in that range to collection. The cross dungeon tracking was also an issue as it allowed players to determine who was in all the dungeons by tracking in 5-6 spots.
  18. Zordak

    Zordak Member

    Joined:
    May 24, 2014
    Messages:
    46
    Likes Received:
    28
    Says who? I checked all the game updates during that period, and there is nothing about that change.
  19. Pirul

    Pirul Well-Known Member
    UO:R Subscriber

    Joined:
    May 16, 2013
    Messages:
    3,219
    Likes Received:
    2,468
    Dude, did you just gloss over the response or conveniently took out only what you wanted? You seem to have completely ignored this part:
    Kiryana likes this.
  20. Zordak

    Zordak Member

    Joined:
    May 24, 2014
    Messages:
    46
    Likes Received:
    28
    Chris is trying to justify keeping it broken by appealing to era accuracy. But his era accuracy argument has no evidence in support of it, as far as I can see. It needs to reach 100 tiles.
    Last edited: Sep 30, 2018

Share This Page