Request for Comment - Champion System

Can you imagine if all of the different champ special abilities were incorporated?

Aside from the idea about the new gump which I hadn't considered but sounds cool, I've been thinking this is the best solution and what I was getting at in my initial response. Keep track of the work done over the course of the champ and reward accordingly by the very end. I still think everyone that can pass the damage threshold at the end should get a little plat but make it like 1-5 to dissuade the ENTIRE shard from crashing it. I'm sure some people would still want to participate for the Harrower even for that much plat, which I think is actually a cool feature of these things: seeing a lot of people from all over the shard come together.

I may be wrong, but I don't think people are running public harrowers because they don't think they can defend a private one. It just makes economic sense most of the time. You invite people to yours and build up karma, good chance they invite you to theirs. Win-win.

I wouldn't say that's entirely true. I'm certain, that we (TT/SL) definitely would run some private harrowers if we felt like we could defend the spawn. Sure we'd still run some public ones, but in all likely hood we'd probably run more private ones if we could. But defending one is just literally impossible as it stands currently.

I've never done a harrower before but I've got an idea to make using these accounts much more challenging:

One solution to make triple boxing a pain would be simply that the harrower casts a very powerful poison or fire field spell. Active players only need to move a tile to be safe but boxers who don't move their character from the deadly field spell within 3-4 seconds will die. The field spell should do a strong poison or like 30 damage a tick.

It could make the harrower battle field more fun and challenging because players have to worry about where they are standing.

It could even be a one tile field spell that the harrower automatically casts on everyone on screen. Everyone will have to move a tile or die.

Also, don't make it instanced that will remove all of the random human element and cool forum stories will never come from it. And I also think its cool that the whole server participates. And getting rid of stat loss in the dungeon seems like a cool way to make it more hectic and awesome.

Well actually one way you could make it instanced would be if when people put the skulls in a fare opened at star room for 10 people to go through. But also 10 other gates open in random locations in dungeons and a broadcast is made throughout the server "the harrower has risen" and players can find these gates in every dungeon and enter. So pks and stuff can come and kill you at your instanced harrower. And also every half hour another gate randomly opens doubling at each interval of half an hour so if you don't kill it fast then gates will open all over and people will come steal your harrower.
But that seems like a lot of work when it would all probably be better uninstanced anyways.

Edit: never mind Chris said it won't be instanced

In general everything you said was a huge improvement, thanks very much.

I don't fight pks, thieves, griefers, and spend hours working champs so I can build guild reputation. I want my 60 plat. If it was possible to fight of the horde at a Harrower I would gladly do it but its not possible when damn near everyone has dragons. [UO] tried to run a private Harrower and once the initial PK confrontation was fought off they ran to the forums to announce it. Within minutes people started showing up and the number of people that came was comparable to a public Harrower.

IMHO...

What wont work:

1) Reducing Platinum
Reducing platinum will result in a lack of desire to run any Harrower. Easier champs will be the go-to platinum farm and champions which take 2-3 hours, such as Oaks, will become ghost towns. I put up with doing Oaks because it means a set of skulls is complete.

2) Crazy field spells & Mobile Harrower
The idea to direct damage at 3 boxers in an environment which is congested will result in death of not only 3 boxers but others as well. To defeat this I can see myself saying all kill and then running a macro to run in X direction, if stam < X chug TR and hope for the best.

3) Dropping Platinum on the ground
See number 1 and congestion of players.

4) Reward based on total DMG output of tentacles and Harrower combined
This will end up with people dieing on purpose and or sending in pets to get life drained in order to make sure the score sheet has their output damage recorded. It will also lead to increased grief and a congested environment when everyone is trying to get in damage.

What will work:

1) Only those present in the Star Room when all skulls are placed on the altar will be eligible for the 20 platinum. - This is an incentive for those people that were not present to not show up at all. It also gives PKs and those doing battle at the Harrower to have a congestion free battlefield.

2) Instance - Ive laid out my argument for this already. Reward the players that actually put in the effort to make it happen.

3) Removal of Harrower

I just don't see any reason for a fat payout just for being there when the champ dies and getting your licks in. You said "I want my 60 plat" as though it's yours by right.

The fact that folks feel so entitled to the big check at the end is another indicator that the distribution of plat is a bit lopsided. As I mentioned, running spawn as a warrior and getting chumped for plat drops, only to see everyone around me gate in every fuckin med/mage they could fit and walk away with 60p for standing there casting a single spell over and over, was discouraging.

Reward should be based on total contribution to the total effort required to start, run and defeat the champion. Not just cherry picking with the ultra-templates.

When I bust my ass for 7-9 hours it is. Currently there are 3, maybe 4 guilds, that regularly gather skulls. The rest of the server feels entitled to the fat payout from the guys doing the hard work. I would rather my Star Room idea come about with no other changes and have the entire server show up on PKs to wipe us out.

Exactly... from start to finish. Gathering skulls to killing the harrower.

....

If you're not talking about the harrower itself you're high. When I was organizing champs on my dexxer I would easily snag 10-15 plat per champ running around with an axe, including chopping the boss without issues most of the time. If you're not making much for plat you're either not trying or you need to learn to seriously play a dexxer

I have to say, it's really disappointing to see something completely disabled, even if it is 'broken' in what ever way.

Now that that's out of the way, if things really must be changed, I think the only reasonable solution (mentioned elsewhere) is to limit the total amount of plat that drops from the harrower, similar to how there were a limited amount of power scrolls on OSI. Perhaps even combined with a 1 player per ip allowed in the area so it's not just a dragon waiting room before the final form.

... but you just did that. Then you told him ... but ...

???

I personally do not like the idea of damage on the boss being your basis for a reward. Some people always end up having to pull security or possibly cant even get to the boss to engage because of the masses. I know red potions are a basic answer but even that has limits.

Lets consider the game mechanics of fel involving stamina. You couple masses of people with a mobile boss in a cramped area like the recent Hyloth lvl 4. You have a recipe for disaster.

It seems the simple solution is to reduce the amount of plat dropped. Why over complicate a system that in the big picture doesnt really make that much difference. It hasnt devalued platinum. If its not broke don't fix it. Its may be cracked and need a little stabilization.

The staff is very limited in time and resources. It just seems to me that there are more important game mechanics in need of attention.

Lets not get caught up in the squeaky wheel gets the grease story line.

I've had no problems even at the harry himself. My 2nd and 3rd accounts are archers that use random crap magic crossbows. I always get the 20 plats on them. You'll do way more damage if you're not an archer, as well - just need red pots to get close enough.

I agree. These types of actions are why I'm no longer willing to do anything that requires significant effort. I've paid the dues and not received the reward one too many times. Although I have zero skulls and don't care that much about plat, I'd be very happy to see the old system restored along with the new if possible. Those holding the skulls have already paid for their harrower, so please give it to them. Perhaps make new skulls that are different in some way so they can not be used with the old system (but not the other way around).

Players should be able to sell the skulls to platinum vendors or other NPC for an amount comparable to the difficulty of the champ. I'd say on a range from 10-20p.

Lot of good ideas here, tbh I'm pretty optimistic at this point. Seems like people just want to be rewarded for their efforts.

Big easy plat fests don't seem to be favored.

It could be made so that the dungeon that the harrower is in becomes a war zone area where people show as orange and no counts can be given in order to combat the problem of a private harrower suddenly becoming a public harrower after someone spills the beans in irc.

My C.V.: I have run about a dozen harrowers including farming the skulls to do at least half of those with PwN. I have attended most harrowers in recent months and have only failed to collect 60 platinum one time.

[Problems]
First, it's important to tease out which problems people want to address. A lot of people are throwing out ideas to different perceived problem and others critique based on other perceived problems. Here are the problems I was able to find in this thread:

1) Too much plat is being created
2) Too easy for people to benefit off the work of others
-too difficult for hosts to police/control event
3) Too many people going to the harrow event (potential server problems)
4) Too easy for triple boxers to print plat
5) Too easy for tamers to complete event with tames

[Solutions]

Solution One:

Staff should determine what they believe to be the correct amount of platinum produced at a harrower event. Then, staff should use this number as a set amount for killing the true harrower. The payouts should be based on the percentage of damage done to the harrower across all stages (including damage done to the tentacles) and have a cut off (such as the top 20-25 people). So, the total number of plat awarded would be determined based on your % damage within the pool of the top damagers.

Solution Two:

Rebalance the award so the plat payouts are higher for the first two stages (regular harrower and tentacled true harrower).

Solution Three:

Give a plat payout to those who activate the skulls. This could be done similar to the tamer event where a new colored skull or object is given which will only work once the harrower is dead. Once the harrower is dead, the person who activated the skulls can turn in this object to a "dungeon master" in the star room to apportion out the plat to whoever they want. Simply reduce the total plat handed out at the death of the harrower to account for this new plat faucet.

Solution Four:

I would add some of the abilities of the champions to the harrower to discourage tamers from zerging the event. This would be pretty neat and inline with lore because the harrower is sort of like a Captain Planet of all the champions.

A) Enable the harrower to have the serpentine dragon ability to turn tames around on their owners (discourage tamer zerging). Or even have the harrower, similar to it's pulling ability, pick random tames in a large area and have them attack their owners.
B) Enable the harrower to have a lifedrain ability like a succubus from everything in the vicinity when a certain number of living entities get within a few squares of it (discourage tamer zerging).
C) Enable something like Semidar's return damage for a time (discourage ebolt spam bots).
D) Enable an ability like Rikktor's EQ at random intervals which does 1 damage to everything to disrupt meditation (discourage ebolt spam bots).
E) Enable an ability to cast deadly poison on anything within a radius (discourage tamer zerging).

All of these abilities could have conditions to proc, such as an amount of living creatures within a couple tile radius around the true harrower.

[Analysis]

1) Too much plat is being created
Setting a total amount of platinum available will reduce the amount of platinum created at the event compared to public ones where the plat created goes up as player numbers go up.

2) Too easy for people to benefit off the work of others
Reducing the amount of plat and only awarding it to people who do the top 20-25 damage to the harrower will decrease the incentive to zerg the event. It will decrease the incentive of the server descending upon any harrower as most will not receive any plat at all. Lessening the incentive for everyone to show up makes it easier for the hosts to control the event. Also, since the people hosting the event will be the ones first there and first doing damage then they will have a large advantage on those top spots.

Rebalancing plat rewards for each stage would increase the reward to people who first pop and run the harrower. Giving a plat payout to those activating the six skulls originally would also increase the reward to those who feel they have put in the most work to collect the skulls.

Frankly, it should be very difficult to polce/control an event with a large payout in felucca. My solutions leave the difficulty and only reduces the incentives of others to join. This is endgame content on a felucca server.

3) Too many people going to the harrow event (potential server problems)
Reducing the incentive of reward for anyone outside the top 25 will discourage large numbers of people from attending. Especially because they are at such a disadvantage to those who were there first and hosting.

Rebalancing payouts to increase in the beginning would also reduce the incentive for all the public to zerg the harrower in the later stages. Reducing the payout at the end reduces the incentive for everyone to show up.

4) Too easy for triple boxers to print plat
Hard capping the number of players who can receive a plat reward will reduce the incentive to triple box while preserving the ability to triple box if you want to risk receiving no plat on any character (as a triple boxer should be doing less damage, etc., than someone who is only playing one character). This preserves the ability to triple box but includes more risk to achieve that reward.

Rebalancing plat towards the beginning stages (regular harrower and tentacled harrower) will reduce the incentive to triple box as well. Triple boxers seem to only show up in the final stage. Unless plat rewards for the beginning stages are much higher, triple boxers will not be used to do it (at least not in mass)

Adding abilities to the harrower would make it more difficult on a single player and much more difficult to triple box. People complain a lot about triple boxing tamers, but triple boxing ebolt bots are the same thing. Any change should address both of these.

5) Too easy for tamers to complete event with tames
Solution Four can add abilities to make it more difficult to run taming builds at the harrower and very, very difficult to triple box tamer zerg the harrower.

[Downsides]
# of Players
I really like the large number of players at the harrower. I understand staff's desire to reduce the number of players at harrower events, but I would like to say I think the large number player events are one of the best things on this shard. The first time I attended one of these events and saw the sheer number of players involved rehooked me back on UO and this shard in particular. It's very impressive and very fun to see that many people out on what sometimes feels like an empty shard (compared to OSI shards). I honestly think this aspect of the event should be encouraged, not discouraged, but if that is the direction the staff wants to go I would like to influence the particular path in that direction.

Harder event for all Players
Adding new abilities to the harrower, while substantially increasing the difficulty much more to people bring multiple accounts than to those who bring one account, will cause the event to be harder even for those the staff doesn't feel is a problem at all (those only playing one account). Judging by the sheer number of bodies at many harrowers, the difficulty of the harrower may already be where it should be.

[Comments on other Proposed Solutions]

Instance the Event
First, this is a felucca shard. For an event with potentially the highest award in the game, there should be a whole lot of risk. If you instance this event, you are drastically reducing the amount of risk in order to complete it. Other solutions are available to address the concerns of both staff and players running the event without dramatically decreasing the risk involved.

Second, there is already plenty of content (and more being introduced) to sate the desires of people who essentially want to farm in trammel.

For whatever it's worth, I would be resoundingly against any more instanced events. If you're going to instance the most endgame content, you might as well create trammel and be done with it. Instanced events ruin the sandbox nature of Ultima Online.

[Conclusion]

All your solutions are belong to us.

AN IDEA BY JUPITER:

This idea is very theoretical, but it seems sound to me.

Idea: Develop a dungeon recall/gate access system that requires upkeep maintained by killing monsters in the dungeon.

Concept: In order to be able to gate/recall into certain regions of a dungeon, you must have top level of dungeon resistance. To gain dungeon access you must kill spawn in that dungeon. Killing 4-5 top tier monsters once every 2 weeks would give you sufficient points to enter all points of the dungeon.

People will still be able to enter dungeons on foot, but if you want to be able to recall into the primo hunting grounds you have to maintain a top level status.

Here are some of the intended consequences of this change:
1. Disperse tamers into numerous farming locations. (They can concentrate on one spawn if they wish, but if they want to be able to recall/gate their pets into other dungeons they'll have to spread out)

2. More foot traffic in lower levels of dungeons (they are so empty!)

3. Maintain usefulness of public rune libraries

4. You might be able to find a PK fighting PvM spawn to maintain their status (requiring them to SOMETIMES be in a similar situation as their prey). Now this is important. I am not trying to mandate that PK's play a PVM style. They don't have to kill the spawn for the loot, but they would have to kill the spawn (i.e. they may not be at optimal mana/health levels when danger comes to them). PK's can choose not to maintain dungeon points, and instead run through the dungeon to find prey.


Thoughts? Hates? Judgments about my personal life situations?

*clarification note*
I added my last post to this champion spawn thread because this would also indirectly, but significantly impact the champion system being that not everyone on the shard would necessarily be able to recall into the harrower/champ regions. ALSO, it would prevent scavengers from collecting gold and gating back and forth between bank. They could scavenge gold once, go through a gate to get out, but then they would not be allowed back into the dungeon (unless they have sufficient dungeon points for the dungeon).

Access would be granted through the harrower portal from the Star Room, but once that gate closes, unless you have access to the dungeon