What PvP changes would you like to see?

I don't think you're using quotes correctly. The point of this thread was not to flame each other, and that's all you are interested in. This is one of the reasons this thread failed.

I certainly didn't come to white knight Lib. Before I entered the thread he was already annoyed with me for telling him I thought his posts weren't useful and arguing them wouldn't do anything but make people mad at him.

Ok let me splain, no, there is too much, let me sum up.

I think there were some that took this thread too seriously and in doing so had to point out why they were "bad" ideas.

I think this was more of a "I wish this could be put in-game cause that woud be cool" thread, rather than a serious attempt at "what needs to be addressed to make PvP a little better" thread.

If it's issues that need to be addressed then IMO

1) Melee damage needs to be looked at as hits for 1 point of damage does not reflect era accurate mechanics regarding combat calculations IMO

2) The AR issue with leather armor (i.e. barbed, spined and horned) should be nerfed a bit to reflect a more scaled level of protection as compared to metal armors.

3) Metal armor should have the dex penalties and AR adjusted to make it more feasible and relevant in PvP allowing Blacksmithing to be worthwhile and not just for
BOD's and factions crafting

4) The 0 point punch damage issue should be addressed, punches should be able to disrupt spells even if minimal damage is done.

5) Archery should be re-vamped to make it more effective as a combat skill in PvP, and bows should be repairable.

So your point is that Liberation didn't have any points that were "totally right" and you just said that to engage in flamewar?

Since you're editing way after the fact and other posts coming in, I'll just edit this response to suit. Why the hell did you say his points were totally right then?

Thanks for trolling. Well played.

Taking the thread title literally, this has nothing to do at all with "what needs to be addressed".

This is simply an open conversation to all to share their thoughts on what they would like to see, good, bad or otherwise, for anyone.

The fact that PvP elites have weighed in with the almighty hand of "You don't pvp and therefore have no voice" mandate, means they have no ability to hold a conversation that isn't just hard facts about what is specifically not right in their never humble opinion.

I still agree that some work could stand to be done for thieves to suit a balance for the MAJOR GAME CHANGE that pvpers got with stackable potions and blessed runebooks.

I think all points you reiterate Brymstone, can be tied in one way or another to how armor is on this shard. Seemingly everyone is in agreement that there is significant room for improvement on all those factors, even point number 3...both times.


While I'm here, I guess I'll also share that I feel the capture timer on town sigils is too long. Most adults don't have 6+ hours to commit to a campaign of any kind that isn't RL. Dropping this down to something reasonable (but still considered excessive by non-gamers) would be a four hour sigil corruption time. I would even like to see it go so far as 5-7 days of hold time. This way you don't feel like the work you put in to capture a town on say Wednesday, will be all for naught come Sunday. For those of us who can't spend 4+ hours in game every single day and are just blessed with forum/IRC access at work, this might encourage more efforts to actually capture towns. I personally can't even be bothered with trying unless I've slated a whole damn day to a capture effort. Then to have it smeared by a 10 man zerg, 20 minutes before corruption, would make it entirely pointless to spend my day playing for it.

Perhaps with a long enough hold time, platinum awards to the top kill scores/sigil thefts/traps sprung, once per week, could be a good incentive for the play style.

Agreed, the "you don't PvP so your ideas in regards to PvP are not valid" spiel was pretty f&%$in abrasive to say the least. Hopefully this shard can come together on issues in a more constructive manner.

I think everyone needs to realize that all changes either they be in PvP or PvM mechanics has an effect on everyone who plays here, regardless of what their playstyle is.

Healthy debate is always a good thing but when it devolves to flamewars then nothing good will ever come from it.

That being said I need to be a little more tolerant of other's points of view in the future, anyone who disagrees can f*&%in suck it!! LOL

I too am leery of things that are custom to the shard and thus foreign to newcomers. That said, the lack of a special move for archery seems like a glaring mistake made the UOR era of this game, and something that could be corrected here.

I also think the existing customizations on archery's to-hit modifiers are a net negative, but I'm not sure there's interest in changing that (from Chris or players), so I feel like I'm SOL on that one.

I agree with that too Dalavar. I was happy to see a change that reduced the lag-shot of Archery (used to be like a full second or so) but I feel like overall it really was a net loss because the chance to hit then sucked for anyone moving (ie: great for bots, terrible for actual players). If you've gotta be right next to a target for 50/50, you might as well be swinging a melee weapon. In the end, a special hit for Archery that could be beneficial without being OP (like a Dex nerf or Dismount Shot). The Dismount Shot being random like para hits and crushing blows would prevent easy ganks and it's not like everyone can't make a remount hotkey. (there is no break-para hotkey and the detriment of a dismount would be far less) The remount macro could even have an All Follow Me in it to avoid that animal is fighting flag.

Archery just needs a quicker recover time for bows and crossbows, leaving heavy crossbows as is. Make the to-hit chance 50/50 at range. It really needs some love though IMO.

As far as dismounts, I really get the jitters with allowing that because I've seen too many (dismount, attack mount) scripts out there that can be running all the time and take effect whenever a dismount occurs no matter how fast you try to hit that re-mount macro. It's asking for instant gankapalooza or as Mes mentioned, tamer bait.

The other problem with dismount mechanics is it makes that 3 million gold ethy mount completely useless.

Excellent point, didn't think of that.

I'm guessing you never played OSI, with that being said, no this is not OSI HOWEVER the whole point of factions isn't to guard sigils with 2-5 people thinking your guaranteed sigils and town status.

Just saying... I'm sure you spent your days doing other entirely pointless things. Maybe you would get joy out of killing Mes or Lib if you did guard sigs with a group. I do not disagree with your hourly corrupt rate however.

Okay I read this thread. Parts of it were horrible and I won't bother with them but here are a few thoughts.

Bolas - I hope that bolas are implemented and then everyone who throws one is banned a week later. Bolas are absolutely loathsome little implements that do nothing but ruin the fun of everyone. Dismount mechanics are awful and turn pvp into dismount and gank, dismount and gank. It completely takes away the value of good judgement or being able to read the flow of a fight, rewards zerging, and basically punishes you for even coming in range of a group of hostile targets. I hate bolas from the depths of my soul, and it would make me extremely emo if they were implemented.

Archery - Those of you that think that archery is bad need to find either Falanor or Wulver and ask them to beat you down, and they will. Most archers are a more retarded version of dexers, they expect to be able to pick a bow and double click someone and win. No, it's not like that. Good archers, like good mages or good dexers, use others skills and items to win fights. Pick up magery, grab a few bags or purple pots or whatever and you will start seeing kills.



And now for something that I actually think is an issue - poison and spell resist. Right now mage duels and mage combat is just about as retarded as two dexers whacking each other - the winner is decided by who gets lucky with poison being resisted. You can't kill someone as a pure mage without getting poisons down to block their heals, and right now poison seems to be resisted like half of the time. It's a complete crap shoot when you're trying to duel or fight one on one and luck decides the winner. I'd be in favor of the poison resist rate being scaled back to 10% at GM resist so things are a little less random. More skill and less lucked based mage dueling/combat will also attract pvpers to the server, as more serious duelists hate RNG shit.

Never played Factions on OSI as I quit shortly after the introduction of Trammel. I was never into PvP in era either. I was a lowly blacksmith/miner and a tailor/warrior and never even made a 7x GM anything until UOSA, some 3-4 years ago.
I never once implied that it was supposed to be a 2-5 man team game. I was one of the folks in SL who laughed when people said we should split up because we were too big. At time time we were only like 5-6 regulars with about 3-4 occasional types on the team. My answer to them was "Go form a team capable of putting up a fight" which is what I've taken to attempting on my own with a handful of rag-tags lately. However, that is beside the point. Team size really doesn't matter much I just can't be arsed to sit on a sig for 6+ hours fending off attacks. I can barely pull out 2-4 hours of actual uninterrupted committed game play, let alone 6+.
I said it to Mes the other day and I've said it many times, the best fights I've had in any combat games, have always been against friends. If I had to guess, I would say it's because there's not a bunch of hard feelings on the table after kicking some ass or getting my ass kicked. No one's settling scores, they're just having fun playing.

In the end, all activity in game is pointless, so I'm not sure what that was supposed to mean. Are you coming back to TB or not?

On napo's points:
Agreed, Bolas are horrible and to agree with Punt, ethereals make any potential for a dismount shot entirely moot for archery. As for Falanor and Wulver giving anyone the beat down....um...where? I've fought Wulver more than once and he was just as far from giving me a beat down as I was from delivering the same. Is he persistent and a committed archer? Absolutely. However, look at what you don't see when people ask about templates for combat. It's called Archery. Yes, you can work with it and perhaps even be mildly successful with it but no one has been greatly successful with it because it is just a second-class weapon skill, compared to any other.

I can say I'm fairly apathetic to poison resist considering the crap shoot every dexxer gets when they miss a swing half a dozen times while their target is low on health. lol However, that said, I did acknowledge and recognize the frustration when I was 5x'ing with Pax the other day.

I think it would make a lot of sense to make the Poisoning skill able to decrease the chance of a target resisting it, as a function of the level of the poison that would be applied.

Wow, well good call by all the serious duelists in choosing to play a game for 15 years in which there's a RNG to determine how much damage your spell does, if it's resisted, if it disrupts, if your weapon hits, how much damage your weapon does, how much damage your armor absorbs, whether your stun punch lands, and whether you paralyze someone with your spear.

napo,

Attract what PvPers? Who else is out there and just what makes you think they would come here if for some reason poison resist was scaled back to 10%?

I mean it's not like there's this invisible legion of PvPers out there who are simply waiting for this server's combat mechanics to change so they can jump onboard and get involved with the PvP scene here.

This game is friggin 17+ years old, there are very few people out there that still play this game, still less if you count those that have gone to the "pay shards" that offer you your wildest joygasms for USD or the shards who are offering the eye-barfing neon twinkfest that some really really fap off to.

Unless you are talking about the asshats who have already played here, rage quit or simply found things too "equal" as they couldn't steamroll everyone they encountered in the field. In that case they can stay gone as far as I'm concerned, they left because they were immature douchebags or thin-skinned zergtards who didn't want to stick around and make an intelligent argument as to how things can be improved here for everyone not just self-serving ideas that would favor their own playstyle.

P.S. You shouldn't have to play an archer mage to make archery a PvP viable skill IMO.

The argument of "do this and it will attract more PvPers" seems to be a moot argument at this point.

Even the automated tournament event idea may bring back some people but eventually they'll do what they have done before, jump ship.

As far as the poison resist goes, I agree totally with Blaise that it lines up on par with the consistent whiffing a dexxer experiences during a fight, it's frustrating but as you have suggested, "use others skills and items to win fights. Pick up purple pots or whatever and you will start seeing kills." poison was always an unfaithful bitch, even back in the good ol' days.

While I agree that would be the most logical solution the problem is that all 5x duels would have to take place in an arena that explicitly disables the effects of that skill. 5x dueling, while something I see akin to Miata Cup Racing for level of skill involved, is a valid and desirable game function in the tried and true classic UO PvP community. I don't want to shit on their couch for the sake of (lol) logical application of magical spells.

Brymstone, there isn't really a legion, but there are a lot of UO pvpers who don't play here for one reason or another related to combat mechanics. I'm capable of accepting that the minority of them, are the ones who have come here and contributed demands and outrage. The majority (who chose to leave) most likely tasted the juice, felt like it wasn't their flavor and ducked out. I've spoken to a fair handful of them on other shards who cite some basics though for not coming along, like no insta-hit, no hally mage dominance, or even things like no heals through poison. There's just never going to be a perfect pvp shard because humans are playing.

As for Magery by itself, it is commonly understood as requisite in any capable PvP character/template. However, I agree that requiring a Mage build (Magery+Eval) to make Archery equivalent to other weapon classes is not a viable solution, despite the fact that it still doesn't.


I digress. Let's field for 1000 more hours and revisit.

Absolutely true, there is always going to be some amount of RNG in a duel. It's been accepted by duelists for as long as you say.
However, the impact of the RNG that surrounds poison resist on the server is far greater than it was on OSI, and the way it is here overpowers all of the small things that you listed. Right now a battle between two evenly matched opponents in a 5x mage duel is determined completely by who gets lucky (or more times unlucky) with poison resists. It overpowers all other concerns completely, you can't kill without a poison landing and sometimes you can catch five poison resists in a row with a fair amount of regularity on this server.
Someone who isn't serious about mage combat may not understand since poison is a cheap spell and easy to cast again, but it's a little more than that. A single poison resist will derail an entire dump, since poison is usually accompanied by 20-40 mana of other spells. When you're down that much mana it usually means your attempt to kill them is over because of a poison resist and you have to bear one of their attacks while you regen mana. Even if the other player uses the opportunity that a poison resist affords him to cast 1-2 minor heals it's usually the end of your dump because you've used too much mana and don't have enough left to make a kill. Right now poison resists completely dominate the flow of a duel and push all other considerations out of the window.

I'm sure that you would agree with the notion that the PvP community on UOR doesn't include all PvPers left playing the game. With that being the case, there must be PvPers out there to be attracted to the server.
I know that there are at the very least players on other Freeshards that are interested in PvP that could be attracted to UOR, and any steps to attract PvPers to the server is okay in my book. I think that a few tweaks to dueling could attract people interested in dueling and make the pvp landscape on the server a more vibrant place. Old PvPers love mage dueling.

You don't have to. Wulver was quite effective and he played a dex archer. He even beat me with it once, which is quite a task.

Poison was not as fickle in the good old days, the chance to resist poison on OSI never approached what it is here. Maybe there was some freeshard you guys that you played and I didn't where it was as high as it is here, but it definitely was not this high on OSI.
Also RNG is something that you accept with dexing, the set of skills is fairly up front about the fact that it's all about having a 50% chance to hit someone with a weapon.

Furthermore, and I say this as nicely as possible, the only reason we're discussing this is because Blaise is trying to shove his agenda regarding dexers into a conversation that doesn't have much to do with them. My concerns revolve around the extremely high spell resistance to poison that is present on this shard in regard to battles between mages. This really isn't something that has much to do with dexers. I'm sorry that Blaise is frustrated with the set of challenges that dex characters present, but that is no reason not to consider balancing fights between mages.

Blaise,

I guess what I was trying to say was, if we were going to see all those PvPers come over to this shard it would take alot more than scaling poison resist down to 10%.

I agree that alot of them want insta-hit, hell I would LOVE insta-hit (without the hally recycling because regardless what some people say it is not Second Age era accurate)
or other mechanics more suitable to their style of play.

Most have been here already and left because of one thing or another, but as you point out (I'm paraphrasing) there is never going to be a perfect PvP shard.

As far as the PvP population here, it might increase a little but it's probably as big as it's going to get at this point unless radical changes are implemented and I don't think anyone wants to go there.

Napo, I guess I shouldn't have said always as poison did see a buff in AOS when it changed to the elemental resist sytem, but before that if your opponent had GM resist it was a crapshoot.

lol, I wasn't trying to shove any agendas into anything. I was identifying a similarity in frustrations with getting a killing blow as a result of a painful RNG. Pardon me if I think your analogy about a mana dump being ruined by a resisted Poison is directly akin to me missing your face five times with my katana while you're at 10% health and banging miniheals like it's not even a concern that you'll get disrupted (because it's not). Regardless of how you want to discount what I say because you've been riding the PvP pony for 15 years, I understand why it is frustrating in 5x, for the exact way you described it as I've witnessed it myself.

It looked like a challenge and feels like balance.

No, I'm not even remotely ready to consider myself capable of winning a 5x duel vs any experienced veteran. However, I know what I've got to work on and I see how it works quite clearly. Duels have a lot more chance to them now and I guess coming from my invalid melee combatant perspective, I can say I'm equally empathetic as I am apathetic.

Perhaps the developer who coded that intended that level of difficulty so that people couldn't bank so heavily on their combo working as often?


Oh and Brymstone, yeah I get ya. I had fun with insta-hit on my 0 Magery warrior quite a bit. Melee/Archer combos were a ton of fun. Reducing resisted poison won't be a cure-all any more than a change in spell recovery delay, or spell damage delay. There just is no cure-all but we can keep beating the horse until it feels right. Which is the point of having all this discourse in the first place. This forum is here for us and the real beauty of this place is that development does consider the opinions of the masses. It may not always be my opinion, or yours, or that dude, or hers or her mom's but I can tell by the patch notes alone, that the people of UOR are not unheard.