What PvP changes would you like to see?

What dexers experience is irrelevant when we're talking about fights between mages.
We could have a silly back and forth for hundreds of posts where we say things like "oh yeah? Well your attacks don't take mana" or "well your attacks aren't melee range only" but it's a pointless endeavor because it's comparing apples to oranges. It's a pointless conversation and there will be no productive result.

People generally want duels to be a measure of skill, not a measure of who got the most luck with RNG. Changing poison resist rates to accommodate the former rather than the latter would make the server more attractive to people interested in mage duels.

The similarity was PvP and RNG's effects. It's not pointless to compare things of that nature. No I'm not saying your concerns or desires for Poison resist are invalid either. I just think it sounds very much like the shit a weapon swing goes through where I can't count on it 9 times out of 10.


PVP != MAGES ONLY lol


Also, outside of 5x duels, that highly resisted Poison cast doesn't seem to be impeding any killing that I've noticed. So yes, if this were changed it would attract more people looking for classic feeling 5x duels. I agree and don't think it would be negative for the administration to implement such a change. I just don't care because it seems like the challenge is fair dice for everyone.

Yes, your argument seems to be that since dexers deal with a high level of RNG that mages should have to put up with it as well.
That's why I pointed out that this is colored by your agenda and your desire to force a conversation about dexers into one that originally had very little to do with them.

Changes to accomodate 5x duelling would be like changing swing speeds and hit % chances to accomodate dexxers.

Absolutely correct. If all templates have high levels of challenge as a result of the RNG, then we are all on the same page. However, if you want to claim that I have an agenda, I will wholly accept that in regards to PvP, my agenda is to see that no template is greater than another and no one can execute an unstoppable insta-kill combo.

If you are blowing that poison lock as many times (or thereabouts) as I'm whiffing that killing blow, that sounds about on par and balanced. That is exactly what I am saying.

Yes, I understand that is not classic Poison resist which directly impacts the nature of 5x dueling. However, the only impact from it that you have described is less reliability in your execution of killing your opponent. I see that as a greater challenge for duelists, not a complete destruction of the single rule set that it impacts.

Tweaks to dex skills is something that has been discussed often here and weapon damage has been tweaked on several occasions.
I don't really see what that has to do with this. Are you trying to imply that any time we tweak something with mages we must also talk about dexers so that they don't feel left out?

I suggested something that will make mage pvp a little more enjoyable and might attracted people interested in mage dueling to the server. I wish I could earnestly ask why we're now having an argument about dexers as a result of my suggestion, but we all know why this is argument has surfaced.

Thank you for being forthcoming with the fact that you believe that mages should suffer at the hands of extreme RNG because dexers have to deal with it. I understand that this is your argument and acknowledge that you are welcome to your opinion.
That said, I disagree with your opinion and would argue that the reason that such simple RNG is required to balance dex skills is due to the relative simplicity of them - the basic gist of any weapon skill is that you click and follow.
Magery is a bit different, and can be changed in ways where techniques and spell combos can be emphasized and excessive RNG can be removed while balance is still preserved. I would like people to consider my opinions on this matter despite your feelings that mages need to suffer because dexers have to deal with RNG.

You're arguing that you shouldn't be subjected to high RNG because your combo doesn't work every time (or %90 of the time) like it used to and we're saying "Now you know how we feel". I'm not saying you have to suffer, but that you should have the same challenges we face. We can't bank on our damage any more than you can bank on your poison taking hold.
We ALL have to deal with RNG. You're saying that you're suffering because of one spell and how it impacts one type of dueling. I fail to see that as even on par with how often I miss killing blows, but I was drawing a correlation for the frustrations we face of whatever combination we're trying. If you think just pointing and clicking is killing anyone with a dexxer, I'm pretty sure you're not even playing UO.

I guess you can just ignore where I said it wouldn't be bad to see the change, simply because I said I think it's fine. I'll support it if it happens, for the sake of more people's play styles being functional. Providing everything remains balanced, it's a win/win. You're just arguing because you see someone say dexxer and you facepalm and jump to the conclusion that people have no idea what they're talking about.

No, this is wrong. It displays a fundamental misunderstanding of mage duels.
Combos are likely to fail even when the poison lands. Combos will always fail against a competent opponent if you are screwed over by poison resist.

It's not a question of it working every time, it's a question of whether it will work at all. I've dueled Mes extensively trying to discover the dueling mechanics on this server and one of the strongest conclusions that we came to is that duels between the two of us are determined almost exclusively by spell resists. That's mostly poison being resisted, but mindblast being resisted has also played a role in duel results as well.
Like I said, it's not that poison resists make it so that dumps don't always work, it's that a single poison resist almost always means that your current dump has no hope of leading to a kill. Personally, if I see a poison resisted I stop casting offensive spells entirely and med back up and I know that Mes's response is the same.

This is a poor argument because like I said you are comparing apples to oranges. Mages and dexers should not face an identical set of challenges.
Once again this is you trying to lead me into a back and forth that will accomplish nothing, because the natural response for me in this situation is to say something like "oh yeah, well you don't have to worry about your swings being interrupted".

I acknowledged that RNG will still play a role in mage battles in my first reply to that other guy, feel free to go back and read it. Resisted spells will still play a role, as well interrupted punches, stun punches, spell damage, and a variety of other things.
All that I suggest is a reduction in the chance that a poison will be resisted, because that single point of RNG has a presence that overpowers all other concerns. Low spell damage rolls or missed stun punches pale in comparison to the importance of a resisted poison - you can still salvage a dump if you encounter the former, but if your poison is resisted you should just stop casting and save your mana.

Oh, and the resist rate I suggested is 10%. I'm sure I don't have to explain this, but that means that 1 of 10 poisons will still be resisted. Even at that rate, poison resists will still derail a good number of mage dumps.

I'm arguing because you shot down my suggestion based on the fact that you're frustrated with the RNG dexers encounter.
I said in the post before this one that there was plenty of room in this thread for an intelligent debate about the math surrounding dexers. I even pointed out that Dalavar would be a great person to have this conversation with because he knows the ins and outs of the formulas that govern weapon damage.

I will stand by my statement that things that deal with dexers don't have much bearing on a conversation about mage duels, I believe that mages and dexers are apples and oranges. Expecting them to face an identical set of challenges is unreasonable.

That's fine if you don't like that I see a correlation between two kinds of fruit both being fruit and growing from trees. The challenges they face are not going to be the same but the core of what they deal with for it is. I'll stand by my understanding that the spell resistances the way they are, being the deciding factor in a match between two equally formidable opponents, sounds balanced to me.

I guess what you're really after though is the poison lock reliability that allows intricately timed disrupts to kill your opponents. Instead of getting the luck of the draw in any particular spell combination involving highly resisted spells.

No bigs, not losing sleep over it. I still like fruit salad.

make macing the best wep skill and have it destroy blessed clothing in 15 mins of fighting

napo,

So your basically saying that PvP changes made to one template have no impact on the other? Basically anything done to tweak one type of template in regards to PvP will have no impact on any of the other templates?

Something as simple as gaining a poison lock can have drastic implications in the field when applied to a fight between a dexxer and a mage. The mage loses the random draw or "roll" on a clutch poison while the dexxer is down half total hit-points, dexxer pots a GH and has a bandage about to kick in while he doesn't have to worry about potting a cure he can now close as you are now forced to either re-poison or try and spell dump with the hopes of gaining a solid poison after your damage stacks, while he is forcing you to be on the move or take a katana to the dome.

If that poison was a solid, you wouldn't be on the run at this point. You could have simply e-bolted or MB at that point and he'd be ghosted. Of course there are many different scenarios and even this one could be played a number of different ways but the jist is that a solid lock of the poison spell would have an impact on other temps in PvP encounters, whether in the field or dueling arena.

To say that a conversation about changes to spells has nothing to do with "dexxer" temps would be like saying that a 50% increase in swing speed times and a lowering of the % chance to-hit with melee weapons has no bearing on mage PvP or mage temps as it relates to field or arena combat.

PvP is a WHOLE system that is the sum total of each of it's parts, change one and it will have an effect on all the others.

Poison locks only really apply where the rules disallow cure potions (5x)

They still, however, have an effect on gameplay even if it is a small one.

The point being is that a change to spells (no matter how small) can and do have an impact on other templates so it's not like apples and oranges.

Just to beat a dead horse a little because I'm bored at work....

Parry mages were never meant to just stand there and take hits. That doesn't make sense, so I can understand why one would easily dismiss the idea. The way the shield can help is it can prevent extra damage inflicted to you while you are trying to conserve mana/run from a gank while fighting dexers or tanks. You can have it to set up to where you equip the shield after every cast. This makes it very hard for anyone to inflict any kind of real melee damage to you. It will not help you at all while fighting another mage. Obviously you want to avoid all strikes as much as possible but that doesn't always happen. (Most people wear armor to help reduce damage in the chance that they get hit) By having the shield you are adding an extra layer of protection. If I am able to deflect a hit from a runic axe that would otherwise cause me to stop and cast heal then that helps. Yes with inscription I can cast reactive armor and block those hits but that spell wears off. Yes I can use wands and pots to heal. Yes I could use healing to heal the damage after it has been inflicted. But this is a defensive class so you are trying to avoid damage not manage it. I am not trying to say that this is the best class for pvp or even a very good one. It is a fun one to play however. If everyone plays scribe\stun mages that gets boring, diversity is good. My original post was to point out that the mechanics right now are not the same as they were. Whether people want to play a parry mage is up to them. This change doesn't even matter unless something is done to bring dexers back to what they were so I am really trying to make a point for nothing. I just don't want every player to think that parry mages suck and discount the idea just because some people say it sucks. I had a parry mage back in the day. I was able to play it very effectively. We just don't have the dexers here to make having this build worth even considering. Don't knock it till you try it (which you can't here which is the problem)

I'd like to see macing get a boost too instead of being the red-headed step child of the melee skills. I remember during OSI Renaissance going a round with a gm macer in full armor for over a few minutes would leave you with only your tighty whiteys and the weapon you were carrying. We'd stock up on bone armor to spar with because we broke so much armor with it. I'm not too fond of the 'concussion blow' though....does it really make a difference? I guess it hits intelligence, right? As far as I know it doesn't lead to any mana loss... which would actually make macing more effective against mages. You'd think being knocked upside the head with a war hammer would prevent them from thinking clearly. A blow to int would only cap them at a certain level of mana rather than take it out of them.

I agree with making parrying more effective too. Maybe even some sort of spell resist bonus against "missile" type of spells like E-bolt, fireball etc. I've always admired the hardcore guys who never touched resisting spells and still kicked ass. Having no resist to about 98% of the UO player population, it's certain death. I've done a little experimenting to see if it matters to have a full suit of armor vs no armor and no resist whatsoever, from what I could tell it seemed that armor offers no protection whatsoever against spells, or am I wrong on that? It would be nice building a dexxer and not have to worry about resisting spells as long as you could find a decent set of armor that would give you at least some protection against spells.

Not sure how it is here, but the Poisoning skill on OSI would almost give you a little bit of immunity of it depending on the level of the caster. My magic resist was always crap on OSI but i was near gm poisoning and it seemed like unless they were nox mages they didn't have much success with casting poison on me. Is that here too or does it not give any bonus in combat? Alchemy back then supposedly gave you a damage bonus with using purple potions but I've never tested that here either.

Howdie Paddy,
Macing gets a Crushing Blow, damage modifier, for War Hammers only. Concussion blow (-25 Int here on UOR, as opposed to -50 Int on OSI) is a benefit for two handed sword type weapons. Both are very effective in the field and mace weapons do indeed damage armor MORE than other melee weapons.

I've never seen someone kick ass in UO combat without magic resist but I admittedly haven't witnessed as much as some of the more pvp oriented veterans. Armor absolutely does not impede magic damage of any kind. That is something from the AoS era. While I agree some benefit to Parry is definitely worth considering, additional magic resistance is probably going to piss of a lot of mages. I agree it would be cool to see projectile type spells resisted more if you have a shield up and good Parry skill though. However, I'm not sure that would balance out too well.

There is no bonus to Poisoning skill in regards to resisting the spell. There is only a bonus to the potential level of poison you cast as a mage, or the ability to apply to weapons in the field if you're a dexxer. Alchemy has had all bonus damage removed here because it has historically proven itself to be very overpowered in combat.

Have you tested this? I haven't found this to be the case, though I just tested once and it may have not been a large enough time period.

I haven't sat down and tested it but I've watched videos of people getting their mask maced off, so there's that.
I'll be happy to log on to test with you and see who's tunic breaks first with a qstaff vs say a katana?

Also, it would seem that bludgeoning mobs damage my armor more so I figure that may hold true for bludgeoning weapons.

Talkin' PvP changes among UO players is like religion or politics. SHIT GETS SERIOUS QUICK.