On Getting Pwned and Recovering

So, Ive recently graduated from the mundane and mind numbing repetition of Ocllo, and am branching out into the wider world of Sosaria (at least, on this shard...). But lately, the all too familiar struggle is real - how does a little newb find her or his way in this cold world?

The TLDR is - how do people recover quickly from dying, in a general sense? Esp when one is not rich, or has no connections/network on the server? I seem to spend more time re-equipping and re-targeting objects for Razor than I actually spend playing.

Background: my main toon is an (almost) 7x GM provo mage. Im only 75% resist but everything else is GM.

More to the point - I am finding it hard to find a spot to simply fight monsters and collect gold for 3 reasons:

1) the spot is camped by PKs, and I have about exactly the time to kill a single mob or two before a PK instantly attacks me on sight. Cant even loot!
- this is not dictated by time of day: i have the freedom to play at any time in a 24 hour period, and Ive noticed there really isnt a time of day where there arent PKs hounding the basic spawns
- i accept this, as this level of player freedom is what sets UO apart from pretty much every other game out there

2) The spawn sucks to camp - mobs have a combination of difficulty and lack of loot that its neither fun nor rewarding to camp them. I dont see fighting off lizardmen in the swamps forever as an endgame, or means to one either.

3) The spawn is way too hard. Ive been trying against suggested things like dragons (lots of diff places), balrons, terathans, etc, but it seems like anything besides ogre lords (or any mob that doesnt cast or 1-shot a mage) just kills me. The tiniest slip of the hand and Im toast. I get one shotted pretty often. Basically any time I fight something that drops decent gold and casts, I die before I turn a profit.
- i am beginning to see a pattern to the places i am certain to die in - no PKs there!

So the real problem is - Im finding my self spending more time restocking my toon than I do playing the game. Im fine with the difficulty level, Im fine with the challenge as I have presented it above - but I am wondering what sort of tips/tricks players use to simplify this process. I just spent like 30 mins wandering Hythloth and Fire Island (where there are zero player vendors...) for just enough regs to cast one some person's random runebook, and can only then begin finding a new horse, buying clothes, bags buying a new recall rune and marking it, retargeting bags for Razor macros, retargeting weapons/items for Razor macros, restocking regs, other items, etc.

I have this gut instinct that "I am doing it wrong" with just about everything in regards to death recovery, and I am wondering if there is a player out there that can provide a great guide to speedy recovery.

Until then, I plan to join everyone in the actual playing of the game, but will likely be recovering from dying at a bank near you. :-D

if you wear a certain type of armor, for example, a set of barbed armor, you could make a dress macro. set the outfit as the one you're wearing, then click on each entry and "change to type" or whatever it is, then set back some bags of said armor. This works well if you die to a monster or something, you can run over to your body and hit the dress macro and re-equip very quickly. Other than that, if you wanna take the time to do so, make a few "go bags" of stuff you normally use. re-doing your emergency macro is always a pain though.

as far as the pk's go, sometimes you can use your surroundings to your advantage. If you plan on farming somewhere for a while, make use of junk tables or stools. Block off hallways where PK's might show up. strategically put them in places forcing a red to cast teleport at least once or twice, giving you time to recall. With tracking being busted now, it helps to have hiding or cast invis on yourself if you need to while farming (letting your blade spirits or provo work for you while you hide). If you really want to get more sophisticated, use "archer bots" hidden nearby, with a macro to target closest murderer or criminal or something. give them junk you don't mind losing, and have them hide. the distraction should give you enough time to get out with your main farmer.

Those are just a few ideas

I think you should put the social aspect into your game by finding a guild that's prepared to share their experience with you.

Thanks @PaddyOBrien . There is a lot in there. Im less concerned about getting PK'd though - thats really a whole seperate idea. In fact, I pretty much never die to PKs (*knocks on desk*), but was just mentioning their prevention of engaging with monster corpses as one of the things that leads me to areas way too dangerous for my lil pvm mage.

Thats a real nice tip on the dress macro for the corpse. I pretty much never bother recovering my corpse though, usually by the time I find an NPC healer, my corpse is bones, and usually by the time I find enough regs and a house with a recall stone/book, my corpse is timed out. Let alone restocked and recall'd back into where I was... so yeah I dont bother going for my corpse when I die deep in a dungeon. Still, there are times when I do want to go back to my corpse, so Ill look into this tip.

I might start doing the go bags... once upon a time (on a far away shard) I was into that, but I started regarding it as a tedious chore unto itself. Im only just now able to fund myself enough to do that on this shard, so I might have to discipline myself and do that. I think making the go-bags is less annoying than going to the provisioner and buying/dying bags all over again each time.

How does one use junk stools when farming? I thought that only worked in your own house - so If I place stools out when farming, I can run across them, but another player cant? Is that specific to this shard? Or am I not interpreting you correctly?

Archer bots, well, if I were L337 enough to be able to have that, Id probably also have enough cash to trivialize this further heh.

you can't run across the stools yourself out in the wild, they are meant to slow down pk's giving you enough time to recall. I've used them successfully in the balron area of the terathan keep or wherever it is, and given myself plenty of time to escape pk's down the narrow hallway.

for the archer bots you could probably get away with noob archers too. they are mainly meant for a distraction, but really not worth it unless you wanna spend more time in a certain area farming.

Magic Reflection and Protection are your friends. Live 'em, love 'em. Invisibility and Target Self are besties. Get ready to smash that macro when things start to go south.

A while back, I added peacemaking to my provo-bard so single monsters weren't as much of an issue. I don't 1v1 them too often, but it's a lot better than not having it. You can peace -> explo -> eb -> peace -> explo -> eb (and so on) all day if you want to. I'm just frugal with my regs and I'd rather find a second monster and let them have a fight club for my amusement. Peace also buys you time when searching for a second baddie.

One last thing -- while they're fighting, I also cast a few offensives occasionally to keep their health bars close, so I don't get greased by a half-health monster.

This was the 3-step plan to my success here:

1. Farm off the beaten path. Not sure how it is now, but Titan Valley in T2A was one of my favorite spots and I only ever once saw a PK there. Khaldun was my stomping ground, as well. I've never once farmed Despise or Ice ogre lords on this shard.
2. Join a champion-crushing guild. It's fun, you will make some new friends, there's safety in numbers, and it's turbo profitable.
   
3. Move to less risky ventures. Once I had my 'start-up' money, I eventually stopped farming completely. Partially because I wanted less risk, but mainly because I just wanted something new. One of UO's greatest aspects is there are a trillion ways to make money in the game. They won't all have the same GP/hour rates, but variety is the spice of life. Trying everything, at least for a little bit, is part of what kept me actively playing so long. Some of the markets I had my hand in:

• • Running vendors.
  • Bulk sales on regs.
  • Mining. By hand, recall, and battle.
  • Lumberjacking. Recall lumberjacking works here too!
  • Fishing & AMIBs. Get the scrolls, run them yourself for ironman goodies.
  • Treasure mapping.
  • Real estate investments.
  • Play the Trade Forum mini-game. Once you learn the market patterns, this can be extremely profitable. I would routinely buy things for the sole reason of selling them later for profit. I made riches off of buying HCoins during glut periods and then re-selling them during Hype Season (shortly before Halloween and Xmas events). Anniversary clothes and jewelry I would scoop up for 20k-40k a pop, and then turn around and sell them for double a few months later. I've still got a dresser full of Anniversary clothes and jewelry to sell. It's all about the long game here.

Hi there, I would definitely take a look at the social aspect of the server. There are many guilds out there who would be more than happy to let you join them on hunts/champs and show you the ways of avoiding being pk'ed so often. An example of this is Project Sanctuary. If your on IRC (definitely recommended) just jump on and type /j #ps very friendly group of people!

GoodLuck!

When I was fully setup here I had go bags. It would have 50 of each reg 10 of each pot 3 wands and a marked rune. Armour was in the chest next to the bags.

Hey there Black Tortoise! First of all, good on you for your positive attitude and trying to find a way to be better, as opposed to being irritated by the whole "Fel" of you conundrum. Here is my take on your issues, and I am sure others will also chime in.

1. There are WAY more places to hunt mobs that are worth it than just the major hot spots that PKs scout. The best way to find these is to hit up an extensive rune library and just start recalling around OR to ask the community for a tour in-game. IRC is a *must* on this server, so I hope you are logging into that whenever you play.

-- Also, jump around more often then camping. Kill half a dozen in one area, bank, move to another area, a few more, bank, repeat. It will provide more entertaining and give the chance for the spawn to reset.

-- Dont discount the lower end mobs! Some mobs that dont drop a lot of gold drop other things that are worth while. Rat archer and Rat mages for instance. Pretty easy to take out, drop hides and arrows (bulk arrow sales are a thing here), the occasion plat, and then some regs. Might not be glamorous, but again, diversify and hop around.

2. See number 1.

3. Harder spawn mean you need to have slayers on you, which are a pain in the butt to lose. So again, I suggest lowering your standards for what you want to solo farm on your provomage (Balrons and dragons are tough to solo farm if you dont have slayers). Dread Spiders, Orge Lords, Deamons and a few other mid range mobs are worth it if you want to go for straight gold.

--- How are you getting one shotted? Meaning, they use one attack and you die when hit? Is your Str 100? I think I have only been one shotted by special mobs on this server, other mobs take at least 2 hits to kill ol' Krake. Magic Reflect is your best friend. And YES even a slight slip of the hand and missing a macro will get you killed; that just comes down to muscle memory, so keep at it man!

-- Also, like Basoosh said, know your terrain. Entrances and exits, places that break line of site, choke points, etc. All this comes with trial and error, exploration, or being taught by someone.

Other helpful tips:
Have a Restock Agent assigned to a macro key for looting and for actually restocking at the bank. This will cut down on time you are dragging and dropping items.
Dont ever take things you cannot afford to lose when you hunt. Dont take 200 of each reg (not saying you do, just making a point) when 30 of each is good enough for the first part of the hunt.
Have a recall macro set and be able to hit that thing in your sleep. Its the best way to avoid being PKed.
If you find your are losing your escape or bank rune often, take 20 mins and Mark 30 of them. Keep them in your bank.
Join a guild! You said you are new and dont have connections or networking. Well, we are a pretty closely knit community, at least the active players are. Like Felix said, you are welcome to join the IRC channel #PS. Friendly people there looking to help new players ( I am Krake, I run that guild).

Also, like Basoosh has said, there are lots of ways to make money and have fun. Treasure maps, fishing up Mibs and Amibs, running around killing camps and escorting NPCs around. Playing the Trade Forum, if you like economy game here. Champions, if you find a group. The player driven quests and story lines, which can be very fun and profitable. Special events surround Holidays.

On the subject of actual guides, our Guides section in the forums will have a guide for anything you are looking to do or get guided on on this server. Guides.

Hope that helps! See you around in game or in IRC.

~Krake

Try not pissing off your neighbors too.
Being a liar is a bad reputation here.

do you know about the restock agent and using help stuck? if you die somewhere random, you can use the help on your paperdoll to be moved to town, takes one minute as a ghost. From there you just have to find the healer, run to the bank, use your restock agent to pull regs out of the bank automatically and then you can recall back to where you were using runes in your bank. Help stuck should take 1 min(while dead), rezzing another, running restock agent another, you should be able to be back up in about 5 min or so.


You should also try to find a more private spawn... they do exist, might need help from others

Another useful thing to help with recovery is to make use of that additional account and build a second mage.

This second character becomes your 'bail out' guy who either sits at your house (keep in mind, fully research house security if you're tossing open gates from inside) or at the bank. This bailout mage possesses a collection of runes to your hunting locations, so this can lessen the distance you travel upon death, help you recover quickly and return to loot your things before your body decays (if any remain).

Yes it is a bit of a chore building the additional character but the utility it provides is priceless.

Hit me up pal, I'll take you out for a spin!

Read these links, also great advice above already:

http://uorforum.com/threads/keyboard-hotkey-guide.24039/

http://uorforum.com/threads/how-to-not-get-pkd-guide.7500/

Go to the sandstone behind ocllo stables. Upstairs is a rune book called pvp hotspots. Check it out then remove all those locations from your hunting list! As others said, theres plenty of places to hunt. Get your restock agents sorted and try diff places. Sometimes more frequent lesser mobs are better than high end mobs notorious for pks.
Maybe hit up PS for company

I see a few people offered to tour with you in game.
I am adding my name to that list.

Quite possibly!
But so far a good attitude about it.
Though i did notice Thelax's post and wonder just how sturdy your in-game cool is...

This thread should be pinned as a guide. Learned a lot just from reading it. Thank you all

As a fellow mage/bard dungeon crawler and farmer, I can give you this advice:

1. Skillset: The bard skills will earn you far more gold than the mage skill will, but you need all three (provo, peace, disco) in order to receive the highest chance success every time you use a bard skill. Provo and discord (enticement) both add a 5% chance of success, so the two combined, you have a min 10% chance success against the toughest mobs. Try trading resist out if you're missing one of the bard skills. Also, peace helps in a pinch you can target yourself and run away (targeting self will momentarily drop all aggy on screen)

2. Hunting methods: ALWAYS have magic reflect up - especially if you drop resist (I don't use resist). When reflect is timing down, stay inv until you can recast, then actively meditate to regain mana from inv/reflect cast. You gain mana 2x's faster when actively meditating at 100 med skill. NEVER go after two high end monsters without reflect up and low mana, you're asking to die. Also, get familiar with how far out you can provoke & peace.. peace one monster, then use provo from distance on the non-peaced monster. If you get two bally's aggy'd on you, it's a quick death from casts unless you succeed and have reflect up. If you don't know how to tell what buffers are on your character, open your character stats and click the blue button. This will place the buff and debuffs which show you when reflect is active, timing down, also shows curses, blessed, inv, etc and hover cursor over the icon on the buff graphic to get more detail. Also, use ctrl+shift to bring up the monster names, I find it easier to pull targets using cntrl-shift than trying to target a moving monster graphic.
-Note: If you miss a peace due to too far, you can instantly attempt peace again. This is not true with provo or disco. If you miss due to line of site or too far, provo and disco will require you to wait ten secs to attempt again. ALWAYS peace the closest monster from a safe distance first! Upon peace success, you will have 30 secs to provo the non-peaced monster on to the peaced one.

3. Slayer instruments are a MUST on high end mobs. With a slayer and GM of all bard skills, I fail only maybe 25% on balron & dragons, and rarely ever fail on avengers, liche lords, etc

Not to brag (ok I'm bragging) but my bard (Disco Fever) is #2 in all time kills of Shadow Wyrms, #1 for the year.. and when monster kills update again, I'll probably be #1 all time. But if you're having trouble with balrons, I'd stay away from Shadow Wyrms for now.. they take 60-70% with their fire breath, cast EB, FS, and MB repeatedly, plus teleport right on top you for another 40-50% mele hit plus high level poison. They instantly aggy you as soon as you're in range and they can follow you (if they don't tele right on you) for several screens away! Tough bassads!

Advice part 2:

Sacrifice! Sacrifice is a virtue you raise by donating fame to demons. Sacrifice allows you to self rez AND all the items that are on your body will rez with you!
If any items were looted, you will not get them back. They have to be on your body at the time you self rez. At knight level of sacrifice, you can self rez 3 times per week.
More on sacrifice:
http://uorforum.com/threads/a-guide-to-virtues-sacrifice.1048/

Recall macro - already said here numerous times and it is not only a PK avoidance technique, but also when you know you're outdone by spawn, just recall out, heal up - reflect up - mana up - recall back in and get back to work.
Recalling out when you get to 50% health, low mana, and reflect cool down will save you many many many deaths!

Also don't hunt one spot.. move around. I jump between two to three hunting spots when hunting.