Post Patch 73: A Study in Tracking

I wanted to post this publicly so that we could enter a discussion on the change.
Full Disclosure: Telamon has stated that this is a work in progress and the skill/math still needs balancing.

IMO: Tracking anyone on screen should not be difficult unless the person being tracked has GM hiding, GM stealth, is hiding, AND is actively in stealth. Otherwise it should be dramatically easier to catch just a person, even if they are GM hiding, while on your screen. If I have GM Detect and they have GM Hiding I shouldn't have to track more than 3x to catch them on my screen.

I'm 100% for the nerf in distance, but I want to illustrate how it currently works because I'm against the current distance nerf:

This is from a strict 50 attempts. My tracker has GM Tracking, 0 Detect Hidden.


I want to point out the following:

A. The stealther standing 10 tiles from me will never be tracked, at least not after 50 attempts. Stealther was not actively in stealth mode.
B. 86% chance to catch a non-hidden character, with 0 hiding skill!
Here is an illustration, both A and B are standing on that same tile:


C. I guess this is close to where I would find acceptable. 33% chance to find someone with hiding on the same screen.
D. This is unacceptable. Someone with 0 hiding skill should have close to 0 chance to remain undetected from a GM detective.


E., F.,G. Hey Cynic, what's up with this 40 tiles business? Oh, funny you should ask. 40 tiles happens to be from the entrance of Ice Dungeon to the Arctic Ogres.

-Why? Because I wanted to illustrate the average PK that uses tracking. They would enter Ice and have 0 change to catch someone hidden, only 28% chance to catch someone actively farming. IMO this number should be much greater. The distance is really nothing and only a few tiles from being able to actually SEE the person tracking you.

For illustration:


In closing: I understand that this is a work in progress. I cede that tracking was too powerful prior to this patch. It's my stance that it's been nerfed way too harshly post patch, IMO making the skill worthless.

WITH DETECT HIDDEN:


So... Detect Hidden appears to be the skill you need if you still want to track players. PKs, good luck fitting that into your build! With detect hidden it feels like what it should be WITHOUT detect hidden. Tweak being able to track WHAT YOU ACTUALLY SEE and apply these numbers to tracking without detect and I feel like it's more where it should be.

GM Tracking Vs. GM Hiding should be 50% chance at 40 tiles. Significantly diminishing beyond 40 tiles. Significantly increasing as you get closer to the tracker.
GM Tracking Vs. 0 Hiding should be 100% chance at 40 tiles. Significantly diminishing beyond 40 tiles. Significantly increasing as you get closer to the tracker.
GM Tracking Vs. GM Stealth+Hiding should be 10% chance at 40 tiles. Significantly diminishing beyond 40 tiles. Significantly increasing as you get closer to the tracker.

I would be more comfortable with these numbers. It should add another increase when you're actually hidden. Of course, a penalty if you're not.

Great detective work Cynic, it's always nice to have accurate information for people to form their opinions from.

I actually feel that people with GM Hiding skill, actively hiding, shouldn't be so easily tracked beyond a 10 tile range. If at all beyond that, it should require Detect Hidden bonus on the Tracker and have a low success rate. Otherwise, what's the point of having Hiding or Stealth if you're gonna find them in a cinch anyway checking a 100 tiles (50 each way), every 10s?

Additionally I feel that people with 0 Hiding, not actively hiding or invisible, should be able to be tracked 50 tiles out with a very high success rate. If the Tracker has GM Detect, that success rate should be the same for 0 Hiding chars actively hiding or invisible.


As it stands, lol, I'm stoked to see how much fun it'll be while Tracking sucks. w00t

I say get rid of tracking all together. Stop people from being able to recall into dungeons and make pks work for there kills

Nice write up. I think things like this to take the some of the weight of Chris's shoulders are a good thing.

Curious, how did you get razor's font classical style like that?

40 tiles through a wall and around corners. You shouldn't ever be trackable.

Hell you shouldn't ever be able to track something you first didn't see. You should have to find them, then track them just like real life hunting.

However, the fact you failed at all tracking someone in line of sight 10 tiles away needs to be fixed.

Huh? What is the point of tracking something you've already found..?

Cynic thank you for the very detailed expl. I was trying to mention that before without the scientific research

So tracking was op... And not It feels like just spirit speak to tell the truth. I am thinking of dropping gm tracking in all my accounts for hiding - healing - inscribe etc... It has no value anymore to me. With a big game size I can almost see people in Artics when I enter Ice dungeun, so track mages are like 6x skill builds from now on...

so when an escaped prisoner flees into the woods and the police bring in a professional tracker to catch him it never works because the tracker didn't see the prisoner as he escaped?
I think tracking someone without first seeing them is what tracking is all about!
you are lost in the woods and very hungry...
you find some pig tracks in the mud and you happen to have a machete.
there is hope!

tracking someone who is in Shame while the tracker is in Ice? no, and Chris fixed this.
tracking someone who is a GM hider, hidden on the same screen, and failing tons? no.
tracking someone who is a GM hider, hidden off screen, and failing reasonably? sure.
tracking someone who is a GM hider & stealther, hidden & stealthing on same screen, and failing some? sure.
tracking someone who is a GM hider & stealther, hidden & stealthing off screen, and failing tons? yes.
tracking someone who is a GM hider & stealther, hidden & stealthing on same screen, and failing w/ GM detect? no.
tracking someone who is a GM hider & stealther, hidden & stealthing off screen, and failing w/ GM detect? sure.

it is reasonable that you won't always be able to find somebody and you won't always be able to evade being found.
but this should only be the case when skills are evenly matched and being used appropriately.

The c) case is meant to be 20 tiles and not 2 tiles by the way.

And to me, it seems like DH is much more reliable right now then tracking. At least when you know where to look roughly and going for protection instead of hunting players.

Excellent information and food for thought, thank you @Cynic

Tracking a very useful skill, and it is used in different ways! It is clear that someone hunts for players interested in tracing through the walls based purely on the tiles away!

Others use tracking for good purposes but it is not so, it is important that there are 2 physicists use tracking. First means track based only on distance and ignores let. And second, it works at a distance but does not ignore the obstacles or walls! Second physics close to reality and more logical, but it does not make sense in the game!

And in the open area monitoring already be exposed to additional skills on the part of anyone to look.

With the physics reality of this problem can not be solved, otherwise the search ability is not very effective, and the differences will only increase. It seems to me you need to work in the direction of mathematics skills in the coefficients of possible attempts, skill level and pumping ratios spy skills to each other ...

Thank you and sorry for my english!

PK enters Ice Dungeon, tracks, picks up someone farming AOL's, AND White Wyrms. This was too powerful, shouldn't be able to track someone on the other side of the dungeon, that's 200+ tiles away. I think AOL's is reasonable, 40 tiles isn't really that far of a distance.

Now, you can add stealth to your bard, and you will never, ever, ever, get found. The only way is if you're leaving corpses on the ground and the PK goes around blindly casting reveal to find you. PK casts reveal, you cast recall. In it's current form, anyone who get's PK'd in a dungeon and has hiding/stealth should really just stop playing UO.

Provoke, Music, Med, Mage, Eval, Hiding, Stealth = the anti-pk pvmer.

I would like to see how detect hidden adds to this, and I'm currently working both DH and Stealth into one of my builds to continue my study.

I guess one way I benefit from all of this: Pirates are dead in the water. (Pun intended)

Oh right, gaming pirates is over too in it's current state. @Erza Scarlet

hahah this is so great to read all the pks tears, cry harder baby boys.

Tracking is perfect now.

Am I the only one who ran a tracking loop while farming to PREVENT being PKed?

As it stands now, the razor feature "show incoming players names" is better than tracking...

Nah. Tracking has a lot of non-pk uses and probably shouldn't be left like this.

I believe that Chris himself admitted this was only a temporary situation for tracking.
other than the change where you cannot track multiple dungeons at once... that is permanent.
as of right now tracking is broken to the point it's not even worth using anymore.
was playing around with a guildmate of mine...
he has GM track and I had about 40 hiding and he was failing a lot finding me on the same screen unhidden.
so I have no doubt Chris will revisit this soon and make a second revision once he has some more data to go on.

** though I do mostly use tracking for nefarious purposes, I have put it to use avoiding pk's on several occassions

My biggest gripe is it's not going to be reliable for house placement in situations where you wouldn't want someone stealthing about to ruin placement for you.

I have used tracking for PKing. I agree that it's tremendously OP in that perspective.

However, I don't think I would ever attempt another fortress placement without tracking. Or any house placement in an area where it's possible someone could be lurking with a small house deed to muck things up.

Tracking isn't just for PKs.

OMG its so hard to walk around and stumble on a hidden person. I dont know what I shall do
pPFFFFFFFFFffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff