I have a suggestion for the Player Vrs. Monster kill scores. Instead of having one score chart for all, why not break it down into categories? Tamer. Warrior. Mage/bard. ? A warrior cannot compete with several dragons and a nightmare for amount of kills during one outing. Nor can a mage/bard... I think this would give a greater amount of players opportunities to reach the high kill charts. " Listening to feedback" Thanks all Westra
Its totally possible to get kills with a dexxer. Maybe not on some of the very high end or boss monsters at the same scale as a tamer. A dexxer specifically makes it very easy to get lots of smaller faster kills. But it will take a long time of consistently killing to get the kills racked up. Slayers also help a great deal for being faster kills. Here is an example of a 2 dexxer who have tons of kills.. one is my char, i'm into watching these charts and really want to get on the 2014 kills leader board with all the tamers. http://www.uorenaissance.com/player/512374 http://www.uorenaissance.com/player/398239 Bards on the other hand are slower, but if you do heavy spawning areas you can have tons of things all fighting at once and rack it up on the higher end mobs easier (terathan keep, late teirs of champ spawns, destard). But again tougher for bosses then a tamer. Again this just requires like anything time spent consistently killing for a long period of time. Here is an example of a bard with tons of kills.. I'm sure there are plenty of others, just can't think of any other off hand. http://www.uorenaissance.com/player/pvm/37585
I think the flexibilty in character creation would make it hard to break things down into categories. I have a fencer tamer. Just this evening at an event in Paws someone asked me, "Did you loot that spear off the orc boss, tamer?" Honest mistake but I most certainly did not! That's the spear I used to run the smelly thing through. It's not fair to put that character in the same class as other dexxers and I don't think that character could compete with a lot of the dex bards out there. . . Not to mention that bard tamers give regular tamers a bad name. *is aware he's guilty*
Not really hard to break it down... your taming skill has more high-end/boss killing potentinal than your fencing. So Taming > Fencing and would fall in the tamer category. Same with Provo, Provo > any melee skill, bard category. if someone is a tankmage, archer or melee mage.. magery has more killing potential than non-peaceing warriors due to blades, EVs, EQ(from behind walls) and chain lightning(from behind walls) so those hybrids would fall into the mage category... ect ect.
What if you're a warrior that has 60 magery for no-fail recalls, 25 int, and no meditation or eval? What if you're playing an incomplete character that was originally going to be a tamer, but you never got around to training it past 55? Where do peace-dexxers fall? If they are considered warriors, why are provo-dexxers not considered warriors? What if you've got an absurd template (like mine) that has melee, magery, barding, AND taming? Is boss-killing ability relevant if you're looking at the magpie leaderboard? etc... I agree with Godric... UO's skill system introduces a lot of gray area and whatever method you use to try and categorize hybrids will not make sense to everyone. Would be a slam-dunk in a class-based MMO, though.
Isn't that system going to leave a a nearly empty warrior category? How many people use characters with no magery? It might make sense is to put tamers and bards in one category and any character without taming or a bard skill in another but there will still be people with reason to complain (however slight.) What I don't like is the assumption that any character with taming is automatically a top tier PvMer and bards are always somehow more lowly. It's just not the case. To really compete tamers tend to to pick up bard skills (and vise versa, I suppose.) It would be nice if there were a way to track exactly how a monster was killed. That way we could look at a provo tamer's kill log and see how many more monsters were killed by tambourine than by dragon. It might not matter that you can change templates at the drop of a hat but that's something that should be considered as well.
That's actually simple... What if you're a warrior that has 60 magery for no-fail recalls, 25 int, and no meditation or eval? Lol, really? No eval or med? Than you're obviously not a mage, dude. 60 magery is no near as deadly as 100... so therefore would be dropped in the warrior category. What if you're playing an incomplete character that was originally going to be a tamer, but you never got around to training it past 55? Then you would be dropped into a category with whatever your highest PvM skills are. Not to mention if your character is "incomplete" you really wouldn't be going after high end MoBs to begin with. Where do peace-dexxers fall? If they are considered warriors, why are provo-dexxers not considered warriors? Peace/provo dexers would be a tough one to decide. BUT considering you need more melee required skills than barding(Melee, tacts, anaomy and healing vs music and peace/provo), you would be dropped in warrior. Barding > Melee What if you've got an absurd template (like mine) that has melee, magery, barding, AND taming? I find this build a bit weird ot pull off BUT it would depend on your dominate skills... you need suspporting skills for for others. IE Weapons would require tacts and anatomy, provo requires music, taming requires animal lore... ect. What are the specfic skill points of this build? If somthing like 100 tact 100 wep 100 taming 100 animal lore 100 music 100 provo 100 ???? What would fill this spot? Antomy? Eval? Med? Discord? Vet? Healing? Resist? Parry? Magery? If all else fails Taming > provo anyway (having 2 dragons and a mare is better than ANY bard in almost every situation), so chances are it would fall into a taming category. Edit: I realized I contradicted my earlier post, I feel your category should be decided by supporting skill points, if there is a tie it would fall on to killing potential. Taming > Barding, Barding > melee/magery
But where do you draw the cutoff? Computers can't make a judgment call like you can, the code that would generate these leaderboards has to be told where the line is. If I have 100 magery, but 25 int and still no meditation/eval, is that a mage? If it doesn't, what if I did like a 60/40 split with tracking and meditation? Every monster and animal has a leaderboard, not just the high-end monsters. For a long time, I was in a race for top Pirate Sailor killer with a naturalist dexxer on Occlo. I think he was only a 2x GM at the time, too. He must have just pitched a tent out there. But what about the provo > all melee skills rule?
But where do you draw the cutoff? Computers can't make a judgment call like you can, the code that would generate these leaderboards has to be told where the line is. If I have 100 magery, but 25 int and still no meditation/eval, is that a mage? If I didn't, what if I did like a 60/40 split with tracking and meditation? Computers CAN make that call, they just need the info on how to. Dude you're just repeating yourself now, I answered this already. It would be decided by supporting skills. Having just 100 magery without eval or med isn't really a "mage". It's someone WITH magery, yes. But not a mage. Here's something like it would look like: Taming > Provo Provo > Magery Magery > Melee Hybrids: Supporting skills are the deciding factor. Stats are irrelevant
My argument is UO's skill system has too much gray area to divide the leaderboards by 'class'. You're telling me there isn't that much gray area (which may be a valid point), but you need to define how the computer should categorize hybrid builds in order to convince me. In one post, you told me that provocation trumps melee skills and anyone with provocation should be considered a bard. In the next post, you're telling me that a provo-dexxer hybrid should be considered a warrior because he has more dexxer related skills. That's my point - breaking down 'hybrid' builds into a single class is extremely subjective. That's the definition of a hybrid, after all - it is a blend of two different things. There's also the situation of characters that have 're-specced' their class. For instance, someone racks up a quadbillion kills as a bard, but then converts to a warrior. Is it fair to have them at the top of the warrior charts? None of their kills came as a warrior...
Provo is superior to taming quite frequently. Such as. . . most places where there's more than one big nasty like destard lvl1, ballys/succubi, terra keep, OL/AOL. Dragons are quite efficient at chewing through elder gazers. I'll be happy to call it a draw at the cyclops locations and tamers are certainly better than bards at lich lords, though that's one where a warrior can excel, too. As far as high end hunting locations go, yeah, tamers are better where there's just one monster like the ancient lich, ancient wyrm, and white wyrm and you do need dragons to bring down the elder wyrm and PoD. I might even agree with you that two dragons and a mare is better than any bard but not a bard and a full spellbook and a horde of blade spirits. Yes, you will need dragons to top the leader boards in a handful of high end mods but not for most of them. Really look through the stats and make note of how many tamers are topping out the list of anything and then make note of how many are doing it without a bard skill. If you want to really experience it in game I recommend spending some time hunting balrons and shadow wyrms with just dragons and bandages then try adding provo into the mix. It's a whole different world. All kill = no skill? Yeah, I can agree with that. As far as a tiered scoring system for shear numbers of kill counts that puts taming at the top and provocation anywhere below. . . I just can't agree with that. I mean, seriously, provocation at it's very essence is about bringing down multiple opponents at once. Don't tell me that doesn't help you climb the leader boards. What might make sense and be more fair is placing characters into categories on a points based system. For example: assigning a character 5 points for having taming or provo, 2 or 3 points for disco or peace and 1 point for a weapon skill. This way your provo tamer outranks the regular tamer and the provo dexxer out-ranks the peace dexxer. Some characters like a dex tamer or pure bard might still rank higher than their actual killing potential but it'd be a little more equitable.
Also, Gozinya, since I don't know you and I don't think you know me so I'm trying not to make any assumptions about your UOR experiences. I'd like to point out, though, that magery didn't rank in my proposed points system due to my UOR experiences which go something like this: *Tries to compete as a pure mage* *Gets frustrated and trains taming* *Is super happy with new dragons for a few weeks* *Hunts with provo mages and notices he's not getting nearly as many kills as the bards* *Gives in and becomes a provo tamer* *Continually laments the fact that provo mages can still compete with my PvM ranks but can also totally smoke me in a fight* Edit: Oh! And everyone who cares about competing already has magery anyway... That's what I meant to say originally.
Getting high on the kill list is all about putting the time in. The top two in kills, Redding and Falcon are both provo mages NOT tamers. Sure tamers can rack up the kills very fast but there are ways to rack up kills fast with a warrior or a bard. In the end its all about putting the time in! I personally think it would get a little "messy" breaking the leaderboards down by classes. They are already broken down by monsters. From there you can see who is what on each individual monsters kill list.
Haha. ya I forgot the obvious 2, I was thinking about in 2014. Both the highest kill counts guys, bar far, are bards.
I really don't care either way. I was just playing devil's advocate. After thinking about how much I didn't care, I stopped replying about it. As for the Bard VS Tamer, I guess too each their own. From my experiences my tamer was always more successful than my bard... maybe I was playing my bard wrong or not up to his full potential, who knows.
It's certainly easier to just say "All kill" and plow through a spawn that offers no resistance to your dragons. Provo can be used for lazy hunting, too, but for really high efficiency killing provo is the way. I hate to say "skill" here but good barding does take a lot more thought and strategy. You also have quite a few more options at your disposal. Robin Redding, for example, will hit half the boss spawns getting off a provo and dropping summons in the time that the average pair of dragons could bring down a balron. In spots like destard lvl1 and terra keep bards can round up almost all the spawn and be killing pretty much everything at once with provos and blade spirits. I don't personally go in for this but but I did teach Redding how to kill. He's #1 because he bases his productivity on provo skill timers and casting time not what mobs happen to be standing in front of him at the moment. It's a different philosophy than "I'll go to X spot and hunt until I have X weight of gold" but his stategy obviously works and tames just slow him down. It's also pretty much purely about racking up kill counts and spawning bosses. It's staggering how much loot just gets left to decay. I'm gunna guess you're more like me, Gozinya, and really don't care how maximally you're decimating the pixels but you should try some of Robin's schtick out. . . just to see if you can. One bard can absolutely empty Destard lvl1. One bard can work who knows how many spawns at once (Redding knows. . . ) One bard can have three live Terrathan Infiltrators on his screen at once! And one bard can call in one tamer to take down the elder wyrm or PoD. (No, I don't know how one bard spawns the elder wyrm but one that's constantly on the move scouting all the boss spawns is more likely to find one than the average tamer.) Honestly, I don't really think we should break up kill counts into categories. It just means more when a dexxer is up there with bards and tamers in the standings. And if we do break it up, I move that we place pure mages lower on the totem pole than dexxers. There are no purpose built monster mashing mages but lot's of people have a dexxer that's around just to stomp the life out of something more thoroughly than a tamer or bard.
