Good evening. As this is my first post on the forums, let me start out by saying that I consider myself extremely lucky to have stumbled across the UO:Renaissance project. I have not played UO during the last few years; my last experience having been a free-shard with corrupt staff, and owners swamping the server with resources, absurd neons and gameplay additions for "donation" money, which they diverted for their personal use. There's been more than a few of those, you guys likely know the drill. So when I felt that old longing again and saw recommendations for this server, I was extremely enthusiastic (after overcoming some initial doubts due to reports of virus warnings and a negative rating on "siteadvisor" possibly related to those). The dedicated staff, well-implemented custom systems and the attempt at making my favourite era of UO everything it could have been.. awesome, the lot of it. And then I happened to notice there is "Defensive Wrestling". I did a quick forum search, and saw a few Dev posts clearly stating they had no intention of removing it.. but what I couldn't find was a compelling reason for it to be there in the first place. On production shards, this gimmick was introduced with pub.16, expressly as an attempt to give 7x templates a fighting chance against powerscrolled characters. It makes sense in that regard, too, despite failing to achieve its purpose - because it creates characters with absurd versatility and sustained damage output. If coupled with blessed faction runics, it was enough to make a grown man cry (during the early days, before 6x120 templates became the norm). Now, on a shard without powerscrolls, it simply is not era accurate in any way, and creates a small handful of clearly dominant templates that simply were not part of the UO:R experience. There were all sorts of tank mage setups and hybrids, of course, and I ran them all - but they all had drawbacks along with their benefits. There was a meaningful choice involved in determining which way you wanted to lean: A) 4x mage (no wrestling) + WeaponSkill, Tactics, Anatomy Excellent performance against pure mages and an edge over less damage focused tanks. Fatal weakness against warriors, especially DP dexxers. B) 5x mage + WeaponSkill, Tactics Enough sustained damage to force pure mage templates on the defense. C) 5x mage + WeaponSkill, Anatomy Caught people off-guard - easily one of my favourite templates, despite the additional damage being negligible. These builds were all equally viable, because they were situational. Good enough to stand up to pure mages, when played to their strengths, but enough of a niche to keep it all interesting. With "Defensive Wrestling" added to the mix, it becomes a no-brainer. There's no longer a drawback connected to having the highest sustained damage output of all mage templates, along with special moves that render pure mages completely outclassed (especially with artificial limitations to stun-chains also in place). It's three templates to rule them all - because as soon as this is lifted to group combat, the Tanks retain the most crucial element of mages (damage projection) and also mop the floor with dexxers. In my opinion, this eliminates viable choices in PvP templates and makes for less interesting gameplay. It also creates follow-up issues, such as Concussion Blows being deemed too powerful. They're not on axers/swordsmen. Those are one-dimensional and an intended counter to mages. Swordsman relates to Mage as Macer relates to Swordsman. If you hand Concussion Blows to tank mages without a drawback, however, it's no wonder pure mages will never see the light of day again. It was just never designed to work that way. So.. some insight and perspective would be great. Because as much as I love everything the shard stands for, and especially the prevalent attitude in the community (you guys are awesome, if these forums can be trusted) - the PvP mechanics make or break the game for me.
Welcome to the shard. It's my opinion that defensive wrestling allows more varied and viable templates. It should also be noted that our defensive wrestling formula has been modified from " ( Evaluating Intelligence + Anatomy + 20 ) / 2 " that you may be familiar with to " (Evalint + Anatomy)/2 " for balance. Please be aware that our shard motto of "history perfected" will yield changes you may not be familiar with and many aren't obvious to the casual observer. You can rest assured, however, that these changes have been implemented thoughtfully and with much testing (and debate sometimes) to promote balance and enrich the gameplay experience for all. The best way to know for sure is to try it out for yourself. Hope to see you in game!
I kinda think the defensive wrestle should only kick in if you have some minimum amount of both anatomy and eval. It's annoying to see dexers without eval dodge hits when they cast etc... That should be their risky weakness!
Hi Walisin, I just want to say first that you seem very well informed and I don't think you will find yourself flamed in any way for this post. Forgive me in advance because I get very lengthy with my forum posts and I am well aware that there are less than three people that read them in their entirety. I want to argue the first assumption here. While the defensive wrestling mechanic did enter the game here, I don't believe at all that the intention was related to power scrolls. Prior to Renaissance's release there were big nerfs to the 'tank mage' style template, and these continued well into Renaissance. I think that the developers felt it was such a dominant template they wanted to remove it altogether. You may recall that during renaissance swinging weapons and dexterity worked together to decide at which point in the animation a hit was calculated or resolved. This meant that lower dex melee'ers were prone to having people simply walk away from their swings and waste them all together. In my opinion there were very few hybrid templates that were effective during this era. While publish16 did precede AoS, I don't think that the defensive wrestling ability had much to do with powerscrolls. I think the intention was to add variety to pvp mechanics. It opened a door for the tank mage, eval dexer, and med warrior templates to be more viable. I want to argue with you about the tank mage template's dominance on this server. Stun mages are very popular. Perhaps you could argue that pure mages without stun punch find themselves at a disadvantage to hybrid templates (and almost certainly do in a duel scenario). You might also argue that faction blessed runics are not a desirable mechanic (it reeks of insurance and pay to win, item based pvp afterall). However I would easily say that stun mages are the strongest overall template for field fighting and group fighting on this server, and nearly the only pvp template I will play (I have 4 stun mages and am about to convert one of my 2 tank mages into another stun mage). Stun punches connect more reliably than para blows, and spells are easier to coordinate/guarantee/plan the damage of. So that said this is one of the main things I think you have envisioned incorrectly of the pvp mechanics here. While tank mages do have the ability to mana dump and continue to deal damage on no mana, which is, as you said, the best of both worlds, the template choice is not by any means a no brainer. I think that stun punch is majorly to thank for this, because tank mages can't fit this. Tanks tend to come down to a very predictable combo of weapon up+ energy bolt prepped and chasing. It's transparent and nearly risky as they tend to walk straight into stuns and para blows. They will have an advantage in a 1v1 where they can heal your mana and not be too concerned with their own, assuming you can't drop them in one wombo-combo dump, but it's up to you at this point to let them whack on you or leave until you have mana again. As a dexer facing a tank mage you have the clear advantage when trading blows and you typically need only the good sense to hold a greater heal while swinging to survive. So in case this isn't clear, I'm of the opinion that this mechanic adds viable choices in templates instead of takes away. The template would have to be too strong to take away, and I think every pvper here would agree that it does not. Concussion blow does work a littler differently here. It takes 25 int away instead of half your int. I think it is subject to change (and there have been suggestions in the past about changing how effective halberds are at producing conc blows). But I don't think it's a good idea to want pvp to be a counter system in the way you mentioned. While I see what you're saying in relation to swords special moves damaging mana (mages) and maces damage stamina/armor (dexers) this isn't really accurate. Both mages and dexers suffer equally from concussion blows and stamina/armor damage, unless you believe in dex based templates that don't have magery, which I do not. You've really just assumed too much prior to playing. Pure mages are alive and quite well here and are the template of choice of almost all of the top pvpers. Aslo paging Ezekiel or Chris to explain stun punch cooldown/diminished returns if there is any. I've seen it mentioned but have seen very little from the admins on it. welcome to the shard, by the way.
I was of the mind that this was a much needed leg-up for the underdog dexxer. On the other hand, this change would affect you as much as your opponent so I must defer to your experience and apparent lack of bias, m'lady.
I agree with this. I also think that this suggested change of minimum levels would, in other ways, benefit dexers.
Hello there. I'd like to assure you that I did read the whole of your post, but I'll be doing selective quoting in order to address your points. Well, yes, the intention was to keep PvP varied and the change made the builds you mentioned vastly more viable - so that they could compete with scrolled characters. This was stated by Devs, at the time, and is deducted by simple logic, too. If the 7x builds with defensive wrestling had not been intended to be competitive in a PS-environment, there would have been no reason to introduce the mechanic in the same patch. Why add something that isn't intended to work? I can't argue the points pertaining to your personal preference in play-style, but I've seen other posters state hybrid-mages are the dominant species, much as you say it's stun-mages. However, the last sentence illustrates a small misunderstanding. Hybrid-mages have an extremely similar ability to project damage; and while stun is more reliable than para blows, landing one against a hybrid-mage means you run an equal chance to lose 20-30 HP from a melee hit, which makes you that much easier to synch. It's in the nature of the beast that the hybrids' advantage will only increase, the longer the battle lasts. I'd say that I have the exact same variety of 5x options as any other mage on a hybrid. Yes, I will prep some spell and subsequently try to hit you.. and then I will wait for a moment when your bandage is on a bad timer for you and dump. If I have fencing, this will likely coincide with you being paralyzed, too. If I have swordsmanship, you will never have mana again. If it's macing, you'll never get more than one chance to stun. Yes, there are meta-game solutions to some of these issues - but if the main workaround is to run away from a clearly superior template and run back on screen pre-casted 2 minutes later, when you recovered from the beating, then that just underlines the problem. Well, it already renders the builds I listed under B) and C) in the original post completely useless and/or outclassed. So it decimated the number of viable choices already, before we even get to non-hybrid builds. It clearly is a counter-system, though, as mages and dexxers obviously do not suffer equally from losing intelligence and stamina. Dexxer perspective: If you curb a dexxer's intelligence on a swordsman, he won't give a damn. That's because he can't risk to drop his weapon to cast most of the time anyway, and likewise you can't capitalize on the MB weakness (which a tank obviously can, by the way). If you curb his stamina on a macer, that directly translates to less damage dealt over time for him, while breaking his armor equates to more damage received over time. Eventually he can not even run away anymore. It's a no-win scenario. (pure) Mage perspective: If you curb a Mage's intelligence (by 50%), that directly translates to him being unable to mount any offense whatsoever, and without healing he's likely to run dry on G-Heals. Recovering from that one is a tough cookie. If you curb his stamina, he'll be mildly disgruntled because he can't stun anymore and his mobility is impaired. That doesn't make life any easier, but he can still deal/heal the exact same amount of damage as always. It's just more difficult to apply it. 4x/3x Hybrids without drawbacks just don't fit in there. There's too many benefits. You may be able to work around them, but that doesn't make them balanced. In closing: Thank you for the warm welcome. I'm very much looking forward to hopping on the shard myself, hopefully within a week or two.
Welcome aboard! As the #1 PvPer on the shard (pure sarcasm) I will just get it out there, that Concussion drops Int by 25, so on a dexxer where I'm rocking 50 Int, I just got opened up for a real hurting from Mind Blast, especially if I'm already potted to 120 (common). Potions are stackable here (all but poison and explosion anyway) so don't worry too much about Stunner's ability to apply stun to macers consistently. Yes, it takes more pots to make it happen, but it's not impossible. I'm sure Mes can speak to your points much more clearly. I r nub.
It's not a counter system and all pvp characters need both mana and stamina to run well. Dexers hit by conc blows will take more damage from mindblasts and have less mana to cast with (again if you believe a dexer in pvp should still have magery, and I do.) And also in the case of the dexer will probably have more trouble recovering that mana over time. I think by that logic dexers suffer nearly equally from a conc blow. The mage needs mana to kill but the dexer becomes more vulnerable without mana. Likewise all characters needs stamina to move, and while macing feels strong vs stamina, refresh pots have no cooldown and all pvpers should carry these (and all the competitive ones do.) If you think that conc blow counters mages, I have a stack of tournament trophies on my roof that you should take a look at. The majority of them I faced a lumberjack in an enclosed area for the final round. The meta game is what is most important to consider. We can't have pvp balanced around two people standing toe to toe, can we? Because even the newest of players know not to do this. Running and evading is a crucial part of pvp in ultima online, and it just so happens that playing against a hybrid template in a 1v1 as a mage you will have to do this if you fail when spending your mana. The same can easily be said of a hybrid vs a dexer. If the hybrid fails with his weapon+spell combo he will be on the run until he has mana again. It's just the nature of the game. And this by no means makes dexers betters than hybrids better than pure mages. I personally always favor a quick kill over a long drawn out battle. It's hard to kill someone in the field by wearing them down as they can decide to leave the fight at any time. Both of these playstyles are simply the same thing as the tank mage that you are complaining about, but with poorer skill choices. You have the option of combined BandC on this server. Also, for the record, neither of those templates were truly effective during renaissance on the production shards, in my opinion - and my pvp resume starts before renaissance and extends to past the samerai expansion. I dueled with the best duelers in the game on test center and asian shards, placed very well in the tournament of champions, had 10,000+ murder counts, was in a PK guild that destroyed the largest guild in the game during AoS, and transferred servers to fight pvp giants like Black Company and Empire of Fallen Lords, as well as killed countless Lords of Death players on baja before and after trammel. I played with Bill Nye cats and the pk-hq gang, and was a moderator and poster at uopowergamers.com. I wouldn't play on a server with gimped or bad pvp mechanics. Barring faction blessed runics there is very little item based pvp. Wands are not very effective, magic jewelry does not exist. 5x dueling exists in what feels like a true form. No class dominates pvp, and I rank them in group/field fights puremage>tank>dexer and in enclosed areas/1v1's dexer>tankmage>puremage. And this is just simply because of the nature of them, not because there is any unbalance. Try the server. Look at the top players on the pvp rankings in the database and decide if tank mages are dominating.
Just to get this out there before it's assumed, I know Mes sounds a bit cocky for his resume breakdown there, but rest assured he's a very mature and patient person who is as skilled as he claims, without being arrogant about it. I'm sure he was just rambling on about accomplishments to paint a clear picture of his understanding of UO combat in its entirety.
Not to get off topic, Mes you mentioned EFL. Somewhere in that fuzzy gray area of my memory of days gone by I remember them somehow, perhaps just their legend. I played Sonoma, did they have a presence there?
Now that I think more on it, they were there. I seem to remember them being in factions, Com if memory serves.
The EFL I played against was on pacific and I think their GM's name was Ooji. Black Company was on great lakes and their GM was Sir Bart, as I recall. This was age of shadows. Fallen Lords was big enough to be on several shards though, they invaded my home shard at some point.
I'm sorry, but if you read over the next paragraph again, you will notice I adressed all of your points in my previous post already: Yes, dexxers become more vulnerable if hit with concussion blows, but it is a weakness that can not be exploited properly without Eval and the opportunity to cast MB. Just as magery on a dexxer becomes a non-factor, for the most part, when faced with another dexxer. Even if you are skilled enough to smuggle in G-Heals between swings, an equally skilled player would simply disrupt them via weaken/harm and go back to swinging. Heals might be good on the run, but when actually fighting not beneficial enough to reset your swing timer over. This really is not a very strong argument, if you tell me in the same post that you are an exceptionally skilled PvPer. Congratulations on overcoming the odds, but if you faced a lumberjack in the majority of cases, that simply proves my point. He countered all the mages before you. I actually agree with the rest of your paragraph, but this premise is at best a slippery slope. Somewhere down that road lies the conclusion that 7x Mules are viable in PvP, because they can run away as fast as everyone else - and were actually OP in PvP on production shards at some time or the other, because the moment you stacked jewelry and rocked a glacial staff, lightning wands and explosion pots they could annihilate every other template in less than 2 seconds. You do balance skillsets (for the most part) based on performance in enclosed space with standard equipment, and the meta-game is a result of trying to work around the strengths of any given template (i.e. Macer -> chug refresh; high sustained damage output -> avoid until you have mana). The meta-game doesn't negate advantages, it's an added layer of gameplay as a result of them. That was sort of my point, though, wasn't it? All of the builds I mentioned were situational, with weaknesses directly corresponding to their strengths. They were viable (and strong, even), as long as you picked your fights right. Obviously you didn't see them much on production shards, because not everyone had 3 free accounts and 15 character slots to choose from. So having a more well-rounded character was fairly incremental to consistent performance, which makes sense. With defensive wrestling implemented, the choice is obvious and there are no drawbacks connected to it. I have every intention of doing just that, once I get my computer running again. I'm really glad you found an environment you feel so at home in, and there's only so much point to discussing realities I have not experienced, yet. However, I would like to point out that (given accurate mechanical representation; with the exception of hits registering at the beginning of the swing animation) the bolded template effectiveness-rating is exactly the same as it would be without defensive wrestling, given that you bring the right tool for the job.
