Niche Skills

I started Ultima Online in January/Feb of 2022 and, like most who play, am completely in love with this game. I play every day and sometimes all day. In March, I decided to also take a look over on the free shard ***** - needless to say, I returned back to Europa as I am not a fan of PvP or pks. I am having a great time being back in the official servers.

I do think, however, there is a lot of wasted potential in the official servers which could be realised. I'm not a huge fan of ***** (I don't play anymore) but they did get quite a lot right in my opinion, especially when it comes to making all skills feel useful in some way.

I was wondering: Are there any plans to make changes to the useless skills that are currently in the game? (Camping, Forensic Eval)

Forensics is used on items found around the land to return them to the owner. It builds one of the virtues.

We offer any criticism of the developers insta lock yet this stays up all day...

gay said:

Camping is actually a pretty useful skill, it's the reason I always have an insured bladed item to gather kindling. Something that never made sense to me though is why elves don't have innate ability to utilize tracking and camping the way humans have base 20 in all skills with Jack of all Trades.I've emailed it in a few times in the past and never got an answer, @ Mesanna @ Bleak Elves should have a effective base of 20 skill with tracking and camping. They literally came from the woods.

Also forensics has it's niche uses as well, can be used to figure out who opened a player's corpse. Gives an idea of who is running around PvPing atm when you're lookin for a fight.

Hmm that makes sense! ok fair enough, I am still fairly new to the game (I would say) so reading about it's practical use is always good to know!

Norry said:

Forensics is used on items found around the land to return them to the owner. It builds one of the virtues.

That's pretty cool! Isn't everything insured though? what items do you return to the owner? Unless it's for quests, of course.

McDougle said:

We offer any criticism of the developers insta lock yet this stays up all day...

I don't want to criticize anybody on the development team as I truly love this game, I just saw that on the free shard, camping was used to enable:
-Fast Travel to cities at 60 (after camping there first)
-Fast Travel to dungeons at 80 (after camping there first)
-Fast Travel to Shrines at 100 (after camping there first)
-Fast Travel to POI at 120 (after camping there first)
-Increase carry weight
-Has the same functionality as official Camping also

It has multi-function. Same as Forensic Eval. My point was to just compare that, while yes there is a function on official servers, who would want to put 100-120 in the skill? Except for the title.

Thank you for the replies so far!

Alzoneth said:

gay said:

Camping is actually a pretty useful skill, it's the reason I always have an insured bladed item to gather kindling. Something that never made sense to me though is why elves don't have innate ability to utilize tracking and camping the way humans have base 20 in all skills with Jack of all Trades.I've emailed it in a few times in the past and never got an answer, @ Mesanna @ Bleak Elves should have a effective base of 20 skill with tracking and camping. They literally came from the woods.

Also forensics has it's niche uses as well, can be used to figure out who opened a player's corpse. Gives an idea of who is running around PvPing atm when you're lookin for a fight.

Hmm that makes sense! ok fair enough, I am still fairly new to the game (I would say) so reading about it's practical use is always good to know!

Norry said:

Forensics is used on items found around the land to return them to the owner. It builds one of the virtues.

That's pretty cool! Isn't everything insured though? what items do you return to the owner? Unless it's for quests, of course.

McDougle said:

We offer any criticism of the developers insta lock yet this stays up all day...

Discussing free shards is against the TOS...but the mods seem more interested in censorship than even handed enforcement 

McDougle said:

Discussing free shards is against the TOS...but the mods seem more interested in censorship than even handed enforcement 

It is comments like that cause threads to be locked. Treat the mods, devs, and other posters with respect and threads are less likely to be locked.

McDougle said:

Discussing free shards is against the TOS...but the mods seem more interested in censorship than even handed enforcement 

I could just remove the mention of those shards in question, but I merely wanted an open discussion regarding skills and potential reworks. No foul here, friend. 🙂

Thanks @Mariah! In the first paragraph the name is still present, is it possible to have it removed there also? to remain in ToS. Also is there a way to change the title to have the word 'Useless' in quotes like:

"Useless" - as the skills aren't really useless as such, but just niche in their application.
Thank you!

Some of these skills could possibly be made useful if we used skill trees where forensics would augment anatomy for a slight DI etc 

McDougle said:

Some of these skills could possibly be made useful if we used skill trees where forensics would augment anatomy for a slight DI etc 

Yeah that sounds like something good also! I know, from reading up that this was done with things like Arms Lore and Spirit Speaking is now used in conjunction with Necromancy. 

Like for instance, Taste ID could be used to increase poison damage as it's used to detect poisons in food, etc. Herding could give damage bonus to followers - but I love the idea to mix skills together to give bonuses! 

Not to pour cold water as i see the same enthusiasm 7 years ago when i returned to this game. Since then we saw a lot of brilliant ideas in this forum.

But there is this theory now that any changes to the 25 year old spaghetti code, could unexpectedly and inevitably cause bugs in other parts of the game. Some of these bugs could be as serious as loss of items and functionality, or create loop holes for exploits. 

This can of worms and bugs (edit) sigh, forget it. just realised waste my time writing

Seth said:

Not to pour cold water as i see the same enthusiasm 7 years ago when i returned to this game. Since then we saw a lot of brilliant ideas in this forum.

But there is this theory now that any changes to the 25 year old spaghetti code, could unexpectedly and inevitably cause bugs in other parts of the game. Some of these bugs could be as serious as loss of items and functionality, or create loop holes for exploits. 

This can of worms and bugs (edit) sigh, forget it. just realised waste my time writing

Don't they have a test server they could try these changes on, though? What's the point of that if not to test features or changes? They can import the current world of one of the shards (like Atlantic or Europa) as a direct clone and people can test there. It's done on private shards right now so I don't see how it's an issue. Doesn't even need an ETA to release or a release at all.

I also found that there isn't too much community involvement or an official discord. I just think there's wasted potential on official, as I truly believe Ultima Online is the greatest games ever made and that I've played. Would like to see it flourish with the same passion, like the devs on ********.

Alzoneth said:

Seth said:

Not to pour cold water as i see the same enthusiasm 7 years ago when i returned to this game. Since then we saw a lot of brilliant ideas in this forum.

But there is this theory now that any changes to the 25 year old spaghetti code, could unexpectedly and inevitably cause bugs in other parts of the game. Some of these bugs could be as serious as loss of items and functionality, or create loop holes for exploits. 

This can of worms and bugs (edit) sigh, forget it. just realised waste my time writing

Don't they have a test server they could try these changes on, though? What's the point of that if not to test features or changes? They can import the current world of one of the shards (like Atlantic or Europa) as a direct clone and people can test there. It's done on private shards right now so I don't see how it's an issue. Doesn't even need an ETA to release or a release at all.

I also found that there isn't too much community involvement or an official discord. I just think there's wasted potential on official, as I truly believe Ultima Online is the greatest games ever made and that I've played. Would like to see it flourish with the same passion, like the devs on ********.

By right there is a TC for new stuff but the dynamic event system was desigmed where non-coders can easily configure any new event while leaving the coders busy with NLS.

It's like those wysiwyg web page creator so the creator focus on the design, not the codes.

Another issue is that bugs found during tests are not fully resolved. E.g. spellbook straps.

Then we have players fighting over what the Dev should fix next since they are already so busy with NLS.

Then we have players who claimed everything is OK and happy with all Workaround.

All the above plus 25 year of Spaghetti code where u can't just pull one thread without risk tugging another line of code with it.... create exploits in the system like lost items, over powered pets and skills.

So frankly speaking I am less "positive" than I was 7 years ago when I return to this game.

Seth said:

So frankly speaking I am less "positive" than I was 7 years ago when I return to this game.

But you seem so confident about them knocking NL out of the park in the other thread  😂

keven2002 said:

Seth said:

So frankly speaking I am less "positive" than I was 7 years ago when I return to this game.

But you seem so confident about them knocking NL out of the park in the other thread  😂

Nope, I was looking forward to what they can do after NLS, not looking forward to NLS.

So yes, finish it fast, whatever state that may be.