Treasures of Feudal Lands (Shogun) Event - Recap

These events are perfect for me. I don't play much and I am not sitting on piles and piles of gold so in these events I can play at my own pace slowly get points to earn some powerful items.

Also yes lag is annoying due to a lot of "bots".

Rewards were awesome, especially I was looking to get a nice mempo for my ninja warrior! 🙂

Oh and this events rewards made me consider making a melee gargoyle. Although I had only points to get kilt only, wish I'd have more points for the weapon and necklace too but oh well. I hope there'll be something similar or the same next time! 🙂

I had to buy drops/rewards on other shards that I play, but on Atlantic I did very well. The BOTs were annoying at first, but then I realized the size an fast respawn was due to the increase of players (BOTs) at Winter Spur.  I switched from archer and tamer to my two Spellweaver-Necro-Mages  and spammed area spells - specifically Wildfire - in the area of massed BOTs. I had no need to solo or seriously wound the paragons, merely inflicting a bit of damage earned me credit for drops.My Mystic-Thrower also did well with Undead Slayer Talisman and Spellcasting Fire glaive so he could toss RC's and cast Cleanse winds to negate curse/poison/damage.

Liked the varying levels of difficulty in the different areas.  Players could choose where to play.  Would have liked to see a 50% increase spellbook reward.  Think one of those should usually be available.  Did not find most of the rewards particularly useful to me but did pretty well selling the drops so don’t really have any complaints.  Overall liked this part of the event.  Still wondering why having  a 30% negative necro. skill would be useful unless it negates the jack of all trades humans have.

Lame event with lame rewards. Original ToT event was way more fun. "Why change something what was working just fine?" 

Does anyone have a tip on how to deal with the frenzied stone elemental stun? Trapped boxes does not seem to work. Its so hard to gather a team to fight together, and solo is taking too long due to the constant stunning. 

my feedback:

rewards were really too powerful.  everyone likes having nice stuff, but you need a reason to play the game too.  not much reason to actually loot legendaries in normal gameplay anymore.

bot fest.   between being difficult to compete with the bots, and the prices being sooooo cheap because of bot farmers, it didnt really make sense to do the event yourself if playing 1 character.   i farmed 65 items for fun, and then bought the rest for dirt cheap from bot farmers.  i bought about 3,000 points worth of stuff for this event.   was pretty common for a farmer to get 20k points pretty easily and highest ive heard of was 75,000 turn in points.

people like cheap stuff, but it doesnt make for good gameplay for the content to not even be worth doing yourself. 

"Anti-AFK" system was a joke.   easy work arounds from bots on constant moving rails.   mostly flagged legitimate players.

Smoot said:

my feedback:

rewards were really too powerful.  everyone likes having nice stuff, but you need a reason to play the game too.  not much reason to actually loot legendaries in normal gameplay anymore.

bot fest.   between being difficult to compete with the bots, and the prices being sooooo cheap because of bot farmers, it didnt really make sense to do the event yourself if playing 1 character.   i farmed 65 items for fun, and then bought the rest for dirt cheap from bot farmers.  i bought about 3,000 points worth of stuff for this event.   was pretty common for a farmer to get 20k points pretty easily and highest ive heard of was 75,000 turn in points.

people like cheap stuff, but it doesnt make for good gameplay for the content to not even be worth doing yourself. 

"Anti-AFK" system was a joke.   easy work arounds from bots on constant moving rails.   mostly flagged legitimate players.

I totally agree with you smooth they should get you ban for your multiboxing at em event and for your gold sale....im so sorry for you you coulnd t make has many cash in this event than you do with your em army archer

creampie said:

Smoot said:

my feedback:

rewards were really too powerful.  everyone likes having nice stuff, but you need a reason to play the game too.  not much reason to actually loot legendaries in normal gameplay anymore.

bot fest.   between being difficult to compete with the bots, and the prices being sooooo cheap because of bot farmers, it didnt really make sense to do the event yourself if playing 1 character.   i farmed 65 items for fun, and then bought the rest for dirt cheap from bot farmers.  i bought about 3,000 points worth of stuff for this event.   was pretty common for a farmer to get 20k points pretty easily and highest ive heard of was 75,000 turn in points.

people like cheap stuff, but it doesnt make for good gameplay for the content to not even be worth doing yourself. 

"Anti-AFK" system was a joke.   easy work arounds from bots on constant moving rails.   mostly flagged legitimate players.

I totally agree with you smooth they should get you ban for your multiboxing at em event and for your gold sale....im so sorry for you you coulnd t make has many cash in this event than you do with your em army archer

omg friend.  im flattered but i have 3 accounts..  i apologize for making some golds happens when youve been playing a long time.   ive conquested against multiboxing, for the above reasons, for years.  if anyone has video of the 25th when i asked about the problem please post it.  its a shame that Mesanna said then a hard stance would be taken against multibox abuse but its been given a blind eye.  no real action has ever been taken.   so we live with it.  that doesnt mean the devs have to put out events that specifically feed 20 plus account bots and not bother to address the problem at all.

@creampie are you perhaps confusing two different players?  Smoot and Smooth?

I wished that the Monsters did not loot the artifact drops from PCs' corpses or, at least, that only Paragons were permitted to loot them...

The non-Paragon MoBs have their decay very short in order to reduce LAG, I imagine, and this might create the problem that, if a player's character dies with artifact drops not insured, some MoB might loot them, get then killed by some other player's character and the MOBs' corpse decay taking away the looted artifact drops...

If this looting was only permitted to Paragons, since their corpses take longer to decay, this gives some time to the player's character that was looted, to get back to the Paragon's corpse and take the looted item(s) back, included the artifact drop(s) that might have been looted.

popps said:

I wished that the Monsters did not loot the artifact drops from PCs' corpses or, at least, that only Paragons were permitted to loot them...

The non-Paragon MoBs have their decay very short in order to reduce LAG, I imagine, and this might create the problem that, if a player's character dies with artifact drops not insured, some MoB might loot them, get then killed by some other player's character and the MOBs' corpse decay taking away the looted artifact drops...

If this looting was only permitted to Paragons, since their corpses take longer to decay, this gives some time to the player's character that was looted, to get back to the Paragon's corpse and take the looted item(s) back, included the artifact drop(s) that might have been looted.

Popps they created an item just for you now it's not good enough?  Seriously 

• Useable once very 24 hours to provide 2 hours of protection against monster looting

I thought the event was perfect.

I would like @Kyronix to talk to me, re Rewards for pure mages, and making Pure Mages viable again for the next round of events. Mage rewards always follow the same tired pattern, when there is a specific set of properties we are after also. You cater very well for warriors.

Ahh of course - only being in Trammel, killed off Felucca pvp action again, for an unknown period. It takes a long time for Felucca to recover. Back to the whole Trammel vs Felucca debate - people go where the rewards are. If you stuff Trammel full constantly of Risk Free rewards, that is where the players will be, until they get bored.

Grimbeard said:

popps said:

I wished that the Monsters did not loot the artifact drops from PCs' corpses or, at least, that only Paragons were permitted to loot them...

The non-Paragon MoBs have their decay very short in order to reduce LAG, I imagine, and this might create the problem that, if a player's character dies with artifact drops not insured, some MoB might loot them, get then killed by some other player's character and the MOBs' corpse decay taking away the looted artifact drops...

If this looting was only permitted to Paragons, since their corpses take longer to decay, this gives some time to the player's character that was looted, to get back to the Paragon's corpse and take the looted item(s) back, included the artifact drop(s) that might have been looted.

Popps they created an item just for you now it's not good enough?  Seriously 

That item, the Chalice of Pilfering Protection, unfortunately, is only useable once very 24 hours and provides 2 hours of protection against monster looting...

What if a player, perhaps during the weekend or whatever, can spend more then 2 hours in a day at the Spawn ?

They would only be protected for 2 hours, throughout the rest of gameplay in that 24 hours, they would not be protected against looting.

What I fail to understand, is why the non-Paragon monsters' looting cannot just be simply "turned off" and be done with it.

I find fast decay corpses Monsters' looting only annoying, and it only gives yet another advantage to those players who use some Third Party utilities which offer "auto-insurance" of items which drop in their main backpack as reward...

popps said:

Grimbeard said:

popps said:

I wished that the Monsters did not loot the artifact drops from PCs' corpses or, at least, that only Paragons were permitted to loot them...

The non-Paragon MoBs have their decay very short in order to reduce LAG, I imagine, and this might create the problem that, if a player's character dies with artifact drops not insured, some MoB might loot them, get then killed by some other player's character and the MOBs' corpse decay taking away the looted artifact drops...

If this looting was only permitted to Paragons, since their corpses take longer to decay, this gives some time to the player's character that was looted, to get back to the Paragon's corpse and take the looted item(s) back, included the artifact drop(s) that might have been looted.

Popps they created an item just for you now it's not good enough?  Seriously 

That item, the Chalice of Pilfering Protection, unfortunately, is only useable once very 24 hours and provides 2 hours of protection against monster looting...

What if a player, perhaps during the weekend or whatever, can spend more then 2 hours in a day at the Spawn ?

They would only be protected for 2 hours, throughout the rest of gameplay in that 24 hours, they would not be protected against looting.

What I fail to understand, is why the non-Paragon monsters' looting cannot just be simply "turned off" and be done with it.

I find fast decay corpses Monsters' looting only annoying, and it only gives yet another advantage to those players who use some Third Party utilities which offer "auto-insurance" of items which drop in their main backpack as reward...

Really how hard is it to insure items and go to the turn in guy? How much crap you have in your backpack?

All players skill levels could participate.  Winterspur  was great for advanced players.

More players = more mobs in these events.  You could tell that mechanic was working. We had great teamwork on LS.

I wish the Tsuki Wolf Spawn was part of it.  

First event where an ABC healing archer rocked!!  

A team of them was unstoppable!

Legal disclosure:

Since every thread is about what Client you use @Mariah @Rorschach.

I played with CC and nothing else. Am I allowed to do that still?  It's really getting hard to tell.
I played sometimes up to 3 toons at a time. 1 Banksitter, 1 Resser\Tamer or Bard, 1 Warrior Archer mostly, some macing. 

I am unclear as to what your question is. 

I play a mage mostly and did ok at both sides of this event.  The first part allowed players to choose to play in areas best suited for their templates so they could get drops.  The second event favored fighters more, but my mage still usually got a statue and a tree without getting killed that often.  I play a necro mage with spellweaving.  Pretty sure my character that just has magery would have done just as well, or at least close, but I like having having those other skills available.

Think in events a few years ago only small stuff like bandages and reagents were looted when I died.  Now looters go more for the good stuff, and a lot of times I usually can’t find them after I rez.  Personally, don’t agree with UO’s philosophy of (you can insert a three word phase here that ends with the word player) but if I am worried about it I just recall out when I get a drop, put the drop away, and recall back in.

Pawain said:

All players skill levels could participate.  Winterspur  was great for advanced players.

More players = more mobs in these events.  You could tell that mechanic was working. We had great teamwork on LS.

I wish the Tsuki Wolf Spawn was part of it.  

First event where an ABC healing archer rocked!!  

A team of them was unstoppable!

Legal disclosure:

Since every thread is about what Client you use @ Mariah @ Rorschach.

I played with CC and nothing else. Am I allowed to do that still?  It's really getting hard to tell.
I played sometimes up to 3 toons at a time. 1 Banksitter, 1 Resser\Tamer or Bard, 1 Warrior Archer mostly, some macing. 

LESS FILLING!! 

vortex said:

popps said:

Grimbeard said:

popps said:

I wished that the Monsters did not loot the artifact drops from PCs' corpses or, at least, that only Paragons were permitted to loot them...

The non-Paragon MoBs have their decay very short in order to reduce LAG, I imagine, and this might create the problem that, if a player's character dies with artifact drops not insured, some MoB might loot them, get then killed by some other player's character and the MOBs' corpse decay taking away the looted artifact drops...

If this looting was only permitted to Paragons, since their corpses take longer to decay, this gives some time to the player's character that was looted, to get back to the Paragon's corpse and take the looted item(s) back, included the artifact drop(s) that might have been looted.

Popps they created an item just for you now it's not good enough?  Seriously 

That item, the Chalice of Pilfering Protection, unfortunately, is only useable once very 24 hours and provides 2 hours of protection against monster looting...

What if a player, perhaps during the weekend or whatever, can spend more then 2 hours in a day at the Spawn ?

They would only be protected for 2 hours, throughout the rest of gameplay in that 24 hours, they would not be protected against looting.

What I fail to understand, is why the non-Paragon monsters' looting cannot just be simply "turned off" and be done with it.

I find fast decay corpses Monsters' looting only annoying, and it only gives yet another advantage to those players who use some Third Party utilities which offer "auto-insurance" of items which drop in their main backpack as reward...

Really how hard is it to insure items and go to the turn in guy? How much crap you have in your backpack?

Well, personally, I find it hard...

First, like with this Event, depending on the coloring of the artifact drops, this can make them not readily visible in the darkness of the Classic Client backpack... not to mention, that some of the drops can be of a very small size making it even more difficult to be seen in the backpack, among all of the other items.

Yes, it is possible to use the insurance Menu interface which presents all items that are insurable in one's own backpack, rather then the individual item insurance but, even if transparent, it can clutter the screen and also create some problems in controlling the character in a heavy spawn area thus making it more advisable to do it in a safer place rather then where there is spawn that can possibly attack the character while taking care of insuring new drops.... 

All this, takes time and slows down the progress of working the spawn thus reducing the drop rate because, even if there are no new drops, one still has to reach a safer place, go through the various pages of the insurance Menu gump and do this every few minutes or so.... it all adds up and delays the working of the spawn and, consequentially, of the drop rate.

Frankly, I do not see the point of having fast decay corpses monsters' be permitted to loot players' characters corpses... this should be limited to only Paragons whose corpses take longer to decay thus making it possible for players to retrieve the looted artifact drops and items.

popps said:

vortex said:

popps said:

Grimbeard said:

popps said:

I wished that the Monsters did not loot the artifact drops from PCs' corpses or, at least, that only Paragons were permitted to loot them...

The non-Paragon MoBs have their decay very short in order to reduce LAG, I imagine, and this might create the problem that, if a player's character dies with artifact drops not insured, some MoB might loot them, get then killed by some other player's character and the MOBs' corpse decay taking away the looted artifact drops...

If this looting was only permitted to Paragons, since their corpses take longer to decay, this gives some time to the player's character that was looted, to get back to the Paragon's corpse and take the looted item(s) back, included the artifact drop(s) that might have been looted.

Popps they created an item just for you now it's not good enough?  Seriously 

That item, the Chalice of Pilfering Protection, unfortunately, is only useable once very 24 hours and provides 2 hours of protection against monster looting...

What if a player, perhaps during the weekend or whatever, can spend more then 2 hours in a day at the Spawn ?

They would only be protected for 2 hours, throughout the rest of gameplay in that 24 hours, they would not be protected against looting.

What I fail to understand, is why the non-Paragon monsters' looting cannot just be simply "turned off" and be done with it.

I find fast decay corpses Monsters' looting only annoying, and it only gives yet another advantage to those players who use some Third Party utilities which offer "auto-insurance" of items which drop in their main backpack as reward...

Really how hard is it to insure items and go to the turn in guy? How much crap you have in your backpack?

Well, personally, I find it hard...

First, like with this Event, depending on the coloring of the artifact drops, this can make them not readily visible in the darkness of the Classic Client backpack... not to mention, that some of the drops can be of a very small size making it even more difficult to be seen in the backpack, among all of the other items.

Yes, it is possible to use the insurance Menu interface which presents all items that are insurable in one's own backpack, rather then the individual item insurance but, even if transparent, it can clutter the screen and also create some problems in controlling the character in a heavy spawn area thus making it more advisable to do it in a safer place rather then where there is spawn that can possibly attack the character while taking care of insuring new drops.... 

All this, takes time and slows down the progress of working the spawn thus reducing the drop rate because, even if there are no new drops, one still has to reach a safer place, go through the various pages of the insurance Menu gump and do this every few minutes or so.... it all adds up and delays the working of the spawn and, consequentially, of the drop rate.

Frankly, I do not see the point of having fast decay corpses monsters' be permitted to loot players' characters corpses... this should be limited to only Paragons whose corpses take longer to decay thus making it possible for players to retrieve the looted artifact drops and items.

Yet the rest of us seem to have no issue with it. Personally, I use the EC to make lif easier. if you refuse tio use that, use the remedy that you yourself suggested.

popps said:

Yes, it is possible to use the insurance Menu interface which presents all items that are insurable in one's own backpack, rather then the individual item insurance but, 

 it doesn't clutter your screen bad enough to disrupt your gameplay or get you killed, especially if you drag it over into the black area and close it there. it will open up there each time you choose to insure things.

popps said:

First, like with this Event, depending on the coloring of the artifact drops, this can make them not readily visible in the darkness of the Classic Client backpack... not to mention, that some of the drops can be of a very small size making it even more difficult to be seen in the backpack, among all of the other items.

Mariah said:

popps said:

First, like with this Event, depending on the coloring of the artifact drops, this can make them not readily visible in the darkness of the Classic Client backpack... not to mention, that some of the drops can be of a very small size making it even more difficult to be seen in the backpack, among all of the other items.

If the items aren't visible, change your backpack view. There are 3 alternate views, available through the 'interface' tab of your options menu, suede, polar bear or ghoul skin.

I did not know that this was possible with the Classic Client, thanks for the tip !

Since most warriors are Swords Sampires, yall don't realize other templates need mana regen.   Not all of the so called OP items had that.

I don't say something is OP unless I can put it on and remove 2 properties from other things. The armor pieces did not have luck and eaters. But since yall are used to playing with 80 stamina, ya these are OP to your simplistic swords Sampires.

Pawain said:

Since most warriors are Swords Sampires, yall don't realize other templates need mana regen.   Not all of the so called OP items had that.

I don't say something is OP unless I can put it on and remove 2 properties from other things. The armor pieces did not have luck and eaters. But since yall are used to playing with 80 stamina, ya these are OP to your simplistic swords Sampires.

These items seemed kinda weak, i only got 1 mempo and the rest i got deco and pages. i thought they were kinda  Meh.

They are making us dex pieces.  Individually they are very nice.  I like how each one is a little different.  Next time we may get the legs. 

Using 2 of them help you build a decent suit without having to buy expensive pieces.

Merlin said:

My main gripe, as I venting during the testing phase, was with the couple rewards that were OP.   Two items in particular, the mempo and the warrior gloves, were way over powered.   These items basically are going to negate the years of work others have put in to get decent items in those slots.   Yeah sure, I see new players say “oh this is great I can finally get something nice very quickly ”, isn’t particularly what veteran players who have put in the work of running Exodus, the Roof and other content want to hear.   While it may have been good idea for short term, I think it does more harm than good in the long term. “Penny wise, but pound foolish” I believe is the old phrase?   I fully understand there is a delicate balance here and the developers obviously want to make rewards lists worth while for participation, but I maintain those two items in particular are really quite imbalanced versus what you can get from the loot table. 

          

So the two armor items that do not have Mana Regeneration are OP?  Maybe allowing Mana Leech on melee weapons is what is OP.  I can not use those on my Bard I take to community hunts.  He needs MR to maintain songs with a large party.

Merlin said:

Overall, thought this was a decent event.   In terms of drop numbers, I was averaging 50-60 drops each night the first month of the event. Generally playing in the Winter Spur icy area, using a sampire with 800ish luck, always using a potion of glorious fortune.   Play time was generally later in the evening (after midnight EST) on Atlantic.   Later on in the event, the variation of the number of drops I would get widened where by some evening I would get 35-40 drops, and other nights I would eclipse 70.   8 week time frame was perfect – a month would have been too short, any more would have been too long.         

While I mostly played my sampire, I had some success mixing it up with archers, throwers and my paladin.  Generally did best with sampire, but definitely competitive on my archer as well.  No scripts needed in order to have fun.  However, there were a few nights where competing with the bots made it really quite difficult to play on a ranged character and do well since the bots would cover quite a bit of territory.        

The spawn was fun and challenging.  However, the general openness of the ice area is what led to the bot problem at this event being significantly worse than others.  I’ve never seen so many bot trains.  They would camp multiple spots.  Worse yet, there were a few nights when trolls were blocking entrances by dropping hundreds of impassable items in front of the caves… and then randomly casting gates that would lead to dungeons where there would be an instant death (usually Covetous).   While trolling and that type of negative activity has always been present in this game, this event saw it in a way where it was organized to really give honest players a hard time.  This generally was at its worst during the middle of the event but died down the last few weeks.  Devs still need to come up with a better answer for this.       

My main gripe, as I venting during the testing phase, was with the couple rewards that were OP.   Two items in particular, the mempo and the warrior gloves, were way over powered.   These items basically are going to negate the years of work others have put in to get decent items in those slots.   Yeah sure, I see new players say “oh this is great I can finally get something nice very quickly ”, isn’t particularly what veteran players who have put in the work of running Exodus, the Roof and other content want to hear.   While it may have been good idea for short term, I think it does more harm than good in the long term. “Penny wise, but pound foolish” I believe is the old phrase?   I fully understand there is a delicate balance here and the developers obviously want to make rewards lists worth while for participation, but I maintain those two items in particular are really quite imbalanced versus what you can get from the loot table. 

          

That aside, the rewards list of this event was probably one of the better ones. Included good mix (Deco, titles, lore pages, weapons, gear), some nice items in slots that needed some love like the sashes and cloaks.  Gave a lot for collectors to go after.  I especially like the concept of the sash and cloak having randomized stat and eater.  That was a nice change up.  

These items basically are going to negate the years of work others have put in to get decent items in those slots.

I think otherwise.

UO is a game of numbers... sure, players' skills also matter but having good items with good properties is fundamental, to my opinion.

Now, the way I see it, this puts new or returning players lacking good items to a huge disadvantage versus veteran players who often, not only have the best items, but also might have high financial means in the game...

So, I see these Events which introduce high end Rewards very, very important for new or returning players to "catch up with" veteran players and be able to finally be competitive...

Bottom line is, I think it important and a good thing that the Developers, with these Events, introduce high end items for new or returning players to earn on their own and be able to use to finally become competitive with veteran players.

Agree with Popps.
I don't think Vets really matter much in this equation.
We already have everything. 
New Artifact styles, are equally welcome for us, especially those who detest the pvm loot style.
(Me. 🙂   My character progression has been delayed by 10-15 years because of this insane pvm loot style.
Bring back Crafting, and Artifact equipment styles please. PvM should be for ingredients/recipies, not armour.

Merlin said:

The spawn was fun and challenging.  However, the general openness of the ice area is what led to the bot problem at this event being significantly worse than others.  I’ve never seen so many bot trains.  They would camp multiple spots.  Worse yet, there were a few nights when trolls were blocking entrances by dropping hundreds of impassable items in front of the caves… and then randomly casting gates that would lead to dungeons where there would be an instant death (usually Covetous).   While trolling and that type of negative activity has always been present in this game, this event saw it in a way where it was organized to really give honest players a hard time.  This generally was at its worst during the middle of the event but died down the last few weeks.  Devs still need to come up with a better answer for this.       

My main gripe, as I venting during the testing phase, was with the couple rewards that were OP.   Two items in particular, the mempo and the warrior gloves, were way over powered.   These items basically are going to negate the years of work others have put in to get decent items in those slots.   Yeah sure, I see new players say “oh this is great I can finally get something nice very quickly ”, isn’t particularly what veteran players who have put in the work of running Exodus, the Roof and other content want to hear.   While it may have been good idea for short term, I think it does more harm than good in the long term. “Penny wise, but pound foolish” I believe is the old phrase?   I fully understand there is a delicate balance here and the developers obviously want to make rewards lists worth while for participation, but I maintain those two items in particular are really quite imbalanced versus what you can get from the loot table. 

I prefer the open-style event but that has NOTHING to do with the bot problem. As Mesanna and Co. refuse to do anything about the third party client proliferation, it will just get worse, and this is the main driving factor. You can see me complain about this for years (check my post history). The fact is that each ToT is a massive payday for these cheat players so it gets worse. Ironically, at the same time, they're shooting themselves in the feet as everything is so abundant across almost every shard now so the bots are multiplying (the second driving factor) to retain profits with slimmer margins.

The main point of these ToTs are exactly that: release a bunch of OP gear to appease the masses for the lack of content they've provided us while working on the other game for the last 5 years. They care not about game balance or anything else, their main goal is for players to do a, "OOH LOOK ANOTHER SHINEY!" and then forget about the complete neglect this game has gotten.

Realistically, account-bound would solve the majority of this, but the nay-sayers *COUGH* BOTS *COUGH* that will post on these forums will say otherwise.

I personally enjoyed it. I've been an on- and off-player for years, with this being the first such event I was able to get rewards due to not having the same time constraints. I felt the rewards were overall fairly priced and obtainable for someone who can't commit hours upon hours to the game. 

I do hope - and I'm guessing not all will agree - that they can bring back some chances at getting rewards from before -- like the wildfire mask and corrupted  paladin arms. I can see arguments against it, as it will cheapen them. However, on Catskills, I can't find the mask or arms in a way that is obtainable for a player like me. To be clear, I do not think they need to alter UO around my time constraints. Those who are able to play a ton should be enabled by that. 

Is there any information on the next event like this?

Thanks,
Venom

popps said:

Merlin said:

Overall, thought this was a decent event.   In terms of drop numbers, I was averaging 50-60 drops each night the first month of the event. Generally playing in the Winter Spur icy area, using a sampire with 800ish luck, always using a potion of glorious fortune.   Play time was generally later in the evening (after midnight EST) on Atlantic.   Later on in the event, the variation of the number of drops I would get widened where by some evening I would get 35-40 drops, and other nights I would eclipse 70.   8 week time frame was perfect – a month would have been too short, any more would have been too long.         

While I mostly played my sampire, I had some success mixing it up with archers, throwers and my paladin.  Generally did best with sampire, but definitely competitive on my archer as well.  No scripts needed in order to have fun.  However, there were a few nights where competing with the bots made it really quite difficult to play on a ranged character and do well since the bots would cover quite a bit of territory.        

The spawn was fun and challenging.  However, the general openness of the ice area is what led to the bot problem at this event being significantly worse than others.  I’ve never seen so many bot trains.  They would camp multiple spots.  Worse yet, there were a few nights when trolls were blocking entrances by dropping hundreds of impassable items in front of the caves… and then randomly casting gates that would lead to dungeons where there would be an instant death (usually Covetous).   While trolling and that type of negative activity has always been present in this game, this event saw it in a way where it was organized to really give honest players a hard time.  This generally was at its worst during the middle of the event but died down the last few weeks.  Devs still need to come up with a better answer for this.       

My main gripe, as I venting during the testing phase, was with the couple rewards that were OP.   Two items in particular, the mempo and the warrior gloves, were way over powered. 

I think otherwise.

UO is a game of numbers... sure, players' skills also matter but having good items with good properties is fundamental, to my opinion.

Now, the way I see it, this puts new or returning players lacking good items to a huge disadvantage versus veteran players who often, not only have the best items, but also might have high financial means in the game...

So, I see these Events which introduce high end Rewards very, very important for new or returning players to "catch up with" veteran players and be able to finally be competitive...

Bottom line is, I think it important and a good thing that the Developers, with these Events, introduce high end items for new or returning players to earn on their own and be able to use to finally become competitive with veteran players.

The best geared sampires from 10 years ago would only be mid-tier sampires today with how far along gear has come.   Power creep in Ultima has been fairly significant.

 

My point being:  new players do not require the best of the best gear in order to be competitive and have a good character that can complete the majority of content after only one event.    They can do plenty fine with mid-level gear.  It’s an insult to veterans that have been grinding content for literally decades to see their advantages lost after only one event.   

 

And to be clear – that’s not to say good rewards shouldn’t be offered.  But the two rewards I highlighted were particularly over powered.  New Players don't require Tier 1 gear to be happy.  There needs to be balance, and this wasn’t it.

Cookie said:

Agree with Popps.
I don't think Vets really matter much in this equation.
We already have everything. 
New Artifact styles, are equally welcome for us, especially those who detest the pvm loot style.
(Me. 🙂   My character progression has been delayed by 10-15 years because of this insane pvm loot style.
Bring back Crafting, and Artifact equipment styles please. PvM should be for ingredients/recipies, not armour.

Merlin said:

popps said:

I think otherwise.

UO is a game of numbers... sure, players' skills also matter but having good items with good properties is fundamental, to my opinion.

Now, the way I see it, this puts new or returning players lacking good items to a huge disadvantage versus veteran players who often, not only have the best items, but also might have high financial means in the game...

So, I see these Events which introduce high end Rewards very, very important for new or returning players to "catch up with" veteran players and be able to finally be competitive...

Bottom line is, I think it important and a good thing that the Developers, with these Events, introduce high end items for new or returning players to earn on their own and be able to use to finally become competitive with veteran players.

The best geared sampires from 10 years ago would only be mid-tier sampires today with how far along gear has come.   Power creep in Ultima has been fairly significant.

 

My point being:  new players do not require the best of the best gear in order to be competitive and have a good character that can complete the majority of content after only one event.    They can do plenty fine with mid-level gear.  It’s an insult to veterans that have been grinding content for literally decades to see their advantages lost after only one event.   

 

And to be clear – that’s not to say good rewards shouldn’t be offered.  But the two rewards I highlighted were particularly over powered.  New Players don't require Tier 1 gear to be happy.  There needs to be balance, and this wasn’t it.

Cookie said:

Agree with Popps.
I don't think Vets really matter much in this equation.
We already have everything. 
New Artifact styles, are equally welcome for us, especially those who detest the pvm loot style.
(Me. 🙂   My character progression has been delayed by 10-15 years because of this insane pvm loot style.
Bring back Crafting, and Artifact equipment styles please. PvM should be for ingredients/recipies, not armour.

My concern here is the 'vets don't matter' comment.  This is a 25+ year old game.  It is being sustained by the veterans who've been here forever and likely will stay until the lights close.  There are not enough new players to sustain the game.   That's not to say efforts shouldn't be made to hook new players into staying, but offering overpowered gear does more damage in the long term to the opinions of the vets who matter than the new players that might not be around in a few months.

I do agree on the Crafting point.  Hopefully that is something taken into consideration for New Legacy. 

username said:

Merlin said:

The spawn was fun and challenging.  However, the general openness of the ice area is what led to the bot problem at this event being significantly worse than others.  I’ve never seen so many bot trains.  They would camp multiple spots.  Worse yet, there were a few nights when trolls were blocking entrances by dropping hundreds of impassable items in front of the caves… and then randomly casting gates that would lead to dungeons where there would be an instant death (usually Covetous).   While trolling and that type of negative activity has always been present in this game, this event saw it in a way where it was organized to really give honest players a hard time.  This generally was at its worst during the middle of the event but died down the last few weeks.  Devs still need to come up with a better answer for this.       

My main gripe, as I venting during the testing phase, was with the couple rewards that were OP.   Two items in particular, the mempo and the warrior gloves, were way over powered.   These items basically are going to negate the years of work others have put in to get decent items in those slots.   Yeah sure, I see new players say “oh this is great I can finally get something nice very quickly ”, isn’t particularly what veteran players who have put in the work of running Exodus, the Roof and other content want to hear.   While it may have been good idea for short term, I think it does more harm than good in the long term. “Penny wise, but pound foolish” I believe is the old phrase?   I fully understand there is a delicate balance here and the developers obviously want to make rewards lists worth while for participation, but I maintain those two items in particular are really quite imbalanced versus what you can get from the loot table. 

I prefer the open-style event but that has NOTHING to do with the bot problem. As Mesanna and Co. refuse to do anything about the third party client proliferation, it will just get worse, and this is the main driving factor. You can see me complain about this for years (check my post history). The fact is that each ToT is a massive payday for these cheat players so it gets worse. Ironically, at the same time, they're shooting themselves in the feet as everything is so abundant across almost every shard now so the bots are multiplying (the second driving factor) to retain profits with slimmer margins.

The main point of these ToTs are exactly that: release a bunch of OP gear to appease the masses for the lack of content they've provided us while working on the other game for the last 5 years. They care not about game balance or anything else, their main goal is for players to do a, "OOH LOOK ANOTHER SHINEY!" and then forget about the complete neglect this game has gotten.

Realistically, account-bound would solve the majority of this, but the nay-sayers *COUGH* BOTS *COUGH* that will post on these forums will say otherwise.

Bots were definitely worse in this event than some of the others. I do think Terrain has some impact on that, but I hear your point.   With no GMs on late at night and no action being taken after multiple events of this happening, it is perceived amongst the community that the developers have given de facto acceptance of this behavior.  I won't speculate beyond that, but it's certain disheartening.

It is being sustained by the veterans who've been here forever and likely will stay until the lights close.

I am sorry, but I need to disagree...I am of the opinion that a game that has high end gear that takes years or even decades to be obtained by players can only deter new or returning players to join the game....

There may not be that many new players (but occasionally some appear to show up and, hopefully, this might get better with UO Legacy when it will come live...) but players returning to UO are quite a few but if they have to face years and years of playing to be competitive with Veteran players, how long would they stay with UO when they were to realize the low odds through regular gameplay, without the Rewards from these Events, of getting high end gear to be competitive with Veteran players ?

The high end Rewards offered with these Events are a way to help out new or returning players to not have to face too much a daunting task of years and years to get high end gear that would permit them to be competitive with Veteran players.

Merlin said:

Bots were definitely worse in this event than some of the others. I do think Terrain has some impact on that, but I hear your point.   With no GMs on late at night and no action being taken after multiple events of this happening, it is perceived amongst the community that the developers have given de facto acceptance of this behavior.  I won't speculate beyond that, but it's certain disheartening.