Mage spells have required reagents since the dawn of uo. Just as warriors require bandages to heal and archers aswell as bandages require arrows to shoot.

people used to play mages with 0 LRC and would still PvM and PvP.

This easy mode uo has gone on for far too long, people have been requesting a cap on lower reagent cost since it was first introduced. I have suggested the amount of 99% as I’m aware of how some players suffer some kind of fit when you change anything in game they are used to. Lower mana cost is capped at 40/55, how can we have no cap on LRC?

I'd go for a cap of 50%.  Yep, I said it lol.

So would I but I don’t think the emergency services could handle it. 

Oh my god. I agree with Mervyn. There is a strange disturbance in the force.

1. Follow the name of the property, it is Lower Reagent Cost, not Remove Reagent Cost.

2. Do the reagent check to see if the spell can be cast prior to checking LRC. If you don't have the reagents in your pack, you can't cast to begin with. Even if you only carry 1 of each, make it so you have to at least have the freaking reagents on you. Remember when you could have your reagents stolen and it prevented you from casting. Yes, that was actually a fun mechanic and required you to pay a lot of attention (as in, and engaging game mechanic), or carry multiple stacks of reagents. It brought something to the game.

3. Make LRC Magery specific. Don't allow LRC to affect skills other than Magery. Use LRC as an additional balancer for Magery vs. other skills.

i.e.

Magery has more methods to interact with the game world, but does not have as powerful summons (nor does it have Word of Death).

Magery has far more spells, but has LRC to offset reagent use.

Necro/Chiv/Mystic have fewer and more powerful interactions, but require reagents.

Wasn't it Leurocian that said LRC was the one thing he regretted implementing. (Can't remember the dev that said it - but I know they said it!)

I proposed this in a thread just a few weeks ago, and I had ppl jumping on me like I was the anti Christ. Their argument? its been like this too long and id quit if I had to go to the trouble of getting reagents.... really? 

I think the game would be better off if you actually used the items in it. 50% LRC is reasonable. 100% is absurd. Ive said it so many times AoS has twisted the gameplay of UO dramatically for the worse. 

How would this make the game better?  Really.  You can choose not to wear an LRC suit if this bothers you.

No Pawain, i’d Prefer if it only applied to you, but I’ll take one for the team and take it too if it means you have to, as would everyone else I’m sure. 

Pawain said:

How would this make the game better?  Really.  You can choose not to wear an LRC suit if this bothers you.

By creating resource use and the need for reagents in the game. Also would work as a gold sink if paladins had to spend some of that gold they make! Probably a lot more of a gold sink than the 5k a pop for hunting permits.

Mervyn said:

No Pawain, i’d Prefer if it only applied to you, but I’ll take one for the team and take it too if it means you have to, as would everyone else I’m sure. 

Really.  I guess I can use all the regs I found and stored for the last 16 years.  Prob take 16 years to use them.  You just want to annoy people with this kind of BS idea.  

says the tamer who was against any taming bugs to be fixed because they benefited from them personally even though it was detrimental to the community, but yeah lets question MY motives, even though all my chars except my blacksmith are mages, including my tamer. 

This cat has been out of the bag for far, far too long to even consider trying to stuff it back in.

Getting rid of LRC now would not have a positive impact on UO. Fifteen years have passed since it was introduced.

Reagent resource management isn't a fun mini-game and would be a negligible gold sink.

I did not propose to get rid of LRC

I remember when AoS came out and LRC suits became a thing.  The whole loading up on reagents everytime you were going out was nothing I ever missed.  Camping out the respawn at the reagents vendor.  You say you want to improve the game for new players and for those of us that have those stashed up regs in the bank who cares about LRC.  But those new players that people are donating LRC suits to make them have some sort of chance of playing the game longer than a week would probably care.  I'm trying to see why anyone would miss that?  Dying and not being able to recall out unless you could loot your regs?  Or everyone should carry insured arcane pieces again? 

You post daily some odd stuff and it almost feels flamebaitish half the time. 

I mean yeah, lets stop dead people talking in the game unless they have SS.  Or one of your other odd requests.

Mervyn said:

I did not propose to get rid of LRC

Yet that would be the net result. Even at 99% in favor of an event causes the RNG to ensure failure an unreasonable number of times in a row.

I have a character with 98% LRC. Her failure rate when casting due to a lack of reagents is mindbendingly high. That missing 2% shouldn't be as significant as it is.

Find another windmill to tilt at.

(CraZy idea me trying to reduce trash talk on general chat by following game mechanic rules, what a fool I was)

You know, if someone had 99% Lower reagent cost, it would not actually mean you HAD to carry reagents/arcane jewelry, it would mainly affect PvP where you can't afford to have a spell fail, in pvm or recalling somewhere, you just cast it again..

are you trying to say that 1% is not 1%, is this a real post?

Mervyn said:

You know, if someone had 99% Lower reagent cost, it would not actually mean you HAD to carry reagents/arcane jewelry, it would mainly affect PvP where you can't afford to have a spell fail, in pvm or recalling somewhere, you just cast it again..

And yet again, PvP nerfs have to screw things up for the majority of the population. Forcing players to shop for and carry a crap load of reagents on them will accomplish three things: 1) annoy players with another obsolete mechanic that has no place in a modern game; 2) accelerate power creep, because now instead of having to put LRC on every suit piece, you can put something more powerful; 3)Make even more arties irrelevant.

Teapot said:

  Dying and not being able to recall out unless you could loot your regs?  Or everyone should carry insured arcane pieces again? 

You post daily some odd stuff and it almost feels flamebaitish half the time. 

I mean yeah, lets stop dead people talking in the game unless they have SS.  Or one of your other odd requests.

I don't get the not being able to recall part.  Am I the only one that actually keeps his runebooks charged?

Mervyn said:

are you trying to say that 1% is not 1%, is this a real post?

Your ignorance of how UO functions concerns me, which is my fault based on your ridiculous post history.

LRC isn't a 1:1 ratio just based on a straight percentage, it takes into account how many reagents are required for the spell. The more reagents required, the higher the fail rate - even with an LRC in the 90's. The demonstrable streakiness of the RNG tends to exacerbate fail rates.

Dot_Warner said:

This cat has been out of the bag for far, far too long to even consider trying to stuff it back in.

Getting rid of LRC now would not have a positive impact on UO. Fifteen years have passed since it was introduced.

Reagent resource management isn't a fun mini-game and would be a negligible gold sink.

I disagree with you on the first part Dot. Just because something has been someway for a long time, doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be changed. I mean reagent use and the gold it caused to cycle through the economy was part of the game for five years before it was radically altered. I agree that per person the gold sink would in fact be negligible, but cumulatively I think it would be substantial. 

(Tangentially, and a bit tongue in cheek here..., one could make the argument that reagent use is part of the Classic Experience of UO, kinda like the classic client, or the classic rehued art. It's part of what made UO, UO, and it's removal has been a part of the problem with inflation in the economy ever since. I don't personally buy this argument, but it's out there.)

More seriously, bringing in reagent use, and tying it to a system like gardening or making Gardening/Farming an actual skill so players could grow their own reagents, that might be a nice addition to the game. While a mini-game for growing the resource might be fun, you are right, the mini-game of managing the resource for use was not.

Dot_Warner said:

Yet that would be the net result. Even at 99% in favor of an event causes the RNG to ensure failure an unreasonable number of times in a row.

I have a character with 98% LRC. Her failure rate when casting due to a lack of reagents is mindbendingly high. That missing 2% shouldn't be as significant as it is.

Find another windmill to tilt at.

To me, you've just described the real problem with LRC. LRC is not consistently lowering the cost by a scale, it is creating a use/no-use binary.

In other words, you're not using 68% less reagents with LRC 68%, you're getting a 68% chance to use no reagents at all. It's very hit or miss (as you point out, a substantially high amount of the time - miss).

The system could be changed so that spells used more reagents, but LRC reduced cost consistently. Let's say a level 8 spell took 8 reagents, but LRC of 50% always removed 50% of the cost. With 50% LRC the level 8 spell would always only consume 4 reagents. At 100% it would never consume reagents.

Then we're back to the first argument, should there be an LRC% cap so a caster is required to use a resource? And to your point, managing that resource for use was not fun.

Casters say no cap. Resource harvesters say hell yes put in a cap and require our resource. Give us a game to play! Especially if harvesters got a whole new skill to play with (like bumping gardening to farming - let us turn our custom houses into farms - need split rail fencing, and plows, that hook to horses, ooh the possibilities).

Just depends on what an individual considers the "game".

Dot_Warner said:

This cat has been out of the bag for far, far too long to even consider trying to stuff it back in.

Getting rid of LRC now would not have a positive impact on UO. Fifteen years have passed since it was introduced.

Reagent resource management isn't a fun mini-game and would be a negligible gold sink.

Arroth_Thaiel said:

I disagree with you on the first part Dot. Just because something has been someway for a long time, doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be changed. I mean reagent use and the gold it caused to cycle through the economy was part of the game for Five years before it was radically altered. I agree that per person the gold sink would in fact be negligible, but cumulatively I think it would be substantial. 

(Tangentially, and a bit tongue in cheek here..., one could make the argument that reagent use is part of the Classic Experience of UO, kinda like the classic client, or the classic rehued art. It's part of what made UO, UO, and it's removal has been a part of the problem with inflation in the economy ever since. I don't personally buy this argument, but it's out there.)More seriously, bringing in reagent use, and tying it to a system like gardening or making Gardening/Farming an actual skill so players could grow their own reagents, that might be a nice addition to the game. While a mini-game for growing the resource might be fun, you are right, the mini-game of managing the resource for use was not.

Well, not to be a contrarian, but change for change's sake isn't good either. Particularly when it could be considered, at best, regressive. I really don't believe there is a grassroots movement to remove LRC from the game, mostly just one, overly loud, persistent spoilsport voice. 

At this point in UO, I don't want a return of camping the NPC mages so you can buy out their stock of X reagent before anyone else can. That was never fun. Mysticism reagents still aren't stocked in high enough quantities for such an NPC market to be truly useful/viable, especially as a gold sink. (UO's modern economic inflation can be traced back to one person, but she shall remain nameless here as it is not relevant.)

While I'm in favor of expansions to gardening, I'm not sure how many people would jump at the chance to grow reagents en mass (in sufficient quantities to support a medium shard's mage population). Though I know people would love to get their mitts on the raw-reagent-plant-form graphics.

Arroth_Thaiel said:

To me, you've just described the real problem with LRC. LRC is not consistently lowering the cost by a scale, it is creating a use/no-use binary.

In other words, you're not using 68% less reagents with LRC 68%, you're getting a 68% chance to use no reagents at all. It's very hit or miss (as you point out, a substantially high amount of the time - miss).The system could be changed so that spells used more reagents, but LRC reduced cost consistently. Let's say a level 8 spell took 8 reagents, but LRC of 50% always removed 50% of the cost. With 50% LRC the level 8 spell would always only consume 4 reagents. At 100% it would never consume reagents. Then we're back to the first argument, should there be an LRC% cap so a caster is required to use a resource? And to your point, managing that resource for use was not fun. Casters say no cap. Resource harvesters say hell yes put in a cap and require our resource. Give us a game to play! Especially if harvesters got a whole new skill to play with (like bumping gardening to farming - let us turn our custom houses into farms - need split rail fencing, and plows, that hook to horses, ooh the possibilities).Just depends on what an individual considers the "game". 

LRC isn't a binary yes/no equation. It's based on the number of reagents a spell requires:

Number of Reagents Required to Cast the Spell	Chance to Cast the Spell without Using any Reagents
	LRC 90%	LRC 80%	LRC 70%	LRC 60%	LRC 50%	LRC 40%	LRC 30%
1 Reagent	90%	80%	70%	60%	50%	40%	30%
2 Reagents	81%	64%	49%	36%	25%	16%	9%
3 Reagents	73%	51%	34%	21%	13%	6%	3%
4 Reagents	66%	40%	24%	13%	6%	3%	1%

So 90% LRC is only binary if a spell only requires one reagent. The more reagents required, the greater the chance for failure. A scenario that isn't desireable regardless of whether one is PvPing or PvEing.

What resource harvesters? Miners? Lumberjacks? Scripters? Who really "harvests" reagents from mobs or the environment? I mean, sure, I'll collect the ones that are harder to come by or are "rare" (fertile dirt, executioner's cap, etc.) but I typically don't bother to collect stacks of regular reagents from mobs or chests (nor does anyone else I know). And yes, I have multiple scribes. 

The only people to really benefit from dramatic changes to LRC would be scripters as they could stalk the NPCs 23.75/7 and instantly buy them out, strangling any hope of meaningful economic movement.

What are reagents?

ah i did not know a check was done against each reagent thanks for explaining dot

99% lower reagent cost cap please NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

100% LRC and reagent cost are contradictory concepts and do not make sense in the same context. Reagent cost is a component in a resource management design. If it is possible to completely side step the cost altogether it calls into question just what is the purpose of the reagent cost in the first place, and if any 100% LRC addicts in this thread have a shred of integrity in their soul at least have the decency of asking for LRC and reagent cost to be removed altogether instead of remaining with this bizarre and senseless situation. It makes zero sense to suggest that we should have both reagent cost and 100% LRC in the game at the same time - each negate the purpose of the other. Also have the decency and consistency to ask for 100% lower ammo cost and for the healing skill to not require bandages to use, if we're just going to continue down this path of neutering the game.

The horrors of the pre-LRC days are being way overblown. Was it perfect? No. But managing reagents wasn't nearly as bad. If LRC were to be capped at 50%-60% and the devs created quiver-equivalent reagent pouches, we'd have the best of both worlds, and we can open the doors to new gameplay.

The question that should be answered is this: why should spells cost reagents?

Dot_Warner said:

Well, not to be a contrarian, but change for change's sake isn't good either. Particularly when it could be considered, at best, regressive....

At this point in UO, I don't want a return of camping the NPC mages so you can buy out their stock of X reagent before anyone else can....

While I'm in favor of expansions to gardening, I'm not sure how many people would jump at the chance to grow reagents en mass...

You and I are basically in the same boat here. I wouldn't want to see the system changed just to change it, but if it was worked into an expansion of gardening (or some other resource generating skill) then I could get behind it. Especially if it reworked all of the reagent process, from growth to harvest/refinement, to use.

Mining, lumberjacking, and fishing are all already mass resource production skills. If gardening (or whatever) got built out as a resource harvesting skill at that scale, I'm sure people would play gardener as well. Hey, you'd have a built in market if you reworked LRC! 

However, I also remember the days of recalling from shop to shop looking for regs. Still have a couple Mages Shops rune books actually. What a pain. No desire to return to that. You'd need some way for players to harvest and sell in huge quantity (like mining ingot quantities) and for NPC's to carry substantial quantities. None of the "this shop only stocks 10 of those" nonsense.

Dot_Warner said:

LRC isn't a binary yes/no equation.

What resource harvesters? Miners? Lumberjacks? Scripters? Who really "harvests" reagents from mobs or the environment?

By binary I just meant that with LRC you either use all your reagents, or none. You don't just use some. There is another way to build it where you could just use some, but it'd be a pretty big rework.

I guess I should have said "potential" reagent resource harvesters. Those harvesters who would show up if you built a whole new skill for them to play with. I don't know of anyone who harvests reagents from the environment at this point (maybe that one person on Stratics who says they still pick them up off the ground.)

I would love to see LRC reworked. But I'd like to see it done with the whole reagent system in mind. Gathering of the resource, crafting with the resource, use of the resource, and how a player would store it or access it at each stage.

Actually I'd like to see the dev team do that with...well the entire game. 🙂

The difference between regs, chiv tithing and archers arrows is that when you die you still have tithing and arrows (on blessed quivers) with no need to loot your body and/or restock. 
But with regs you will either have to get to your body or restock elsewhere.  Even bandages are with you if you carry a couple insured robes and scissors to cut them up with.

I'm not really sure where this would help gameplay or the economy considering we've looooong moved past a resource based gameplay in favor of item based.  There really is no going back.

That being said my vote is no.

Deraj said:

100% LRC and reagent cost are contradictory concepts and do not make sense in the same context. Reagent cost is a component in a resource management design. If it is possible to completely side step the cost altogether it calls into question just what is the purpose of the reagent cost in the first place, and if any 100% LRC addicts in this thread have a shred of integrity in their soul at least have the decency of asking for LRC and reagent cost to be removed altogether instead of remaining with this bizarre and senseless situation. It makes zero sense to suggest that we should have both reagent cost and 100% LRC in the game at the same time - each negate the purpose of the other. Also have the decency and consistency to ask for 100% lower ammo cost and for the healing skill to not require bandages to use, if we're just going to continue down this path of neutering the game.

The horrors of the pre-LRC days are being way overblown. Was it perfect? No. But managing reagents wasn't nearly as bad. If LRC were to be capped at 50%-60% and the devs created quiver-equivalent reagent pouches, we'd have the best of both worlds, and we can open the doors to new gameplay.

The question that should be answered is this: why should spells cost reagents?

LRC doesn't "neuter the game," stop being hyperbolic. It also wouldn't "open the doors to new gameplay," nobody wants more crap in their pack to keep track of. UO needs things that are fun, not anal retentive. The argument that reagents still being a requirement and the existence of LRC being paradoxical is just a strawman.

Comparing reagents to ammo isn't a 1:1 comparison. Quivers reduce weight and consumption (granted, it could be increased), plus they can also be insured/blessed. Ammo is the only consumables for archery, barring special move costs.

Magic requires both mana (ammo) and reagents (obviated with LRC). Magic users ability to fight is limited in their mana pool (while archers can carry multiple quivers and healers can carry multiple insured bandage summoning talismans). Magic users also can't reach the same damage levels most melee characters enjoy on a regular basis* (only book slayers apply, no EoO bonus, poor distribution of elemental spells amongst the spell schools (i.e. magery's cold spells SUCK)).**

The idea of a reagent pouch was floated long ago, but the devs never seemed that interested in the idea. We got LRC instead. Again, the idea that 15 years later, people have decided to complain, is laughable. 

* While WoD can do upwards of 800 damage, its usefulness is limited and brief.

** The disparity between the ridiculous ease of maxing melee DI compared to achieving the highest SDI (which tends to cripple the mage in some manner - unless you run the best gear) should also be mentioned.

Arroth_Thaiel said:

You and I are basically in the same boat here. I wouldn't want to see the system changed just to change it, but if it was worked into an expansion of gardening (or some other resource generating skill) then I could get behind it. Especially if it reworked all of the reagent process, from growth to harvest/refinement, to use.

Mining, lumberjacking, and fishing are all already mass resource production skills. If gardening (or whatever) got built out as a resource harvesting skill at that scale, I'm sure people would play gardener as well. Hey, you'd have a built in market if you reworked LRC! However, I also remember the days of recalling from shop to shop looking for regs. Still have a couple Mages Shops rune books actually. What a pain. No desire to return to that. You'd need some way for players to harvest and sell in huge quantity (like mining ingot quantities) and for NPC's to carry substantial quantities. None of the "this shop only stocks 10 of those" nonsense.

I just don't see the devs adding a new skill at this point, without it being part of a larger expansion effort. We'll be lucky to see the current plant system improved any past the addition of sugarcane and flax producing seeds. I'd love to see a rework of the truly abhorrent, click-happy plant gump! (Unfortunately, it was revealed that, under the hood, the plant system is a nightmare.) 

I'd honestly rather see them add in growable plants for the more annoying-to-get resources (tribal berries, river moss, blue corn, lava berries, tomatoes, etc.) before adding in reagents that would only really be needed if they beat LRC with a nerf bat. Even then, only five of the current seventeen reagents would even be logically growable (lore-wise, the rest are monster or environment-derived).

Arroth_Thaiel said:

By binary I just meant that with LRC you either use all your reagents, or none. You don't just use some. There is another way to build it where you could just use some, but it'd be a pretty big rework.

I guess I should have said "potential" reagent resource harvesters. Those harvesters who would show up if you built a whole new skill for them to play with. I don't know of anyone who harvests reagents from the environment at this point (maybe that one person on Stratics who says they still pick them up off the ground.)I would love to see LRC reworked. But I'd like to see it done with the whole reagent system in mind. Gathering of the resource, crafting with the resource, use of the resource, and how a player would store it or access it at each stage.Actually I'd like to see the dev team do that with...well the entire game. 🙂

While I agree that there is potential, I just don't see much dev time being invested in luring speculative resource harvesters, especially if it required reworking or scrapping already functional systems. I mean how many people really want to "work" to earn what is likely to be a meager income in UO? (or, who wants to come home from work just to "work a farm" in UO?)

Honestly, I'd like to see UO be streamlined - not require more clicks, more tedium or more spreadsheets. 

Dot_Warner said:

I just don't see the devs adding a new skill at this point, without it being part of a larger expansion effort. We'll be lucky to see the current plant system improved any past the addition of sugarcane and flax producing seeds. I'd love to see a rework of the truly abhorrent, click-happy plant gump! (Unfortunately, it was revealed that, under the hood, the plant system is a nightmare.) 

I'd honestly rather see them add in growable plants for the more annoying-to-get resources (tribal berries, river moss, blue corn, lava berries, tomatoes, etc.) before adding in reagents that would only really be needed if they beat LRC with a nerf bat. Even then, only five of the current seventeen reagents would even be logically growable (lore-wise, the rest are monster or environment-derived).

While I agree that there is potential, I just don't see much dev time being invested in luring speculative resource harvesters, especially if it required reworking or scrapping already functional systems. I mean how many people really want to "work" to earn what is likely to be a meager income in UO? (or, who wants to come home from work just to "work a farm" in UO?)

Honestly, I'd like to see UO be streamlined - not require more clicks, more tedium or more spreadsheets. 

I am totally with you on the unlikely to happen theme. And on click reduction.

Do you remember many years ago there was a meet up of some kind in Austin? I remember after that meeting a bunch of the fan sites were all excited. UOPowergamers is what I remember. There had been a lot of talk at that meeting about a new system that would work plants, alchemy, and tailoring together to produce dyes. Seemed like it was going to be really cool.

About a year went by and we got a leather dye tub. HAHAHAHAHA. *Sad face*

Shortly thereafter we got a whole bunch of exaggerated monsters for Lord Blackthorn's Revenge. (I think I have the timing about correct. It was either 3rd Dawn or LBR.)

Anyway, the interwoven world like system for dyes that had everyone all excited we never got, but man did we get crazy looking monsters. (I guess the modern plant dye system does some of that, but it took about, what, 10 years to get it?)

Seems like UO has always been this way. The big systems that players think would tie the game together and build out the "world of Sosaria" never get done. Whatever dev team is running the show goes in some other direction that no-one is expecting.

 

I’m not sure why some people don’t think there will be enough reagents for everyone to just buy them from a vendor, and have created this unnecessary requirement to grow them, considering the following:

1 I’m proposing 99% LRC cap not 0% like it used to be.

2 there are less people now than pre aos

3 there are more mage vendors now (with new lands)

4 most people have probably already got 1000s of regs in their house unused.

also, pre aos, I NEVER found the mages sold out of reagents, in fact i used to be pleased if someone had purchased regs cos then the vendors were programmed to stock double when regs were available. 

And even if you couldn’t find any reagents anywhere for some unlikely reason, it’s 1%. PvPers will just kill someone and loot theirs.

I cannot believe people are having a seizure over 1%.

Teapot said:

I remember when AoS came out and LRC suits became a thing.  The whole loading up on reagents everytime you were going out was nothing I ever missed.  Camping out the respawn at the reagents vendor.  You say you want to improve the game for new players and for those of us that have those stashed up regs in the bank who cares about LRC.  But those new players that people are donating LRC suits to make them have some sort of chance of playing the game longer than a week would probably care.  I'm trying to see why anyone would miss that?  Dying and not being able to recall out unless you could loot your regs?  Or everyone should carry insured arcane pieces again? 

You post daily some odd stuff and it almost feels flamebaitish half the time. 

I mean yeah, lets stop dead people talking in the game unless they have SS.  Or one of your other odd requests.

Dying and not being able to recall out ? Are you like, the only player left that doesn't know what a charged runebook/atlas is ? And I made my reply before I read Uriah's so ...:P

Dot_Warner said:

LRC doesn't "neuter the game," stop being hyperbolic.

It also wouldn't "open the doors to new gameplay,"

nobody wants more crap in their pack to keep track of

UO needs things that are fun, not anal retentive.

The argument that reagents still being a requirement and the existence of LRC being paradoxical is just a strawman.

Comparing reagents to ammo isn't a 1:1 comparison. Quivers reduce weight and consumption (granted, it could be increased), plus they can also be insured/blessed. Ammo is the only consumables for archery, barring special move costs.

That is why I am suggesting an equivalent container for mages that would hold reagents, and can be insured/blessed. Reducing their weight is also a fantastic idea. Nevertheless, hunting comes with a resource cost. If in a different timeline the devs for one reason or another allowed LAC to reach 100%, and I was here on this forum saying this shouldn't be possible, would you be going on about anal retentiveness and nobody wants to have to deal with counting arrows and the horse is out of the barn and all this other stuff that has nothing to do with the integrity of the game mechanics?

Magic requires both mana (ammo) and reagents (obviated with LRC). Magic users ability to fight is limited in their mana pool (while archers can carry multiple quivers and healers can carry multiple insured bandage summoning talismans). Magic users also can't reach the same damage levels most melee characters enjoy on a regular basis* (only book slayers apply, no EoO bonus, poor distribution of elemental spells amongst the spell schools (i.e. magery's cold spells SUCK)).**

The idea of a reagent pouch was floated long ago, but the devs never seemed that interested in the idea. We got LRC instead. Again, the idea that 15 years later, people have decided to complain, is laughable.

Deraj said:

1) My argument is not that LRC neuters the game. My argument is that 100% LRC neuters the game. It appears that your opening statement already misunderstands (and misrepresents) the entire premise. This isn't looking hopeful.

2) I'll describe it in a different way than "neuter". A simplification or bypass of a rule in a game that reduces the challenge and complexity of that game in a detrimental way. In other words, I see the possibilities lost due to 100% LRC as detrimental to the integrity of the game. Maybe you disagree with that conclusion but given my meaning you can at least see why I would say "neuter" or "simplification" or some other similar phrases I tend to use such as "water down" and "easy button".

 1) 100% LRC doesn't neuter the game. I point you towards the last 15 years as evidence against this argument.

2) The minutia of reagents (resource allocation) never made for a fun gaming experience. Layers of complexity don't add fun, they add tedium. 

UO doesn't need any more tedium, or in this case, a return to it. If you wish to have fun keeping reagents on your mages for casting and devote the property weight to something else, by all means, go have fun. But don't force it on the rest of us.

Deraj said:

It also wouldn't "open the doors to new gameplay,"

Objectively false. At the very minimum requiring reagents would increase the demand for reagents on the market, which by itself creates new opportunities for players to make money and interact with the in-game economy and with each other. There have been other ideas floated in this thread, such as gardening/fishing for reagent production. It is extremely easy to let the imagination wander for a brief moment and come up with other ways that the cost of reagents can be used.

*eye roll* 

Actually, it's not. You said "new gameplay," requiring reagents would be old gameplay. Two can play the semantic game. 

Reagents are still needed for scribing, thus a "market" still exists, at least in theory. However, arguing for the potential economic impact of reagents is just plain silly. Nobody is going to make a fortune in modern UO selling, or rather reselling, reagents. They will be crushed by the scripter/RMT market before LRC changes could go live. 

Unless said market is mitigated by aggressive dev intervention, this line of argument is moot.

Deraj said:

nobody wants more crap in their pack to keep track of

1) Speak for yourself please. Arguments that begin with "nobody wants..." hold no weight with me.

2) Tracking reagents was never difficult. And it's not difficult now. UOAssist can track reagents in the title bar. EC can track them in a hot bar.

More semantic games. 

Run a poll. Find out how many players want to be required to dink around with reagents again, regardless if the game or UOA did the tracking. Tracking isn't the point and you know it.

Deraj said:

The argument that reagents still being a requirement and the existence of LRC being paradoxical is just a strawman.

Who's position am I misrepresenting exactly? You're going to have to explain to me how that is a strawman. Consider the question at the end of my post. Why should spells cost reagents? Is there a reason? And if there is a reason, then how could it make sense that the rule would be negated? If the rule can be negated, why have the rule at all?

ETA: Reading this again, it occurs to me that you suggesting that "the existence of LRC" and reagent cost being paradoxical is a strawman is itself a strawman of my argument, which is that 100% LRC, not the existence of LRC, and reagent cost is a contradiction in game mechanics. As far as I have seen nobody here appears to be arguing against the "existence of LRC" (although I haven't read every single post so I may have missed it).

You talk about game mechanics, yet LRC (100% or not) is a game mechanic introduced by the developers. 

I'm fairly certain that leaving in the requirement for reagents when they added LRC was a far easier task than entirely reworking the way spells were cast. So the answer as to why they coexist is fairly simple: expedience (or laziness, depending on your generosity)

This line of argument is also fairly moot when one realizes how many contradictions UO contains. If you want a lore reason for LRC, that's simple: "Magic advanced." 

Deraj said:

Comparing reagents to ammo isn't a 1:1 comparison. Quivers reduce weight and consumption (granted, it could be increased), plus they can also be insured/blessed. Ammo is the only consumables for archery, barring special move costs.

That is why I am suggesting an equivalent container for mages that would hold reagents, and can be insured/blessed. Reducing their weight is also a fantastic idea. Nevertheless, hunting comes with a resource cost. If in a different timeline the devs for one reason or another allowed LAC to reach 100%, and I was here on this forum saying this shouldn't be possible, would you be going on about anal retentiveness and nobody wants to have to deal with counting arrows and the horse is out of the barn and all this other stuff that has nothing to do with the integrity of the game mechanics?

Integrity of game mechanics? Really? LRC doesn't break game mechanics. Breaks in game mechanics are bugs, not (usually) things added by the devs.

If you're going to bring up counting again, I'd like to point out that archers have two resources to worry about compared to a magic user's potential seventeen. But it's not about the counting, it's about the not wanting to engage in that level of detail for a game that already has too many other tidly little things to keep track of.

Deraj said:

I find your comparison of mana to ammo bizarre. Archers require mana to use specials. Mages require mana to cast spells. Mana regenerates for both archers and mages. Archers require finite arrows to shoot. Mages require nothing. When archers run out of arrows, they are finished. Mages cannot run out of reagents because they do not need them in the first place.

You'll find no disagreement from me that mages suck at damage, but I don't wish to provide a response on what I think about that issue because it has the potential of completely derailing the discussion. That being said, magery's poor performance in PvM as a reason for why 100% LRC should exist is a weak reason at best, a rationalization at worst. Fix both.

Let's ignore specials since magic users really don't have anything equivalent

Mana is a mage's ammo, lore-wise. Reagents are more of a focus for the energies (a crutch for our minds).

An archer can carry over a thousand arrows. (all my archers carry at least 1k arrows at all times) A mage, even with 30% weight reduction, would be hard-pressed to keep up - unless they cast only one offensive spell over and over.

The parts about magic user damage was more a tangential rant than a reason for LRC.

(I appear to have reached a post length where the editor becomes somewhat unstable...whee! So I'll skip ahead without quoting)

I still don't buy the economic argument in favor of requiring reagents. I think that ship has not only sailed, but it was promptly attacked by pirates and gleefully sunk. Resource gathering is mainly the domain of the scripter at this point. (see above) I have little faith that this will improve before EA pulls the plug.

Spells costing reagents: Ultima VI: The False Prophet started the reagent trend. Ultima VI, P2: The Serpent Isle brought the first "LRC" item, the Ring of Shal. Ultima VIII: Pagan had reagents required to make the foci for spells, but not the casting. Ultima IX: Ascension only required reagents to bind a spell into your spellbook.

UO was heavily based on Ultima VII, P1; hence spells requiring reagents. You'd have to ask Garriott why they went that route instead of Ultima IX's method.

But, seriously, 15 years have passed. UO has bigger fish to fry besides Mervyn's doomed crusade du jour. *points at pet autostabling not going anywhere* 

(I wouldn’t start crowing just yet about the pet auto stabling crusade going nowhere, i beleive there are changes in the works to address some valid issues, but that is for another thread)

It is actually very possible to play with only 99% LRC and never use reagents ever, let us consider that warriors have a 50% chance to miss, or a chance their bandages fail if they slip a lot, yet mages 100% never miss. It would not be the end of the game if someone’s spell failed very occasionally. People use the spell rising colossus and nether cyclone when at 120 mystic there is a chance to fail the spell. Where are all the posts about people having to carry rising collossus and nether cyclone scrolls and the great shortage of them on vendors? 

I NEVER once looted one of these scrolls off of a mystic and I kill a lot of people, because people just don’t care enough and just cast it again when it fails. I mean overall since aos, there is casting focus been introduced which means you have less chance of failing to cast than you used to. 

Warriors can hit non stop for no energy/stam expenditure. Mages cannot, they run out of mana.

Mages have to stop for a certain time period to cast most spells, warriors don't.

Mages can already fizzle some spells - yes warriors also miss hits.

Mages spells miss from incorrect distance - warriors hits also miss from incorrect distance.

There are no end of affects that prevent mages from casting or prevent the spells from landing. Bleed, Strangle, Poison resist, Lethal Poison, Paralyse, Shield Bash, Mana Drain, Mana Vampire, Dismount, Being pulled into mobs, Area Affect spells such as Thunderstorm, Cyclone, Pet Area Affect Abilities, Mortal - etc. etc. etc.

In the old days, when reagents were required, most of the above abilities that have come out since, that are designed to stop mages casting, did not exist.

I have no issues with the concept of removing LRC in itself. I have no issues with the concept of removing Casting Focus even.

But in the current climate, you would actually be nerfing mages, for no good reason. The game has In my opinion, already gone far beyond what is required to make up for 100% LRC.

Making Shadowguard, Doom, Peerless Bosses, Champ Spawns, most PvM events impossible for Mages to solo, whilst other classes walk through them, and making Parryless mages such dogfood in PvP - Mages already have it hard enough imo.

At this stage, if you add 99% LRC, all you are doing, is adding more RNG into Mageplay, on top of Casting Focus. This isn't necessary surely. The whole game would have to be rebalanced, to cope with this (what seems to be very small) change.

Unless my memory is faulty, this whole argument is purely academic because the idea of changing lower reagent cost has already been discussed and turned down. I admit I don't remember which member of the team said it.

Funny you mention that Petra. There was a thread about in on stratics about a decade ago, and one of the then forum admins who disagreed with it moved the thread to “spiels and rants” out of the way of the dev team to see, so the forum admin made the decision for everyone. Was it you Petra? 


But yeah yeah let us all give up trying to correct any mistakes..

Cookie are you seriously saying there is something that you would not be able to do as a mage carrying regs with 99 lrc but would be able to do with 100? What is this boss?

last time I checked in doom, there was a vendor. 

As for there being things like thunderstorm to disrupt casting, they also introduced cleansing winds and enchanted apples. (Plus gift of renewal which requires no regs)

I most definitely could do any content with 50% lower reagent cost, and people apparently consistently tell me how bad I am at the game.

someone please explain to me how mystics cast collossus? Because according to this thread, mysticism should be completely unplayable. Where are the scrolls? Show me the scrolls you mystics carry

I don't remember every action I took, and no longer have access to the records we kept at the time. If I did move it, I had a good reason, I never moderated a thread on anything as personal as simply disagreeing with the poster.  

Garth_Grey said:

Teapot said:

I remember when AoS came out and LRC suits became a thing.  The whole loading up on reagents everytime you were going out was nothing I ever missed.  Camping out the respawn at the reagents vendor.  You say you want to improve the game for new players and for those of us that have those stashed up regs in the bank who cares about LRC.  But those new players that people are donating LRC suits to make them have some sort of chance of playing the game longer than a week would probably care.  I'm trying to see why anyone would miss that?  Dying and not being able to recall out unless you could loot your regs?  Or everyone should carry insured arcane pieces again? 

You post daily some odd stuff and it almost feels flamebaitish half the time. 

I mean yeah, lets stop dead people talking in the game unless they have SS.  Or one of your other odd requests.

Dying and not being able to recall out ? Are you like, the only player left that doesn't know what a charged runebook/atlas is ? And I made my reply before I read Uriah's so ...:P

Yeah my fault was just thinking of quick things of the top of my head.  Love you too brah.

I've not said I couldn't do it.

I'm currently playing a 108 mystic in pvp instead of 120 (I'm crap at training skills - prefer to play), and I fizzle the whole time, I still play it.

I've said, it would add a whole level of RNG to Mageplay we don't really need right now - it already seems bad enough for a class that's meant to play based on skill alone.

I've also said, they have more then compensated for giving mages the benefit of LRC by adding in a trillion different new ways to stop you casting, or prevent your spells from landing. Even cleansing winds is no use if you are disturbed - which happens a lot by the way.

This is one of those things, I just don't see the point of right now. A bit like your pet stable thing.

And as Dot said, if 90% LRC on a 1 reg spell becomes a 60% cast chance on a 4 reg spell, that becomes quite a big game changer.

I don't mind it, if the entire concept and all processes behind it have been well thought out, but to just throw it in there, ignoring all the games counter balances put in over 15 years, could cause serious balance issues. And I personally, am already not happy with how they treat mage classes.

Edit - To summarise - if this were part of an entire gameplan to make the game less easymode - that is fine. But as a single action on its own... it is a bit piecemeal, and would only harm one class, leaving all the rest exactly where they stand. I get your bit where you say you'd be happy to take the hit, but what if it's only you taking the hit, and nothing else comes of it? 🙂

I'm not a fan of this idea. It's something that benefits those that have reagants stocked away and does nothing to stimulate the economy, help new players, or keep old players.

It would assist new/returning players, but only by 1%, because they would only need to achieve 99% to match the old guard. It’s nothing I know, but if I suggested 40% cap, I think I know what would happen.

If reagents were bad, they never would have introduced them or would’ve deleted them, they have only been effectively removed by an oversight on devs not getting around to putting a cap on. Let us consider if lower mana cost never had a cap and I came on the boards suggesting they capped it at 40%. I’m certain I would be trolled off the boards by the very people in this thread wishing to retain 100%.

Its inertia that people who complain suffer from, they are so used to easy mode milk and cookies uo that this game becomes boring. I mean people actually genuinely complained about the fiendish ai bug on the roof being fixed, they genuinely believed that they would prefer to play the game where you say all kill and go and browse the web. This is what we want is it? No wonder people lose interest. No more milk and cookies please. There is no bathroom!

Mervyn said:

It would assist new/returning players, but only by 1%, because they would only need to achieve 99% to match the old guard. It’s nothing I know, but if I suggested 40% cap, I think I know what would happen.

If reagents were bad, they never would have introduced them or would’ve deleted them, they have only been effectively removed by an oversight on devs not getting around to putting a cap on. Let us consider if lower mana cost never had a cap and I came on the boards suggesting they capped it at 40%. I’m certain I would be trolled off the boards by the very people in this thread wishing to retain 100%.

Its inertia that people who complain suffer from, they are so used to easy mode milk and cookies uo that this game becomes boring. I mean people actually genuinely complained about the fiendish ai bug on the roof being fixed, they genuinely believed that they would prefer to play the game where you say all kill and go and browse the web. This is what we want is it? No wonder people lose interest. No more milk and cookies please. There is no bathroom!

Why even have reagents then? Seriously, its stupid that we have skills that require reagents, and tithing, and then nobody ever has to use them. explain to me how the system is working just fine.

Nobody? I am, don’t nobody us.

And for the 10th time, I am not proposing a cap of 0 LRC, I am proposing 99%. It’s in the title even.

Just remove reagents from all casting schools of magic.  Mana/dex use is all they should need.

99% is a waste of time to do, I know my t hunter has a 98% suit and the amount of times times I cant a spell is way too much.

Why are you failing to cast at 98%? I suggest carrying reagents. 

So much talk in this thread about cast fails, when you could just carry 50 of each reg which is the entire point of the thread...

this is going no where. email your suggestion to uo@broadsword.com