2024-10-31 11:18
#0
I'm a long time fan of Ultima and Ultima Online. I started playing Ultima Online in Dec of '97 as a freshman in college and it has been a game I've returned to more frequently than any other game I've played.
At the announcement of new legacy, I was excited to see UO take a possible turn for the better, and embrace seasons or something similar to Time Locked Progression servers that EQ does. The idea of story driven skill gains peaked my interest, along with different rulesets. I will admit, I regret not trying to be more involved with NL's development prior to launch, but I had hoped that the devs would take a more risk/reward stance on trying new and different approaches to solving age old issues with UO Productions shards.
This is purely my opinion and it WILL be different from the UO veterans who are probably retired and have all the time they need to do anything in UO, at any given moment. I accept that veterans have their opinions, but much of what I have to say will probably grate against the very core of what they "believe" is good for UO, and what I believe is terrible for UO, specifically New Legacy.
So lets discuss the decision to make certain skills require items to be fully utilized - yeah, I'm talking about the taming knowledge books and bard songs. This concept on its own isn't terrible, but the implementation here is the worst possible version. Its also been a hot topic of discussion on Discord, and it seems like the drop rate is somewhere between 0.007% and 1%, with some users reporting they've played 16 hours a day for 6 days hitting every boss, getting loot rights, and not seeing a single book. Others have stated that they've done 350-400 bosses and received two books. I personally have hit ~150ish Crimson, Rikktor, Veylara and Icemancers, getting loot rights and often getting ~500+ gold, reagents and tmaps but have yet to see a taming book or a lure.
For a time limited format, unless what we currently have in NL is all we will ever get, this is an awful approach to something that should be a core part of the skills and obtainable by anyone within a reasonable time frame. If what we have is all we will ever get, then there are much deeper issues here, and this seasonal format isn't going to bring in any new players imo. An average player, playing ~2 hours a night will get to kill one or maybe 2 different bosses in any given evening. If its taking players who play 16+ hours a day 350+ bosses to get one book, this means your average player will get a book 150-200 days into the season.
A compound issue with the gated loot is that boss killing is currently the only end game loop. You finish the narrative or skilling your character, and you then jump from boss to boss, playing whack-a-mole, to possibly be blessed with 8th circle magery scroll, but often times getting loot rights and no drops at all. There are tmaps, but with the current gear, most people can't properly do the higher tiers and they don't reward you with anything you can't already get from the dungeons afaik. More gold, more gear drops your house is probably already filled with.
I've played many TLP/Season content games, and generally the focus is on accelerated progression so that when you drop the seasonal events and content, people have fully built characters and thus can focus on the seasonal content. If seasonal events and content are planned, the current loot system is going to be splitting the player base between the haves and have nots. This is how you lose players, not gain them.
It seems only hardcore UO vets who have nothing but time on their hands will ever feel that beating your head against the same loot walls, over and over and over again is what people want. No one outside of these circles wants that. People who have limited time on their hands don't want it, casual players don't want it. If you want new players to try UO, and enjoy it, I can guarantee they don't want this. Its been said that the beta testers (who were probably all old UO Vets) all wanted the drop rates lowered. Why anyone would listen to these people is beyond me, but here we are.
I'd argue that players outside of these "veterans" want to feel progression and currently the system is not providing anyone with that feeling outside of a select few who somehow have almost every tame book by only playing ~5 hours a day.
Even the reasoning for putting taming behind books and then gating them to atrociously low drop rates is not clearly understood. Through discussions on discord, it seems some vets feel that tamers should be put in their place and made to suffer just like the rest of the paths, and that if tamers had open access to every tame, it would be unbalanced or they would tame the best things and then quit. (they often forget completely about the lures...) These same vets don't complain about how their friends somehow magically have all the books, despite an increasing volume of players hitting 200+ boss kills without a book.
When I ask people who, for some reason support this gating mechanic why they care so much about what other players, that they'll probably rarely interact with, do in the game or how they play affects their game play, they can never give me an answer.
Even if I had all the books, I'd still be voicing my opinion for the people who are stuck behind and endless cycle of miserable RNG. I try to empathize with other's when they have problems/are unhappy in a game. At the moment, there seems to be a significant amount of people unhappy about the gated books.
My suggested solution:
Implement quest lines (multiple quests, can end in the defeat of a named boss) related to the books similar to how tamers unlock drake taming. Allow tamers to select a quest to unlock a type of monster to tame (undead, dragon, nightmare etc) tied to the progression of the Congiarium.
This would allow tamers to feel and experience a natural progression while also giving them the choice of what they'd like to tame next. It would also give variance in how each tamer progresses. Most might select dragons first, but some tamer/warriors might select nightmares. It would put the choice of play style into the players hands.
It would keep the playing field level too, as every tamer would be unlocking tames at the same exact rate.
At the announcement of new legacy, I was excited to see UO take a possible turn for the better, and embrace seasons or something similar to Time Locked Progression servers that EQ does. The idea of story driven skill gains peaked my interest, along with different rulesets. I will admit, I regret not trying to be more involved with NL's development prior to launch, but I had hoped that the devs would take a more risk/reward stance on trying new and different approaches to solving age old issues with UO Productions shards.
This is purely my opinion and it WILL be different from the UO veterans who are probably retired and have all the time they need to do anything in UO, at any given moment. I accept that veterans have their opinions, but much of what I have to say will probably grate against the very core of what they "believe" is good for UO, and what I believe is terrible for UO, specifically New Legacy.
So lets discuss the decision to make certain skills require items to be fully utilized - yeah, I'm talking about the taming knowledge books and bard songs. This concept on its own isn't terrible, but the implementation here is the worst possible version. Its also been a hot topic of discussion on Discord, and it seems like the drop rate is somewhere between 0.007% and 1%, with some users reporting they've played 16 hours a day for 6 days hitting every boss, getting loot rights, and not seeing a single book. Others have stated that they've done 350-400 bosses and received two books. I personally have hit ~150ish Crimson, Rikktor, Veylara and Icemancers, getting loot rights and often getting ~500+ gold, reagents and tmaps but have yet to see a taming book or a lure.
For a time limited format, unless what we currently have in NL is all we will ever get, this is an awful approach to something that should be a core part of the skills and obtainable by anyone within a reasonable time frame. If what we have is all we will ever get, then there are much deeper issues here, and this seasonal format isn't going to bring in any new players imo. An average player, playing ~2 hours a night will get to kill one or maybe 2 different bosses in any given evening. If its taking players who play 16+ hours a day 350+ bosses to get one book, this means your average player will get a book 150-200 days into the season.
A compound issue with the gated loot is that boss killing is currently the only end game loop. You finish the narrative or skilling your character, and you then jump from boss to boss, playing whack-a-mole, to possibly be blessed with 8th circle magery scroll, but often times getting loot rights and no drops at all. There are tmaps, but with the current gear, most people can't properly do the higher tiers and they don't reward you with anything you can't already get from the dungeons afaik. More gold, more gear drops your house is probably already filled with.
I've played many TLP/Season content games, and generally the focus is on accelerated progression so that when you drop the seasonal events and content, people have fully built characters and thus can focus on the seasonal content. If seasonal events and content are planned, the current loot system is going to be splitting the player base between the haves and have nots. This is how you lose players, not gain them.
It seems only hardcore UO vets who have nothing but time on their hands will ever feel that beating your head against the same loot walls, over and over and over again is what people want. No one outside of these circles wants that. People who have limited time on their hands don't want it, casual players don't want it. If you want new players to try UO, and enjoy it, I can guarantee they don't want this. Its been said that the beta testers (who were probably all old UO Vets) all wanted the drop rates lowered. Why anyone would listen to these people is beyond me, but here we are.
I'd argue that players outside of these "veterans" want to feel progression and currently the system is not providing anyone with that feeling outside of a select few who somehow have almost every tame book by only playing ~5 hours a day.
Even the reasoning for putting taming behind books and then gating them to atrociously low drop rates is not clearly understood. Through discussions on discord, it seems some vets feel that tamers should be put in their place and made to suffer just like the rest of the paths, and that if tamers had open access to every tame, it would be unbalanced or they would tame the best things and then quit. (they often forget completely about the lures...) These same vets don't complain about how their friends somehow magically have all the books, despite an increasing volume of players hitting 200+ boss kills without a book.
When I ask people who, for some reason support this gating mechanic why they care so much about what other players, that they'll probably rarely interact with, do in the game or how they play affects their game play, they can never give me an answer.
Even if I had all the books, I'd still be voicing my opinion for the people who are stuck behind and endless cycle of miserable RNG. I try to empathize with other's when they have problems/are unhappy in a game. At the moment, there seems to be a significant amount of people unhappy about the gated books.
My suggested solution:
Implement quest lines (multiple quests, can end in the defeat of a named boss) related to the books similar to how tamers unlock drake taming. Allow tamers to select a quest to unlock a type of monster to tame (undead, dragon, nightmare etc) tied to the progression of the Congiarium.
This would allow tamers to feel and experience a natural progression while also giving them the choice of what they'd like to tame next. It would also give variance in how each tamer progresses. Most might select dragons first, but some tamer/warriors might select nightmares. It would put the choice of play style into the players hands.
It would keep the playing field level too, as every tamer would be unlocking tames at the same exact rate.
