2026-01-03 08:50
#0
UO devs are gonna need to revisit the gameplay for working up hidden chests.
I do have a 120 thief with jewels and armor. Needless to say, I don't steal much. I have been successful on 3 umbrascale effigy. I hit my 4th today but it turned into a fustercluck.
In Rock, which is already a messed up dungeon. At GM hiding/stealth I am constantly revealed. I run ninjitsu so a smoke bomb and I am back safe. The spawns are insane. I think there is some code to try to keep up with all the necro axers running around at lightspeed, so the dungeons get worse the more of the soldiers there are.
I just stay in shadows and pop chests and even if I was a warrior/lockpick the spawn respawns in less than a second and it covers all the my chests and button clicks. However, that is aggravating but not the reason for this post. This is about stealing to take a rare out of the chest. Essentially, the protocol is basically just saying the price for the rare is death, hopefully, 1 death as it is unlikely you can pay multiple deaths due to time and distance. If you are lucky enough to have a rare chest near the entrance and healer. If the chest is any deeper then you only have 1 shot.
My debacle came when I popped an effigy and the chest wasn't really far from the entrance so I could possibly have a few shots. Here are my attempts.
1st - I waited for some warriors to thin out around my chest but really as soon as they did the spawn began to come back. In fact, I could not see any ground in the area I was at to give you an idea that coming unhidden was gonna be a pretty quick death. But, if I get the effigy in my pack, I die, then I can stealth back to my body and get everything. Ready for my first shot... Activate steal... oh crap, must have a free hand. I carry a spellbook and a void wand. My fault. I die. Run back and get rezzed. Began the walk back. Revealed and killed, Run back to entrance and get rezzed. This time make it back to body.
2nd - I make it back to my body. Ok, drop my spellbook. I got a free hand. I won't make that mistake again. No biggie. Activate steal skill. oh crap, must have a free hand. Clearly, I should know this that you gotta have both hands free. However, I wasn't thinking as the error said you must have a free hand. Body temp rising. Unhidden and Die. Run back to entrance to get rezzed. Make it back to my body/chest.
3rd - Ok settle down. Drop everything including talisman. Not gonna have any problems this time. Activate steal, Come unhidden. CAN'T CLICK the effigy. Click my target reticle everywhere. Nothing. Black screen. Run back to entrance get rezzed. WTF. Lemme give it another shot. Maybe I panicked.
4th - Same as 3rd. COULD NOT click the effigy. Unhidden, die. Run back and get rezzed. Make my way back to body.
5th - The container type was a chest. So, I'm gonna give it 1 more shot but I guess the contents are LIKE out of sight. I'm gonna go to the front of the chest. Start walking around the chest and it disappears. Times up.
I'm hoping the reason why I couldn't click on the rare was because I was not standing directly in front of the chest. I'm also not sure what the crates do then as they don't have a front or back.
Maybe I should know all of this but I feel like these nuances are really NOT "playing the game".
I'm getting beat because of just shotty code and game design. I think most of the restrictions were to nerf thieves back in the felucca only days, but for playing hidden chest game those skill restrictions are just certain death in these events. I think even for semi-normal dungeon with a normal spawn then I could do some passive tactics to steer the hostiles from the chest to make a clearing. These umbrascale mobs AI seems to be that of a neglected house cat. Not only do I get a few monsters that just start following my stealthing character around even though I'm hidden but it feels like the umbrascale monsters are always putting their butthole in my face.
The good news is that UO will make hidden chests better as they already made the hidden notification system work much better, so hopefully they can brainstorm and come up with something to keep making the hidden chests gameplay better. I just don't think the steal skill to take something out of a chest is very logical. As a thief/lockpicking/remove trap character, every chest I uncover I already toy with insta-death. So, I am constantly feeling my heartbeat in my anus. When you are levels deep in a dungeon and over 1000 monsters are between you and entrance, 1 failed remove trap and you got to run all the way back to the entrance, rezz, then walk all the way back through all the hordes. My solution now is I put some lockpicks and smoke bombs at the entrance and when I pop restock chests I just put those on the ground. Point is, is that hidden chests are not easy so I understand the stealing factor may come from a difficulty viewpoint. Again, I don't think chests are that easy that we need to have a guarantee death as part of it to make it difficult.
I do have a 120 thief with jewels and armor. Needless to say, I don't steal much. I have been successful on 3 umbrascale effigy. I hit my 4th today but it turned into a fustercluck.
In Rock, which is already a messed up dungeon. At GM hiding/stealth I am constantly revealed. I run ninjitsu so a smoke bomb and I am back safe. The spawns are insane. I think there is some code to try to keep up with all the necro axers running around at lightspeed, so the dungeons get worse the more of the soldiers there are.
I just stay in shadows and pop chests and even if I was a warrior/lockpick the spawn respawns in less than a second and it covers all the my chests and button clicks. However, that is aggravating but not the reason for this post. This is about stealing to take a rare out of the chest. Essentially, the protocol is basically just saying the price for the rare is death, hopefully, 1 death as it is unlikely you can pay multiple deaths due to time and distance. If you are lucky enough to have a rare chest near the entrance and healer. If the chest is any deeper then you only have 1 shot.
My debacle came when I popped an effigy and the chest wasn't really far from the entrance so I could possibly have a few shots. Here are my attempts.
1st - I waited for some warriors to thin out around my chest but really as soon as they did the spawn began to come back. In fact, I could not see any ground in the area I was at to give you an idea that coming unhidden was gonna be a pretty quick death. But, if I get the effigy in my pack, I die, then I can stealth back to my body and get everything. Ready for my first shot... Activate steal... oh crap, must have a free hand. I carry a spellbook and a void wand. My fault. I die. Run back and get rezzed. Began the walk back. Revealed and killed, Run back to entrance and get rezzed. This time make it back to body.
2nd - I make it back to my body. Ok, drop my spellbook. I got a free hand. I won't make that mistake again. No biggie. Activate steal skill. oh crap, must have a free hand. Clearly, I should know this that you gotta have both hands free. However, I wasn't thinking as the error said you must have a free hand. Body temp rising. Unhidden and Die. Run back to entrance to get rezzed. Make it back to my body/chest.
3rd - Ok settle down. Drop everything including talisman. Not gonna have any problems this time. Activate steal, Come unhidden. CAN'T CLICK the effigy. Click my target reticle everywhere. Nothing. Black screen. Run back to entrance get rezzed. WTF. Lemme give it another shot. Maybe I panicked.
4th - Same as 3rd. COULD NOT click the effigy. Unhidden, die. Run back and get rezzed. Make my way back to body.
5th - The container type was a chest. So, I'm gonna give it 1 more shot but I guess the contents are LIKE out of sight. I'm gonna go to the front of the chest. Start walking around the chest and it disappears. Times up.
I'm hoping the reason why I couldn't click on the rare was because I was not standing directly in front of the chest. I'm also not sure what the crates do then as they don't have a front or back.
Maybe I should know all of this but I feel like these nuances are really NOT "playing the game".
I'm getting beat because of just shotty code and game design. I think most of the restrictions were to nerf thieves back in the felucca only days, but for playing hidden chest game those skill restrictions are just certain death in these events. I think even for semi-normal dungeon with a normal spawn then I could do some passive tactics to steer the hostiles from the chest to make a clearing. These umbrascale mobs AI seems to be that of a neglected house cat. Not only do I get a few monsters that just start following my stealthing character around even though I'm hidden but it feels like the umbrascale monsters are always putting their butthole in my face.
The good news is that UO will make hidden chests better as they already made the hidden notification system work much better, so hopefully they can brainstorm and come up with something to keep making the hidden chests gameplay better. I just don't think the steal skill to take something out of a chest is very logical. As a thief/lockpicking/remove trap character, every chest I uncover I already toy with insta-death. So, I am constantly feeling my heartbeat in my anus. When you are levels deep in a dungeon and over 1000 monsters are between you and entrance, 1 failed remove trap and you got to run all the way back to the entrance, rezz, then walk all the way back through all the hordes. My solution now is I put some lockpicks and smoke bombs at the entrance and when I pop restock chests I just put those on the ground. Point is, is that hidden chests are not easy so I understand the stealing factor may come from a difficulty viewpoint. Again, I don't think chests are that easy that we need to have a guarantee death as part of it to make it difficult.
