Newsletter Question 6: Useless skills

"6.  Take Pinks and Blues for skills like taste ID, Item ID, Camping, etc etc from the list of possible drops at champ spawns and t-chests.

We totally agree with you on this.  Those skills are useless by today's standards and just never taken out of the list.  We will look at removing these in a future publish."

Am I the only one that thinks this is the wrong direction to go with this? If the skills are "useless by today's standards" wouldn't it be better to upgrade them instead of removing content/items?

I'm not talking about anything groundbreaking or revamping, but with the nature of some skills like Tactics, Eval Int, Anatomy, having paired effects, at the very least, couldn't they see use by pairing for bonuses to another skill?

I mean, there's definitely more complex things that could possibly be done with them as well. I'm just always disappointed to hear some skills have been abandoned like this.

I can't think of anything Item ID can even be used for anymore.. maybe there are things that need to be ID'd that people still collect but.. uh.. yeah.

 Camping, maybe if you just need to insta log out in a place full of creatures that can detect hidden and you need to go use the bath room really bad and you got 100 free points on your sampire or something. I mean, maybe people use it in obscure role play scenarios in like Ilsh and they can't find that inn close to spirituality.

 Taste ID.. would be cool if they made special food items drop off beefed up titans or something, and you had to use taste id to get the benefit to appear on those food items. I dunno. Just trying to find useful applications that you wouldn't have to totally revamp the game for.. otherwise, yeah I'd go so far as completely removing the skills out of the game. And maybe the remaining scrolls will become rares and sky rocket in value.. and you'll see those pinks proudly displayed in somebody's rare museum. Maybe. I think my brother literally leveled camping almost solely from camping sots lol. I don't even think he knows how to use the skill, maybe I never asked. That's how bad camping is. I THINK you buy a bedroll from a provisioner and use that somehow.. but um.. 

NO to the pairing them with other skills.  Templates are too cramped now, this would only make them even moreso.  Not saying to delete the skills, just take the useless unused ones off the list of possible for drops.

Camping used along with a bed roll and kindling. Start a fire camp becones secure then use bed roll logs you out

If they’re doing that, they can increase the values of the Enhance potion mod on armour as the intensity range of 0-3 is not within keeping of intensity ranges of all other mods, should really be 5-15. 

The durability increase could be converted to actual durability increase. Meaning 100% durability should yield 510/510 dura.

CovenantX said:

@ Kyronix , while you're at it could you remove

"Lower Requirements %"

"Durability Increase %"

Properties from reforging/global loot etc possibilities?   

These properties are completely useless and only reduce the probability of getting what you want with reforging and loot by affecting the item's overall budget.

This!!! A thousand times this!

Mervyn said:

If they’re doing that, they can increase the values of the Enhance potion mod on armour as the intensity range of 0-3 is not within keeping of intensity ranges of all other mods, should really be 5-15.

Mervyn said:

If they’re doing that, they can increase the values of the Enhance potion mod on armour as the intensity range of 0-3 is not within keeping of intensity ranges of all other mods, should really be 5-15. 

The durability increase could be converted to actual durability increase. Meaning 100% durability should yield 510/510 dura.

What I’m saying about durability is this, I agree with covenantx that 255/255 is enough. The item will last forever if repaired when required. But rather than remove durability as a mod, by increasing the max durability over the cap of 255 will mean you have to repair it less often, so it wouldn’t necessarily be a useless mod. 

Or...

you could go the other way, and drop the max 255/255 durability of all items to say 150/150 which is in keeping with replicas. But have items with durability bonus raise the durability to above that cap.

Either way, having durability raising the durability CAP rather than the item’s actual durability would make it arguably not a useless mod. 

As for “lower requirements”, I have no ideas on what this could be converted to do. And should probably stop spawning. 

Uriah_Heep said:

NO to the pairing them with other skills.  Templates are too cramped now, this would only make them even moreso.  Not saying to delete the skills, just take the useless unused ones off the list of possible for drops.

You know the funny thing about that "templates are too cramped" argument? It's completely irrelevant. They can be paired to give bonuses without forcing you to use them. Don't have room? Don't add it. They aren't required.

Arguing and discounting ideas whose aim is making something relevant or useful again is not helping recreate the diversity and depth UO once possessed. Cookie cutter templates are boring after awhile. And you're effectively arguing to leave these obsolete skills as just that: obsolete. Why not give them a breath of new life that could possibly result in some renewed interest?

Well Faeryl, I know what Uriah means. When they introduced armslore to give a 5% increase in resists on armour. Technically that is optional, you don’t “have” to put armslore on your crafter, but then you kind of do, as that would become the standard. 
you don’t “have” to put evaluating int on your mage, but I bet you do..

As many of the skills mentioned are outdated.  Increased durability that does not increase the durability above 50 needs to go.  So does lower requirements.

As for people who want to keep the useless skills in the game.  Go ahead and get your camping to 100, get kindling and a bedroll, start a fire and insta log under a tree somewhere.  Fun times...

A tree that you might have hoped to get some frostwood from but didn't, so you rage-camped.

Bloodwood is my difficult one. But Rage Camping.  😂

Mervyn said:

Well Faeryl, I know what Uriah means. When they introduced armslore to give a 5% increase in resists on armour. Technically that is optional, you don’t “have” to put armslore on your crafter, but then you kind of do, as that would become the standard. 
you don’t “have” to put evaluating int on your mage, but I bet you do..

The whole point of the skill system being set up the way it is is to encourage diversity by giving one countless options on how to build a character. If UO was meant to have only a handful of viable templates, then it would have the same system countless other games have. And it would not be UO.

And you're basically reiterating my point. Just because I choose to put something on my own template, doesn't mean anyone else has to do it.

As for standards? These standards only exist because of the dangerous power creep that has infected the game. From what I recall of watching my dad play years ago, you never needed to have the best of everything to be competitive. This allowed for much more variety. 

But if "standards" are your issue... there are ways to make skills more useful without adding to the power creep.

I should add, when I suggest pairing as an option, I'm not recommending it with existing "Templates" that already have multiple synergies and such.

An easy example would be Taste ID: Have it give a bonus to Enhance Potions bonus as it is raised up in skill level. This makes Alchemy/Taste ID a possible viable alternative to Healing/Anatomy, depending just how large the Enhance Potions bonus is.

It would take some balancing, because of the fact Alchemy itself also already does this, but I feel like if you did invest skillpoints into both skills, you should see a notable benefit in trade.

Faeryl said:

Mervyn said:

Well Faeryl, I know what Uriah means. When they introduced armslore to give a 5% increase in resists on armour. Technically that is optional, you don’t “have” to put armslore on your crafter, but then you kind of do, as that would become the standard. 
you don’t “have” to put evaluating int on your mage, but I bet you do..

The whole point of the skill system being set up the way it is is to encourage diversity by giving one countless options on how to build a character. If UO was meant to have only a handful of viable templates, then it would have the same system countless other games have. And it would not be UO.

And you're basically reiterating my point. Just because I choose to put something on my own template, doesn't mean anyone else has to do it.

As for standards? These standards only exist because of the dangerous power creep that has infected the game. From what I recall of watching my dad play years ago, you never needed to have the best of everything to be competitive. This allowed for much more variety. 

But if "standards" are your issue... there are ways to make skills more useful without adding to the power creep.

No one wants to take your camping or taste ID away.  Work it up on every character.  Just stop the dang pinks from dropping in tchests and at champ spawns, they water down the loot table, which is already weak enough...you get one pink from a spawn, would you want it to be useful or saleable?  Or would you want it to be herding...

Anyway, it's a good idea...but one that will eventually get nowhere because someone is afraid they cant pink their way up to GM in camping or something just as 'useful'...oh well

Uriah_Heep said: 

No one wants to take your camping or taste ID away.  Work it up on every character.  Just stop the dang pinks from dropping in tchests and at champ spawns, they water down the loot table, which is already weak enough...you get one pink from a spawn, would you want it to be useful or saleable?  Or would you want it to be herding...

I believe the point you're missing here is instead of taking away scrolls for "useless" skills... give the skills a use to make the scrolls worthwhile.

While they should make the useless skills worthwhile, I think we all know that would take a long time to accomplish in a satisfactory manner. 

They could move to a weighted skill system where "useless" or support skills weigh less than 100 points when one (or more) of their parent skills is present. GM Camping would be zero (if a 3yo can start a fire then take a nap, then anyone can!) GM Herding might weigh 20 points if you have Taming, GM Item ID = 10 with a craft skill, GM Taste ID = 10 with Cooking or Alchemy, GM Arms Lore = 30 with Blacksmith/Tailoring/Bowcraft, etc. 

That's not to say these skills don't need an actual use...because they do!  Though, to be honest, herding on a stealther can be a lot of fun