Discussion about doing away with Power Scrolls

I started a poll about Power Scrolls with the option "Phase out PS & replace with quests"
and was asked what I meant by that. So to prevent the poll from going off into the weeds here is what I am thinking.

This proposal could work as a replacement of the present system or in addition to it.

I think a better way would be for a player when reaching 100 going to a npc and be given a quest appropriate to the skill and how high they want it raised. For example for swordsman here is a butcher knife go kill me a dragon with it for 120 cap or a short sword and 200 undead for 105 cap.

Another option would be follow the BOD crafting model with the power scroll account bound so as not to interfere with the existing market.

Also if implemented new titles for doing it the hard way would be nice.

For pets, just roll them when tamed with higher skill caps, at least a chance of 120s on all critters. Cap not high enough then go tame another. Or if they wish to be nasty roll for a chance of raising cap every time they go up a level.

Let the flame war begin

Power scrolls should have never existed. Game breaking design and implementation. There are people out there (very old people) that MMORPG means its a team game, it just means many many people are playing the game at one time and its a role playing game. This mindset has these geriactrics thinking you need a group to do certain content, this is the mindset that drove away the younger generations. A group of oldies controls all content related to skillgain above 100. Powerscrolls single handedly created the haves and have-nots in Ultima Online. Luckily for us plebs, you can purchase anything you desire in UO (except shard shields). 

Please do make raising skill achievement based. With the achievements have nothing to do with PvP or nothing to do with other players.

Also award 120 spellweaving to anybody who achieves a lvl 6 focus... ya know because when the last soul playing wants to WoD something good luck buddy. 

Without powerful and enticing rewards, objective based pvp would fail entirely.

Nikard said:

Without powerful and enticing rewards, objective based pvp would fail entirely.

Uh, there was was PvP before powerscrolls. Like I said, purchase the ones you need, boycott taming, and when the new vendors go into effect price hike the hell out of slither, crimmy, tangle, cameos, and any other decent PvP item. Takes a lot longer to farm roof than it does to complete a spawn. Sooner or later the crying will be reversed. 

PSs or FEL based quest will not matter, well yes it will because only the FEL players will be able to do the quests and then everything will be totally unbalanced.  I understand the OP is really a PKers that wants to totally control skill advancement esp for new players.  Lets really make UO anti-new player.

Ikeelu said:

Nikard said:

Without powerful and enticing rewards, objective based pvp would fail entirely.

Uh, there was was PvP before powerscrolls. Like I said, purchase the ones you need, boycott taming, and when the new vendors go into effect price hike the hell out of slither, crimmy, tangle, cameos, and any other decent PvP item. Takes a lot longer to farm roof than it does to complete a spawn. Sooner or later the crying will be reversed. 

I prefer getting my own rather then purchasing as I see purchasing as cheating (minor for gold major for $). I really enjoy taming always have. As for the price hike. Most of the items listed are available on other and easer spawns then the roof and as I keep getting told about power scrolls if you don't like the price go get them yourself.

I don't expect a change but it is something that should be talked about. If I was a new player I would find it a major turn off. To play they have to either pay some more real money to a semi legal 3rd party or be up in the middle of the night to get their own and hope no player killer jump them. Unless you are saying power scrolls are not necessary or a new player has a chance against the spawn lurking heavily equipped veteran that is the way things are.

I really find it hilarious the speed at which the PvP crowd jumps to the defence of their monopoly even though it's not all about power scrolls.

Ikeelu said:

Nikard said:

Without powerful and enticing rewards, objective based pvp would fail entirely.

Uh, there was was PvP before powerscrolls. Like I said, purchase the ones you need, boycott taming, and when the new vendors go into effect price hike the hell out of slither, crimmy, tangle, cameos, and any other decent PvP item. Takes a lot longer to farm roof than it does to complete a spawn. Sooner or later the crying will be reversed. 

Before power scrolls everything was objective based PvP because Tram didn't exist.

Don't see the point of adjusting, or doing away with one of the few, and best working systems in the game.

The fact it generates so much activity, the fact people still apparently use "spawn cams", the fact there is still an economy for scrolls, the fact we still pvp over them, the fact it generates this much discussion, we should all be grateful tbh.

Ikeelu said:

A group of oldies controls all content related to skillgain above 100.

Apologies, can't help being such an amazing gamer.

I admit, I was probably born this good. 🙂

The scroll economy was artifically boosted by the pet training revamp #boycott taming. The only people that need scrolls are tamers, a class that has been nerfed to the ground in PvP. The sorry PvPers cried so hard about phoenix too. Hilarious! 

Game is garbage. 

Ikeelu said:

Takes a lot longer to farm roof than it does to complete a spawn. Sooner or later the crying will be reversed. 

So this evening we spammed roof with my guild, I went in with 2 others in my party, we did each room in about 4 minutes, and roof in say 10 minutes - say 30 minutes per roof. Same time as it takes me to solo a dreadhorn. Same time it takes a lot of people to do a spawn. Medusa takes about 5-10 minutes per round - all very much of a muchness. Admittedly my guild have knocked a spawn off in about 6 minutes, would still like to see someone beat that. 🙂

{My times may be a bit out, late, tired now, not thinking so clearly, but it all seemed damn fast. 🙂  }

Ikeelu said:

@ Tim I am saying consider what your time and money are worth to you and do what fits. Spawning is pointless, I got over 900 scrolls last month not a single 120 Anat or Tactics. So keep that in mind. They are trolls just feed them and move on. 

900 scrolls is really impressive tbh.

You are correct some of them just seem rare, always seemed to be the way, probably due to demand. I remember when Magery, Resist, Eval Int were the big ones.

Then Bushido, then Wrestle, etc. etc, things go round in cycles depending on flavour of the month templates.

If you are getting 900 scrolls per month, you should be storing, and scroll binding up them to make 120's.

If I were getting 900 scrolls per month, I really would not be complaining about the system.

@Cookie I’m actually just rooting for change. I would have rather done something different with my time. Also I do a spawn in 10 minutes. I am however politicking to remove PK they annoy the hell outta me but I think I found a viable way to put 100 poison on my temp so soon I’ll just spam DP and I think it’ll be hilarious. Anyway it’s sad anybody would need 1000+ scrolls to get the scrolls they need. Thats about 3 spawns with protection a day for a month. However yes after learning about binders i had plenty of what i needed 

Ok, so you do a spawn in about 10 minutes, and yes, there are many Sampires out there doing exactly that.

Just think, if powerscroll spawns went to Trammel, or you got rid of the pk's - {the games natural inbuilt check against over-supply}.

Spawns would be farmed to hell, round the clock for a couple of months, then the content would be completely dead - exactly like mastery primers that we all drop on the floor. Then everything that relates to spawn or scroll content would also be dead (pvp, collecting gear to pvp, crafters to make gear for sampires/pvpers),  the knock-on effect would be massive in terms of making the game and it's content completely stale and pointless.

This has been my argument against Trammel for so long. PK's have kept the powerscoll system going, and healthy for say 15 years. No PK's in Trammel, have allowed resources to be script farmed until all related content is just worth nothing. How many players, genuinely go out there, and manually lumberjack for fun these days? I do, I really don't know of many others.

Haha, Cookie earlier I was going to say “I could have spent my time mining, something I enjoy” we’re a different breed. Sadly we have different opinions but I bet we could be friends. 

Ikeelu said:

Haha, Cookie earlier I was going to say “I could have spent my time mining, something I enjoy” we’re a different breed. Sadly we have different opinions but I bet we could be friends. 

I actually agree. 🙂

Cookie I'm sorry to hear your preferred game is in decline But 

Shards "die" when they don't attract new players. And the term die refers mainly to PvPs. I could play on a shard by myself and still enjoy it, not as much as if there  were other people but I could and have. Only PvP requires other people, PvM is better with more people but it's not essential. 

Also I'm calling bull on the claim that PvPers create all the action and demand. The hottest topic this morning is BOD book storage. Sorry but crafters are doing fine without you. Also most of the stuff on vendors is as relevant to PvM as PvP if combat related at all.

We Need New Players.

People looking for a just PvP game are not going to choose UO unless they can compete and feel they have a chance. And be honest no one can compete without power scrolls and they aren't going to get any with out being mugged an awful lot.(or doing Pay to Play for real money) How long is that person going to put in time just trying to get to the point were they have a chance when they usually walk away with nothing? So we need to try and attract players of all types. People looking for other types of games are gone when they realize they have to play the "sheep" or buy power scrolls. If we could get them to stay a good portion would probably drift into PvP but I can't see them sticking around that long. As for buying Power Scroll in game you could get at least a keep if not a castle for the cost in gold of powering up one player or pet.

Thread has been cleared of most off topic, troll and Terms of Service violations.

Rorschach said:

Thread has been cleared of most off topic, troll and Terms of Service violations.

Thanks  🙂

Rorschach said:

Thread has been cleared of most off topic, troll and Terms of Service violations.

If you were clearing it of trolls shouldn't the OP have been removed?  I mean come on when you end your argument with 'let the flame wars begin' you know that your topic is nothing but trolling.

It started in a good spot.  Unlike every some other threads.

Sadly UO can not afford to do this as it will destroy the PvP Community and we can not disenfranchise any play style.  UO needs to keep as many people and all play styles happy.

So many threads related to the PK + PS combo. Please, no more new threads on this 15 year-old issue...

Seth said:

So many threads related to the PK + PS combo. Please, no more new threads on this 15 year-old issue...

So no player who has been here less the 15 years can have express their opinion ?

Or is it the game/player base haven't changed in 15 years?

AtomicBetty said:

Rorschach said:

Thread has been cleared of most off topic, troll and Terms of Service violations.

If you were clearing it of trolls shouldn't the OP have been removed?  I mean come on when you end your argument with 'let the flame wars begin' you know that your topic is nothing but trolling.

PS my comment at the beginning about "let the flame war being" was because a some people would prefer a flame war and shut down discussion before there is a chance some one might change their mind.

Tim said:

AtomicBetty said:

Rorschach said:

Thread has been cleared of most off topic, troll and Terms of Service violations.

If you were clearing it of trolls shouldn't the OP have been removed?  I mean come on when you end your argument with 'let the flame wars begin' you know that your topic is nothing but trolling.

PS my comment at the beginning about "let the flame war being" was because a some people would prefer a flame war and shut down discussion before there is a chance some one might change their mind.

When I asked you in the polling thread, what does the option "Phase out PS & replace with quests" mean, it is because it is very vague. Essentially, if we combine the argument every other thread it is all about PK and PS, or let players get PS safely without PK and claims that only then population will increase. 

I didn't ask for a thread for a "flame war". I only want to tell you I won't choose this option because it is vague in its description. Which means even if 100% of the poll picked this option it does not help in anything.

Seth said:

Tim said:

AtomicBetty said:

Rorschach said:

Thread has been cleared of most off topic, troll and Terms of Service violations.

If you were clearing it of trolls shouldn't the OP have been removed?  I mean come on when you end your argument with 'let the flame wars begin' you know that your topic is nothing but trolling.

PS my comment at the beginning about "let the flame war being" was because a some people would prefer a flame war and shut down discussion before there is a chance some one might change their mind.

When I asked you in the polling thread, what does the option "Phase out PS & replace with quests" mean, it is because it is very vague. Essentially, if we combine the argument every other thread it is all about PK and PS, or let players get PS safely without PK and claims that only then population will increase. 

I didn't ask for a thread for a "flame war". I only want to tell you I won't choose this option because it is vague in its description. Which means even if 100% of the poll picked this option it does not help in anything.

Oh I wasn't referring to you Seth but to the fact that is discussion seem to alway get shut down and a sarcastic comment as to why that may be.

I'm sorry if you took my comment personally you were one of the calmer well thought out responses.

Also I really don't think the odds of anything changing are very high but venting keeps me from quitting  .