I will be brief.
Templates that use 800+ skillpoints should not exist. No template should be without weakness. Both PVP and PVM are deeply flawed right now, to the point where the game isnt fun to play.
In addition, the egregious inequality between the two clients is disgusting and I shouldnt be at a disadvantage in PVP OR PVM for choosing the classic client.
My next problem is the gross inequality between the races in game. Why can gargoyles not be better than humans or elves at ANYTHING? Inferior luck, inferior spell damage, inferior damage reduction, inferior racial bonuses,skill increase items available, AND I have to alter items permanently, which permanently decreases their value because gargoyles suck at everything.
My thought process the other night.
Hmm I think im going to make a necromage gargoyle! That sounds fun! Wait.. I cant fit the same spell damage.. ok pvp gargoyle! Wait.. I cant fit enough skillpoints for parry.. Wait.. Ok gargoyles suck Ill make a human necromage, Wait.. If he has parry he cant fit meditation.. and I need more stats.. Ok Ill make an elf necromage.. Wait.. but if I make him a mystic he gets to have focus and then I wont need med! Ok so elf mystic parry with 55lmc! OH WAIT.. I tried to do something fun and ended up with the EXACT SAME TEMPLATE AS EVERYONE ELSE. GIVE OR TAKE EVASION [If you can find the jewels.]
This is the state of the game. There are only a handful of ways to build correctly/efficiently and a LOT of ways to be wrong. This is not the Ultima Online I want for the future.
Any chance we can take a break from our regularly scheduled power creep to make the game not suck?
On second thought, this wont be brief. It would be a little lame to critique the state of the game without proposing solutions.
1. Hard cap skill increase from items at +30-45 [This fixes nearly all hybrid template problems]
2. Fix the faster casting town buff exploit and ban all intentional abusers.
3. Fix the artwork in the enhanced client so you can shut down the classic client. [Nobody cares about the inferior client's UI, its that my char looks like shit in that client.]
4. Give gargoyles ONE GOOD RACIAL ABILITY and the ability to add luck with enhancement to earrings and necklaces. One decent modern gargoyle artifact wouldnt hurt.
5. Invest resources into aggressively pursuing players that use illegal 3rd party programs to automate their gameplay in pvp.
6. Have a pass at all of the inferior templates [Like bards, tamers, ect.] and give them a reason to be played. My sampire out performs all of these classes at almost everything in the game. That is dumb.
Please consult me before making major balance changes so I dont have to fix the game again.
Mic drop.
You are welcome Ultima Online.
i love gargs. yeah not great for everything but have there place. no need for mount (yes this is also drawback, but was especially good before pet trained cus) the bonus 5 hci is nice, dont have to imbue balanced, and overall much cheaper to make a character in terms of gear. anyway thats why i love gargs and use them for certain characters. id say overall gargs are better than elves, but more template specific in terms of benefits compared to humans.
Gargoyles make strong throwers, both PvP and PvM
They deal real hard damage and have 50hci.
It's amazing to me how a generation that grew up on South Park and Family Guy can cry so much.
I don't have an opportunity to go into a great degree of detail right now other than to say that that any argument that starts with "deeply flawed" and then goes on to extol its arguments (some of which are terribly short sighted and misinformed) as being the sole solution to our "many problems" makes me wonder how we've survived for more than two decades. Alas, here we are.
That being said we look forward to a future conversation on how we can best balance a variety of aspects in the game world with regard to power creep and keeping the content engaging.
Thanks for the feedback!
why would you want to put a cap on skill increase? this creates weakness in the template ive fought many high skill templates and they're a lot weaker than you think they sacrifice so much in stats such as hci dci to make these templates plus it allows for my diversity you could make those gargoyle temps you want just need the right jewels no one said it would be easy with farming down and overall population down those items arent as available as they once were but to drop total skill points down youd lose any and all diversity in this game everyone pvping would play 3-4 templates
First you complain about templates having too many skill points, then two paragraphs later complain that you can't fit meditation on your parry mage. (in a game where a VAST majority of pvpers have refined suits and can't use meditation anyway). In an era where players get insane stat increase, 20+ mana regen on suits easily, and 55lmc you picked a poor example to use.
Gargoyles make awesome dismounters, can throw down colossus' at spawns for raiding or defense without being on foot, can fly around with 5 slot pets other than that... sounds like a bonus.
If you're basing your pvp suggestions on the principle that you enjoy sneaking off spawns and sitting in para fields for hours, then I suppose you'd see a lot of mystics and believe everyone plays the same template. My character roster I use open field and at spawns:
Archer ninja mage, nox necro mage, mystic parry mage, evasion necro, and a pure evasion dexxer. Have played each of them at least once in the past week.
Why do pvm templates need more buffs? Do people need more options to solo all the endgame content with in an MMO? Every character should have it's role for the group imo.
Focus on what needs an adjustment - Evasion.
I was going to argue with you and tell you youre wrong, but kyronix already destroyed you.
Evade is the only thing thats OP. Needs toned down. Coming from someone who plays evade on most of my chars.
5 pet slot trade off is not being able to remount quickly..? A gargoyle can continue flying, so there is no "remount."
No trade offs? The necro evader has 200 skill points invested purely for corpse and omen. You could argue pain spike is good for the cast timer, but I end up being a mage with lessened sdi so that I can corpse for the group (not a huge advantage against refinements.)
The necro nox toon needs 0 skill increase. Easily destroyed by dexxers.
The archer mage needs 0 skill increase. Easily destroyed by dexxers, but a fun glass cannon.
A pure evade melee toon needs...0 skill increase? No ranged damage, pretty big trade off.
What templates have I seen in just the past week of pvp? Weave mages, 4/6 chiv toons, mystic macers, bok mages, GARGOYLE weaving throwers, chiv throwers, stealth dpers, weaving archers, nox archers, evasion ninja mages, mystic parry mages, healing mages, tactics mages, plain archers, then throw in the extra templates I run that I listed above. So 15+ variations of templates I can recall off the top of my head running around yew gate and spawns in the past week.
Maybe define what qualifies as best offense? Best defense? Best defense would be a 4/6 chiv evader. Not going to get a ton of burst damage on that. Best offense would be...? splinter? Having a combination of mystic and mage on one toon? I think if you're going to call the game deeply flawed, then the community reading what you have to say shouldn't have to play a guessing game to figure out what you're talking about.
And I could care less about pvm. It bores me. Weird to complain about equality between races and classes, then say everything should have weaknesses (aka your tamer shouldn't excel at everything your samphire does) and ignore every point made about gargoyles having uses.
I think its funny how evasion is all of a sudden the main issue according to these people. Until 840 skill increase templates no one said evasion was broken. Before if you wanted to run a Bokuto mage you had to choose between resist or parry, now you get to have both. The skill not having a cap is definitely the issue. If you think otherwise your an idiot. Still waiting to see if they do put a nerf on parry or not, that conversation seems to have disappeared. Right now pvp is just run around for 5-10 minutes, attempt a dump, then run around again for ten minutes. That is not fun pvp, its dumb as hell. 3rd party programs also needs addressed, I still don't understand why it hasn't been addressed. The word collusion comes to mind.
Pvm could be upgraded fairly easily just by adding leechs to spellbooks to give them the same power as sampires. Only other thing as far as pvp goes is make a break point for 4/6 when combined with certain skills like bushido. 4/6 plus bushido shouldn't exist.
Gargoyles have the longest ranged dismount weapon available in the game. Gargoyles are the only race that can cast a rising collosus while moving at mounted speed. Gargoyles have the only 1 handed weapon that comes with disarm and armor ignore. Gargoyles have the longest AI and mortal ranged weapon. Gargoyles have an inherent 5 HCI bonus that when coupled with town bonuses makes it incredibly easy to get max hit chance.
Elves have increased mana and when coupled with refined suits 80 energy resist basically negates holy fist and energy bolt.
Humans have natural regens, can carry more, and JOAT for hiding, weaving buffs, and the ability to use low level magery scrolls with no skill investment.
Each has perks. I choose my race depending on the template.
+Skill cap would completely remove the amazing template diversity that exists in PvP today. My guild alone has 8 active players. Among those players the primary templates played are : mystic bushido dexer, necro bushido mage, fencer bushido tactics mage, parry wrestle mystic, bushido mage wep ninja mage, chiv/weave/thrower. The two other players that are on frequently are a bushido/weaver mage and a disarm archer.
That is 8 people with similar play styles all playing different templates.
Some personal attacks have been edited out of a number of posts.
There is an active bug that allows you to permanently keep +2 Faster casting from the town buffs, in addition to still being able to claim the town buff [+3 FC Total]
Let me get this straight. Nikard knows how to get to 3 fc with no fc on jewels and he still cant fit meditation on a necro? This might not be the game for you.
I used to condemn people for using speed hack on CC, but when they say they are only doing it to keep up with EC running speed. What do I say?
And a loner,
as uoam/uoc can’t track you without it. And why would you give up range check last target?
Makes the game too easy. I usually say "im by the big clump of trees southwest of the winery".
Sometimes I even double click my potions to drink them for nostalgia.
How about we get rid of my spirit not having the cohesion to go thru a gate?
You either get no response or if you get lucky a response how your question hurt their feelings..
ya either a skip cap or do something like where real skill is only way to maximize damage. Like if you run 80 real eval and rest is in skill bonus then you should have a lower spell damage output. Do it for all skills like that and itll take away those templates.
on a bok mage, tactics and bushido already need to be real skill and to some degree swords too. You want to add eval to the list of useless plus skill properties?
