Skills that don't seem to matter all that much....

mining, lumber jacking, cooking, detect hidden, forensic evaluation, begging, camping, item identification, taste identification, inscription, tracking and the list goes on...

why not either revamp these skills for more purpose, or remove them entirely?

How can you say Mining and Lumberjack have no use, where do you think all the wood and ingots come from.

They will add them to current things we already do without them just to make things more annoying.

Is that what you want?

well ok mining and lumberjack are useful, but honestly, there isn't much reason to be a crafter or gatherer anymore. You could just sink ships and get ingots and boards all day long. But yes they can still be useful i suppose. I'd just like to see these 'less used' skills get a chance at being more important and tie into crafting and gathering being more important, along with the extra random skills literally noone uses.

Paiwan, thats why i said remove them if not... its like, why do they even exist anymore?

crunchnasty said:

well ok mining and lumberjack are useful, but honestly, there isn't much reason to be a crafter or gatherer anymore. You could just sink ships and get ingots and boards all day long. But yes they can still be useful i suppose. I'd just like to see these 'less used' skills get a chance at being more important and tie into crafting and gathering being more important, along with the extra random skills literally noone uses.

Paiwan, thats why i said remove them if not... its like, why do they even exist anymore?

The granite used to build these neon eyesore custom homes came from miners. Both provide imbuing ingredients.

But no, nothing else needs to be tied into crafting. A solid mule already has no more room for skills.

So I am suppose to go ship hunting to get my stuff, did you think that I may enjoy mining and chopping wood.  Its one thing to say these skills are useless but you give zero information about how they should be made more useful.  Just because something does not fit your playstyle doesn't mean that other like to do them.  Sorry but this comes off as another one of those I think UO should be played this way to hell with what others think.

Besides making the spell books, bod books, scroll books, magic scrolls etc inscription also gives a 10% boost to the user's personal SDI. 

..And 5% casting focus, and it boosts magic reflect pool, and reduces loss of resists and skill with reactive armour, magic reflect and protection. 

Tracking I use on every char at jack of all trades because you need to track players who use EC because they run so fast you can’t follow them, granted having anything more than 20 is a waste of skill. You can’t play CC as a gargoyle or elf for pvp.

Be careful what yuou wish for.  Someone once wanted Arms Lore to be useful, and voila!!  Now every tailor/smith has to have it crammed into their template to craft the better armor.  

Those skills may not matter to you, but they do matter to some other players.
mining for ore, stone, gems(large and small), crystalline blackrock and salt peter
lumber jacking for boards, crystal shards, brilliant amber, parasitic plants, luminous fungi, bark fragments
cooking turns those bark fragments into wood pulp, also for fish pies, dyes,
I also cook for fun, taking a hamper of food to the Europa WBB meet sometimes.
detect hidden for finding hidden boxes in Exodus, Kotl city, and most recently in Khaldun. Also sigils if you're involved in VvV
forensic evaluation not often used,it's true,but valuable if you want to achieve knight of honesty
begging for halloween
camping, item identification, taste identification - those 3 I grant have limited use
inscription - How do you plan on getting level 8 scrolls to fill a spellbook without it?  Turns that woodpulp into blank scrolls and scroll binders and everyone has a use for runebooks/atlases.
 tracking will get used a lot in the not too distant future, to find those ships for the event.

i understand there are some uses for these skills, but what incentive do the majority of players have to use them at all if ever? Most of these skills have been lost compared to what they could or should be. Can't they be made more useful to the overall game. Im not asking for increased grindyness, im asking that they be incorporated into more of the gameplay.

crunchnasty said:

i understand there are some uses for these skills, but what incentive do the majority of players have to use them at all if ever? Most of these skills have been lost compared to what they could or should be. Can't they be made more useful to the overall game. Im not asking for increased grindyness, im asking that they be incorporated into more of the gameplay.

Your first line is the problem with you argument. A skill that is only used by 5% is sill being used. Just because that isn't you play style doesn't make it wrong or useless. 

If you want to be taken seriously come up with an idea of what use should be added to the skill.

im just trying to create a conversation around the idea. if it doesn't resonate then ill drop it. no big deal.

Camping, forensic, item and taste Id should be the only ones on that list. 

Inscription and cooking are used greatly. 

Gatherers can make mint splitting stock between what sells to players and dumping what doesn't into cleanup points to sell rewards. 

crunchnasty said:

im just trying to create a conversation around the idea. if it doesn't resonate then ill drop it. no big deal.

How do you figure they are useless, do you use them.
Lets just take one skill off your list.
We all know the uses of MINING just how would you change Mining, what other uses would it have or which skill would you put all the Mining uses on.
You have yet to saw why you think they are useless or is this just a TROLL thread.

If you've never tried using a rogue in Exodus dungeon you should. I enjoy it. If you want to see it in action try my youtube channel. There aren't many videos on there, so it won't be hard to find.

crunchnasty said:

mining, lumber jacking, cooking, detect hidden, forensic evaluation, begging, camping, item identification, taste identification, inscription, tracking and the list goes on...

why not either revamp these skills for more purpose, or remove them entirely?

And a month later all those skills will be required to cast a fireball...

Careful what you ask for!

You are not wrong, I bet the people who wanted a loot bump on t-hunts are thinking they should have kept quiet.

jaytin said:

You are not wrong, I bet the people who wanted a loot bump on t-hunts are thinking they should have kept quiet.

They should add their junk idea of t-hunting to Eodon where it can be ignored like the rest of it. Really wish they stopped ruining popular areas of the game only to force their content onto us.

JollyJade said:

jaytin said:

You are not wrong, I bet the people who wanted a loot bump on t-hunts are thinking they should have kept quiet.

They should add their junk idea of t-hunting to Eodon where it can be ignored like the rest of it. Really wish they stopped ruining popular areas of the game only to force their content onto us.

I spend a fair amount of time in Eodon. I do wish that Zippa wasn't so expensive though. 🙁

I always thought forensics should be used in accordance with stealing in some capacity. Item ID and taste ID should be counted as "secondary" skills and not go against the cap.

coldasice_209 said:

I always thought forensics should be used in accordance with stealing in some capacity. Item ID and taste ID should be counted as "secondary" skills and not go against the cap.

Item ID, Taste ID, Forensics, Camping, Herding, Begging... All could be removed from counting against the 720, particularly because they have no active benefits (and are non-combat). 

Dot_Warner said:

coldasice_209 said:

I always thought forensics should be used in accordance with stealing in some capacity. Item ID and taste ID should be counted as "secondary" skills and not go against the cap.

Item ID, Taste ID, Forensics, Camping, Herding, Begging... All could be removed from counting against the 720, particularly because they have no active benefits (and are non-combat). Yes! That would be awesome

I wonder if someone @Mesanna could dig up any old notes or such on herding and if there was a future use intended?

forensic evaluation - forensic (or forensis, in Latin), which means a public discussion or debate. In a more modern context, however, forensic applies to courts or the judicial system. Combine that with science, and forensic science means applying scientific methods and processes to solving crimes.

So for that skill maybe some form of finding a randomly spawned body in a dungeon, town or where ever and using the skill creates a mini quest of sorts to "solve the crime" (think the game of clue) and then apprehend the killer(s). Almost like a land pirate hunter. Alternative for High Seas.


item identification - could be added to thieves so when they open a chest in a dungeon, a chance at a nicer item appearing or converting? since they can "ID it" and would recognize it's value? Something other than stealing artifacts for sure for thieves.

camping - It's a lot of skill to safely log out anywhere but, how about having it bypass the having to wait when a dang mongbats hits us when we arrive home to log out and now have to wait the 2 minutes! (yes it is 5 if you log out and wait, but just 2 otherwise)

Herding is not a useless skill. I use it quite often, it is especially useful when my tamer wishes to tame an ossein ram or fire damage crimson or platinum drake. Sometimes I use it to put reptalons back into their proper spawn area or winkle out a squirrel.

Not particularly usefully I did once, just for fun, herd a greater dragon all the way from Montor to visit its relatives west of Valor.

One thing that I saw mentioned in this thread that I think would be a really interesting idea would be to remove some skills from the skill cap calculation.  Specifically I am thinking of crafting skills that have no other gameplay implications.

Tailoring, blacksmith, cooking, armslore, tinkering, fletching, etc.

I like this idea because it would open up the option to have a true/complete artisan character without the need to store a variety of skills on soulstone.

Petra_Fyde said:

Herding is not a useless skill. I use it quite often, it is especially useful when my tamer wishes to tame an ossein ram or fire damage crimson or platinum drake. Sometimes I use it to put reptalons back into their proper spawn area or winkle out a squirrel.

Not particularly usefully I did once, just for fun, herd a greater dragon all the way from Montor to visit its relatives west of Valor.

Ah yes, I have done that with squirrels on my stealther. Do you peace while to getting the rend back to their home?

Forensic Eval is used by some guilds to discover Thieves attempting to join the guild.

Gidge said:

Petra_Fyde said:

Herding is not a useless skill. I use it quite often, it is especially useful when my tamer wishes to tame an ossein ram or fire damage crimson or platinum drake. Sometimes I use it to put reptalons back into their proper spawn area or winkle out a squirrel.

Not particularly usefully I did once, just for fun, herd a greater dragon all the way from Montor to visit its relatives west of Valor.

Ah yes, I have done that with squirrels on my stealther. Do you peace while to getting the rend back to their home?

I don't have peace on my herder, she's a stealth shepherd, can't herd Rend I'm afraid, just the regular reptalons.

Petra_Fyde said:

Gidge said:

Petra_Fyde said:

Herding is not a useless skill. I use it quite often, it is especially useful when my tamer wishes to tame an ossein ram or fire damage crimson or platinum drake. Sometimes I use it to put reptalons back into their proper spawn area or winkle out a squirrel.

Not particularly usefully I did once, just for fun, herd a greater dragon all the way from Montor to visit its relatives west of Valor.

Ah yes, I have done that with squirrels on my stealther. Do you peace while to getting the rend back to their home?

I don't have peace on my herder, she's a stealth shepherd, can't herd Rend I'm afraid, just the regular reptalons.

Doh! I read Reptalon and typed Rend. 🙂