Dev's knocked this one out of the park.

As a long time UO player I can say with out a shadow of doubt this event that the Dev's put together was a very well thought out and fun event! I want to Thank them for the work they put in, and I hope we can see many more events like this in the future! 

The event captured what I think is the true nature of Ultima online. Setting up fun situations in the sandbox nature of the game and letting the player's take it from there. There was blood shed, Blues defending against Reds! Big guilds of VVV jumping into the fray! I think the reason this was all possible was because for the first time in a while we had an event that put out new items and content to get people motivated! We all love champ spawns and have been fighting over them for years, however most people in the game have the scrolls and rewards they need from champ spawns so they do not do the champ spawns anymore and this results in the player base fighting at gates, etc.  There is nothing wrong with this, but it is what lead to making this event so refreshing! 

Some things I really enjoyed about this event are,

1. As stated in another post on the forum's it gave new players a reason to step into the Felucca facet. This event gave them a huge incentive to go and farm the event. They could get items that were only available in past events, and could get the new SSI shoulder pads!  Even if they didn't want to or need the gear available it gave a ton of players a way to make money by selling the gear to the more established community, in turn allowing them the funds to grow their own toons. Also the drops were insurable, though I like the full loot version of the game I can completely understand why this is key. They put in the time and effort to farm the event and should have something to show for it. In the event I mainly played as a Red, and still was able to pick up quite a few reward pieces from the people who forgot to insure them! This left a really nice balance of risk and reward for blues, and Pvp fun and chance at reward for reds! 

2. This event really brought back the RED vs BLUE aspect of the game. Both the state of the game with not many blues having an incentive to farm in Feucca dungeons, and VVV being an opt-in system. There was hardly a reason to have a red character. I am aware that being red before the event was still a normal thing, and yes there still was plenty of red vs blue fighting.... My point is that this event really brought out a reason and place for reds to have a great time fighting against blues again. I really enjoyed the ebb and flow of how the fights happened during the event. From my prospective we would have a group of reds come into the dungeon and that would start the ball rolling. After a few kills word would get out that there was a group of murder's in the dungeon and a group of blue players, or a pvp guild of VVV members would come down and fight back against us! Just like the good ole days~!

3. The PVM aspect of the event was just about right. My favorite part about the pvm part of the event was the paragons! Yes they were a pain, but they changed the normal dynamic of PVP fights. I really enjoyed the fact that the paragons would reveal hidden characters! This made it difficult for mages to get an invisibility off, and it made it hard for stealth and stealing characters to sit inviable the whole spawn. It added a fun new twist to the fights and the templates people played in the event! I understand that stealth characters are a big part of the balanced pvp in the game so maybe not the same thing at every event, but it added a great element to the fun for this event. The paragons also made it so that a sampire could not just face roll the whole spawn with out paying much attention. Although most people did farm on sampires the paragons gave other templates a chance to shine as well. Having one team member on a sampire and one on a mystic mage to heal gave us more opportunities to play different pvm templates. The Pvm made it so that it often required a team effort that got more people playing and involved! 

I only have one half criticism of the event and it really only has to do with an up coming problem that putting on such a good event creates. I can speak for me and a few other players in the game in saying we would really love to see more content like this! The problem comes in when you really think about what made this event such a big success. The answer is the items you could get from the event. Ultima online has been dealing with a power creep problem for a while now. Pieces of armor that once dropped with a ton of mod's, are now capped at 8 mod's ETC.... This is just an example, The point is when the Dev's offered a "good" piece of armor that would open up some suits and template's such as the 10 SSI shoulders it gives everyone an incentive to play again and a goal to reach! I find as a long time player I often don't have a reason to get on and go pvm anymore. but this event gave me that! The question is, " How can we keep introducing new items that motivate players to log on and play but avoid the power creep of continuously stronger items that motivate people?"  Again this is just one small thing. For me the event was about Red vs Blue fighting for the first time in years! I didn't even really want the new items, But I know a lot of people did want the items and it gave them a reason to go down and fight with us! It takes two to tango. 


 In my opinion the Dev's knocked this one out of the park. I want to again say thank you for putting together such a great event! 

Cheers,

Zarcon

Too bad we all could not do the Fel one.

How can we keep introducing new items that motivate players to log on and play but avoid the power creep of continuously stronger items that motivate people?" 

1) Keep better items coming. It is not as if they are easy to get. It takes a long time to really get all of them. Also note Morphius +10ssi is an event item.

2) Leave current area alone for new and mid level players. Create tougher areas to challenge the higher level players.

For example, in Assassin's creed there are places for different level char. Game expansions come with areas for the high levels vets. This is same for most games. It is like what Pawain did, leave top floors for less powerful players while the others go deeper - supposed to be more dangerous as they go deeper.

Another example, these game give skills and power to make my character strong. We enjoyed it, and eventually became over powered in the "current area". There is no need to make them "weaker" or nerf. Instead they create tougher areas to challenge your "power", and not to take them away. 

For pvm, nerf is anti-fun.

One of the games I played like Crysis, initially I thought wow I can do this and that... I am invincible!?

Until they come up with tougher mission which push us to employ all our best skills and equipment to survive and win. 

There is no need to worry as long as its not a game cheat like "god mode" that will not take damage.

Finally a positive post! Even though I don’t play on Atlantic, I still really enjoyed the event! Thanks!

Pawain said:

Too bad we all could not do the Fel one.

Wow Fel sure sounds really fun, I cannot believe all that stuff happened with all those botters ruining everything!

Pawain said:

Too bad we all could not do the Fel one.

After all those posts saying you have no desire to ever step foot in Fel again (Legacy Shard threads), are you saying you have changed your mind? 

All joking aside I did enjoy it being on Fel side with enough population to support it. The last time I saw that many blues running around a dungeon and doing a champ spawn was back when power scrolls came out. For the most part, people were pretty cordial and there was a solid group of regulars that played in the AM that all helped each other out (without being part of the same guild / alliance etc). I would even play some during the evening and it was more crowded but honestly it was mainly blues when I was down there and as long as you played nice you had no issues. I saw many people die with loot on them and they typically weren't looted; they would be res'ed and run back and grab all their stuff. It was a lot of fun.

keven2002 said:

Pawain said:

Too bad we all could not do the Fel one.

After all those posts saying you have no desire to ever step foot in Fel again (Legacy Shard threads), are you saying you have changed your mind? 

All joking aside I did enjoy it being on Fel side with enough population to support it. The last time I saw that many blues running around a dungeon and doing a champ spawn was back when power scrolls came out. For the most part, people were pretty cordial and there was a solid group of regulars that played in the AM that all helped each other out (without being part of the same guild / alliance etc). I would even play some during the evening and it was more crowded but honestly it was mainly blues when I was down there and as long as you played nice you had no issues. I saw many people die with loot on them and they typically weren't looted; they would be res'ed and run back and grab all their stuff. It was a lot of fun.

It would have made the Tram one less crowded.  I could have spent a lot less time playing there if there were enough mobs to kill to get more than 5 to 7 drops/hr.

The event was a good event.

Everything you have described is what I was hoping for -  on Europa Felucca, but it didn't get turned on. 🙁

Our guild, and entire pvp community would have loved the event to have been in Felucca for all of these reasons.

Our shard has the population to have pulled this off in a good way, and our Felucca based community is easily as large as our Trammel based side, if not larger imo.

It would have done a lot for our shard.

In the end, it was the players who kept it going in Felucca during this event, so well done to the players.

Agreed, good event. Only fubar was the Fel only on Atlantic. Devs screwed the pooch on that one. Lots of upset players. Hopefully its a learning experience and things will be different next time. I see a lot of Treasures of Whatever in our future.

PlayerSkillFTW said:

Like you said, the event allowed templates other than Sampire to shine. Macers in particular did very well with Stagger against Paragons. My Paladin Macer could take on a Paragon LL and Paragon Ram at same time, and win due to Stagger. I've been saying for years that Stagger is a particularly powerful defensive ability (-60% SSI for 10 secs). It just didn't receive much attention until now because Onslaught (Swords) was King for Sampires due to increasing their damage output, and therefore their self healing through leeching.

You should see what the combo of a cross healing Macer+Fencer duo can do. Fencer drops the boss down to 0% Stamina with 3xPierce over 30 secs, then Macer keeps up Stagger. Completely neuters the melee damage output of any boss. Great for Exodus, Paroxysmus, or Blackthorn's Captains.

Good to know and thanks for sharing!

How did you fair against 2+ liches/lich lords/Poison Ele? I found them pretty tough and often needed to run off screen to heal up and go back with evade ready to run. Does that combo neutralize the spell casters as effectively?