"Treasures of...." Events, for how long can we think they will be sustainable ?

As we know, they are coming 3 times, perhaps 4 times a Year.

With each Event, players, quite understandably, expect new Items as Rewards but, I imagine, the more Events get released, and consequentially, the more high end new items get given as Rewards, it becomes increasingly more difficult to conceive new items for upcoming Events that would meet players Expectations....

Basically, it is itemization "creep" at its finest with more and more high end items being conceived with a new combination of properties or more powerful properties...

But for how long, I wonder, this trend of introducing more and more items with increasingly more powerful properties can be sustained ?

And, of course, these Events without high end and powerful, wanted items, would not find interest in players, I imagine....

So, it looks like a catch 22 situation, to my opinion....

don't go problem solved next please...

They have been advancing for more than 20 years. I bet you are not able to solo the para Balrons. @popps. 

A non issue.

In 2019/2020 they invested a lot of time to rework the event code so they could set up the events much easier. So doing 3 to 4 events a year is now doable. New events keep the players entertained.  Doing the same stuff over and over again leads to burn out and possible loss of paying accounts. So new events is a good thing.

Without power creep you get stagnation because you have reached a plateau and that just gets boring after awhile. 

I don't see this problem, maybe I'm blind. Some items have already been featured in more than one past treasures, Sterling Silver Ring and Boots of Escaping for example.
 Many people are wishing they had gotten more of the epaulettes and would welcome a second chance (me included).  Many have also asked for spellbooks similar to those from previous events, but slanted towards the current event. 
There is also the possibility of adding an item with the same stats, in the same slot, but of a different style. Sandals in place of the boots? 
There is a lot of scope for 'recycling' popular artifacts in a different format. Despicable quiver is a popular item, but take off the 'archery' specific mods, keep the rest, would it make an acceptable cloak?  

Petra_Fyde said:

I don't see this problem, maybe I'm blind. Some items have already been featured in more than one past treasures, Sterling Silver Ring and Boots of Escaping for example.
 Many people are wishing they had gotten more of the epaulettes and would welcome a second chance (me included).  Many have also asked for spellbooks similar to those from previous events, but slanted towards the current event. 
There is also the possibility of adding an item with the same stats, in the same slot, but of a different style. Sandals in place of the boots? 
There is a lot of scope for 'recycling' popular artifacts in a different format. Despicable quiver is a popular item, but take off the 'archery' specific mods, keep the rest, would it make an acceptable cloak?  

Well, for items put up as Rewards that are a "come back" then, I would agree with you.

They would not "increase" the actual pool of high end items....

But for "new" items introduced anew with these Events, well, then I think, after a number of these Events and "new" high end items adding up, it might become an issue....

popps said:

As we know, they are coming 3 times, perhaps 4 times a Year.

With each Event, players, quite understandably, expect new Items as Rewards but, I imagine, the more Events get released, and consequentially, the more high end new items get given as Rewards, it becomes increasingly more difficult to conceive new items for upcoming Events that would meet players Expectations....

Basically, it is itemization "creep" at its finest with more and more high end items being conceived with a new combination of properties or more powerful properties...

But for how long, I wonder, this trend of introducing more and more items with increasingly more powerful properties can be sustained ?

And, of course, these Events without high end and powerful, wanted items, would not find interest in players, I imagine....

*snip*

Define PowerCreep:
"Power creep", then, simply means that new content in a game outperforms older content in strength and utility. This results in a steady increase in the speed of the game, because new items are not oriented towards the recently implemented game content, but logically towards the older content. In practice, this means for game developers that game mechanics and rules are adjusted to prevent this gallop-like speed. Because ultimately, older items become useless with the introduction of the new overpowered game content and are left in the corner.
Behind this is the pressure of the very community of players who, as "consumers" of their game, force a developer again and again to adapt and surpass his products: even better, even further, even higher, even longer, even more expensive, and so on.

This is the definition and described causes of power creep, which can also be found on the Internet. Just accept that for now, please. Whether and how much we discuss it, I don't think it will help us much here. Above all, many people will immediately groan when they find a thread of yours that seems to be completely pointless. But I guess you just want to understand why powercreep happens?

TimSt said:

In 2019/2020 they invested a lot of time to rework the event code so they could set up the events much easier. So doing 3 to 4 events a year is now doable. New events keep the players entertained.  Doing the same stuff over and over again leads to burn out and possible loss of paying accounts. So new events is a good thing.

Without power creep you get stagnation because you have reached a plateau and that just gets boring after awhile. 

@TimSt.
Yes and no 

Permanent content must still be there, however, because it is the structural framework for a game and because it contains the basic rules for one's own way of playing and playing direction (player versus player/player versus monster/roleplaying).


Heavens, we should have been sick of killing monsters for a long time! The game is really stagnating here!!! The only ones who don't kill monsters here are the workers and thieves, but even they run into a monster now and then, so they have to kill monsters too... *yawn*..... nevertheless, we don't seem to get bored - because.... there could be the mega item in the loot...- so we'll continue to fight monsters! According to this, we are all crazy and must be mega-bournouted. Fortunately, there's an exciting storyline that keeps us from going completely nuts and gives us a reason to go na?... na klar.... Monster bashing! But that's not why I'm closing my accounts... I'm still having fun! Luckily I can also grow flowers here! Finally something without monsters!
The reason why others close their accounts again is certainly not because they are fighting monsters here, but because they came here with expectations that are not fulfilled, and wishes that one quickly has here in the game can nowadays only be achieved with a lot of effort and toil - keyword grind, which offers no quick prospect of success and on the contrary for many here means a commitment that goes beyond the tolerable level that I can reconcile with myself and that I somehow have to deal with in addition to family and job. Due to the unfortunately ever-present grind character, at some point I have to make the decision for myself what is more important to me personally, and there job and family and yes - sometimes also one's own health will probably be more important than monster bashing.

Define burnout:
Surprisingly, experts do not agree on what burnout actually is. In general, however, it can be said that burnout is the excessive willingness to sacrifice oneself for something. This can be for people (professionally or privately), here in the game it will certainly be because we want to earn a certain item. Since it is not clear what exactly constitutes burnout and how it can be detected, it is also not possible to say exactly how often it occurs.
I don't know what effect it has on others here - others would have to come out of the closet on the subject. But very few people here will do that.

But if too drastic changes are made too quickly in new game content, and then the balance is no longer right, this leads to extreme stress for me at some point, to the point where I personally say: I can't do it any more, I can't manage it and I don't want to do it any more! And then I have my burnout, in addition to the power creep that I didn't even cause myself.
This is exactly where we meet this colleague again. I would even say that power creep hinders the game considerably. It drives the game and the player forward at first, but then it slows you down again very quickly because you realise that you have to face conditions that you can't cope with. As long as players keep experiencing this, game-enhancing and really great ideas will be doomed to die in the end, because no one really enjoys these events any more - some because they perhaps can't make it due to personal circumstances such as family, job or illness - and others because they've become too bored again. In addition, there is always the existing grind - be it through excessive killer numbers in quests or through exaggerated prices for rewards. And the additional time factor, which drives the stress level even higher when I consciously subject myself to this compulsion. And perhaps takes quite useful items from these events out of the game again. The corresponding discussions here in this forum are well known.
In my experience, new impulses have mostly come from PvP - the introduction of magic properties on items, better and faster weapons and skills, harder and harder to defeat monsters, etc., etc. Some of the changes weren't bad, and some of them still keep my brain sharp when I think about putting together good equipment for my characters. But there were also times when the PvPers pissed themselves with their ideas, and then you had to "nerf" items or spells again because they were too "overpowered". Then the big whining started, and here the RPers are just as stupid as the PvPers in my eyes. I've experienced both sides during my playing career here. The whining was really unbearable at times! It still is today, because it has also led to a language that is, to put it mildly, "beneath contempt", and which has only led to personal attacks, but never really to constructive solutions to problems. The fact was and remains that the middle range of PvMers is constantly affected by this, because here too one has to drastically adapt one's way of playing.
But with blinkers in front of your eyes in the respective camp, you won't see that if you only see your own ego and only want to push through your interests.
As always, there are exceptions, but these are the famous pearls in the haystack.
In my opinion, the trend should be to leave such ways of thinking and lay the foundations for something that all "camps" (PvP, PvM/ RPers) can benefit from.

popps said:

As we know, they are coming 3 times, perhaps 4 times a Year.

"Treasures of" events are twice a year so that's incorrect. Last year it was Deceit/Ice (albeit Ice wasn't really great given the severe lack of rewards) and this year so far has been Fire with possibly one more in the fall for Halloween (speculation)... that's 4 total in 2 years according to my math. 

popps said:

it becomes increasingly more difficult to conceive new items for upcoming Events that would meet players Expectations....

Again false for the foreseeable future. Look at the laundry list of items / mods people have been suggesting which include older items like +10SSI Eps and new never before created items. 

popps said:

But for how long, I wonder, this trend of introducing more and more items with increasingly more powerful properties can be sustained ?

I'd imagine pretty long given someone like you who has been on these same boards complaining how hard it is to get drops and that you will only be able to get a couple items which isn't enough across 7 chars. So according to your own previous logic, they could recycle many of the rewards and still make people happy at a second chance to equip more of their chars with the items they couldn't before.

Give it a break dude. IBTL.

Mene_Drachenfels said:

popps said:

*snip*

So, it looks like a catch 22 situation, to my opinion....

So... now you're honestly throwing things in here that, at first glance, don't seem to have any place here. What the heck do you mean by Catch 22?

My second self (curiosity) of course googled and found the following for Catch 22-.

Congenital thymic aplasia, microdeletion syndrome 22q11, CATCH-22 syndrome are other names for DiGeorge syndrome. DiGeorge syndrome is a disease of the immune system. The thymus is absent or only partially present. The T-lymphocytes do not function properly. In addition, there is facial dysmorphia, congenital heart defects and hypoplasia of the parathyroid glands. Usually not all signs of the disease appear at the same time. The clinical picture varies greatly from child to child. The first signs of the disease are usually cramps. The heart defect makes it difficult for the patient to breathe. The disease cannot be cured, only the symptoms can be relieved. Very few babies affected by it survive the first year because their immune defences are very weakened and the heart defects cannot be operated on.

You're not serious, are you? To use these really very sick people as a comparison, I really don't think it's that great now, to be honest, but *grumble* with the clinical picture described here, I could actually discover myself wedged between 4 Para Succis in Fire again and having died 20 permanent deaths to save my corpse.
 

New and exotic rewards are fine for long time players that already have most of everything else.  But for us newer players how about including some of the more practical stuff from prior events. Enjoyed return of earlier Tokuno and invasion events because I could get things I could actually use.  Going through reward lists and just seeing stuff I have little or no use for is getting kind of boring.  Note this is not always true.  Liked getting the earrings but too often most of the rewards appear to be targeted to 20 year players.

Marge said:

Mene_Drachenfels said:

popps said:

*snip*

So, it looks like a catch 22 situation, to my opinion....

So... now you're honestly throwing things in here that, at first glance, don't seem to have any place here. What the heck do you mean by Catch 22?

My second self (curiosity) of course googled and found the following for Catch 22-.

Congenital thymic aplasia, microdeletion syndrome 22q11, CATCH-22 syndrome are other names for DiGeorge syndrome. DiGeorge syndrome is a disease of the immune system. The thymus is absent or only partially present. The T-lymphocytes do not function properly. In addition, there is facial dysmorphia, congenital heart defects and hypoplasia of the parathyroid glands. Usually not all signs of the disease appear at the same time. The clinical picture varies greatly from child to child. The first signs of the disease are usually cramps. The heart defect makes it difficult for the patient to breathe. The disease cannot be cured, only the symptoms can be relieved. Very few babies affected by it survive the first year because their immune defences are very weakened and the heart defects cannot be operated on.

You're not serious, are you? To use these really very sick people as a comparison, I really don't think it's that great now, to be honest, but *grumble* with the clinical picture described here, I could actually discover myself wedged between 4 Para Succis in Fire again and having died 20 permanent deaths to save my corpse.
 

Mene - Catch 22 is a phrase that got lost in translation for you. It comes from a novel published in 1961 of the same name.

From Wikipedia -Joseph Heller coined the term in his 1961 novel Catch-22, which describes absurd bureaucratic constraints on soldiers in World War II. The term is introduced by the character Doc Daneeka, an army psychiatrist who invokes "Catch-22" to explain why any pilot requesting mental evaluation for insanity—hoping to be found not sane enough to fly and thereby escape dangerous missions—demonstrates his own sanity in creating the request and thus cannot be declared insane. This phrase also means a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions.[2]  "How can I get any experience until I get a job that gives me experience?" – Brantley Foster in The Secret of My Success.

Aha... thanks for the clarification 🙂
But the other one also fits very well I don't want to have this illness, but I think I have exactly the same face and feel exactly as described when my "dearest" enemies have killed me in rows again.

What is any MMO really about? loot. Be it to advance your character or show off your house/character.   UO is the staple of being an attention whore.

Indefinitely I'd presume. The top reward is a pet that is useless for PvM and is dwarfed by any high intensity bane. I'm enjoying my Ostard but not only is it a struggle to sufficiently scroll it, it has nearly half the hp of the similar template bane or two I've encountered so see it as the opposite of power creep but at least it's an available option.

The Wildfire Mask is cool but it's basically an extra 60 luck and more balanced attributes over the previous best in head slot for luck. Given lucks seemingly diminishing returns this has a negligible effect on powercreep and more on balancing the gap between mid and top tier luck suits. We've creeped from a 200luck/40lrc/15dci tunic to a 250 luck/10mi/25lrc/10lmc mask in the space of 18 years.

Meanwhile in game caps restrict any massive surge in top tier suits/players from the earrings/past similar rewards only really allowing slightly more flexibility or skill bonus while mid-tier suits/players under all the caps benefit the most. 

This seems like a healthy progression of power creep as it's bridging the gear gap/availability between the top and the middle level of players instead of increasing it.

Meanwhile, soloing the event wildfire spawn in the latest and greatest gear is still significantly more deadly and difficult than doing the older spawns without fancy gear.

Mene_Drachenfels said:

popps said:

As we know, they are coming 3 times, perhaps 4 times a Year.

With each Event, players, quite understandably, expect new Items as Rewards but, I imagine, the more Events get released, and consequentially, the more high end new items get given as Rewards, it becomes increasingly more difficult to conceive new items for upcoming Events that would meet players Expectations....

Basically, it is itemization "creep" at its finest with more and more high end items being conceived with a new combination of properties or more powerful properties...

But for how long, I wonder, this trend of introducing more and more items with increasingly more powerful properties can be sustained ?

And, of course, these Events without high end and powerful, wanted items, would not find interest in players, I imagine....

*snip*

@ Popps: You're absolutely right :I don't think it's such a stupid idea.

Define PowerCreep:

Power Creep , also known as power creep, is a process that sometimes occurs in games where new content slowly outperforms previous alternatives. This causes players to abandon previous options in favour of the latest and more powerful alternatives, leading to an inevitable increase in performance during gameplay.

"Power creep", then, simply means that new content in a game outperforms older content in strength and utility. This results in a steady increase in the speed of the game, because new items are not oriented towards the recently implemented game content, but logically towards the older content. In practice, this means for game developers that game mechanics and rules are adjusted to prevent this gallop-like speed. Because ultimately, older items become useless with the introduction of the new overpowered game content and are left in the corner.
Behind this is the pressure of the very community of players who, as "consumers" of their game, force a developer again and again to adapt and surpass his products: even better, even further, even higher, even longer, even more expensive, and so on.

This is the definition and described causes of power creep, which can also be found on the Internet. Just accept that for now, please. Whether and how much we discuss it, I don't think it will help us much here. Above all, many people will immediately groan when they find a thread of yours that seems to be completely pointless. But I guess you just want to understand why powercreep happens?

popps said:

*snip*

So, it looks like a catch 22 situation, to my opinion....

So... now you're honestly throwing things in here that, at first glance, don't seem to have any place here. What the heck do you mean by Catch 22?

My second self (curiosity) of course googled and found the following for Catch 22-.

Congenital thymic aplasia, microdeletion syndrome 22q11, CATCH-22 syndrome are other names for DiGeorge syndrome. DiGeorge syndrome is a disease of the immune system. The thymus is absent or only partially present. The T-lymphocytes do not function properly. In addition, there is facial dysmorphia, congenital heart defects and hypoplasia of the parathyroid glands. Usually not all signs of the disease appear at the same time. The clinical picture varies greatly from child to child. The first signs of the disease are usually cramps. The heart defect makes it difficult for the patient to breathe. The disease cannot be cured, only the symptoms can be relieved. Very few babies affected by it survive the first year because their immune defences are very weakened and the heart defects cannot be operated on.

You're not serious, are you? To use these really very sick people as a comparison, I really don't think it's that great now, to be honest, but *grumble* with the clinical picture described here, I could actually discover myself wedged between 4 Para Succis in Fire again and having died 20 permanent deaths to save my corpse.

 

Pawain said:

They have been advancing for more than 20 years. I bet you are not able to solo the para Balrons. @ popps. 

A non issue.

Well, I only manage the Para Bali if all the conditions are right, if no one in the dungeon keeps bugging me, the Bali doesn't have too many overpowered hitpoints and my mana as a mage is still enough to heal the dog and cast on the Balron. Most of the time he catches me when he's about to die, runs off, then changes the target from dog to me and I have no mana left .... This is extremely annoying! But it's not just me, it happens to others too. But now I'm probably also completely incapable of creating the balron alone in your opinion, right? The question isn't whether I can't do it because of my disability, but whether I'm being massively disabled here.
This thread is presumably not about Popps being able to do the balron on his own.

@Mene_Drachenfels

Well, with Itemization "creep", I meant a gaming process whereas the Developers are forced to always put out more powerful items to keep players interested but, in doing so, of course all of the older items become obsolete, useless...

Take for example Mondain's Legacy and all of its Artifact craftables.... who makes them anymore ?

Or even Artifact drops from older Bosses.... many, even from Doom, are no longer useful or interesting...

That is what I meant for itemization "creep"...

As for "catch 22", this here https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=catch 22 is what I was trying to say....

Which it is, that, these "Treasures of...." Events Rewards items are put in to keep players' interest up BUT, in doing so, they reduce players' interest or need to play on existing content thus making, at least to my opinion, the new content not that much useful if it plays out as a " contradictory or self-defeating course of action ".

I did not even have a clue about those things which you mentioned in your Post...

Mene_Drachenfels said:

But it is important with such new events that not only one side of the player community is considered, but also the other.

Permanent content must still be there, however, because it is the structural framework for a game and because it contains the basic rules for one's own way of playing and playing direction (player versus player/player versus monster/roleplaying).

That is basically the bottom like of what I am trying to say....

This new "Treasure of.... " Events content , with its "new" Reward items adding up and making many existing ones obsolete, I have the impression that, in the end, it might do more harm then good...

I mean, how much time is left before players will see it as pointless to do " any " of Ultima Online's other content BUT these new "Treasure of.... " type of Events with their new high end Reward items ?

"Treasure of..." Event after Event, Reward item after Reward item, how soon will it be that, by putting out increasingly better item after better item, players will loose interest to play any of the rest of content in Ultima Online ?

Arnold7 said:

New and exotic rewards are fine for long time players that already have most of everything else.  But for us newer players how about including some of the more practical stuff from prior events. Enjoyed return of earlier Tokuno and invasion events because I could get things I could actually use.  Going through reward lists and just seeing stuff I have little or no use for is getting kind of boring.  Note this is not always true.  Liked getting the earrings but too often most of the rewards appear to be targeted to 20 year players.

That could be a good place to start from.... yet, as we have seen with the Wildfire Ostard, apparently, the Developers at times seem to have trouble re-presenting older items....

Players were asking Bane Dragons and, yet, they got Wildfire Ostards which are NOT re-skinned Bane Dragons, at least to my opinion...

So, it remains to be seen how willingful the UO Developers might be in allowing a comeback of older items which players might be interested in being able to get, once again....

@popps
So they should stop putting in good items?  Ya that's gonna keep us logging in...

How many of those weapons in Fire have you bought?  Is that the kind of junk you want the rewards to be?

Every game that lasts a while has to balance player against Mob. UO has done a good job at that.

You have 20 days to get a few of the Ostards,  Ring, Earrings, Masks,Talismans and deco items.  You should be concentrating on doing that rather than a fantasy fear about creep.

Pawain said:

@ popps
So they should stop putting in good items?  Ya that's gonna keep us logging in...

How many of those weapons in Fire have you bought?  Is that the kind of junk you want the rewards to be?

Every game that lasts a while has to balance player against Mob. UO has done a good job at that.

You have 20 days to get a few of the Ostards, Earrings, Masks,Talismans and deco items.  You should be concentrating on doing that rather than a fantasy fear about creep.

How about, "revamping" a lot of the existing content and items ?

Take for example the entire Mondain's Legacy content, its craftables, artifact drops...

Why not revamp it with better craftables and artifact drops that would make sense in today's UO?

And the same, for other UO existing content....

I mean, are UO Players, from now on, going to only (or mostly) going to want to bother with these "Treasure of...." Events content and Rewards ?

There is a whole lot more content out there, besides the Roof, but how much of all of that content do UO players really spend time with, nowadays ?

popps said:

Pawain said:

@ popps
So they should stop putting in good items?  Ya that's gonna keep us logging in...

How many of those weapons in Fire have you bought?  Is that the kind of junk you want the rewards to be?

Every game that lasts a while has to balance player against Mob. UO has done a good job at that.

You have 20 days to get a few of the Ostards, Earrings, Masks,Talismans and deco items.  You should be concentrating on doing that rather than a fantasy fear about creep.

How about, "revamping" a lot of the existing content and items ?

Take for example the entire Mondain's Legacy content, its craftables, artifact drops...

Why not revamp it with better craftables and artifact drops that would make sense in today's UO?

And the same, for other UO existing content....

I mean, are UO Players, from now on, going to only (or mostly) going to want to bother with these "Treasure of...." Events content and Rewards ?

There is a whole lot more content out there, besides the Roof, but how much of all of that content do UO players really spend time with, nowadays ?

Kyronix said it was easier to add new items so he will not revamp.  I have all the old junk.  That would not encourage me to play.

I would love to have the suits revamped into something useful. But, that will not happen.

Now you are complaining because people do not do play old content in the thread you made to complain about our new content  not being needed.

Get rid of the old junk, problem solved.

What we need it's a word limiting feature with diminishing returns 

LMAO

McDougle said:

What we need it's a word limiting feature with diminishing returns 

I don't think we need them for you Anon, you already use them

As long as they keep doing these events with different colored armor to collect they have my attention... I just wish they weren't shard bound. It would be nice if as soon at they turn in vendor disappears the turn in items could be transferred.