Longtime UO player, newbie questions

Discussion in 'New Player Welcome' started by billyg098, Aug 4, 2020.

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  1. billyg098

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    Just some general gameplay questions that I have. I played UO on and off for 20 years and I miss its glory days badly. I realize SOTA isnt going to be that but it may be close.

    Is there a limit on how many skills I can learn?

    I read somewhere that skill levels will "decay" if not kept up on, is this true?

    Are there tougher things in the game that require a party to defeat?

    Does more powerful equipment have stat boosts and effects such as UO did?

    How is the pvp? This was my favorite aspect of UO and I've never found anything else close to it, and I've tried what seems like every modern MMO.

    Is there a linear quest line that I'm required to follow, or can I run around doing what I want, raising my skills, and collecting items and gold?

    Are certain skills harder to raise than others? (Ie. Taming)

    I've only made it to the first town (I believe it's called solace?) I put one of each magic school ability on my bars and am just spamming them constantly, is this a good way to raise skills?

    Are there guilds to make friends easier and have people to play with more consistently?

    Are there "templates" that are more popular than other more unorthodox builds?

    Thank you for any responses. Looking forward to seeing you all in game.
     
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2020
  2. majoria70

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    Hi @billyg098 to the game. I also played UO for quite a few years. I have lots of great memories of the game. So when I heard about this game I jumped on board in 2013. Now while there is Pvp I would not say it is like UO Pvp. You can Pvp anywhere and there are Pvp scenes that require you to be flagged to enter. The Oracle building is where you flag to Pvp. As with many things in this game systems are still being fleshed out and worked on by a small team. You can learn as many skills as you like. The y key takes you to deck building to drag out skills you want. The k key is your skills. You can name decks to play different styles you like. I usually lock a heal and a couple of buffs like strength of earth, and on my undead deck I lock banish undead but since there are a lot of skills I leave a few slots unlocked and place my skills to rotate in them. It takes a little while to get the hang of the deck system but in my opinion it can be interesting to use.

    Also this game has the best housing. You get a couple of free lot deeds by doing outskirt quests and main quest line. You will receive player owned town deeds. There are many towns to choose from just have your lot deed in your inventory and click on a vacant lot stone or lot sign. Many governors have lots set to claim by anyone but some don't. Wizards Rest is set to claim by anyone and located behind Owlshead in Hidden Vale.

    We also have guilds to choose from. You can't always tell how many players are online if they are not on your friends list. I accept all friends requests.

    Alt F takes you to looking for group.

    Teleport to zone scrolls will remember locations you have been too. just pull them out to your non combat bar and while unencumbered click on it to see your locations and use the control key while hovering a location to get a description of it.

    If you would like a place to stay before jumping into housing. I have an Inn as well as many other players may have one. You are welcome anytime. Just whisper or send mail to Majoria in game if I can help.

    We also have a music system. You can solo play a sheet music with an instrument equipped or get in group and play in group. Wizards Rest has some instructions for using music, the oracle, mail, and other things place on stands in the entrance, the bulletin board, the oracle building, and at the crafting pavilions.

    Have a great time. I'm sure someone will post links and tell you of guilds if you if you are interested.

    Edited corrections
     
    Last edited: Aug 5, 2020
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  3. Anpu

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  4. Cora Cuz'avich

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    No. But there are a few with some rules. You can only choose two specialization skills total. The new Elixir Skills are exclusive; taking one sets the u\other to unlearn. There are some magic resistance skills that interact in weird ways, but I don't use them, so somebody else will need to chime in on those.
    Not anymore.
    Yes. Though, I think there are a few players that are super super high level and can solo anything in the game. For us mere mortals, we need to group up for some bosses and scenes.
    Sort of. There are artifacts, which are rare-ish drops with unique abilities. And player-crafted gear can be enchanted and masterworked to boost stats and skills.
    Opinions vary. Not my cup of tea, so I have nothing to say there.
    No and yes. There is a mostly linear main quest, but you are not required to follow it. There are very few areas that are locked off unless you've reached a certain part of a quest, and none of them are really worth going to for anything other than the quest. Once you get out of the opening scene, you are free to do what you will.
    Yes. Some skills require more XP per level than others. See here.
    That's a long subject. You need XP in your pool, which allocates to the skill on use. You add XP to your pool by completing quests and killing stuff. You can turn on or off whether a skill drains your pool on use, click the little icon at the upper left of the skill to change it between Training (it sucks XP from your pool to increase) Maintaining (the skill stays where it is) and Unlearn (The skill loses XP back to your pool and goes down, but not at a 100% rate.)
    Yes. Check the forums, or ask around in towns.
    Builds vary a bit, but not as much as people would like. I am not an expert on this.
     
  5. CrandalltheFoole

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    Cora has a great set of answers - good job.
     
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  6. Ysold

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    Hi and welcome!

    In addition to the answers that other already have given:

    No, but I wouldn't advice to train them all at the same time. That way you will run out of EXP pretty soon.

    At the moment, you're probably not worrying about EXP and money. But soon you will, especially since you seem to love the magic skills! Once you trained up in magic a bit, you'll get new skills available that cost reagents. Some reagents are not too hard to harvest, but most you will have to buy - and then the money factor comes in.
    Doing quests is the best way to earn money and EXP. So I would advice to do them when you feel like it, in any order you like :)

    Weapon skills seem to be the fastest to level to GM. To level Taming to GM is hard, but I found raising Taming to a workable level (60-ish) surprisingly easy. I wrote a post about it on the Skills-forum.
    In general you need 2 things to raise a skill: use the skill (or do something related to the skill) and have enough EXP in your experience pool. It works more or less like this: every time you use a skill you generate a bit of EXP that is added to your pool. But if the skill is set to 'training' (green arrow up) some EXP is taken from the pool too and invested in raising that skill. If the skill is at low level, generally using it generates more EXP than it takes, but at higher levels this is the other way around. That's why I suggested earlier not to train all your skills at once.

    For now, for instance to get them to level 40 so you can open the next tier, sure. After that I would advice to use them in an environment that has enough difficulty to raise more EXP. For instance: If you spam Fire Arrow on a practice dummy, the amount of EXP you generate is very small. But if you spam Fire Arrow on a mob in a tier 3 area, you'll generated much more EXP, while the cost to raise the skill stays the same.

    Some combinations are popular, such as Bludgeon+Earth and Swords+Fire because later on it will allow you to make combo's. I'm not a high level player yet, so I can't really judge how much of an advantage it will be.

    But most of all - have fun!
    Ysold.
     
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  7. Cora Cuz'avich

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    That is not quite correct. Using a skill never generates XP. You earn Adventurer XP by killing things, or completing quests. Producer XP is a little more varied; you can get it from quests, gathering resources, and crafting items. Using skills only applies XP from your pool to the skill.
     
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  8. Toular

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    Not true. I have Ranged at 125 and had it locked. Every time I shot an arrow at something that wants to kill me, I gain experience. Mining is at 100 and locked. Every time I mine I gain experience.

    So, using a skill most certainly does gain experience.
     
  9. majoria70

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    Also we have agriculture. You can grow some of the reagents. Growing inside your house is slower unless you have for example a greenhouse row house placed on your lot. These can be crafted or bought in the crown store.

    You need to train agriculture in an NPC town. Trainers for this are located near or on crafting pavilions. Then you can drag skills to your non combat bar that bulk water, bulk plant, or bulk harvest so you don't have to do it one at a time.

    Your non combat bar fills up way too fast so agriculture skills need replaced by other things probably when not in use. We keep asking for other bars for separate things but so far no luck

    Big mistake many new players make is thinking a house can be be placed on a lot without a lot deed. First you need to claim a lot with a lot deed then if you have a house in your inventory it let's you place it. Row lot deeds always come with a default house though. No other size does. You can change out the row house for another row house later if you want. Row is smallest size. Nothing larger can be placed on a row size but row houses can be.placed on a village or larger perhaps to have more land to plant.

    You can also upgrade deeds you have in your inventory by right clicking them with crowns of the obsidian called (crowns) or ( cotos).
     
  10. Cora Cuz'avich

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    I presume you mean having the skill locked (say, Aimed Shot) and using it adds xp to your adventurer pool? Just want to clarify so I can test later. Will certainly eat my words if I am wrong.
     
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  11. Cora Cuz'avich

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    After half an hour in Lamech's Bazaar on Hard (I wanted to make sure I couldn't accidentally kill anything and earn XP that way, and with most mobs having 10k health there, I figured that wouldn't happen) I was unable to earn a single experience point with skills set to train. I used auto attack, charged attacks, unlocked glyphs, and stacked glyphs. Nothing gave me any XP. except for when I actually killed something.

    That jives with what I said; the gathering skills do create XP. But you are not technically using a skill when you mine. As in, you are not activating a glyph on your combat or utility bar when you mine. You skill may affect the outcome, but you are not directly using the skill.
     
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  12. Toular

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    How am I not using a skill when I mine? Mining is a skill that gets checked each time you mine. My Meticulous Collection at 100 (also locked) gives me a greater chance of meticulous collection and is a skill use and I see that in my Producer pool going up each time I mine a node. Same thing with the other harvesting skills.

    And, yes, with use of most locked combat skill I see Adventurer pool increase, but the problem with seeing that gain is that there are other skills that are not locked - Ammo Scavenger, Draw Strength, even a skill that would would not expect to be involved, like Trained Summoned Pet Resistance or Inner Calm - that "steal" some of the adventurer pool experience that "hides" some of the experience you gain from Ranged Combat.
     
  13. Cora Cuz'avich

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    When I say "use" I mean by directly clicking a skill. As in, you don't go up to a node and click the mining icon on your tool bar. I can agree that it might just be semantics here. Plus, it's a little murkier because when I though about it more, not all producer skills work the same. You don't put "Mining" on your utility bar to mine, but you do for fishing and agriculture. With gathering, you don't earn XP for failures, but you do when crafting and refining. A dev would probably have to weigh in clarify what specific event causes you to earn producer XP.

    I spent another hour running around in the game. I don't have single skill set to train. My pool did not increase one bit no matter what attacks I used. It only went up when something I attacked actually died. I don't know what else to say; you're telling me something that directly contradicts what I am seeing in the game. As near as I can tell, you do not earn experience using adventurer skills. If they are set to Training, they'll draw XP from your pool, but firing off an Aimed Shot (or whatever) does not create XP.
     
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  14. Cora Cuz'avich

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    When you say "locked" do you mean locked as in the glyphs aren't random? Like, if you hit Y and bring up the deck editor, and select a deck to edit, the glyph has a little yellow padlock icon?
     
  15. Toular

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    Locked, as in the skill level does not increase with use.
     
  16. Jezebel Caerndow

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    If this was true no one would be adventuring for exp, we would all be at practice targets casting skills to gain exp. The reason you are gaining exp when you mining skill is set to maintain is you get exp from mining. The reason you are getting exp from shooting arrows is either a) you have something set to unlearn or b) you are killing the mob giving you exp. If you REALLY want to test this, go to a practice target and shoot it. The practice target does not give exp, so if you are still gaining exp from that that means you have something set to unlearn.
     
  17. Toular

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    That is true to a point. What you are using the skill on/for does play a factor in how much experience you get for using the skill. If there's no risk involved you don't get experience. Of course, seeing the actual code makes all of this conjecture. I'm only basing this on my observations with a smidgen of "how I would have programmed it".
     
  18. Jezebel Caerndow

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    Not true to a point, just true. you do not get exp for using a skill, you get exp for killing stuff. The exp does not come in instantly though, there is a delay on it. I have trained skills on a training dummy enough to know what I am talking about and I always know how much exp I am going to use leveling up the skill and that has been accurate.
     
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  19. Scoffer

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    You gain xp when a mob dies or when a resource is collected, not from using the actual skills themselves.
    XP is fixed. Killing a wolf in zone xxxx will give you 500 xp. Doesn't matter if you are level 1 or level 300.
    You will find with sota that how you think it should world and how it actually works are not the same so throwing in "how I would have programmed it" as you put it just gives out false information.
     
  20. HogwinHD

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    There is no conjecture, everything Mac has said is factual

    Unless you kill something or have a skill set to unlearn. ( red arrow down) you will NOT gain experience when a skill is used.

    Mining and other such things differ because crafting works differently. (By this i mean that as scoffer said, gathering gains the exp)

    When you mine something, you gain experience and if you have a skill turned on (dependent upon the mining skill level) experience is transferred from your pool into the skill . if the skill level is high enough, then you will technically lose exp meaning more is transferred into the skill than you gain. I have over 11k hours and can absolutely confirm that wha mac and others have said is true.

    I'd advise you check that all your skills are set to maintain ( you can do this easily by right clicking each skill tree on the left and selecting maintain all) and checking for yourself.
     
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