Implementation of no node respawn in SPO

Recently, @Chris mentioned in one of his posts that they would eventually not allow respawning of resource nodes in single player mode as it was intended to be a multiplayer mechanic.

As someone who spends most of the time in friends/SPO mode, I'm largely ok with this change, with one caveat:

SPO scenes should have all nodes populated upon entering the scene.

Typically, when I enter a scene in SPO mode now, roughly 50% - 75% of the nodes actually appear, and I have to be in the scene for 15 - 30 minutes for the unpopulated ones to spawn. If we are going to switch to where we get one shot at each of these nodes in SPO, they need to at least all be there when we enter.

Something to consider.

Edit: Putting his relevant post here for clarity:
"For R37, we will likely be making another experimental change that makes total sense from a design standpoint and realism standpoint, is how it always should have been, BUT it will still ENRAGE a good number of people... the change is that there will be no respawns of creatures or resources except in MPO. Respawns are not a single player mechanic, they are a MMORPG mechanic so multiple can share the same space."

 

I had not heard this before and I can't say I like it at all. If this is the case why have SPO at all? resources will need to be increased as the player base increases to continue to have the game playable by all. 8 trees to a instance will not be enough in multi unless they are going to be instant respawns. I understand change I just don't understand all of these changes.

 

They also need to make recipes on par with what single harvesting of locations can get. Otherwise it is forcing players to MPO.

 

Anything they can do to make game more tedious for a play style different than what they want you doing will happen.

 

I must have missed that post, can someone point me to the post?

As I really don't enjoy competing for mobs or resources this idea worries me... How is this supposed to work? Would it be so I'd be only able to, say, go through Etceter mines once, collect 30 ore, and then I'd have to find somewhere else to play? How would repopulation of the nodes work? Leave the map? Wait a day in RL before you can harvest the nodes again?

Furthermore, how does SPO differ from FPO except for the option to party up? So does that mean no node respawn in FPO either?

 

Yep. Good points. If Chris wants us to travel the land to harvest in SPO, that is fine with me. We need to know how long after we have cleaned out a zone that respawn will occur. We also need to know the mechanics of the spawn in SPO at present. If you leave a scene and re-enter at present, you will see many trees laying on the ground (which are not harvestable). I appreciate that this may be an attempt to limit constant scene visits and re-visits in SPO harvesting. Then there is the situation occurring in the OP. Many nodes are vacant upon entry into a new scene. This may be a result of other players in MMO and SPO working the area and carrying over in our particular SPO instance. I don't know what is going on and may agree with the intent. However it would be nice to know what the intent and mechanics are.

 

I can't directly quote it because the thread is locked, but it came from the R36 major changes thread that is pinned. Here is the relevant part of his post:

"For R37, we will likely be making another experimental change that makes total sense from a design standpoint and realism standpoint, is how it always should have been, BUT it will still ENRAGE a good number of people... the change is that there will be no respawns of creatures or resources except in MPO. Respawns are not a single player mechanic, they are a MMORPG mechanic so multiple can share the same space."

 

This is an issue for all mines. They are instanced as Solo/Party right now. Even if you have logged in in multi.
Right now if you wipe a zone and go to overworld (or a diff zone) its 6minutes to refresh completely. But as Aldo said, players in other modes affect what you see in your scene.
As for SPO and FPO, I'm fine with greatly reduced or nil respawns. Would be nice if they removed the clean-up script too tho. So bodies didn't time out and disappear.
No balance has gone in for the Single Player Offline yet, so not sure there. That should respawn at a fairly high rate tho.

 

I'd always thought that the intended mechanism of balance between the modes was that the activity of players in other instances affected your instance, essentially lowering the amount of nodes available. I think it works for the first pass of a scene, but then it seems to no longer be impacted by other players and endlessly respawns. It would be better if they could simply continue to impact your SPO instance by the activity of other players for the duration you spend there (simulating competition for nodes), but perhaps there is a technical limitation.

A six minute refresh is likely too little. I'm assuming it will be an hour if not more. But surely no more than 24 hours.

 

Those changes seem like a big step in a direction I never even fathomed. If they want to explore this direction, I hope its a slow process. Maybe make nodes respawn in different locations and never the same location as the last. It could promote a bit more exploration and spice up a change of node areas.

Also I have ideas to implement more cool things, like in High Rise. A room with invisible walls, navigating without Night sight is just, ....don't. Put a nice spawn of nodes in there and creatures to defend. You could up the usual amount of nodes due to the need for a skill to be trained/used and combat. This is just one of a few examples I could think of.

 

I would like that change for friends only also as this is just another version of single player if you are not partied. Maybe that is included, I would hope it would be addressed. Really seems like this is more of a push to multiplayer, that will add to single player.

 

Chris' post says all 'except MPO' indicating Friends mode is included with SPO.

 

Great thanks. Should probably learn to read someday.

 

Ideas like this makes it harder to want to keep playing this game. It's an amazingly bad idea. I like gathering resources in f p o mode. It's what I do most of the time. I really hate a k u m b I y a commie pink o game that forces me to play their way. Stupid i d text editor. I don't know how to shut it off.

 

I wonder how this will affect the mines as those are mostly spo/fpo only.

 

If this is what they are going to do, they have to consider a couple of things. The scenes aren't large enough to support multiple people harvesting unless they do one/some of the following:

1. Up respawn rate of resources within multiplayer scenes to support multiple people.
2. Up yield per node. Make gathering skill mean something.
3. Lower resources required for recipes. For example, having to chop 10 - 15 trees to make one bow (1 - 2 wood per tree, maybe more if there are hits for meticulous) which may or may not blow up when I masterwork/enchant it, is already painful, but I accept it (even though requiring this much wood to make a bow stave is not realistic at all). Recipes like these need to have the number of resources required tweaked, if we are going for realism.

I'm all for making crafting and multiplayer more meaningful, but let's not make crafting more painful than it already is. Also, I'm curious if these changes would apply to mines as well, because having multiple people running around mines mining will get old, really fast (unless the respawn is adequate to support it - perhaps variable respawn based on people in scene i.e. faster respawn the more populated).

@Chris

 

They should get rid of mpo all together and focus on the game I pledged for: a single player ultima game.

 

Confused about this as well. I wonder if mines were always intended to be MPO at some point.

I think they would have to up mob spawn and node spawn in MPO scenes; currently, it seems pretty well balanced for a single player. But that will just advantage the power gamers and propel them higher leaving the casuals further in the dust. Strange balance problem.

 

This game is getting further and further away from the game I started playing and will miss when i am gone.

 

Another horrible idea that will only drive away new players.

Is sota happy with the small but dedicated niche community it currently has? If so they can do no wrong, most of us will continue to play no matter what they do. But if they actually do want to attract millions of paying players, they need to stop making these horrible changes and focus on new content.