Two ADV level 90's - dragon slaying difficult

uh yes... I did. It was saying dragons could decimate a party without it even entering combat.

 

I agree, but I think solo killing dragons isn't a problem if it is planned for that people can do it. But overall I have to agree, the game lacks vision and design and we know nothing about what is planned or intented on a large scale or even and even on a small scale like combat and how stats should work we were kept in the dark for ages. ^^ It is improving though, but I have high doubts that postponing all sandbox gameplay content for people who came for UO stuff AFTER release will be succesful and I am sure they wouldn't do it if they didn't have to.

 

@bigta1982

I'm not saying there weren't techniques to get it... it just that nearly impossible to defeat means just that.

 

The one I was talking about was posted by @Nikko

 

Many of the ultimas had unintended combo or techniques you could use to "own" the game... some were intended to give some replay value at the end of the game... but normally, a dragon is a dragon.

Think of Smaug, a whole party of LVL 200 dwarves wouldn't even think of engaging it in combat

 

as I've said... I think they should ADD dragons with higher difficulty, instead of nerfing the ones currently in place... maybe change its name to "drake" or something.

That would fit the ultimas...

 

As a cherry on the sundae... I would like to quote the worse Ultima of all times (lol) :

Communion with other planes ? like the wisps ?

That means VERY advanced intelligence indeed... nothing like the glorified mutant crocodiles we have here.

 

Smaug was soloed. By an archer

 

Correct.

He wasn't farmed though.

 

He didn't need to be, he actually had good loot. I farmed the dragon over and over again because I needed dragon neck bones. Apparently all but one dragon were neck boneless.

 

I think this analogy has run its course.

 

Everyone had fun. Previously I wouldn't have gotten a party together by inviting friends and their friends and stayed there for 3+ hours if I was only getting 50k/hr (that's about what they gave last release to a party) and neither would others. Players at mid levels getting 300-400k in Wyrmsands would not have joined my party and players getting 700+ in monkey room wouldn't have either.

It isn't easy content and each person has a task to do. Loot is extremely consequential and most of the party loses money - I got two grey bundles and gave them to noobs plus some cheap woodwind bows and cheap estocs but that was it and was split 8 ways.

I was in Wyrmsands getting 400-500k at this time and continued doing so for many months which is where I met @Solazur, @Andartianna, and others. My levels come from getting 1-2 million XP or so every night after work with friends and more on the weekends but 1-2 million a night consistently is 365-730 million XP a year. That said I never want to demonize those who farmed the area 10 hours a day and who didn't cheat doing so. They played the content that was given to them so chalk this whole time up to bad implementation if you'd like but I'm not going to go so far as to say everyone should have avoided a "too good" area out of the kindness of their hearts.

Agreed but kind of is now. K'rul is a gold sink as are the current control points. Dragon gave good loot but even when I farmed I only got 300k or so per hour off him. Some places you can kill crap mobs for crap XP but their swords and bows at least sell well. No place is currently great for both.

I'm the player who fights all the time and buys all my mats.

There will always be a wealth gap in games. If I play 10x more than the usual player I'll definitely have at least 10x their wealth no matter what Port does to counter. I do agree with you that the amount of artifacts I get on high end content farming and the usual player gets on other adventuring should have a smaller gap. I want them to get around the same artys/cotos per mob that I get but I'll still be killing 10x more mobs.

I like you too but me to you everyone has fun in different ways. I want parties of 8 in chat channels and adventuring all over NBM while advancing their characters and I'll be where the XP is good not wasting any time because my fun comes from achieving goals I set for myself (i.e. mindless grinding while talking to friends) which in choosing not to "utilize casted magic glyphs" and show that's it's possible not to means my goals for everything else have to be very lofty.

No matter what Port does that's where I'll be because it is where my fun comes from and I'm not anyone.

 

Indeed, he wasn't any archer with any bow and he didn't get any loot

 

I would love to get in on that.

 

I'm gonna step in here for just a moment. I remember well when the CP thing was going on right after persistence. @Sara Dreygon and I happened to be in the same guild at the time. A proposal was put to us, by someone I'll leave unnamed....as to how to join in on the CP "bonanza." The thing was keeping a tamer going to get the high lvl pets (iirc this would have been the Ferocious Reds) that were being used to destroy the mobs. Apparently, there was an "acceptable loss" type thing with the pets...some of them were just going to die. So it was proposed to us to join forces with a guild I shall not name here and farm silver for the collars. All we needed to do was anti up X amount of silver and we were in. The promise being millions of XP/hr. As it so happened.. there were some other dynamics going on with the guild at that point in time and Sara, along with myself and some others deciding.. with no small degree of reluctance to make a change. As to the proposal...I don't recall anybody jumping on that "deal".

I think we were all in agreement that the practice being proposed would be cheating ourselves. I know I for one spent far too much of my disposable $ to wreck the experience for myself.

I ran a lot with Sara and ofc as he's on my friends list.. I always knew his location. Sara went through two sometimes overlapping phases.. it was either mining/crafting or doing the rounds in Wyrmsands; NOT running CP's. I really tire of the insinuation that if people are at a high lvl it's because they took advantage of the CP/Pets thing. I did not yet know Mac but in the time since I have known him all I've seen is hardcord dedicated/determined (and I might add smart) farming. Both Sara and @Mac2 are the rare type of person who just possess an incredible amount of focus. Now to be perfectly honest.. there's no way in hell I could do that... I'm too random... I have to keep it mixed up. For them though it's all about finding the most efficient thing to do, and then do that thing.. over. and over.. and over and...

LOL just listening to Sara at times can be tiring...his brain is constantly calculating. How many more times do I have to do X to attain Y which will give me 0.134% more w/e/ That's just the way it rolls.. who am I (or anyone else) to judge how another finds fun so long as it doesn't impinge on others?

oh Fwiw... I've gotten to lvl 98 and that's really playing casually. The majority of my lvls (differentiated from raw XP) has been doing my own dumb rounds. mostly solo due to the demands of being a stay at home dad. I may show up commenting in discord or here on the forums but with a 2 and a 5 y/o kid.. I assure you I'm not out there grinding 10+ hours a day (as I've done at earlier points in my life).. I just get in my 2-4 hours and keep pressing forward. I'm by NO means the most knowledgeable player...

Hell until just a couple releases ago.. most of my fighting was done with the (then) handicap of wielding a polearm. The point is.. if I can get to 98 with my half assed approach, it's no small wonder that the really dedicated players have gotten to where they are. It's a simple matter of putting in the work.



Anyway I don't want to stray too far here.. but I felt the need to set the record straight. In the future I think our conversations here would be a lot more productive if we could leave the baseless accusations out of the mix.

Thanks

-sol

 

It is obvious from reading this forum that the truth about Sera and Mac is simple. They are competent. I wish some people could get how petty they look criticizing them.

 

Just going to post once, its big......sorry...

If do believe the xp system is working as intended, we have to remember that we have some outliers in Mac and Sara and a few others but they have had their honeymoon period in truth. They are far ahead of the curve at the moment and will always be XXX experience above the average player...but...they are now at a position where any gains in their abilities and skills come at a massive xp cost, which allows players to over time catch them up slowly, and even surpass them in certain areas of the game if they specialise.

Also remember that Drocis was the first or second player to GM all Death skills. When he did this i was at the time playing 18 hours a day and for the life of me i couldn't understand how he had managed to accumulate all that xp at that early point in the game. At this point he was also an outlier, would it have been fair to have reigned him in for being 'abnormal' at this early point in the games existence? Obviously not as he must have been working hard to achieve this feat and doing more xp/grinding than he was capable of continuing fulltime and for him this was his honeymoon period as it was to a lesser extent mine.

I do agree earning 1 mill xp an hour, which in practise means a GM approx. every hour is not something i am happy with. I had hoped it would take a person 1-2 years to GM a skill but with this xp system where we can bank and then apply to other skills, it's fun and i do myself but it is not a sensible or realistic attribute of the game.

Also i have been squeaking for years that older players with massive xp advantages from early wipe will be off putting for newer players, for both combat and also especially for crafting, even more so with changes up to this point in making the game harder, recipe drops/less resources/ farming boss's for resources(this thread) becoming more difficult. One of the most attractive points in a games and especially mmo's existence is the launch, where everyone starts of equal, this game will never have that due to the pledging system ( although i believe i have read that Mac only has a small pledge so he's shattered that, which is good) and also now final wipe happening but not yet officially launched. I also believe to attract a bigger player base at launch and beyond it must be in new players eyes feasible to catch 'us all' up else why would they bother, being a bit part player for many due to not being on the first wagon is not an attractive proposition to enter a game, a mmo especially.

So what do we do....

I have at times called for a wipe at launch of E1. It makes sense, the devs have now got a good idea of how players will game any system for advantage, they know what's worked from their initial plans and what hasn't. It would be an ideal time to finalise the system with all their 18 months post wipe knowledge. BUT....this will alienate older players and ones that have contributed a lot of time into the game, which cant be returned, and in truth i wouldn't personally ever play to get back what i have had taken away from me , my extra hours i put in at the beginning to get a head start came at a cost to other areas of my life and i still want the advantages for.

What might work is that for launch of E1. Everyone gets the XP they have earned allocated back to them. The devs using these final 3 months decide on how/what/why/direction they want the game/xp system to go with their increased knowledge of us and the systems they have created. Players could then either have an option of putting back XX xp into skills ( never higher than they were previously) or preferably from my view, having to then work at putting that XP back into those skills ( if that's the method of allocation we are keeping). All skills and their abilities/cost/ could be revaluated, even xp caps put in, maybe raising on each release, xp could also possibly be redistributed to other characters on the account or any excessive kept and added to over that Episodes release., lots of options.....AT the end of all this the older more XP heavy players as of today would still be ahead of the pack but not as uncatchable, the skill system would be finalised, new players would see an advantage at starting NOW and the launch itself would be an exciting time for all, even the older players that might decide to use that massive pool of xp to advance their characters differently, it would still give them a push to play with their 18 months knowledge and quick route to their now ideal avatar.

 

Correct. I just spent 87.5 million on 3.125% more blade damage... that's roughly a brand new L96 character. Now my goal is to spend another 103 million on BARELY more defense in defensive stance, fortify, deflect, and parry and that's roughly another L98 character. I tell people what I'm working on and usually they laugh because it's deemed "laughably not worth it" but I really need to get those 700 dragon crits down to 697. I often get killed by players below me in duels (think L90) with far lesser skills until I figure out a better deck, build, strategy against them but then they can just do the same... above a certain level everyone is fairly even in PVP - not equal but there's less of a power gap than some would think.

True and would be nice to find a solution that doesn't wipe everything players have gotten while still making others not feel too behind... maybe instancing based somewhat on level so noobs start our with more noobs and hospitallers and less super players...?

An interesting idea but guessing some things would be challenging due to silver, gold, mats, reagent costs involved in getting there in the first place... Would like to get other's thoughts (maybe in a different thread so those blocked from messaging in this thread can add their two-cents ).

 

Personally I'm against any form of instanced/battlegrounds kinda gameplay. One reason is this is a rpg and time put into the game along with skill should always be the main factor in a players abilities i feel, you have worked for it, you should enjoy it. This encourages players to advance their character by actually playing the game and not having a arbitrary skill and abilities given to or even capped for others to achieve a fair fight. Factions/guilds if done right can give lower players still the chance to make a big difference to the outcome of the world/faction engagements. Level and time and knowledge and skill...play time....should always be rewarded, an incentive for hours toiled.

Truthfully i had forgotten about crafting resources when i wrote that, unbelievable as I'm trying to get a dragon haul of gold at the moment to raise mine!...was early though...But...even though crafting and such need a finalised skill system/fleshed out skills in all fields/ more specialization maybe/ more work for sure i don't feel there's as much complaints about the level disparity with crafting as there is with combat skills. Everyone has to put the same amount of hours into crafting to get that XP really, no 1 mill an hour cp's or anything, just 500xp nodes we all have had to farm to progress. Even though there's lots wrong with it i don't feel that it necessarily needs a reallocation of players xp, although it would help in the long run, but the loss of all that resources players have bought/mined etc is to much for that just to be wiped...

Players have also paid for items/reagents/xp even with respect to combat as well, but a much better argument could be made for reallocation there than for crafting...I feel that if we don't try and give new players as much chance of catching us, and I'm meaning us as all the first wave of players in their entirety, not just top 10% of them, then this game wont be attractive to them when at the moment there's complaints where people who have played a lot since persistence still feel way behind the curve.

 

And I just turned 96...