Decay: Worst Mechanic Ever

At this point i dont get what is the real advantage of soft caps over hard caps. The only real advantage i see now is the fake sensation that you can master all skills with enough grind. Wouldn't be easier to bring back the hard cap system of UO? It is simple to understand. The big problem that UO had was (IMO) that you should choose between adventure and craft/social skills and with the separate exp pools that problem is solved.

 

If there was no skill decay at level 60 and below, I would be happy to raise many skills to 60 and leave them there. If most people did that then the problem of GM saturation would disappear. (Actually it's not just GMs. Too many high level crafting skills is bad for the economy.) Skill decay could be retained for levels above 60, so that acquiring too many high level skills would make maintenance prohibitive - just like now.

Where I disagree with the current system is the concept of negative XP. Especially hidden negative XP. In my opinion it should drop no lower than 0, and you should not drop a level.

 

Not at all. Thanks for participating, tho. Your masochistic view is... Interesting.

Somehow, I hope the same.

 

I don't agree with that, I think it's good for it. There's more competition in pricing for items. When you have a select few controlling the market it's not a good thing.

 

I posted a suggestion in another thread but basically:

How about a specialization that maybe uses virtue or something to lock a circle from decay while giving it boosts? or just lock it from decay. Maybe 1 combat and 1 non combat?

Just a suggestion/idea.

 

The downside of it is that non-GM crafters would be completely useless and have absolutely no place in the market.

Don't get me wrong: I am all against decay and all in favour of giving people the ability to achieve grandmastery... as long as there is room for new players and "average people".

With this system im place, the only useful thing you can do when you are not a GM is: grind until you are a GM.

 

Yes, they need to give us intermediate stuff that can be only be crafted by you while you're still not GM - like different grades of the same table but they get better in quality as you improve your skills. Coming soon, thinks?

 

They probably will, like 0.1% increase per 25 points.

 

Thank you, and once I grandmaster my fighting ability I will be running around with my pvp flag, because that is how UO is supposed to be played not in Trammel

Skill loss , skill decay , same thing, I mean when it comes down to it, its greed, thats all it is, the conversation here is based on greed. Yes people want balance, but for their greed, not for the game, I remember when there would be blacksmiths sitting at brit froge repairing peoples gear, As a thief I took advantage of this and put on some apons, some cute boots grabbed a hammer, and got my very first set of gear. All role playing of course, since this is what I did with my brother when we played D&D. But there will be zero community because everyone wants everything and they want it in their multiple house lots they have.

Balancing greed sucks, because noone will be happy, because someone will cry that it is unfair, that they cant do everything in the game via one account, and they have to pick and make decisions and choices, OR they just spend MORE MONEY to support the game, instead of giving it to them, you purchase more accounts and more houses, so you can make sure you have everything, (Have 15 facebooks so you can manage your farmville) Is the metaphor I want to use here.

Lock downs and Secures, Ruined UO, Greedy human beings that wanted to have everything and have themselves self suffificant and keep it all and make sure noone could possible touch it.

Makes me sad

 

Actually from what I've seen, yeah theres a market for them, its called not being greedy and selling stuff for 4000% more than what you think its worth Via, the time, fun, adventure to get it.

 

You have people who want to be black smiths, and good ones, and keep everyone supplied and always have vendor items and sociable, but the way people spend their real life money (which I dont care) and then they expect because they spent that money they will do everything and have everything in the game and wont need anyone, and then we can just go back to that other guys thread about how theres no community, and then Ill just point to the greed sign,

 

Or you will just have people botting to make their money, as in every game.

And with single player online, its super easy. No need to worry about decay when the bot will be sure to use skills.

 

Well, for the botters, its super easy to spot, I used to report macroers, and botters all day, after I would kill and loot them.

This just goes back to the greed, thing, and other players not being able to identify what a bot is, or they themselves see it and go well hes doing it and wont be banned so ill do it, all comes back to greed sir.
@Enfo always comes back to the human, never the game, remember that.

And the artisan tools should start losing durability at 90 whatever skill, more greed in these tools that I can control, I bought some off a vendor, and now when I upgrade my account, I dont even know if I want them because how easy it is. Whats that 400 hide needs to be sheered sure, i wont move for any reason what so ever with my super tool.

 

I agree with you sir, it is greed.

But how do you report someone who is playing single player with no other player interaction?

 

Well, Im sure that issue will be resolved once it reers its really ugly head. Plus how do you know they dont have systems set up to identify what people are bringing over, or monitoring what that account is doing, they have much better tools to catch cheaters now, and they can write their own anti cheat to cover these basis, I mean now if portal doesnt care about that im sure it would be a big issue, but im sure in their office its a battle about that issue. You need to have faith that Richard and their team have our, as the gamer, customer, friend best interest in mind, without any greed attached I hope. anyway.

 

Well when the guy has 400 copper ore on sale x4 stacks, send a report. The sad part about that is most humans cant use logical reasoning to suspect if someone it botting, OR that person is smart, and able to hide it. What the real problem is, there is no consequences for people who cheat, It needs to be illegal with computer impound. Not ban an account and let them buy another one, need to ban their computer ID their domain, their Drives, their names, their emails, needs to be a whole list to make them not be able to play at all.

@Enfo need to send me a tell, because Im about to start dumping my signature logical brain all over the place and noone wants to hear that especially when pertaining to them.

 

PLUS BESIDES THE SKILL DECAY ITS MADE SO THAT YOU DONT EVEN LOSE ALL YOUR GEAR SO WHY DO YOU CARE ABOUT BEING A GM BS WHEN YOUR GEAR WILL SIT ON YOUR VENDOR BECAUSE EVERYONE HAS A BLACKSMITH AND MAKES THEIR OWN ARMOR SO WHY DO YOU EVEN CARE @Themo Lock AND DOESNT LOSE ALL THEIR ARMOR AND CAN BE EASILY REPLACED. Logic brain puking up sorry

 

Well it is easy to say but lets just look at other big name games:
World of Warcraft - Honorbuddy is still going strong and a prime choice, not to mention ownedcore and other forums dedicated soley to botting and cheating. While blizzard has started a lawsuit against honorbuddy for copyright infringement, which legally will go nowhere since honorbuddy and other bots use modified programs, but lets look at Blizzard funding. Diablo 3 - the leaderboards are bots only and you can watch people use bots on twitch.

Blizzard just bought King for 5,900,000,000$. They spent nearly 6 billion dollars. And they still can't stop the bots.

CS:GO - Owned by valve, with gabe nearly ~2 billion in assets. Yet hacks/aimbots are so widely used, people in profession gaming like fnatic are caught using bots installed on their keyboard that were not detected.

Planetside2 - again, million dollar company, making millions of dollars, can't stop hagsclub from hacking.

I am interested to see what sort of anti-cheating engine they use, because as all early indicators are showing they are not going to be making their own.

Back-on-topic: Something to mitigate skill decay, either a specialization or the reduction being reduced by attunement or something can help.

 

And instead of banning accounts, they let them keep going on and on and on and on and on why? Greed.

No money in stopping bots, Trolls who work for blizzard probably help with that not stopping, some garbage human being gets a report of botting, said employee cheats and sucks at life anyway, marks report as clear. GREED

Greed and its a game that is 15 years old anyway, and again this falls back on humans, not doing what they aught.

I dont know who that is, but Greed, and people who dont care, because "everyone cares, no one wants to help"

When I become President in 2020 one of my projects I want to do is, what the UN have, but make it world wide anti cheating, and start getting money to countries because lets be honest, you get rid of cheaters and show that you are doing that, your gaming population comes back.

Virtues effect how your skills react to decay. done and done

 

I can agree with that.