Lets Talk about the Skill System

I have not yet turned off the innate skills, but have been trying tougher creatures. It seems the only way to kill them is to wear plate armor, which I am trying to avoid. I am experimenting with a more or less "pure" caster (lots of spells and a healthy amount of blades), but the only players I see in the tougher zones are all in plate. The mechanics seem to either punish casters or reward plate wearers, so getting a caster past level 20 or so seems inordinately difficult.

 

I like the skill trees, and crafting is adequate. But the entire system seems pretty "thin". There are not really very many skills, few crafting professions, and the NPC vendors sell WAY too much stuff I think should be made and sold by players. I know this is not meant to be a sandbox game, but even some of the obvious stuff should absolutely not be on vendors unless placed there by a player (magical reagents included). Some things like molds, beakers and vials, foodstuffs...those should all be player made or player found.

Having a glassblowing skill seems like a no-brainer to me. So does potter, as does tinker (one of the original classes in UO and it's not represented?), dyer, fletcher, carpenter. And the skill trees for crafting are dismal. That needs to be fleshed out badly. It looks like the crafting system is barely started.

 

Having reagents unbuyable at vendors will inflate reagent prices terribly. Gathering them is hard enough at the moment. I dont know if your a caster but as a caster reagent use is really high already. I would prefer not to be bankrupted by inflated reagent prices. Also the fact that magic is still gimped and our primary weapons are next to useless ie wand/staff I do not think we need to be punished further at this point by removing our ability to purchase necessities from a vendor at already expensive prices.

 

Alternative perspective : One of my characters is a pure magic user.

This is the first point where I actually felt that reagent availability was ample enough to even bother with the higher tier magic skills (in the past I always felt the reagent cost was too punitive).

Personally, I have not purchased any reagents from the NPC merchants since the last wipe, relying solely on my own harvesting and the Ardoris Public Vendor for supplies.

I have around 400 of most reagents in abundance after two releases of play. Though, there are some notable exceptions (serpent scales and black pearl, I'm looking at you!), which I'm sure will be corrected in future releases.
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It is certainly nice to have the NPC merchants set an upper price though... Some of the insane prices on the Public Vendor make me think that some players just cannot do simple math.

 

Unfortunately I have not found reagent gathering quite as easy as you although nightshade I have generally found in abudance but others not so much. Mandrake and spider silk I find to be hardest for me. Spidersilk for obvious reasons. Although I think more mandrake may be in swamps and wetlands which I rarely venture to. Maybe I need to try harder but I still think alchemists should stock them not only for the ceiling but the fact is if they didnt it would be like a weaponsmith not stocking arrows or the trade skill supplier not stocking chemicals etc.

 

The Mandrake is quite abundant in the Skeleton Random Encounters (both the Plains and the Forest one). Due to that simple fact, I tend to enjoy the random encounters more than most users.

Definitely agree about the Spider Silk though : I buy that off the Public Vendor most days.

 

Actually. Black pearls are easiest for me. Wish i knew where to find serpent scales though.

 

Hmm... Maybe that's why there is none left for the rest of us.

*Taps foot*

 

There are like a ton of them along the shoreline of a lake. I just keep running in circles around it. Beware elder wolfs though.

 

You can easily get spider silk from the small wolf spiders in Kingsroad. They attack in groups of 3-5 and at low levels mean instant death. You can become superman and kill a red spider and get the same spider silk, so go for the easy kill early on. Mandrake is in the swamps, always near monsters, but once you find some they are easy to harvest (tougher yet to get out of the loot box because they are shaped oddly). I have only found 1-2 serpent scales ever (now level 27) and that was the bandit chest in the random road encounter. Still don't like the stuff on vendors, but there needs to be more availability in the wilds than we are seeing now to make that practical.

 

This is release 21. Plenty of time to balance fighter and mage weapons, and to set appropriate prices at vendors. At the very least, several of the magical reagents should be far more expensive than they are now, certain relative to the other reagents (black pearl vs. garlic, for example).