Training agianst a Gust ball is NOT training, needs to be fixe ASAP

Heading says it all!

Both this and the hitting a Tap Soul are PERFECT examples what what can and WILL be Exploited / Macroed

 

Weins is correct, wouldn't be a big deal at all the macro it, needs to be removed.

 

Still need a pool of xp to gain. Without the pool of xp you can macro on a gustball all you like.

 

First thing I see upon entering Owl's Head: Two gustballs surrounded by people spamming skills. LOL. Good grief. People moan and whine about immersion-breaking elements (And I am one of them usually) but this...this takes the cake. Approaching Owl's Head from the bridge, looking ahead all you see are blasts of light and effects bouncing off the buildings in the distance. It looks like you're walking toward an 80's disco. All the Owl's Head market place is lacking now is a disco ball, some blasting Devo and a $2 cover charge.

Now, I couldn't capture this effect as I lack the proper recording equipment to capture in-game video..but here is a screen shot of how...(sorry)...f*cking stupid this appears. I don't quite understand why this is even being allowed. I thought diminishing returns on attacking non-monsters was supposed to prevent this? Can the gustball be reconfigured so that it doesn't provide this exploit? If not, what was even the point in moving to a used-based system is everyone is just going to stand around and grind? It's even WORSE than the previous system because now everyone is just BLATANTLY grinding. Weins is right, this needs to be remedied fast and should've been fixed in QA.

(One new player was asking how he could make some gold because he didn't have enough money to train his skills. As he was standing there spamming skills on the gustball. LOL. Uhhh....go out and adventure and actually kill some stuff?)



Oh and here is the music video for 'Whip It' for no good reason other than because that's exactly what I was reminded of approaching the light show and hearing the ice spell whip repeatedly against the gustball.

 

We're seeing a lot of weird behavior because (a) this is a brand new system and (b) almost everyone who logged in today had a HUGE pool of XP that they could expend on macroing random skills.

This isn't a normal occurance. I'd be a good deal more concerned if we saw people macroing skills on a gustball in the Ardoris town square next month.

 

also, if you are TESTING and want to TEST the new advancement system, you can do what I did and roll a brand new character....

 

We just hit the gustball to spend the xp we have in our pool so once the pool is empty we all will need to go venture... So no fix is needed, you wont see ppl hitting gustball anymore in a few days.

 

Exactly why maybe a full wipe would have been beneficial so that we can experience what the new system is like under natural conditions. Doesn't seem like the current situation will create much useful, balanced feedback.

 

I think at this point we just want to make sure the core systems work as advertised and will worry about a fun advancement loop as a new player once that's settled.

 

I will probably do that. I was hesitant because I couldn't remember if you retain banked items. I thought you did, but not sure if that's still the case.

 

You retain account rewards, but nothing else.

 

Is there a way to see that pool?

 

Not yet, no. Whether or not we expose that pool is a design decision which is under a good deal of debate.

 

I agree with the OP. This is EXACTLY why I stopped playing UO after the first two weeks.

RP doesn't stand for Roll Playing.

@Lum - Be concerned. Of course we can make adjustments. But it's still ok to be concerned right now.

 

Mmh maybe that exposition of that pool could only be shown for this release (due to the acumulated xp from previous release) and hidden again in r22 ....

 

also it seems like a big bulk of your health and focus come from adventure levels still which are displayed ony oru char stats. everyone started at 1, and if you dont level your adventurer levels, you wont be able to hit anything thats a decent level. (Miss Miss Miss)

I've been trainign skills by killign stuff and got my desired skills between 20-60 so far by getting to adventure level 20.

I can almsot kill a timber wolf solo. Almost.

if you train all your skills up on a gustball in town, your gonna have almost jsut as much trouble when you go try to kill stuff as someone who didnt do that.

 

@Lum Any idea on when we can expect skill trainers to become specialized? Thinking that maybe if the jack-of-all-trades trainers were gone, there wouldn't be as much congestion in one area. Have them specialize. And spread them out. Players would be less inclined to stand around in a large gaggle spamming skills by the trainer. Instead they would be standing around in smaller gaggles spread out around town spamming their skills by a trainer. Which would be killing two birds with one stone since specialized skill trainers is a desired improvement in itself.

 

Most likely next release. Trainer improvements have been on my plate for a while now and I had to hotfix the Desolis trainers to train everything as a stopgap becuase they didn't behave as we expected. The long term goal is that lower level skills are easily trainable, the higher level skills require finding advanced trainers, and the top skills require proving yourself somehow. It's time we moved to that model (and, as I said, is already on my task list)

 

Is that the future intended implementation, or how it is supposed to work now ?

Because it does *not* work that way in the current release :

As of right now, you retain *all* bank contents, your lot, your house, and all contents on your lot.
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I just now deleted one of my alt accounts, recreated the character, and retained everything noted above.


It also states in the "Do you want to delete?" prompt that you should store your items in the bank prior to deletion, so yeah...

 

Mmh

Most of top skills are summons that are .... just cosmetic at this point of developpement... So i hope that if they will be more difficult to get, they will at least be more usefull than they are now ...