Treasure Hunting Update

[+Requiem]

Well, the time has come for an update to treasure hunting.

Some notable changes are as follows:

1 ) Gold has been buffed in all chests, but you will see a bigger buff in the higher level chests.

2 ) Cartography and Lock Picking will need to be above 100 to decode, and unlock the higher level maps/chests.

3 ) We have added level 7 (diabolically drawn), and level 8 (infernally drawn) maps.

4 ) For every map (level 5 and under in trammel, and 7 and under in felucca) there is a chance to find a map of one level higher than the chest you just dug up. For instance, if you are in trammel, and dig up a level 5 map, there is a chance for you to find a level 6 map in the chest.

5 ) There are several new items added to all level chests. Some are specific to lower level chests, and are otherwise unobtainable. ie: You will not find the same items in a level 1 chest, that you do in a level 6 chest.

6 ) There is now a delay to lockpicking, to end the bug/exploit of picking a chest several times before it unlocked, for several gains.

7 ) Level 7 and 8 maps are not for novice players. The guardians are roughly paragon balron/ancient wyrm strength for the level 7 chests, and a bit stronger for the level 8's.

8 ) Although we had originally planned on maps for ilshenar, tokuno, and malas (and magda), it just was not feasible at this
time. We are trying to figure out a better way to do this, and it may come in the future, or maybe not.

9 ) Please note, if you notice anything unusual please send a help request immediately, so we can fix any issues. I am leaving the items we added as a surprise for you all. Please feel free to comment in this thread, if you want to share what you have found with other players.

10 ) I hope you all enjoy this update.

[Unbeliever]

With all due respect, I don't feel that the tactic of picking a lock multiple times before it unlocked should be labeled a bug/exploit and I'm surprised that it was even considered attention-worthy. Not that I'm complaining, but a one-stop shop making 0-95 lockpicking just going through the motions with a well-known script was purposely put into the game. Those are the *easy* gains and yet they were trivialized even further. At the very least people would have been required to make or buy their own lockable boxes of various Tinkering skill levels without the Haven boxes. Meanwhile the hardest gains - LP was already accepted by most players as the most difficult skill to raise - are made exponentially more difficult? Even using the multiple-attempt method and hitting all prisoner camp chests (that weren't already hit by other players) didn't result in a great deal of skill gain per day. I can't imagine there will be more than a small handful (like, baby-sized hands) of players willing to put in the months it will take to raise LP from 95 to 120 under this ruleset. Moreover, this method of raising the skill has been used for a very long time and was common practice anywhere I played UO prior to Excelsior. I report bugs and what-have-you compulsively but it hadn't even crossed my mind that this would be considered foul play. I'd point out that there are other tasks that benefit from similar Razor manipulations (nevermind EUO, which can automate and speed up anything) like stripmining - using multiple shovels out of one's backpack to mine faster than one could mine with a single shovel. That's also very old school and usually common practice, and that's just one example of many. I don't know if you'd like to crack down on those as well or possibly reconsider the LP change but it seems in several ways inconsistent as it is now. Ultimately it's the staff's say-so that goes and I'm not going to whine about it; I just wanted to express a few salient points.

All that said about lockpicking, I admire the long-term effort you put into enhancing treasure maps for players' enjoyment. No doubt it's going to result in a lot more, and a lot happier, t-map hunters no matter what. :]

[Ishamael]

Finally! I will have a use for the hundreds of plain t-maps. I am a long time member of this shard, and Lockpicking was one of the skills I started on early. I use it all the time with paragon chests prisoner camp chests and ancient sos chest, but my skill is still only 112. Lockpicking is ridiculously difficult to raise in that there are only a few chests that will give you any kind of skill gain at this high of skill level. personally, I think if I have been using a skill for at least 4 YEARS, it would be at 120. I have not exploited the game in any way for my skill gains, but I honestly feel that the LP skill is glitched. most of my recent gains in LP have been by using skill elixers. Still, looking forward to trying out the new and improved treasure hunting.

[snaggeh]

Well i must say I am looking forward to running some of my Tmaps I have collected over the last few weeks, just need to train cartography up.

Glad I did the 0-95 lock picking last week though :)

[apocalypse]

Would it be possible to change the map drop type for peerless monsters that are in Felucca? Example, Lady Mel drops a trammel treasure map, but she is in Fel. It would make more sense that a monster in Fel would drop a Fel treasure map. I believe the shimmering effusion is the same.
Just a thought, if you haven't already pondered this...

Looking forward to getting back into treasure hunting :D

[Berserker]

YAY, many thanks +req looking forward to some fun T hunting :)

[Arcon]

*Where is that shovel of mine again !?* [grumbling] and thx :)

[Pariah]

SO FRICKIN' SAAAAWEEEEEET!!!

P.S. Did my first t-map and...I gotta bucket, gotta bucket full of sunshine...

[Mystery Man]

This is so awesome...Finally a reason to start doing tmaps again, maybe now ill be able to get rid of some of them lol

[+Colibri]

The server was just restarted with this new system.

A quick disclaimer might be appropriate: although +Requiem and I tested the changes and fixed all the issues, there's probably a thing or two that we missed. We came across many cool ideas when making this, so there will likely be another upgrade (but I can't give you an ETA: might be this year, or later - but probably not to be expected in November).

In regards to the lockpicking delay: there has always been a 3 second duration to attempt to pick a lock. The code just didn't check for concurrent attempts. It might not be a big issue, but without the delay, the bonus gear found inside the chests has very little value.

[Unbeliever]

Thanks for addressing the subject of LP in your post, +Colibri

[Ishamael]

Great tweak to the treasure hunting, but with so many people looking for and finding chests, we are running into the problem of people not removing the chest after discovering it. This makes that treasure chest location unusable till the chest decays. Is there a way to increase their decay time? It is frustrating, especially after sailing to the location only to find a chest still there.

[Annachie]

I would think more that the mods should probably check p on people a little, if its possible to tell who dug up the chest in the first place.

Also, they're leaving all the rubbish lieing around too.

[Yoda]

or perhaps it is as simple as the digger doesn't know you click the chest after finished with it to destroy it.. education can equal policing

[+Colibri]

I've reduced it down to one hour.