Treasure Hunting Update

[Wil]

[quote=+Requiem]

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.

...

In my mind, treasure hunting is the activity, and lock picking is the necessary evil. Yes, it is the grindy part, and yes, I realize this. I think many skills here are much too easy to raise. There is really no sense of acomplishment from setting a macro, going to bed, and waking up with 120 in a skill.

[/quote]

Howdy,

You have a tough task on your hands. Designing a game so that it engages players for more than few hours is no easy thing. Excelsior's longevity, and its ability to continue to engage players speaks very highly of the folks who run it.

That having been said...

I'm told that when folks are jailed here, getting out is a matter of completing a large number of repetitive, dreary tasks. This is a suitable PUNISHMENT for breaking the rules.

Let me repeat that for emphasis: completing a large number of simple, repetitive tasks is a PUNISHMENT. It is not fun.

Jumping through hoops to find a chest that might, once in a while, give you a single 0.1 boost to lockpicking is not a necessary evil. It's simply NOT FUN. There's no accomplishment from having achieved 120 lockpicking this way. It just means the player was too stupid to value the wasted hours on a boring task instead of spending two hours at minimum wage somewhere so he could afford a skill ball.

That is NOT FUN. Whatever the opposite of fun is, it looks something like that.

In large, your improvements to treasure chests look really cool. But in making lockpicking past 95 even harder, I respectfully suggest that you erred. I would encourage you to A) put it back to the way it was for now, including the so-called multiple-picking bug, and B) think about whether there's an effective way to making lockpicking gains past 95 into a matter of -playing- the game, not grinding. Grinding sucks.

Glad I'm not in your shoes figuring out exactly what that might be, but then that's what you signed up for. ;)

Just my two cents,
Wil

[+Nyx]

Let me repeat that for emphasis: completing a large number of simple, repetitive tasks is a PUNISHMENT. It is not fun.

Jumping through hoops to find a chest that might, once in a while, give you a single 0.1 boost to lockpicking is not a necessary evil. It's simply NOT FUN. There's no accomplishment from having achieved 120 lockpicking this way. It just means the player was too stupid to value the wasted hours on a boring task instead of spending two hours at minimum wage somewhere so he could afford a skill ball.

That is NOT FUN. Whatever the opposite of fun is, it looks something like that.

I guess playing on OSI is punishment, then. Getting 0.1 of animal taming skill past 95.0 sometimes took a month of grinding for hours a day.

It's all relative. What seems like a "hard" matter here is really just everyday life on other shards/games/in real life.

[Wil]

[quote="+Nyx"]

Getting 0.1 of animal taming skill past 95.0 sometimes took a month of grinding for hours a day. :) I guess playing on OSI is punishment, then. :lol:

[/quote]

I thought it was. That's why I quit half way through the 90's beta and didn't return until a couple years ago well after Razor had made the game playable. And I never got past 80 taming on the free shards until I landed here.

Let me ask you which you think is more fun? OSI's version of animal taming? Or yours here on Excelsior?

Regards,
Wil

[Wil]

[mispost]

[Ishamael]

Honestly, I loved the tweak to the treasure hunt. I have dug up hundreds since the update, most of them plain. In all those maps I only got 1 Diabolical. It only feeds the obsession to get more! :) I didn't even get anything epic in the diabolical except the 33k gold. :)

[+Nyx]

Let me ask you which you think is more fun? OSI's version of animal taming? Or yours here on Excelsior?

Regards,
Wil

I don't think you're gonna get the answer you hoped for - I preferred it on OSI. It actually meant something once you GM'd animal taming and were able to control those spiffy dragons, wyrms and mares. Taming was far, far more interesting and viable a skillset on OSI than it is here and I've never made a secret of my intent to slowly fix that on Excelsior. I don't intend to make taming gains harder, though I would vote in favor of making almost all skill gains harder to get after a certain level (say after 90.0 for example's sake).

Anyway, this is not the place for discussing more widespread changes to the shard - let's all keep to the topic as much as possible from here out.

[heyyo]

[quote="Ishamael"]Honestly, I loved the tweak to the treasure hunt. I have dug up hundreds since the update, most of them plain. In all those maps I only got 1 Diabolical. It only feeds the obsession to get more! :) I didn't even get anything epic in the diabolical except the 33k gold. :)[/quote]

Yeah I've got 4 diabolical saved up, I'm a little scared to get skunked.

Anyone know what the necessary lockpicking skill is to open a lvl 7 chest? I was able to read the map with 111 cartograpy +6 in gear, is it the same for lockpicking?

[Wil]

[quote="+Nyx"]

:) I don't think you're gonna get the answer you hoped for - I preferred it on OSI. It actually meant something

[/quote]

Perseverance in the face of tedium = accomplishment? You're right, that's not the answer I hoped for. I'm firmly in the work smarter not harder crowd. I want to find the clever paths around the tedium, and when there isn't one, when all opportunity for cleverness has been carefully designed away, I'm frustrated and bored.

-Wil

[Yoda]

prisoner camps are only 100% needed for 95-100... I also thought I fudged it with lvl4 tmaps.. but that could be false memory it has been a while.

once you are beyond 100 hoard lvl5 tmaps and sort by the location # then go do a pile of the same spot.. if you are low on the success chance doing them early its good.. you will have to attempt multiple times to open it and more gains.. so the "tedium" etc is by and large not as bad as it seems on paper.. you just can't do it all at once. lockpicking has always been a longball game unless you skillball it. the changes from this update did very little to change that, (the bugfix) they did however make it easier above a certain level lockpicking. Before without a skillball or elixiers it took a TONNE of lvl5tmaps above 115 to get even the smallest gain.

I watched pheobe gain better than ever off 6's so before people come down on how bad this makes it... it may be worth trying stuff out. from the evidence I have seen , testimonials from guild and otherwise doing it right now.. its better not worse

[+Requiem]

[*quote="Unbeliever"]That's quite interesting, Requiem. I started off questioning your lockpicking change and you elevated the discussion to a nerf of all tools. One post after that and you're now ranting about lazy Excelsoirans, scripters, and how you're going to turn the server on its ear. Seems someone had a lot bottled up in there... or just didn't like his authority being questioned? Well with all that, you've certainly come a long way from this post: http://www.uoex.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=46240

I've re-read that first post about five times now, and I still don't see the part where it says,
"Here are some of my thoughts:

6) Break stones, change things to the way I like em, and you'll like it too or find something else to do.

But then I guess your position in the Excelsior hierarchy probably wasn't as solidified back then, so you couldn't have pulled it off. I have to wonder... has so much really changed in one year that you can pull it off now?

But I was just telling someone the other day that in my on-and-off 15 years of playing this game, I have never seen a single GM on ANY server bow to any player on any point in any argument and just say "You're right.". Thanks for keeping the tradition going. "Players: Always wrong since 1999 (at least!)". It would make a good new banner. I outargued the hell out of you, Requiem, and wasted my keyboard paint doing so, but I'll carry on for the sake of whatever other readers have common sense here. I originally planned to play nice-nice, sell off my items, and recover my losses from donating, but after due consdieration I think I'd rather cut my losses than give this server 1 more player-online bump towards any more reverse-milestones.

[**quote="Requiem"]"Does it imprrove the players game experience" is a very subjective question, and the answers will vary. While I certainly try to accomplish that, i know going into it i can't please everyone.[/**quote]

It wasn't a subjective question; the subject was very specific. "I seriously doubt that over time anyone will feel that their gaming experience has been improved by not being able to raise lockpicking skill through conventional means in anywhere near a reasonable amount of time." Answers will not vary on that. People may choose to ignore it or work around it, but anyone who stops and thinks about it for a fat second will realize not being able to train LP normally in a sane timeframe has not made any player's gaming here better.

In other news, you started with:

[**quote="+Requiem"]Can you explain to me, in a logical manner, (not because - its old, and works everywhere), why you should be able to use a single set of tools, to attempt to pick a lock multiple times, before you succeed/fail the first time? For that matter, how or why could you logically use more than one set of tools to pick a lock multiple times, before you succeed or fail the first time?[/**quote]

and then when I dropped a Logic H-bomb on that question, you pulled a bait and switch:

[*quote="Requiem"]Unbliever, while you make some sort of sense in that many things are not logical, the delays exist for a reason. One of them being to help combat the difference between someone who is using a macro, and someone who is actually *gasp* playing the game without scripting every thing.[/*quote]

Yeah... let's just not make it about logic anymore. Let's make it about scripting now, k? Because, after all, you were only asking questions to try and be *right*, not to actually get answers. And logic was only important to you before you knew how good my reply was going to be. I see that you avoided asking any questions in your last post so as to not invite any more opportunities for me to bust up your half-arsed reasoning. Well, here I am doing it again anyway.

So now you say:

[*quote="Requiem"]As far as "nerfing" all crafting and resource gathering... Yes, I do plan to address that, because I view these "short-cuts" as cheating. I have mined for hours at a time, using a single shovel. There is no reason that these "short-cuts" need to exist. Perhaps there are other long term economic benefits to only having people mine that actually want to, or enjoy mining.[/*quote]

Boy, you've come a long way from this post too:

[*quote="Requiem"]Which would you consider broken or useless items?

I am compiling a list of items that currently have little to no use in the everyday gaming world with the hopes, that with new facets and quests, and other upcoming surprises we can hope to find a use for. These can be something underused, or not used at all. Something no-one currently wants for any reason, other than maybe to collect it and display it on a shelf.[/*quote]

You mean like shovels... spinning wheels....? I mean, I flat-out said:

[*quote="Unbeliever"]I've been recording my journal logs for roughly a year now and I can provide tons of discussion regarding what players already feel is the worthlessness of mining, gathering cloth, et cetera. In fact, there was another discussion taking place about it in global chat as I was writing this post..[/*quote]

Kinda irrelevant in your opinion though, eh? Looks like it to me:

[*quote="Requiem"]i know going into it i can't please everyone.[/*quote]

[*quote="Requiem"]Maybe people have become too accustomed to easy mode on here, and just want everything handed to them. I'm sorry, but I don't work that way, and you can expect more difficulties in any future content I work on. I know some view it as a punishment...[/*quote]

[*quote="Requiem]We have quite a bit planned, and you are just starting to see the tip of the iceberg in the distance, over the horizon. Some you will like, some you will dislike...[/*quote]

Yeah... you know, I kind of see your point. Pleasing players or worrying about what they want or like... that's not really a staff member's concern, is it?

Well if all of this isn't about what players want or like, and it isn't about logic either, then what is it really about? Turns out there actually aren't that many possibilities left, so let's figure this thing out. Oh look - here's a good place to start:

[*quote="Requiem"]While *I* certainly try to accomplish that, *i* know going into it *i* can't please everyone.[/*quote]

[*quote="Requiem"]When *I* decided *I* wanted to update treasure maps, *I* wanted to create something interactive[/*quote]

[*quote="Requiem"]*I* think many skills here are much too easy to raise.[/*quote]

[*quote= "Requiem"]*I didn't feel that was the right way to go about things. *I* didn't want a quest, *I* wanted an updated system all together[/*quote]

[*quote= "Requiem"]*I'm* sorry, but *I* don't work that way, and you can expect more difficulties in any future content *I* work on. *I* know some view it as a punishment, but *i* view it as a challenge.[/*quote]

[*quote= "Requiem"]*I* do plan to address that, because *I* view these "short-cuts" as cheating. *I* have mined for hours at a time[/*quote]

[*quote="Requiem"] *I*, *I*, *I*, *I*, *I*, *I*, *I*, *I*[/*quote]

Enough about you for a second, Req. Let me address one of the players here.

[*quote="Caerid"]This... This, this and if nothing else, this alone.[/*quote]

This is no diss at you at all, Caerid, but No, No, and No. When, every so often, someone new makes an account here on Excelsior and says "This server needs PKing and PvP! That's the whole fun in UO! It's all about risk vs. reward! Yada yada...", players are quick to tell them "Sorry, not here. This is a Trammel server. Clearly we came here to get away from that. You want the next server over.". Because that's how it works. There are all different kinds of servers out there that all cater to different crowds, and what you do is find and settle into a server that suits your playstyle. You don't go to a server that suits other people's playstyles and complain about the fact that it doesn't suit your own or, worse, become a staff member there and try to change it to suit yourself. The players here are happy. They already found what they want. Excelsior has been about scripting since anyone can remember. Call it easy-mode, call it carebear, call it whatever you like - the 2, 3, 4+ year veterans have stuck around because they like the fact that playing here doesn't feel like clocking in to work, or they'd have clocked out long ago. It has been about Trammel, no PvP, and fairly strict guidelines for decency. It has been about uber-powered relayer-laden world-stomping characters and weapon-leveling, and if the players here have their minor complaints and grunts about this or that, they're still where they want to be. Who is some random player - or to get right to the point, who is Requiem - to come here and say "I'm going to change what all you people came here for and clearly enjoy and stick around here for because *I* don't like it?". No one, that's who. As players you're used to abiding by staff's decisions (mostly) without question. But in this case, collectively, you need to tell him "Next server over." too. There are dozens of other UO servers that don't allow use of EUO or UOSteam. I can think of several right off the top of my head where the skill gain is significantly more difficult than it is here. He ought to have gone and become a staff member there. Don't let this guy turn your server into someone else's server because of what HE wants. It's the players that make this place what it is, and the players that kept me here as long as I stayed. The other staff member who has driven as many or more players here away with a bad attitude as they brought in or kept with content *almost* made me quit months ago. But this fellow here is insupportable, and it really is time to move on now. You're in for a rough and ugly ride if you let this guy take the reins and crack the whip on you like he owns the place. This is usually the point where a departing player would predict the death of the server, but I'll abstain. Sometimes it happens like that, sometimes it doesn't. Either way, this power-trip isn't what I signed up here for and this isn't somewhere I want to play anymore.

The ball's in your court, Requiem. You can either 1) Try and double-talk your way out of my statements and your own *quotes a second time. Though you don't have a prayer of being able to do that and maintain even a resemblance of sanity. Or 2) Delete this post. I'll warn you in advance though: deleting the angry posts of raving lunatics is no big deal. Deleting the calm and loigcal posts of well-regarded players is not nearly as well thought of. It's kind of a loser either way. Besides which, it will only get re-posted if you go this route. Even if the thread is locked.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHAFmFsb9XM

To all my friends and occassional BS buddies out there - you know who you are - thanks for the laughs and the good conversations. I wish you all the best. Take care of yourselves [/*quote]

I elevated it to all tools? Wasn't it you who said

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.

Yes, I have come a long way from that post. As +Nyx mentioned, as outlines develop, changes happen. As input is received, changes happen. For instance, if I edit one of the files to make ilshenar maps, and tokuno maps possible, i could break the game. So, it was decided to hold off on that until a later time, and figure out if it was even do-able.

It was decided that a better reward would be for completing higher level chests, so the gold was boosted more in higher level chests, than in lower level chests.

We have already announced a future update is possible as well.

It wasn't a subjective question

I think you need to learn the difference between subjective and objective. What enhances your experience is personal to you, and someone else may feel completely differently, which is what makes it subjective as opposed to objective.

Also, what is "a reasonable amount of time"? Who sets "reasonable"? As it is, the staff does, and sorry but our opinions outrank yours, when it comes to the changes we implement. We do take into account players input (as seen by lowering the decay rate of an abandoned treasure chest, and altering how tenacity depreciates to give you more of it efficevly, and probably other things you aren't aware of), but we make changes we feel are good for the game as a whole, rather than those that benefit individuals.

For the delays, i tried to give a reason as to why we feel they need to exist. +Colibri and *I* discussed it, and made it the way it is. I say *I*, because it was mostly my idea. That doesn't mean no one else had any input. *I* spent hours talking with *+Colibri* about it, and he is the one who actually did the coding for it, based off *my suggestions*.

I said logically, because "it works everywhere else" isn't a good enough reason. Maybe I chose the wrong word, but i thought you were intelligent enough to get the point I was trying to make.

The destash raffle came about from that post about broken or useless items if you didn't realize that. No, i wasn't talking about shovels and spinning wheels in that post either.

I also think several of the resources we have available are underused, and *WE* plan on addressing that in a crafting update sometime after the facets open.

Yeah... you know, I kind of see your point. Pleasing players or worrying about what they want or like... that's not really a staff member's concern, is it?

Of course it is, but pleasing everyone all of the time is never going to happen. We have to balance things for the sake of the shard, not to make a couple people happy. If 90-95% of people are content with the content I put out, then I've done my job. I'd love 100% of the people, 100% of the time, but i have no hope of achieving the impossible, and I realize that.

*I* also asked for people's input in that other thread you linked. I read every comment. I took it into consideration. You may see some in a future update, you may not. Ultimately, not every suggestion we receive is a good one. You may not always agree with those decisions, but we don't need your approval. We would *like* it, but we don't *need* it.

Even in one of your posts you said

. There was always competition for the chests and I was never able to hit them all nor gain off the ones I did hit. I believe I'd been at it for around three weeks and hit 112.3 when I decided to shelve it for a while. I found it very boring - *I*, who run around just looking at houses and landscape half the time - and skill above GM was useless at the time anyway.

You've had *months* of time to work on your lock picking under the old system. I think we announced this back in April or something? Maybe even before, I can't remember. So you had plenty of time to raise it under the old, and better in your opinion system. If you find it so boring, and difficult, why do you do it? There's plenty of other things for you to do, and none of the rewards are account bound, so you could buy them from someone else, or as *I* suggested, not Yoda, buy a +20 skill ball, and be done with it.

Perhaps it would have been better if *I* didn't convince +Colibri that a 10 second delay (on lock picking attempts) was too long, or that making a chest inaccessible (forever - ie: complete waste of a map) after a few failed attempts was a bad idea. Maybe this would have been an awesome update, if we required 135 lock picking to even attempt a level 8 chest (at a 20% or lower chance).

[sarcasm]
Oh that's right, *WE* didn't think of you guys when *WE* were working on this. *I'm* the big evil GM who wants to make your lives so difficult, that you have to open a treasure chest a day before you get to do your other favorite activity.
[/sarcasm]

[Yoda]

http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2014/ ... 70r777.jpg

for some reason the image wouldn't work.. so appropriate tho

[+Requiem]

prisoner camps are only 100% needed for 95-100... I also thought I fudged it with lvl4 tmaps.. but that could be false memory it has been a while.

once you are beyond 100 hoard lvl5 tmaps and sort by the location # then go do a pile of the same spot.. if you are low on the success chance doing them early its good.. you will have to attempt multiple times to open it and more gains.. so the "tedium" etc is by and large not as bad as it seems on paper.. you just can't do it all at once. lockpicking has always been a longball game unless you skillball it. the changes from this update did very little to change that, (the bugfix) they did however make it easier above a certain level lockpicking. Before without a skillball or elixiers it took a TONNE of lvl5tmaps above 115 to get even the smallest gain.

I watched pheobe gain better than ever off 6's so before people come down on how bad this makes it... it may be worth trying stuff out. from the evidence I have seen , testimonials from guild and otherwise doing it right now.. its better not worse

You can also do level 4 (and possibly level 3) treasure maps from 95-100.

I have decided to share the minimum skills required to successfully open chests.

level 1 chests -> 36
level 2 chests -> 76
level 3 chests -> 84
level 4 chests -> 92
level 5 chests -> 100
level 6 chests -> 106
level 7 chests -> 111
level 8 chests -> 119

[Yoda]

so in otherwords what you are saying... its not broken at all? and due to training there is actually a value for all level maps that perhaps was unknown to most.

<sarcasm>
I am quite shocked.. really... no really...
</sarcasm>

[Annachie]

Has anyone done a lvl 8 map yet? I think they could sell tickets when they do.

Have to agree with Yoda. Lockpicking fix is a good one.

[Wil]

prisoner camps are only 100% needed for 95-100... I also thought I fudged it with lvl4 tmaps.. but that could be false memory it has been a while.

Tokuno chests of heirlooms work too. That's how I made it to 100.