Excelsior

I know that I am no-where near end game as there are still places where I die very easily, if I ever forget how much I need to improve, I only need to visit Sgail to be reminded!

I have a few ideas though, I don't know how viable/code-able they are though:

1. Fel only character
Accounts over a certain age can buy an additional character slot that is locked to Fel. I've seen people talk about a challenge they run where they only use Fel, but what if we had a specific character that couldn't leave Fel? There could also be a set of achievements locked to this character.

2. Restriction of equipment use
I realise that vets have worked very hard for their relayers, but what if there were quest lines that rewarded you for running it wearing various quest items or using certain weapons and armour that have very poor or even detrimental stats? If these were part of a quest that involved instancing, perhaps this could unlock different loot tables. If it was part of a faction-based quest, perhaps it could serve as a way to earn additional points or a different tier/type of points. This way the same quest could be run by those at different stages in the game, but you would need to think more carefully about what equipment you choose for the quest.

Yoda.. I wasn’t equating relayers to endgame. They are part of the structure of this shard. This system was long setup before I arrived I was merely responding to the ones who spoke of going backwards gear wise is all. To me relayers are a separate debate. Also you were not apart of the beta for elysium I was.. What is this “wants now” you speak of? Some of my conversations here about tailoring go back way a year before the update even came. Your generally quite rude in most of your posts on this forum and you acting as if you know me and or my intentions is obnoxious. Last time I’ll awknoweldge anything you have to say

1. never mentioned the elysium beta
2. was speaking more of vet entitlement and you were the latest example
3. I have dinner remnants about which I care far more for than your opinion.

Yes I am rude what of it, did I claim to be a nice guy? you ignoring me, doesn't amount to a threat. If we are going to talk rude I could point by point your posts and show you your own rudeness, but I won't no point. Rude tone of the thread came from your original post as did my annoyance.

Octavious,

Relayer's are part of the 'end-game' experience you're talking about. To dismiss that fact is nonsensical. If it weren't for many of the custom features we have here, the supposed "end-game" would be drastically different.

This game was designed around the average player having 700 points to spend in their skills for very specialized builds. I don't think you could even hit 200 hit points, and no where near insta-heal with 220 dex. You most likely wouldn't even have all 70 resists if you went for max hit points, or max damage, or... whatever. It was about meaningful choices.

The addition of relayers here broke the balance, and what you're asking for is a re-balance, even if you don't realize it. You don't want god-mode, but at the same time, you don't want to give it up. You want a challenge, but use the overpowered gear to take that challenge away.

I again ask you the question, other than a 1-hit death, how do you counter insta-heal, players with 700 hp, Overpowered pets, without taking those things away, and without 1-shot killing them?

I'm only just cracking 600 days of account age so I don't put myself in the same league as many of the vets on here. I still feel like there's more than enough for me to do even with 12 relayers and over 500 hp. It's true that most of the mobs available now aren't much of a threat, but there's still some that could (under the right circumstances) cause me issues.

The one hit kill issue is one that bothers me only because there's no way to counter it. It doesn't matter how powerful we get. Kronos can take down anything that moves. Instead, why not have more stronger mobs? If there were more areas similar to the peerless areas (or perhaps a little tougher) then it would be enough for me.

Dragons that can hit you for 400, for example, would be interesting; especially if you encountered a group of four of them.

Either way, i agree the 'god like' status you reach with relayers is an issue here. However, I don't think that changing that or taking that away would bode well for the server overall at this point. There would certainly be a riot I do think that there is a lack of challenge though for us who are relayered up. That's part of why i have tried as much as possible to slow down my own character's progression by going out of my way to spend millions on deco and whatever else my heart desires [despite many people telling me im insane for it ] as well as focusing my time on making some alts. If i ever get bored, all i need to do is hop off Erised and go hunt on one of my noob characters to get the thrill of dying repeatedly. The things +Nyx mentioned about making fights require more intellect are really excellent ideas and i think that will help things a lot. I often find its too easy for us to just go out and slaughter things, with very little thought involved in the whole process once we are geared the way we are. And there should be more things that are a challenge outside of stuff that just 1 hit kills us, which there already are those things around and having a set of imp pets kind of solves the whole issue anyways if you have one. I also always have thought it's an issue that players can come in and just buy all of their gear in a day, as some certain people on this server have done. However, in the end, its ultimately just them that are going to end up bored, because they just eliminated the sole purpose of actually playing the game. I think a lot of you need to learn some patience though, because real life comes first for everyone. Nobody should be pestering to get updates, if you're not happy you can go play somewhere else.. that's how I see it anyways. Appreciate what you have, and when we get the updates, great. You can't expect what you want when you want it, that's ridiculously entitled, as Yoda has already mentioned. The fact that this game is even still going after this many years is impressive on its own. That being said, i think some slowing down of progression in the game isn't a bad idea, as well as maybe incorporating the achievements and making them a more worth-while thing is a great idea

Rhiemath wrote:Dragons that can hit you for 400, for example, would be interesting; especially if you encountered a group of four of them.

Paragon Sphynx hits for over 400 I am sure. Minotaur's hit pretty hard too. Now, if somehow they made their way into Ilshenar where they can become a paragon, they would also be a problem for anybody. In fact, there should be quite a few mobs that just need to become paragon to be a challenge for the best of us. Like those Flesh Eating Wyrms in Dungeon Wrong.

I'm the SkinWalker, even with 7 relayers, my hit points is only 335, and i take on Kronos every chance i get, Bios are my strength, my friends, my companions. I have found when Kronos is fresh he hits with 1500 hit points, just by how knocks down my friends still we single off him on a regular basis. Want to see where my gold goes, visit the Wolf Den, take the 5th orc fort in malas and head north, you will find six joined houses with forest shops and taming. I loved this game for a long time, since the original uo started, me and my hatchet and newbie cloths fighting orcs in yew every 30 min. I've found a home here and live waiting for the ever talked about new lands. if you want the challenge lets go hunting. I,m sure we can be killed in the right places, and yes, me with my little 335 hit points have even killed the flesh eating dragon, and the polar wyrm with his 34000, hit points. enjoy what we have. I do.

*shoves popcorn into face...on da toilet*

I understand the concept of not wanting to go backwards, that is why I offered a way to move somewhat laterally (creating an alt while you wait for new content).

However, I posit this query: What happens 6 months after Elysium comes out? "end gamers" will be right back here rummaging around waiting for Touria updates and talking about how it was promised 6 months from yesterday's tomorrow that it was coming out. Then Phase one gets done, then etc etc etc etc. Long story short its the same in every game be it UO or WoW whatever. Here its wanting the newest of the new and the best of the best. In wow it those same people pushing in the top raiding guilds complaining that they've completed all the content 2 weeks after an expansion. Some people have been here 5,6,7,8+ years and haven't pushed into that territory for reasons much like this.

In short: outside of underpowering yourself, or playing on an alt you can't possibly expect to not be bored/overpowered shortly after the release of any new content. You are an envelope pusher, and there is nothing wrong with that, but you also can't complain when you push the envelope right off the table.

Also as a side note: I don't think +N's intent was to "call you out" for your beta testing experience, she was merely pointing out that while you put in a generous number of hours, others still out paced your testing time. Yet still, in my mind it more comes across that +N, a volunteer, albeit a creator, has just as much right to complain about people, volunteers, who complain about the work thats is done in the persons own time.

Patch graphics are for Elysium except where I've already released them. That's why you didn't see any in the tailoring updates. Not every new addition in the interim is going to get new graphics, or else there would be nothing left that is new for the facets. Years ago, I learned how to patch the client (essentially by myself) and have created each patch for the shard by hand, including making a lot of those graphics you love *by hand, by myself*. When I made the first patch, +C agreed that any new graphics I added in patches could be reserved for the facets, with the agreement that once the facets were done I would know which graphics were OK to use in other areas, and then those graphics would get added into the game elsewhere. This may not seem like a big deal to you, but it is to me. Nearly everything I added, I added with specific plans and thoughts for how and where to use them. It's important enough to me that if that agreement were subverted or broken, then honestly that'd really ruin it here for me and I'd quit. Then Elysium and Touria would never happen. So, yeah, pretty important to me. I know it's hard to wait, which is why I've tried to incorporate some of the new stuff into smaller areas when possible (grand auctions, vet rewards, seasonal quests, events, etc). But if we start releasing all the new stuff in other areas first, it means there's a lot less / nothing very exciting for rewards in the facet. I'm not okay with that in any way, and neither should any of you be.

Imagine what it would be like to go into a new facet, so excited, and complete a challenging quest only to get a reward that's the same graphic as any tailor could make, because it was already released there awhile back. You wouldn't be happy, it wouldn't be as exciting, and it wouldn't be nearly as motivating to keep exploring the facet. You'd get bored much faster in the brand new content you waited so long for. It would mean that the only way to make any of the rewards exciting would be for them to have big stats above and beyond what you guys can already get, which further unbalances the game by making the gear & stats scale even steeper a slope. Particularly after so long a wait for the facets, the rewards and experience need to be excellent in stats and appearance, and exciting and fresh or else it takes an enormous amount of enjoyment from the experience. I don't want any of our awesome players to go into Elysium and feel like "I waited x years for..this?" I want them to go in there and be like "HELL YES!"

I agree with Valorian about what happens with new content - it all always becomes old eventually, the goal of any new content that I make is to make it interesting enough so as to take as long as possible to get 'old'

I wasn't "calling you out", Octavius. I don't know how you read it that way, I went out of my way to be nice, I even SAID I was being friendly! You did put in a number of hours, it was not a knock on your performance, it was to give you perspective about the sheer number of hours the things you are complaining about take to implement, and how un-fun a lot of it is for us. You still seem to think that these "little tweaks" you keep mentioning are simple and quick. They. Are. Not. They take a *long time* and they are *complicated* and they are *not fun* for us. Some of the things you have said seem to indicate that you may have gotten the wrong impression from the beta - Elysium is nowhere near done, not even close. The beta was only for the few systems we tested (cooking, crops, plant bods), it was not a test for the whole facet. I want that to be clear, because it seems like this turned into a "why doesn't nyx just open the first part now because we want it now" kind of thing and that's just not possible. The rest of the coding would need to be done before I could open, even in parts. There are some systems that the coders and I agreed to leave out of the coding process until awhile after the facet is open. But I won't be able to open even a portion of the facet until the major stuff is in and relatively bug-free. That will mean more coding, more betas, and then a private beta of the facet itself before it is open to the public. It is going to take a long time. I've apologized enough for that. I am doing what I can, I will get it ready when I can. But getting complaints because it's not done, instead of encouragement, does not help motivate me to work on it, it makes it harder.

And to clarify, opening Elysium in parts is not "the plan". It is something I am considering and may or may not do.

On the slowing progression front - I have long said that I would like to see minimum acct ages for some areas that are currently somewhat abused by newer players being pushed through too early. The GoC quest could be restricted so that after one finishes mistvale, they can then start getting GoC's done, and thus upgrade their gear from the mistvale set. I'd also be okay with seeing the relayer deed removed from the public ED room and instead restricted in some way (run a really hard quest, or age limited, or..something). Like Erised said it's just too easy to buy them up right away at present. Sadly in a game like this there are only so many ways we can limit how people get things, and age restriction is almost the only way that is already coded in and doesn't require a lot of thought and extra work as to balance (like a quest would). I'd like to see other ways to restrict things besides age requirements, and quests would be great to see instead. But then we run into the problem of how to make a quest hard enough for everyone without it getting abused. It is not a simple problem, and I don't have a magic solution to it but I'd agree that it would be good to see some things done.

A few things, the game isn't all about destroying everything in you path.
If you think UO is about "End Game", then you, IMO don't have the foggiest idea on what this game is all about, why it was created or it's history going back to the original series.
Their is no winning in UO, the games ends when you log off for the last time.

Many players rarely hunt at all, they spend much if not all of their time crafting, doing quests, chatting with their friends and selling their goods to the rank n file to help them destroy everything.

Not feeling challenged?
Place your relayers in the bank box, make an alt and only use 700 skill cap, like the old days, then tell us how there is no
challenge.

When I first started here, I was told repeatedly you need Mules and or imps, absolutely need them to succeed.
I have no mules, no nobles, and the only imps I have are 2 ferrets (that never fight) I keep in memory of my RL ferrets that passed away.
I'm not uber powerful but I have self-limited what I can fight, I have personally upped the difficulty.

Remember when a Invulnerable, Vanquishing, Supremely Accurate, Silver Katanna was the UBER weapon of all weapons?
150 or durability, 35% DMI, 20SS Undead Slayer in other words, pretty much a crap weapon now.
Grab something similiar and take on the world

You can't up the difficulty here, but you can sure dumb down your overpoweredness. (new word)

Just my 2 cents, and no this isnt directed at any one person.

very well said Charon..Cheers

It was very satisfying to read such constructive well thought out perspectives and posts after a long day on the road in a cruddy german passenger seat, thank you shard.

To +Req I don't disagree with you at all on relayers.. Just what I was speaking of is "content" related to end game not the gear side is all. To +Nyx I wasn't upset at all and I took well what you said I appreciated it very much I wondered how I did in comparison, I just thought it funny you brought it up so publicly but its quite alright ive appreciated your breakdowns. I am and like may others just excited for and about Elysium and Touria.