06-01-2009, 10:54 AM
I was thinking that an adjustment to starting skills might work well.
Magery: 85 (enough to cast FS most of the time)
Tactics: 80 (you can hit 100-105 with a good weapon)
Archery/Swords: 80 (still requires a day or two to spar to GM)
Fencing/Maces/Wrestling: 70 (who uses these anyway?)
Parrying: 80
Eval Int: 65 (easily macro'd)
Anatomy: 65 (easily macro'd)
Healing: 80 (decent chance to suceed, easily macro'd)
Resisting Spells: 80 (relatively easy to macro)
You could also add some basic hunting skills so that people can get started with some very basic hunting sooner:
Hiding: 70 (easy to macro)
Stealth: 65 (easy to macro)
Provocation: 55 (hard to macro, but very valuable)
Musicianship: 50 (ridiculously easy to macro)
Meditation: 65 (easy to macro)
With those skills you're good to go for some basic PVP and it would probably shave off a total of about 4-5 days of macro time. I think that Shade said it takes ~9 days to macro a PVP character, but I assume that he meant with supplies. You need lots of reagents, bandages and broken weapons to GM your PVP/PVM skills and without basic hunting skills, it takes a while to get them.
I don't think that there should be bonuses to craft skills at all, from skill-stone or otherwise. I think that you should have to GM it from vendor-trained values or from whatever you start with. I think that a shard that is too crafter heaver has an inherently poor economy since trading is mostly unnecessary. Hard-to-gain craft skills ensure that the people who put in the time and money to raise those skills see a benefit from it.
Crafters would actually benefit from the increased skills since more people would be hunting, gathering, and PVPing and thus buying supplies from the people who can make them.
Finally, the thing about UO that has always made me confused is how horribly weak you are when you start. My very first day of OSI UO back in 97/98, I logged in, figured out war mode, and attacked a cat in town. It killed me. You're telling me a 150lb human being gets killed by a 10lb cat in a fight? I think that giving these boosts should bring people more in-line with an actual person who would start out adventuring. On a related note, I talked to a new player today as he was in the newbie-dungeon in a neck-and-neck battle with a mongbat. I thought it was a bit silly that it should be so difficult for a new player to kill a low-level monster.
On the other hand, you don't want to just hand out full skills to everyone who joins because some of the players that are brought in that way are people who don't have any of the attachment to their character since they didn't have to spend time building it. I think that some basic skill boosts, nothing too powerful, will be an acceptable compromise between the "free PVP skills" and the "macro for everything" extremes.
Those are just my thoughts. Hopefully other people have more input that is based on logic rather than emotion.
Thanks for reading.
Magery: 85 (enough to cast FS most of the time)
Tactics: 80 (you can hit 100-105 with a good weapon)
Archery/Swords: 80 (still requires a day or two to spar to GM)
Fencing/Maces/Wrestling: 70 (who uses these anyway?)
Parrying: 80
Eval Int: 65 (easily macro'd)
Anatomy: 65 (easily macro'd)
Healing: 80 (decent chance to suceed, easily macro'd)
Resisting Spells: 80 (relatively easy to macro)
You could also add some basic hunting skills so that people can get started with some very basic hunting sooner:
Hiding: 70 (easy to macro)
Stealth: 65 (easy to macro)
Provocation: 55 (hard to macro, but very valuable)
Musicianship: 50 (ridiculously easy to macro)
Meditation: 65 (easy to macro)
With those skills you're good to go for some basic PVP and it would probably shave off a total of about 4-5 days of macro time. I think that Shade said it takes ~9 days to macro a PVP character, but I assume that he meant with supplies. You need lots of reagents, bandages and broken weapons to GM your PVP/PVM skills and without basic hunting skills, it takes a while to get them.
I don't think that there should be bonuses to craft skills at all, from skill-stone or otherwise. I think that you should have to GM it from vendor-trained values or from whatever you start with. I think that a shard that is too crafter heaver has an inherently poor economy since trading is mostly unnecessary. Hard-to-gain craft skills ensure that the people who put in the time and money to raise those skills see a benefit from it.
Crafters would actually benefit from the increased skills since more people would be hunting, gathering, and PVPing and thus buying supplies from the people who can make them.
Finally, the thing about UO that has always made me confused is how horribly weak you are when you start. My very first day of OSI UO back in 97/98, I logged in, figured out war mode, and attacked a cat in town. It killed me. You're telling me a 150lb human being gets killed by a 10lb cat in a fight? I think that giving these boosts should bring people more in-line with an actual person who would start out adventuring. On a related note, I talked to a new player today as he was in the newbie-dungeon in a neck-and-neck battle with a mongbat. I thought it was a bit silly that it should be so difficult for a new player to kill a low-level monster.
On the other hand, you don't want to just hand out full skills to everyone who joins because some of the players that are brought in that way are people who don't have any of the attachment to their character since they didn't have to spend time building it. I think that some basic skill boosts, nothing too powerful, will be an acceptable compromise between the "free PVP skills" and the "macro for everything" extremes.
Those are just my thoughts. Hopefully other people have more input that is based on logic rather than emotion.
Thanks for reading.