[Brandon]

62 Clients online. Just sayin.

where on earth did i or anyone in this thread from my guild say that? If i don't like the pvp you won't see me playing here I won't complain and threaten to quit if we quit you will know it by the decrease in players that's what scarecrow meant by his post is what i'm guessing.

It was an observation hes not allowed to have one? He wasn't on for a while..

hoesntly it's cute how little you know

Umm. What? Gah! You make my head hurt.

[Scare crow]

Umm. What? Gah! You make my head hurt.

I posted after he posted that... so, your quote makes no sense..

Also, I didn't reference any reasons as to why the playerbase is so low. You need to read Brandon.

[Brandon]

I posted after he posted that... so, your quote makes no sense..

You're not making any sense.

Also, I didn't reference any reasons as to why the playerbase is so low. You need to read Brandon.

You didn't reference any reasons why the player base is low? Did you forget which thread you were browsing?

[Loki]

It's okay, criticism is fine and I understand change is not always comfortable. We just had a tourney and it went OK but to be honest most people haven't adapted to the new changes at all. Think of it as playing back before everyone had mastered the fighting style, people are not employing all the tool at their disposal terribly well so the true balance of things is a little obscured. This is fine, but it needs time for player knowledge to catch up for us to see how things are really going.

I saw minimal use of harm, no use of fireball, mindblast, mana drain or explosion, and little use of any potions except mana (still loop chugging for a lot of people I think). Also poison timing was poor from most the fighters. I do not mean this as criticism, this is day 1 of a new system, it would be extremely surprising to see people fighting perfectly. I just hope over time people explore the new options and see what they can do. In some cases I don't think people even had hotkeys for the new spells.

I disagree that regen is random, if anything it means you have to pace yourself and the rate is fixed, there is no random element to it, you can still "burst" 27 mana with a pot which is quite a significant amount and when converted by spells into health also is more than a GH pot so it's not like they are useless.

Both poison mitigation (of 100% in fact) and mana regen are the norm in all other types of UO (OSI pre-publish 17, AoS, SL etc. etc.) even in newer versions of Sphere as well. So, it's not like this is some wild and untested theory. I appreciate people here like 51a and that is why we have maintained that half of mana management comes from potions and the mitigation of poison is very low at only about 30% and does not even apply to potions.

I don't think the low clients has anything to do with the changes, we have been trending down and also the reboot was only a few hours ago, a playerbase low is normal since all the AFK macroers are kicked off.

[Loki]

As an example I can see that you XUO guys still grasp the idea that running an opponent out of mana is one of the primary ways to win a duel.

That's fine, but I don't want it to be the #1 way, with good timing, spell selection and strategy it should be possible to actually kill someone through just outplaying them and not having to run them to zero mana. That doesn't mean that people should be able to cast endlessly with no thought, people will still go out of mana pretty fast if they cast too much and if this proves not to be the case the regen rate may be reduced. Things like FS and GH scrolling still take quite a significant chunk of mana.

But if you want to win by bottoming out your opponent's mana you need to fight that way, you need to learn to use mana drain and mind blast at the right time, you can't just out conserve them. There needs to be more than one style to the fighting, out conserving your opponent and only casting the same 2-3 spells is the reason why a lot of people who came here see our PvP as slow, boring and unvaried, and they were right, I hope with the changes those issues have been addressed though.

You should still be able to approach fights in a similar way to before, you just need to adopt some of the new tools and/or adapt to a different pace of fighting. It's been live on the server for literally only a few hours, I really think you need to try and be a bit more empirical and impartial and give things an honest try rather than prejudging everything and refusing to come out of the relatively narrow comfort zone of the old PvP.

[sm0ke]

It's okay, criticism is fine and I understand change is not always comfortable. We just had a tourney and it went OK but to be honest most people haven't adapted to the new changes at all. Think of it as playing back before everyone had mastered the fighting style, people are not employing all the tool at their disposal terribly well so the true balance of things is a little obscured. This is fine, but it needs time for player knowledge to catch up for us to see how things are really going.

I saw minimal use of harm, no use of fireball, mindblast, mana drain or explosion, and little use of any potions except mana (still loop chugging for a lot of people I think). Also poison timing was poor from most the fighters. I do not mean this as criticism, this is day 1 of a new system, it would be extremely surprising to see people fighting perfectly. I just hope over time people explore the new options and see what they can do. In some cases I don't think people even had hotkeys for the new spells.

I disagree that regen is random, if anything it means you have to pace yourself and the rate is fixed, there is no random element to it, you can still "burst" 27 mana with a pot which is quite a significant amount and when converted by spells into health also is more than a GH pot so it's not like they are useless.

Both poison mitigation (of 100% in fact) and mana regen are the norm in all other types of UO (OSI pre-publish 17, AoS, SL etc. etc.) even in newer versions of Sphere as well. So, it's not like this is some wild and untested theory. I appreciate people here like 51a and that is why we have maintained that half of mana management comes from potions and the mitigation of poison is very low at only about 30% and does not even apply to potions.

I don't think the low clients has anything to do with the changes, we have been trending down and also the reboot was only a few hours ago, a playerbase low is normal since all the AFK macroers are kicked off.

There's so many reasons as to why the playerbase is declining constantly and yes ofc I do think some (minor) but some people did leave because of this change. I won't go through it or bother to try and argue about points, you're not seeing it as a player but merely as a creator who keeps trying to defend it saying people are not adapting to "YOUR" standards. I've tested this PvP for a good week or two between the test server and the portal in the casino and even when it went live I played in the first tourney.

So what the mana has a rate of regeneration doesn't mean it's balanced or dependable you regen at a certain pace. where as you can drink a potion and receive that "WHOLE" mana at once instead of it being spread out over time like regen. Honestly nobody cares what versions of UO stuff came from they just like playing a balanced and fun style which tbh I don't see it like that by adding things like harm mindblast etc like I said you won't be able to force people to use all spells in the spell book they'll use whatever they want.

But as far as it goes I still think this poison and mana regen system should both be removed and returned back to normal.

[sm0ke]

[COLOR="#FF0000"]As an example I can see that you XUO guys still grasp the idea that running an opponent out of mana is one of the primary ways to win a duel.

That's fine, but I don't want it to be the #1 way, with good timing, spell selection and strategy it should be possible to actually kill someone through just outplaying them and not having to run them to zero mana.[/COLOR] That doesn't mean that people should be able to cast endlessly with no thought, people will still go out of mana pretty fast if they cast too much and if this proves not to be the case the regen rate may be reduced. Things like FS and GH scrolling still take quite a significant chunk of mana.

But if you want to win by bottoming out your opponent's mana you need to fight that way, you need to learn to use mana drain and mind blast at the right time, you can't just out conserve them. There needs to be more than one style to the fighting, out conserving your opponent and only casting the same 2-3 spells is the reason why a lot of people who came here see our PvP as slow, boring and unvaried, and they were right, I hope with the changes those issues have been addressed though.

You should still be able to approach fights in a similar way to before, you just need to adopt some of the new tools and/or adapt to a different pace of fighting. It's been live on the server for literally only a few hours, I really think you need to try and be a bit more empirical and impartial and give things an honest try rather than prejudging everything and refusing to come out of the relatively narrow comfort zone of the old PvP.

Exactly, those are your standards like I said not everyone is going to agree with your point of view of how the pvp should be..

[Loki]

Yes, the original PvP changes were very much my experiment, I was never given any promise they would be adopted. But for the most part the changes were well received and worked well in testing so the decision was made to roll them out. There is no question that the playerbase has suffered because of the old system. The assertion that the playerbase is now low because of the changes rather than that it has dropped over the course of weeks or months (in part due to the boredom of the old PvP system) is kinda ridiculous.

I do not deny being the creator of the changes nor that they follow the a certain set of logic in my head, although I do not claim to have come up with all the ideas, many are borrowed or adapted from other places. But I've tried to take an impartial, logical and numerical approach. In places design choices have to be made of course. The fact is you could keep your old system and let the server die as the PvP system stagnates through lack of diversity and being mindnumbingly simple compared to a lot of other systems/games, or you can embrace change and try to get to a better system that is more fun, better to watch and easier for people to enjoy and take part in. I would have thought self-interest alone would make you want the latter, or do you just want to fight Vys, Plx don't kill and about 5 other players for the rest of time?

Edit: I should also say, if the new changes turn out to suck I'm sure other changes or reversions will happen. That isn't even my decision. But the fact is trying to blame all the ills of the world and condemn the changes to failure within a matter of hours shows a certain lack of objectivity.

[Cana]

I'm one of the people still stuck in the old ways. I tested it a bit before release and I'm looking forward to learning the new system and seeing how it gets shaped in the future. I'm sure some tweaks will happen if they are needed, but this is a good base for a system with more variety.

[Gang]

I never said it sucks or it's imbalanced. I plainly was speaking of style preference. I myself came on 0.51a server and would like to avoid AoS/0.54++ sphere stuff, it's not that I'm scared of a change. In fact I've yet to die on your system. I plainly do not think that this system is something what will hold me in 14 year old game vs new games. Just because thats not why I came UO. But I'm not saying it's bad in general, thats only my own opinion you might end up getting much more new players who'll like this system. But claiming it's 51a is just not truth ;p

[Loki]

I think it's a lot closer to 51a than any other system. Namely there is skill cap, everyone fights as a tank mage with healing or some subtle variant, there is still a massive reliance on potions, the poison mitigation is minor compared to every single other UO system, scrolls are still potent and necessary for PvP, there is no precasting, there is no resists system, mana regeneration is still quite someway below maximum rate, there is no fizzling, there are no magic weapon properties or spell channelling.

I could go on and on, these are all features that are pretty much unique to Sphere 51a, you won't find them in OSI publish pre-17, AoS, or any other newer version of UO. So I very much think our system is still 51a but slightly unbroken in a few places such that we get a bit more variety and pace.

The fact is we were not exactly 51a before either, and saying that XUO = 51a is also not correct since in 51a there is no precast mana cost, no health intake, all scrolls take half mana (not other variants), no hit limiters, overpowered Mana Drain and Reactive Armour spells, no individual stat limitations etc.

So I think it is a narrow view to say the changes you are used to are still 51a but other changes aren't. The fact is that if UO players from all different systems came here, only the 51a players would recognise how the system works, it would be pretty much alien to AoS/OSI/newer Sphere players. We even emulate a huge number of the flaws in 51a which in my opinion is a failing, such as keeping a number of spells disabled, not having context menus or mouse over texts, not having a resists system and so on. But these are done deliberately to maintain the 51a style of combat and gameplay, but I don't think we should shackle ourselves from making any changes at all or the server will die just like every other 51a server in history.

[Gang]

High regeneration creates much more survivability which forces you to use poison non stop. Because with it's damage output and, which is much more important with it's migitation(no high rate reg nor the migitation are 0.51a parts) you are being forced you use poison as most important spell.

I like the way you describe the system, but the thing is that it's not just spell selection or timing that gets you to win. In fact with this reg I myself will be able to survive having to react much slower than I had on any other 0.51a server. Wise spell use you speak of won't get me killed. The only thing that might help it is having to constantly poison me and poison your weapon. Bringing up mind blast or mana drain is not necessary, as I have nothing against wider spell selection. I just don't like that two aos features (mana reg and migitation) made it too "poison" based.

If you claim otherwise, do not describe what you *intended* when you implemented the system, rather create a character and show it, theory is theory, practice is practice.