A Friendly Criticism of Treasures Events

loop

I love UO. I think it's one of the best games ever -- certainly the best MMORPG. I also think seasonal content is great. It gives the world a cyclical feeling of "something is happening at this point in time." However, as much as I enjoy the dopamine feedback loop of acquiring powerful items, I have some fundamental reservations about Treasures events in general:

1. It's all FOMO. You don't really know when you'll see these items again. You better grind it now!
2. It's a vector for over-powered or imbalanced items with properties that cannot be crafted or obtained elsewhere.
   
3. It's inconsistent. Some last longer than others, for example.
   
4. It can be botted.
5. The density of monsters and intensity of the action exposes the limits of the clients and of the broader architecture without any sense that these limitations will be addressed, lest you use a third-party client.
6. It's a slippery slope to the UO store, luck potions and all. The team has been remarkably restrained in this respect, but I wonder when this restraint will break.
7. The gameplay loop is lackluster. Unlike, say, champion spawns, you're not working toward a common objective with others. Kill monsters. RNG to get drops.

On the other hand, I appreciate the events. I like their uniqueness. I like that I can take a random template out and gain skills while I work toward the redemption of rewards, even while I may not be as optimal as other players. The events I liked the most were the ones that had a champion spawn involved.

However, I wonder what could be achieved by enhancing the seasonal nature of systems that we already have -- roof, treasure hunting, blackthorns, shrine battles, clean up points, champion spawns, pirate hunting, fishing -- changing up their rewards on a regular basis, changing their difficulty, changing the monsters, changing things up simultaneously such that it's not just "this" but maybe "this or that or that".

Anyway, I don't mean to be a fun-killer or whatever. These are just some useless thoughts that occurred to me while running away from paragons.

loop

I'd like to add also that the difficulty of paragons is fairly cheap. Whenever I die, it's never because I made some strategic mistake, some unique mechanic of the paragon, or even necessarily because my template or gear suck. It's just because paragons move fast and kill you in a few hits.

Sticking with the "redeem rewards via drops" gameplay loop, I wonder if a hybrid past events with a champion spawn couldn't be achieved: Enemies in the spawn have a chance to drop artifacts that can be redeemed for points. The boss guarantees a random number of artifacts (more if you've participated for a greater amount of time), in addition to whatever more unique item of the sort that has been introduced in past events.

Cookie

loop said:

1. The gameplay loop is lackluster. Unlike, say, champion spawns, you're not working toward a common objective with others. Kill monsters. RNG to get drops.

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All fair points, and valid opinions.

Just want to add in a comment here.

A ton of our guild have shown up, sometimes, Ice wastes are completely green, the objective is to help each other get drops, by mass killing, we party, we team up, we take out paragons - we've been having a lot of fun tbh.

I think one point many players are missing here, solo sampires, not really the way to go - get a big team going, and mass killing the spawn, the drops are faster - so again, it's a team event.

Champ guilds, naturally play like this, so are enjoying it. There is very little incentive in Trammel for team play, so Trammel players don't play like this, and are getting less drops.

If you are all teamed up, you can be in Discord, chilling, it's easier for resses, can help each other, clear areas, just enjoy it a lot more.

Pawain

Yes team killing. A group of individual archers/throwers running around in Beetlescape or Winter Spur can rack up kills fast.  Meet at a preset point for the paragons. We don't even have to communicate with each other to make it work.

More players more mobs. More kills more paragons!

Great event for the fighting part. 

Tim

The problem with "Champ" style events is the perception, true or false, that players or bots show up for the last or most profitable level and leave the grunt levels to everyone else.

Example the invasion type event were only one type of General drops the good stuff.

If it could be programmed so your drops vanish if you don't participate in the entire cycle maybe but that seems overly complicated. If drops only appeared at the end most people would lose interest. Why stick around if I don't know what I'm getting or I'll just hang round as a ghost till the next level.

loop

Tim said:

The problem with "Champ" style events is the perception, true or false, that players or bots show up for the last or most profitable level and leave the grunt levels to everyone else.

Example the invasion type event were only one type of General drops the good stuff.

If it could be programmed so your drops vanish if you don't participate in the entire cycle maybe but that seems overly complicated. If drops only appeared at the end most people would lose interest. Why stick around if I don't know what I'm getting or I'll just hang round as a ghost till the next level.

Yeah, the town invasions were quite lame in this respect. There are probably lots of ways to make champ spawns or similar events reward folks for dropping in/out or for participating in the whole thing.

Not to get hung up on champ spawns or anything. I recognize that formula is quite old, and lower population shards have trouble with them. However I do find them to be more interesting, and I even like that there’s a period of rest after the boss is killed.