Dear Kyronix, nobody likes fiendish calling AI. It takes otherwise fun encounters and turns them
into tedious frustration-fests. Why do you hate fun?
I mean the idea of a strong boss summoning minions is great, but it doesnt have to summon enough minions to overrun a small nation. it's a bit over the top. and by a bit i mean my allnames macro makes my PC catch on fire.
I mean the idea of a strong boss summoning minions is great, but it doesnt have to summon enough minions to overrun a small nation. it's a bit over the top. and by a bit i mean my allnames macro makes my PC catch on fire.
Comments
Boss mobs quickly become overhwhelmed by player pets. This was true before the Pet Revamp,and given the level of power a pet can reach now, is even more true. Take a look at any EM event, and you will find even the most beefed up, insanely statted boss mob getting demolished by multiple attacking pets. They generally don't stand a chance.
With regard to Shadowguard, it currently provides some of, if not the, highest end loot in the world. The bosses in Shadowguard (and elsewhere) employ a number of AIs to make the fights dynamic and challenging, one of which is fiendish calling. Previously, this AI had an issue where it would not proc from pet damage. This lead to a situation where the bosses in the Shadowguard finale could become trapped (for the most part, sans for teleportation abilities) by attacking pets and stand no chance against the onslaught. The owners would simply need to stand in the back and spam heal.
With the change to Fiendish Calling, pet damage will now have a chance to proc fiendish calling like all other damage classes. It is now necessary to control accessory spawn while making sound tactical decisions on how you deal with the added threat. Do you take a pet that deals more attacks but with less damage, or do you take the howitzer that fires slowly but deadly - and thusly procs less? How will you structure your party to dispatch accessory minions and heal your tanks? Will your pocket bard hang back and regenerate your life with enchanting songs while provoking minions to attack one another? Will your front line fighters cross heal and stand toe-to-toe with even the deadliest monsters?
That all being said, we put changes such as this on TC for feedback, and given the nature of fiendish calling, we will be evaluating it's performance and adjusting to achieve the following goals,
See you on TC!
It definitely spices things up and makes the encounter more interesting with the spawn adds. It's good to have to make tactical decisions as the encounter develops in order to be successful. It's also important to remember that putting together an ideal hunting group of 4-5 different classes isn't always possible on a lot of shards. I appreciate that you're keeping an eye on TC1 and open to revising as necessary though - I'm just worried that roof will turn into another DF-like encounter that nobody really wants to do anymore.
regarding em mobs... majority of the events I've been to the past year have been valorite elemental... it's not the pets taking them down..... it's the armies of (macroed) throwers
Except that's not really the reality of pets in game. All properly trained pets will have 150 stam, they will all hit the same speed. All properly trained pets will have 700 str so melee hit damage is not the variable, other than resists and the exception of the few overlapped str animals in game. The variable then becomes their magical ability and their innate abilities. This is yet another nail in the coffin to Magery or true magic pets. They already are at a disadvantage due to their intensity value because magery has too high of an intensity cost for what it gives (I'm open to debating the costs of magics with you and how things like healing need a high intensity cost~). Now further so due to the negative effect it will have on the spawn due to its more rapid small hits. Something like the greater dragon, with magic and bleed could be crippling, yet a lot of tamers still use these due to not understanding the taming system.
Based on your howitzer statement and It being based on number of hits, that makes it a very narrow pet spec you will bring to the roof (but it's one I have already used). It will be nice to tell mages vollems to gtfo though and the cu too~.
Perhaps something more in alignment with the anon/flesh renderer menchanic where it procs after a certain amount of damage done.
EM boss fights are ok aside from the mob that does AoE DP? Thats prob the most annoying thing going on during those fights, its like cast greater cure then greater heal and repeat and hope the lag doesnt mess your spells up too much and you die. (as a tamer there)
Client needs some sorely needed optimizations as well. A newer pc shouldnt really be having issues when hitting all names or doing other things.
Let's look at an example encounter:
1. Fiendish Calling has a chance to trigger on any damage
So in this case, you are penalized for bringing a variety of things to the encounter:
- Any weapon with an On-Hit effect
- Any pet with Bleed
- Mages casting summons
- Any Damage-over-Time spells
- Newer players with non-perfect gear (they do less damage)
Having Fiendish Calling trigger on any damage done is what currently leads to the very streaky spawn of adds. I'm not sure what the current safeguard is for a FC trigger, but I know I've seen 3+ back to back triggers in as many seconds.This often leads to VERY chaotic fights, with many deaths, and people generally feeling extremely frustrated and demoralized. They can plan and prepare all they want, but when it is 100% RNG based, there is only so much you can do.
2. Fiendish Calling has a chance to trigger after X amount of damage
In this case, you can not only directly control how difficult the encounter should be by adjusting for X in the formula, but you also make it possible for a wider variety of players to participate in the content without having perfect specs.
For instance, if you have FC trigger (either a % chance, or guaranteed) after every 500 damage received, the group can correctly anticipate the adds better and be prepared to deal with them. This would also not penalize pets with Bleed, weapons with on-hit effects, mage summons, newer/lesser geared player, or other smaller damage, as it all just adds to the counter for the next FC proc.
This would also give you great control over how difficult encounters could be. Adjust X to every 200 damage on encounters you want to be very difficult, and give the boss 10000 health. Now you know the group should receive 50 FC procs in the encounter. You can adjust it to every 1000 health for bosses intended to be easier, and now you know the group only has to deal with ~10 FC procs for that boss (assuming 10000 health).
I understand that RNG adds an element of suspense and on-your-toes thinking to encounters, but I really feel there needs to be a balance between RNG and predictability.
Home of the Pet Intensity Calculator, Pet Planner, Trainable Animal Bestiary, and other Tools, Guides, and Information.
The taming revamp brought many returning players back to the game and many new players have a chance to do higher end content. That they were not able to do before. People have been playing longer, more often and having fun. Why is that something that needs to be changed???
Many players like to play a tamer. They would like to also be able to defend a Fel spawn, where thay can get scrolls. They cant. Sampires can.
They would like to go to Doom and get a slight chance at the most expensive item in the game. They can't unless they slowly take down the spawn for an hour and half the party gave up in frustration. Sampires take 15 minutes to solo Doom.
You are comparing this to an EM event where most of the players dont have a good suit or weapon or skills because they are from a different shard. Sure the resident players will have a better chance against lousy templates and greater dragons.
We don't want to play a Sampire.
Shadowguard is instanced. It affects nobody but the players inside at the time. The tamers are not stealing kills from the sampires or anyone else.
A Hawkwind robe cost 35M last year before the revamp. The Obi 15M. Look at Atl for a week and you will see the prices are about the same.
The tamers doing shadowguard did not flood the market with items.
The loot:
Sure you get a few legendaries after a lot of time spent doing the floors. But, how many of those legendaries are kept or put on a vendor. Most are dropped on the ground outside so they players can go try again. I've never found a good enough dex piece to keep. The only piece I have found there is a shield that I found with 4 others with the same stats but different types. Its worth maybe 10M.
For the good of UO you as a developer should ask:
Was this change needed?
Were tamers in Shadowguard ruining the economy?
Will this bring new or returning players to the game?
Will this cause player to play less because of frustration?
Will this cause accounts to be dropped?
If only they didn’t log back in..
Loot really needs to be adjusted. There's too many newer and returning players that will never make it in Roof while they watch people farm it daily with great reward. I know it's been stated there is a chance at major to legendary artifacts from other things but there really isn't. I have farmed some high end material and I have only gotten 3 usable pieces since the loot change.
Science has proven discouragement is the leading cause of subscription cancelation.
I can see how being a game developer is like being a goalie, people only remember if you get it wrong. But on this you’re not wrong. But they will never thank you in the long run. Just know yourself what it right and be happy knowing what you do is for the good of the game.
We wont. You would love it. All the shards would be Fel only because no one is in Trammel.
Your play style is in Fel. You cry over not being able to kill the mount of your victim.
Removing an area from a large group of players who have been doing the content for a year, Why do you think powerscrolls get to stay in Fel.
Removing one of the few fun things to do in a group UO helps nobody. We have a commonality with other tamers and we like to play in groups with similar tastes.
Now we are told by @Kyronix ; to take a sampire with us. Why? The sampire or most any Melee toon can do the content alone in 1/4 the time it takes to do on a few tamers that want to complete it. This is now. So a group of tamers need to take 3 or 4 times as long and die over and over. ( the main person in the group would be the hidden mage to Res the tamers).
Stop the spawn for everyone then. The spawn is the bug.
Stop summons from getting the spawn. Maybe more players will make Mages and Mystics.
They cant play their now.
It was tricky, even cut in half the spawn was insane! BUT if you know what you're doing it's not bad at all.
The worst was Ju'nor.....we didn't have any deaths until him lol but we ran off, rezzed up, regrouped and got it done.
The second run we went in with different pets, some weaker...I brought my phoenix, most of the pets had some sort of AOE though so that helped a bit with spawn.
The second run was much worse..I think he might have upped the spawn a bit just to test...a LOT more deaths the second time around, a LOT more spawn...but we managed to get it done too.
He said he will be tweaking it a bit for the next publish, but from my point of view? IF you know what you're doing it's not bad at all. You have to pay attention and be good at healing pets and party members...most of my party was not happy with the results and didn't think it was fun at all..I think I am the only one that enjoyed it and thought it wasn't bad at all.
First, let's clear up some misinformation that is being spread. You can't solo roof on a tamer. Even in group using a tamer requires constant interaction. There is no AFK mode. Tamers do die frequently on the roof.
But you know who can solo the roof? Yep, our friend the sampire. Currently casters are excluded from the roof altogether, and tamers require a group to do it. Instead of making changes that would allow casters to have meaningful participation, the new changes pretty much limit the viable templates to Sampires. Apart from this making for a very boring game, it is a huge turn off for all those returnees that we are getting with EJ.
You can make a viable caster in a week. A tamer would need a month or more. A good Sampire suit (the kind that can do roof) may need year+ to be put together.This change limits the top content of the game to the template that has been overpowered to start with, and the one that is inaccessible to returning players within a reasonable span of time.
Shadowguard is grindy enough already where it's in no danger at all to flooding the market with Arties. Remove the fiendish AI altogether so that it's accessible to templates other than Sampires. Engage more players rather than driving them away.
Cut the spawn by half again and it may be fine.