Suggestion: remove timers from peerless keys

North_LS

I'd like to do more peerless content, but if i'm going to do it i'd like to be able to farm the keys then use them at my leisure, not have to worry about them expiring.  I like being able to get 5-6 sets of keys for, say, zipa ready and not have to worry about it again for a while.

I understand why the timers were put in place when ML was first released, but I'm not really sure it's an issue anymore. It seems to just get in the way of doing otherwise enjoyable content.

JollyJade

And make them vendorable

Cookie

I'd agree with both.

Remove timers - or make them longer (20 days?). 6 days doesn't seem that much these days! So many times I farm keys, and they go poof before I've got round to them...

And make them Vendorable - definitely, it would add to trade, and give a purpose for gatherers.

InLor

Yep.

Mervyn

No way, here is how the system is supposed to work:
guilds get together to obtain the keys and do the bosses together, that’s why they’re not vendorable and have a timer on the keys.

here is what you want: to solo getting the keys in bulk, vendor them, encouraging other sampires to solo the bosses.

why don’t you just play the game offline if you don’t want to find friends?

DJAd

Mervyn said:

why don’t you just play the game offline if you don’t want to find friends?

Offline UO, thats a whole new thread.

Faeryl

They've already increased the timers from a few hours to a week, and one week is plenty. The whole point of the timers is to prevent people from stockpiling the keys.

North_LS

Mervyn said:

No way, here is how the system is supposed to work:
guilds get together to obtain the keys and do the bosses together, that’s why they’re not vendorable and have a timer on the keys.

I don't think you have any idea how the system is supposed to work or why the keys aren't vendorable and have timers. It's cute that this is how you'd like it to work, but in practice, I don't always have time or contacts to scrounge up a party to get a full set of keys then do the boss. I'd like to be able to get a key here, a key there, then hit the boss when I'm ready, have collected them all, and have a couple people to go with. This doesn't always happen in the current lifespan, and it shouldn't have to. I'd happily invite others, and announce it in chat and bring anyone else that wanted to go as well. Vendorable would be fine, but I'm okay with non-vendorable too.

Bilbo

YES @North_LS

Cookie

 Mervyn said:

No way, here is how the system is supposed to work:
guilds get together to obtain the keys and do the bosses together, that’s why they’re not vendorable and have a timer on the keys.

here is what you want: to solo getting the keys in bulk, vendor them, encouraging other sampires to solo the bosses.

why don’t you just play the game offline if you don’t want to find friends?

Of course I knew you would disagree.

The issue of Sampires is a separate topic in my opinion - you cannot run the game based on a fear of Sampires - maybe they need to be fixed.

This concept would encourage and increase the relationship between gatherers, traders and hunters - I've always thought that is a good thing, to have activity in an economy. There is little of it these days, this is one thing that could help.

I personally think having no timer may be too extreme, maybe up it to 2 weeks - I do the entire guild scenario as you know, and none of this is any skin off my nose. But something to encourage gathering/trading/hunting cannot be a bad thing.

Pinkerton

Keep the timer, make it a few hours even, then allow a character to eat the keys  and earn ONE entry to the peerless, allow that entry to last forever, and once keyed a character cannot eat another key until they have used the first one.

Pinkerton

Or make the keys last like 6 hours and give unlimited entries until they disappear.

But please do not make them vendorable.

Cookie

Pinkerton said:

But please do not make them vendorable.

Why not?

There is a market of players with a lot of gold, and little time, who would happily buy keys to hunt content. They are endgame hunters.

There are newer players, or those who enjoy gathering, who may want some gold.

Then there are traders.

This suggestion helps the whole gamecycle.

I agree the keys cannot be permanent, as stockpiling things does seem to cause issues.

But I've often collected stuff, then due to a tough working week, failed to use them, which makes my original effort wasted.

North_LS

There's no timer for Zipa keys and those seem to work out okay. I do zipa 1-2x a week with a fairly large group - if i had the time to go through the quest chain and get the keys i use them, if not, i hit up a vendor and someone who had extra time to do it a few times gets paid for it. win-win, right? Farming and vendoring the keys is also a great way for someone new or recently returned to the game to make in-game gold and get themselves up to speed to do more content. I don't see the downside to updating peerless keys to work the same way. 

CovenantX

Mervyn said:

No way, here is how the system is supposed to work:
guilds get together to obtain the keys and do the bosses together, that’s why they’re not vendorable and have a timer on the keys.

here is what you want: to solo getting the keys in bulk, vendor them, encouraging other sampires to solo the bosses.

why don’t you just play the game offline if you don’t want to find friends?

   It doesn't matter how it's supposed to work... it matters if it works at all.

the content is very rarely used as it is...   Atleast if the "Keys" didn't have a timer on them, they could be vendored (Sold to other players) OR they can be hoarded (another reason to increase storage or place a house).... although since those incentivize people to drop real money on UO, they'd rather add somethng to the UO store that competes with already existing rewards, which reduce the need for content in the first place.

even if they changed it, it wouldn't bring much life to it tbh, but it would help a little.

easier access to the peerless, some people don't do the content simply because they have to farm the keys before hand.    (that's one of the reasons I don't do peerless' much)

The reason it wouldn't help as much as it could (this is the bigger problem), is because the rewards for completing that content are useless so often the disappointment is more consistent than the excitement you get out of it.  (this is the main reason I don't do peerless' much)

What caused this problem?    the changes to Negative Properties ie Brittle, with the release of Global loot.  It just so happens to be the reason Crafters are unhappy with the things they make in comparison as well.

 It was so much better when "Clean" legendaries were the only ones being used... long gone now.

"Clean" doesn't really mean anything anymore, unless you're looking for "PvP weapons. ie Splintering.

Mervyn

you mean you think they should not have increased brittle durability from 75 to 255? 

TimSt

North_LS said:

There's no timer for Zipa keys and those seem to work out okay. I do zipa 1-2x a week with a fairly large group -

I'll be trying to solo Zipa soon before I try in a group.  What is he vulnerable to?

Dot_Warner

Broadsword's reasoning for not removing or further extending key timers was that it would somehow "invalidated the content," which, sorry Kyronix, is just easily dismissed bull. Someone would still have to engage the content to acquire all the keys necessary for an encounter - there's no getting around that. 

What does it matter if someone uses their keys within a week or two months later? Why does it matter who farmed the keys vs who uses them?

Further, if someone enjoys gathering keys and is happy to sell them, why shouldn't they be able to vendor them? That would be an actual economic change that would be hard for scripters to completely dominate and create a playstyle that diminishes nothing. 

"Whaa sampires!" is just deflection.

CovenantX

Mervyn said:

you mean you think they should not have increased brittle durability from 75 to 255? 

 I think know they shouldn't have done it... hindsight makes it very clear it was the wrong decision.

 the end result should have been a suit with multiple clean legendaries, not nothing but brittle & antique ones.

drcossack

TimSt said:

North_LS said:

There's no timer for Zipa keys and those seem to work out okay. I do zipa 1-2x a week with a fairly large group -

I'll be trying to solo Zipa soon before I try in a group.  What is he vulnerable to?

Poison weapon, no slayer.  Bring a Bladed Staff (Armor Ignore) or Double Axe (Double Strike.)  But you need 2 people to get him to appear - you have to throw 8 pairs of switches.  The other character should be able to heal you, because Zippy has the ability to disarm (which never failed, even when the weapon skill masteries had the anti-disarm passive) and do a triple hit like the Automaton pets.  He also has an aoe that's easily avoidable.

JollyJade

Making them vendorable is a win-win for everybody.

A guild - as Mervin thinks it should work - can still do the content on their own and have a fun night (just like it always was).

A single player who is not able to solo a boss can play the key-farming content and just sell them (as of now, there is no incentive for that).

A group that does not have the time to farm endless set of keys can buy keys and have a fun time doing content they otherwise would never do (as of now, farming keys before a group run is a real PITA).

Everybody wins with that. Only the bitter that want to ruin the fun in UO in general are arguing against it.

Any thoughts @Kyronix?

DJAd

I vote for removing the timers completely.

So often it takes longer to gather keys than the boss encounter itself.

Dizzy

I don't have a sampire.  I often play my 20 minutes a day solo, and I enjoy running into other people.  I play with others if there's an opportunity, but usually there isn't.

I don't even attempt Exodus.  The keys would expire long before I could use them.

North_LS

Dizzy said:

I don't have a sampire.  I often play my 20 minutes a day solo, and I enjoy running into other people.  I play with others if there's an opportunity, but usually there isn't.

I don't even attempt Exodus.  The keys would expire long before I could use them.

This. My play time is often later than that of the folks i do group stuff with, and is definitely later than the organized group hunts on my shard. It'd be nice if I could farm a few sets of keys when im solo on weeknights here and there, then when my group *is* on at the same time as me, chain the boss a few times with the keys i'd collected over the past couple weeks.

Lower populations and more scattered playtimes as many of us are working adults now with other responsibilities make things like key timers and forced group play not work so well. That's what I like about Zipa and shadowguard - I can collect my quest keys or room keys solo (mostly) so I'm ready to go when my playtime does coincide with a friends, and i dont have to scramble to do the prereqs only to run short on time and end up scrapping the main event.

MissE

Pinkerton said:

But please do not make them vendorable.

Me too, also asking WHY NOT?  Don't understand why you don't want them vendorable at all.

I often collect 'keys' as part of doing other 'farming' and it would be great to stick the extras on a vendor for those that don't have the time.  I would also love to log in one day for an hour and buy keys if available to go 'do a boss' with a group if I didn' t have 3-4 hours to do it myself. 

I can't count the amount of times I have gathered exodus keys and had 20 robes and only 2 daggers, and 5 rites, 10 alters etc.   Not enough to take a group of 5 people in due to the totally STUPID idea of every member of the group needing a set of keys. As for them being craftable that is the biggest joke of all with the type of ingredients needed, lmao off 'taint' for goodness sake what bright spark decided that was a good idea?   That should be changed to being ONE set of keys per group as other encounters.  @Kyronix

By the time you get the full amount needed to get your group in half the group has then logged as you are out of time. Time after time they go 'poof' in my cupboard as the urge to spend hours farming for the additional keys has gone or the group has logged. 

Same goes for other 'key' gathering exercises, where  you end up with way more of one type of key than another, sabrix eyes, or yellow keys when you need the red one etc. 

Making them vendorable, and while we are at it 'stackable', with NO timer means:

* A whole new market opens up.

* Those with a very limited amount of time can 'buy' keys and do boss encounters.

* Those who want to farm keys for 'sale' can gain the rewards of farming, gold, martie drops etc.

* Solo players can gather keys, stack them and when their friends log in go do the bosses, be  it 2 weeks or whenever into the future.

* You can stockpile them and then when you get group together have a day of 'peerless' or use them for player run events as they can be gathered in quantities and stored until needed.

*The same amount of keys will be farmed, just who uses them will change.  Even if more are farmed what does it matter?  Most peerless encounters now are so old that they sit idle most of the time anyway.  What does it matter?

*Those who solo bosses will still solo bosses, and those who go in groups will still go in groups. Having the keys untimed and vendorable makes NO difference.  If a sampire buys up all the keys and goes and solo's the boss so what?  It is just as easy for the short time gamer with limited time to buy the keys and get a group and do it too.

Anyways it won't happen, stuff that makes sense in UO never does.

CovenantX

Remove the timer on "Key" items that are required to enter any encounter.

Teapot

MissE said:

I can't count the amount of times I have gathered exodus keys and had 20 robes and only 2 daggers, and 5 rites, 10 alters etc.   Not enough to take a group of 5 people in due to the totally STUPID idea of every member of the group needing a set of keys. As for them being craftable that is the biggest joke of all with the type of ingredients needed, lmao off 'taint' for goodness sake what bright spark decided that was a good idea?   That should be changed to being ONE set of keys per group as other encounters.  @ Kyronix

By the time you get the full amount needed to get your group in half the group has then logged as you are out of time. Time after time they go 'poof' in my cupboard as the urge to spend hours farming for the additional keys has gone or the group has logged. 

I hardly ever farm exodus keys anymore for this reason, some weekends people will come, some weekends chests full of keys which amount to many hours worth of running through exodus dungeon go poof.

At this point I throw them in a guild chest and just pray someone ends up using them before the timer goes, and that's that I've just barely used keys before that have 15 minutes left.  I halfway understand any caution with exodus though maybe to limit scrolls.  But peerless I don't see any point, I mean you can spend an entire day killing peerless with not one thing dropping worth anything now a days, some niche items(minus 2-3 specific drops).

JollyJade

And still no feedback 

Garth_Grey

I"m at the point now where I say "put it all on the ingame store". If it's priced reasonably, hell why not. Put it all on there, PS's, keys, everything !!

Mervyn

I can’t believe how lazy people have gotten, the keys were designed this way for a reason, they didn’t accidentally go to the trouble of putting a timer on and accidentally make them non vendorable.

Whatever next? Make the champs never ever revert so you can get half way, go out to lunch and come back and complete it?

The keys are part of the encounter, quit trying to jump to the end content (the boss). 

CovenantX

Mervyn said:

I can’t believe how lazy people have gotten, the keys were designed this way for a reason, they didn’t accidentally go to the trouble of putting a timer on and accidentally make them non vendorable.

Whatever next? Make the champs never ever revert so you can get half way, go out to lunch and come back and complete it?

The keys are part of the encounter, quit trying to jump to the end content (the boss). 

  No one has asked to remove the keys... just the life-span (timer) on the keys.

 you'd still need the keys in order to enter the encounter anyway.

Some people dislike farming keys, others don't seem to mind... allow those that farm the keys to sell them on vendors... the encounters would no doubt get more activity than they do now.

 If someone wants to farm up 20 sets of keys for travesty or whatever, They should decide when to do the encounter, not do it within 7 days or waste the time spent farming them up.