High Seas Update: Treasure Chests & MIB Treasures

Bilbo

@Kyronix

Reducing SoS to "regular" and "ancient' and providing additional salvage items to be fished up before the chest is recovered and re-balancing the loot in those chests to distinguish them from Treasure Chests.

So you are talking about nerfing SOSs, WHY.  1 regular chest and if we get lucky an Ancient SOS.  How about doing the same with SOSs that you are doing with T-Maps and less junk before we get the chest.

Yadd_of_Legends

As it is, miasmas are often a bottleneck getting L6 maps. Once the new thunter system is revised, a lot of people are going to want to jump on it and try it out. I hope there are some revisions to how we can get the higher level maps so we don't have to fight among ourselves just for a chance to get them. T hunting is fun - competing with other players to kill miasmas is not. Thank you.

Kyronix

Bilbo said:

@ Kyronix

Reducing SoS to "regular" and "ancient' and providing additional salvage items to be fished up before the chest is recovered and re-balancing the loot in those chests to distinguish them from Treasure Chests.

So you are talking about nerfing SOSs, WHY.  1 regular chest and if we get lucky an Ancient SOS.  How about doing the same with SOSs that you are doing with T-Maps and less junk before we get the chest.

Who said anything about nerfing SOSs?

Regular chests currently exist as levels 1-3, and pretty much everything that comes out of them isn't worth the time to fish them up - there just isn't that much variation between 1 -3, so why have them?  An ancient offers a little bump, but not much.  I'm talking about boosting the loot in both - but not to the level of what you might find in a newly-revamped T-Map.  The encounters are too different in terms of difficulty to warrant such.

Also - I'm talking about an entirely new list of stuff to fish up before you get the chest.  May be junk to you, but for others its going to be highly coveted decorations and collectibles.  

What is your expectation for SOS loot?

Aerodice

IMO, all named creatures (and possibly renowned) should give a chance to drop a level 4 - 6 treasure map so that there's not one single mob being camped repeatedly. As you've said, people will either need to stockpile maps or there will be major farming going on. 

Similar to my previous thoughts of the garbage you can find at the cavern of the discarded, I liked the idea of finding a way to salvage items from IDOCs into some sort of garbage collection system, where some items unclaimed from IDOCs can possibly end up bring recycled and found as loot in treasure chests and SOS.

 

DeSule

For what it's worth, here's my build:

120 Mysticism

120 Focus

100 Hiding

100 Mining

100 Lockpicking

80 Magery (+20 Jewelry)

100 Cartography

+ Level 3 Mysticism mastery

That build can do levels 1-6 without too much difficulty.  It's done level 7s alone, although painstakingly (rising colossus, hide, rising colossus, hide).  It does require high mana regen equipment; and the +20 magery is to ensure invis does not fizzle.

It would be interesting to see remove trap added in some fashion.  Were the change to be made, I would simply drop mining in favor of it.  What to do with mining is a harder question.  No free characters to take it.

I'm all for seeing useless skills get some treatment.  They don't hurt the game experience for veteran players who know to avoid them, but for new players, junk skills are detrimental to the experience.  Imagine investing time into working up item identification (which, based on its name, sounds like a very useful thing to have), only to find a few weeks later it's trash.  Not a great introduction to UO.

Feedback:

- Proceed with care on switching mining for remove trap.  Mining is dangerously close itself to becoming useless (Ingots from vendors, merchant ship loot, alchemy conversion). Sorry if I'm repeating someone else - but some quests and naturally occurring containers with traps will make the skill easier to build up.  You'll have some objections from dedicated treasure hunters who invested in mining.

- I like the low level vs. high level maps having different purposes.  You might even think about them being drastically different.  Make one have puzzles, harder to dig up/find, fewer creatures, give more utility items.  Perhaps one requires remove trap and one doesn't (and keep mining?).  Create two kinds of treasure hunters.

Toriana

I have both a fisher and a t-hunter and really enjoy doing both activities. I also really enjoy doing dread pirate quests. Here are a few of my thoughts on the matter. I've taken ideas from others and in some cases added my spin on the matter.
1. Rare deco items in higher level maps or mibs. I LOVE the idea of getting water tiles!! New deco paintings, barnacle covered ship's cannons (deco only), or barnacle covered anchors could also be added without having to do a lot to graphics that are already in game. It would be fun to fish some of these things up as "recovered from a shipwreck" items. I love the idea of the rare chance of getting small fish with added movement which would greatly enhance water features we build into our houses. Treasures could include high gem count earrings, necklaces and bracelets for the ladies to wear with our gowns to special events instead of a lot of small piles of gemstones. Perhaps these could be found in the ship's strong boxes.   
New paintings would be wonderful and I love the idea of being able to combine a number of mibs to create a new wall map or larger painting. 
2 On the issue of Dread Pirate maps. I would prefer that those be found either in the ship's hold or a strong box as I prefer to turn in my pirates for the rewards. The dread pirate maps could yield chances at getting rares listed above such as pirate flags for houses or ships, single item piles of doubloons, gold plated or gem encrusted items using graphics that are already in game like the silver tray mentioned above, pirate swords or weapons with useful mods that our pirates could use, (revamp the dread pirate hat to give it added worth), special fishing poles so we could go fishing for rare fish without having to enhance them each time we dip our fishing pole into the water.
3. I agree with the idea of streamlining consumables. I do use t-hunting to get imbuing ingredients and gems but really hate having to collect all the single gems found in mibs. Would it be possible to give higher level mage scrolls in the higher level mibs? I love the idea of finding a map to hidden caches where we could get large amounts of the more rare resources. 
4. We can currently bring home the chests we fish up from mibs. Would it be possible to get to bring home some of the chests we dig up from treasure maps? Perhaps some of the chests from Dread Pirate maps could have pirate names on them? These would be great as deco items in our pirate dens or treasure rooms.  
5. By all means, please, please, please fix the mapping system in the CC to more closely reflect the mapping system found in the EC client. At the very least, having the map give the coordinates would be a tremendous boost and the idea of having a square map we could zoom in and out in would be extremely helpful. 
6. I like the idea of having the archaeology skill though I don't think it should replace quite as many skills as suggested above. It would be helpful to streamline the skills necessary for t-hunting since that template is really tight. Perhaps combining detect hidden and/or mining to the cartography skill with a bonus to lock picking to reduce the failure rate in unlocking higher level t-maps. 
Thank you so much for allowing us to share our thought, hopes, and wishes with you. It would be fun to have a greater incentive to do t-maps and mibs. 

Pawain

If the higher maps require a group, How is the loot divided?  

The T hunter gets what they want and tosses the scraps out?  

This will just lead to more players doing this with multiple accounts and its back to where it was.

I still believe there are many players that want to do T Hunts alone. 

Maybe the hidden compartment in the chest could spawn a Mob like Krampus without minions that requires a group and the group gets to loot.

Kyronix

Pawain said:

If the higher maps require a group, How is the loot divided?  

However you want to split it among your chosen group - that's entirely up to you now as it would be after the update.

Bilbo

Kyronix said:

Bilbo said:

@ Kyronix

Reducing SoS to "regular" and "ancient' and providing additional salvage items to be fished up before the chest is recovered and re-balancing the loot in those chests to distinguish them from Treasure Chests.

So you are talking about nerfing SOSs, WHY.  1 regular chest and if we get lucky an Ancient SOS.  How about doing the same with SOSs that you are doing with T-Maps and less junk before we get the chest.

Who said anything about nerfing SOSs?

Regular chests currently exist as levels 1-3, and pretty much everything that comes out of them isn't worth the time to fish them up - there just isn't that much variation between 1 -3, so why have them?  An ancient offers a little bump, but not much.  I'm talking about boosting the loot in both - but not to the level of what you might find in a newly-revamped T-Map.  The encounters are too different in terms of difficulty to warrant such.

Also - I'm talking about an entirely new list of stuff to fish up before you get the chest.  May be junk to you, but for others its going to be highly coveted decorations and collectibles.  

What is your expectation for SOS loot?

IMHO lvl 1-3 SOSs should be on a par with lvl 1-3 T-Maps (I am referring to current T_Maps).  Reduce the quantity of junk equipment and up the quality just like T-Maps and there is a difference in the lvl 1-3 SOSs as far as # of items and gold.  Unravel SOSs chests and look at the amount/level you get with the 3 main imbuing ingredients.  Yes to NEW stuff to fish up, i will agree to that.  Please DO NOT get rid of the special chests that we sometime fish up, now those are great deco items.

Parnoc

Could we please make it so that when you recall to your ship it refreshes it?  At present recalling to a ship does not reset the decay time and I have lost ships that I used for fishing because I only recalled to and from order docks and never used the mooring rope nor clicked the pilot.

Kyronix

Bilbo said:

Kyronix said:

Bilbo said:

@ Kyronix

Reducing SoS to "regular" and "ancient' and providing additional salvage items to be fished up before the chest is recovered and re-balancing the loot in those chests to distinguish them from Treasure Chests.

So you are talking about nerfing SOSs, WHY.  1 regular chest and if we get lucky an Ancient SOS.  How about doing the same with SOSs that you are doing with T-Maps and less junk before we get the chest.

Who said anything about nerfing SOSs?

Regular chests currently exist as levels 1-3, and pretty much everything that comes out of them isn't worth the time to fish them up - there just isn't that much variation between 1 -3, so why have them?  An ancient offers a little bump, but not much.  I'm talking about boosting the loot in both - but not to the level of what you might find in a newly-revamped T-Map.  The encounters are too different in terms of difficulty to warrant such.

Also - I'm talking about an entirely new list of stuff to fish up before you get the chest.  May be junk to you, but for others its going to be highly coveted decorations and collectibles.  

What is your expectation for SOS loot?

IMHO lvl 1-3 SOSs should be on a par with lvl 1-3 T-Maps (I am referring to current T_Maps).  Reduce the quantity of junk equipment and up the quality just like T-Maps and there is a difference in the lvl 1-3 SOSs as far as # of items and gold.  Unravel SOSs chests and look at the amount/level you get with the 3 main imbuing ingredients.  Yes to NEW stuff to fish up, i will agree to that.  Please DO NOT get rid of the special chests that we sometime fish up, now those are great deco items.

I have to disagree with you on the idea that T-Maps and SoS's should be equal - the experience can't really be compared, there's no fighting with SoSs (except the sea serp) and I'm not keen to add any.  I'm not saying it should be completely unattainable to get good loot, that's not the case at all.  What I'm saying is that SoS loot will have a lot less junk with a more cohesive theme for what you pull up - some may be an arcane theme with reagents and mage focused items items while others may be more a blacksmith's haul with some ingots and a metal weapon.  Sure you'll still come away with standard items of value like gold and such, but the variation between 1-3 SoS chests as it is now is so minimal that there's no justification for having levels.  Instead I'd rather see better loot across the board with regard to the SoS chests. 

As for containers, If anything, we would add additional containers to fish up that would look like they've come from the briney deep!

Bilbo

Sounds good @Kyronix Please include the smaller sized chests with this also a chance to get a pure white small chest might be a nice item too.

So now the next question is how long before I can start using all my stored SOSs, LOL.

Dot_Warner

Treasure hunting is long overdue for a meaningful update, though I’d like to see it go a few steps further (more on that later…)

I have no problem with condensing map levels down to something easier to manage, as long as the system is left extensible enough for future updates.

I’m also in favor of a quality v quantity boost to the loot. At this point, I only loot the special items, resources and items the EC tells me will unravel into a relic frag. The rest gets trashed with the chest.  While I don’t think everything in the chest needs to be godly, it’d be nice to open a high-end chest and not go “Meh.” What that means exactly is still open to debate…

I’d suggest greatly increasing the quantity of gems and reagents (from every school) and ditching the scrolls (as they hinder the relevance of scribes). I’d also remove the sash of warding and surge shields (does anyone even use those?), then consider pairing down the mana phasing orbs based on what people are actually using (most are considered worthless).

I also second the suggestion of a small chance of older global event rewards showing up, as if the chest were buried during that time period. These could even rotate based on the month, so in Dec. there was a chance to get old holiday deco or a Krampus recipe, in Feb. it could be old V-Day deco, etc. There could be special themed chests as quest or event rewards, the content possibilities here are endless. (think the pagan obelisk spawning maps)

As far as the skills go, I’m fine with moving the functionality associated with mining and rolling it into cartography. Makes way more sense than mining. I’m also fine with giving a use to Remove Trap, as long as the success chance is greatly improved (right now, you fail way too often at GM). Though some consideration should be given to making training the skill less of a grind (read: nightmare) as finding enough chests to untrap is a pain.

The issue with Telekinesis v RT will be a bit trickier to overcome, mainly because its been the norm for two decades. Change is hard, especially for UO players. However, if the end result is means something new and fun, people can learn to cope. Just don’t create a penalty situation for those who still want to cast telekinesis. Let RT bring a layer that people can skip if they wish to remain in the past.

Regarding solo v group *facepalm emoji* This is an MMO. One of those Ms stands for multiplayer. This isn’t a standalone game you dink around in by yourself. Higher-end content shouldn’t be designed with lone players in mind. I have no problem with a L5 or 6 requiring multiple active participants. We should be encouraging group play and the associated community spirit. I think this goes for all facets of the game. Group play should always be the most advantageous.

Personally, I’d like to see a more National Treasure/Carmen Sandiego/questy-type treasure hunt. Say one of the things in the hidden chest compartments is a piece of a map with a clue on it. Something like: “Mu. 15 south.”  This might require people to do a little bit of research to figure out it means 15 tiles south of the Shrine of Spirituality – where they find another clue in a small cache. Add the map pieces together and they create a high-level map. Caches could even be in towns, though probably not a good idea to spawn guardians there, and dungeons. Heck, open the system to the EMs and they could tailor some to shard-specific lore as events.

Pawain

Dot_Warner said:

Regarding solo v group *facepalm emoji* This is an MMO. One of those Ms stands for multiplayer. This isn’t a standalone game you dink around in by yourself. Higher-end content shouldn’t be designed with lone players in mind. I have no problem with a L5 or 6 requiring multiple active participants. We should be encouraging group play and the associated community spirit. I think this goes for all facets of the game. Group play should always be the most advantageous.

Ya tell me that when I stand in a circle for 45 mins to get 3 others.  I'm sure it is worse on smaller shards. Unless all 5 are the same person.

At the end of Krampus we couldn't get others to come kill him.

Dot_Warner

Pawain said:

Ya tell me that when I stand in a circle for 45 mins to get 3 others.  I'm sure it is worse on smaller shards. Unless all 5 are the same person.

At the end of Krampus we couldn't get others to come kill him.

Get a Spellweaving III   

Krampus just went on for too long. I stopped a few days before he'd been scheduled to end. *shrug*

UO is still an MMO, some content needs to be geared for groups - especially higher-end with the most sought-after loot. While I'd prefer it'd be multiple live players, I have multicliented to do an L7 by myself. It was lonely though.  

There is no good solution to the problem of an evaporating player base without actual advertising. 

Pawain

I have spell weaving III.  But the focus drops to 3 when I turn on another mastery.

I think the top chests should be 2 player.  2 players can do everything else.  The chests wont drop 120 scrolls.

Bilbo

I am not trying to start any crap but why should a top T-Map/chest require more than one person when basically nothing else does.  If they are going to do this with T-Maps then they should consider doing it with all champ spawns or put PSs (all lvls) in FEL T-Maps.  Anything that requires more than 1 person to do needs to have the top tier rewards.

Pawain

Bilbo said:

I am not trying to start any crap but why should a top T-Map/chest require more than one person when basically nothing else does.  If they are going to do this with T-Maps then they should consider doing it with all champ spawns or put PSs (all lvls) in FEL T-Maps.  Anything that requires more than 1 person to do needs to have the top tier rewards.

I think they should be able to be done like they are now.  But if a group must be used.  A group of two is doable.  

There are many T hunters that play solo and have for many years. Many of those do not want to use chat to get help.

TimSt

With the following template I can solo level 6 with a couple of deaths.

Magery: 120
Eval Intel: 120
Meditation: 100
Resist Spells: 100
Inscription: 100
Cartography with Mining swap then with Lock Pick swap: 100
Focus: 80

With some of the purposed changes "Cartography with Mining swap then with Lock Pick swap" would become "Cartography with Lock Pick swap then with Remove Trap swap then with Detect Hidden Swap"?  Am I reading the thread right?

Mervyn

I think the devs should not feel in any way obliged to make content accessible to lone players. If they’re playing on their own, they’re doing very little to encourage other people to play. 

Make stuff tricky enough to require 5 plus active players (not dual clients), give it a good reward. If people can’t find enough people, they don’t get the reward. It’s called tough..love

And hell yeah @Bilbo champs should totally also not be able to be solod. 

They could do anything even have NPC vendors that only sell certain necessary items to people in a guild with X amount of active non EJ players online. People will soon be encouraging their friends and family to play. 

Kyronix

TimSt said:

With the following template I can solo level 6 with a couple of deaths.

Magery: 120
Eval Intel: 120
Meditation: 100
Resist Spells: 100
Inscription: 100
Cartography with Mining swap then with Lock Pick swap: 100
Focus: 80

With some of the purposed changes "Cartography with Mining swap then with Lock Pick swap" would become "Cartography with Lock Pick swap then with Remove Trap swap then with Detect Hidden Swap"?  Am I reading the thread right?

This illustrates pretty clearly how far off the rails treasure hunting has become.  This isn’t a treasure hunter template.  What I’m suggesting is that while you still will be able to complete some treasure maps with this template, you won’t be able to complete all - at least not with a little help from some friends who utilize the traditional treasure hunting skills as something other than some stone-off skills to go through arbitrary motions.

Faeryl

TimSt said:

With the following template I can solo level 6 with a couple of deaths.

Magery: 120
Eval Intel: 120
Meditation: 100
Resist Spells: 100
Inscription: 100
Cartography with Mining swap then with Lock Pick swap: 100
Focus: 80

With some of the purposed changes "Cartography with Mining swap then with Lock Pick swap" would become "Cartography with Lock Pick swap then with Remove Trap swap then with Detect Hidden Swap"?  Am I reading the thread right?

You aren't reading the thread right, as it's been stated several times now that detecting hidden would be separated from remove trap and not required for treasure maps.

Kyronix said:

This illustrates pretty clearly how far off the rails treasure hunting has become.  This isn’t a treasure hunter template.  What I’m suggesting is that while you still will be able to complete some treasure maps with this template, you won’t be able to complete all - at least not with a little help from some friends who utilize the traditional treasure hunting skills as something other than some stone-off skills to go through arbitrary motions.

Regardless, I agree with Kyronix. This should not be the norm for a treasure hunter. Like anything else, the skills should be a required investment. If you want to accomplish something, you should have to make sacrifices in your template to accomplish that task.

To be fair, a treasure hunter, due to the nature of treasure hunting and the guardians, should be able to have some ability to defend themselves, yes, and that's where the other 400-420 points come in. You want an effective treasure hunter, that should be what you have to work with. It can be done, at the cost of not being all powerful. Swapping out skills relating to completing a skill dependant task like treasure hunting in favour of power should be penalized, and the investment rewarded.

TimSt

Faeryl said:

You aren't reading the thread right, as it's been stated several times now that detecting hidden would be separated from remove trap and not required for treasure maps.

The detect hidden would be for the proposed hidden compartment.

Mervyn

I was opposed to reducing the 24 hour cooldown on soulstones 

Tim

Just a miner point but I use "Jacob's Pickaxe" and Mining Gloves for the digging. It's just 15 points to mining but 15 points is 15 points. As far as I know there is nothing that can give points in Cartography or Remove Traps. 

So if your going to change out mining Pretty Please .............

(pun unattended)

Tim

Mervyn said:

I think the devs should not feel in any way obliged to make content accessible to lone players. If they’re playing on their own, they’re doing very little to encourage other people to play. 

Make stuff tricky enough to require 5 plus active players (not dual clients), give it a good reward. If people can’t find enough people, they don’t get the reward. It’s called tough..love

And hell yeah @ Bilbo champs should totally also not be able to be solod. 

They could do anything even have NPC vendors that only sell certain necessary items to people in a guild with X amount of active non EJ players online. People will soon be encouraging their friends and family to play. 

Do you really think anyone who enjoys the game isn't already nagging friends and family to play?
Crippling solo play will only make more people quit and encourage multi client/boxing.

PS after almost 20 years of begging I finally got the wife to try and she now spends more time online than me. And it had nothing to do with my needing help.

Faeryl

TimSt said:

Faeryl said:

You aren't reading the thread right, as it's been stated several times now that detecting hidden would be separated from remove trap and not required for treasure maps.

The detect hidden would be for the proposed hidden compartment.

Per Kyronix in one of several posts since that was brought up:

"You wouldn't need Detecting Hidden.  I'm saying that outright - if we were to incorporate Remove Trap in any meaningful way, you wouldn't need Detecting Hidden.  DH has a well versed use in finding hidden things in quest chains, and in dungeon chests.  We don't need it here."

DH won't be required.

Faeryl

Mervyn said:

I was opposed to reducing the 24 hour cooldown on soulstones 

I am in no way suggesting something like that. I will use and reuse my soulstones multiple times in a day to juggle skills and templates for RP and PVM purposes.

What I'm stating is that if one intends to juggle skills for something skill intensive like treasure hunting, instead of having invested in all the skills on the template, they should in some way be penalized for that, as that really defeats the entire concept of a "treasure hunter".

Arron

Kyronix said:

You wouldn't need Detecting Hidden.  I'm saying that outright - if we were to incorporate Remove Trap in any meaningful way, you wouldn't need Detecting Hidden.  DH has a well versed use in finding hidden things in quest chains, and in dungeon chests.  We don't need it here.  

@ popps - if you aren't running lockpicking on your TH, how are you opening chests?  Magic Unlock? Skeleton keys?  Please also remember we are talking about removing mining as a requirement, and moving the search radius bonus to cartography - which frees up a skill.

I do some Treasure Hunting from time to time, mostly lvl 5,6 and 7's when I aquire them. I think the idea of replacing mining and replacing with carto is a good one. Plus if you increase the radius you can dig in to find the chest  would be even better. I have spent some time trying to find chest in the Classic Client and many time turn to the Enhanced Client to find the location of the chest. The Enhanced Client map makes it a bit easier to locate the chest spot. At times as stated by other t-Hunters the actual location of the chest is sometimes 2 or 3 screens off from the mark on the map. One thing I would love is if the t maps were larger and showed more detail so spots can be located with greater ease. 

TimSt

Kyronix said:

TimSt said:

With the following template I can solo level 6 with a couple of deaths.

Magery: 120
Eval Intel: 120
Meditation: 100
Resist Spells: 100
Inscription: 100
Cartography with Mining swap then with Lock Pick swap: 100
Focus: 80

With some of the purposed changes "Cartography with Mining swap then with Lock Pick swap" would become "Cartography with Lock Pick swap then with Remove Trap swap then with Detect Hidden Swap"?  Am I reading the thread right?

This illustrates pretty clearly how far off the rails treasure hunting has become.  This isn’t a treasure hunter template.  What I’m suggesting is that while you still will be able to complete some treasure maps with this template, you won’t be able to complete all - at least not with a little help from some friends who utilize the traditional treasure hunting skills as something other than some stone-off skills to go through arbitrary motions.

@Kyronix,  Fair enough.  With some of the purposed changes what would my mage template morph into to become a mage treasure hunter?  Feel free to rip my template to shreds.