Nerf Sampires

Lord_Nythrax · November 27

"The proper way to nerf the abomination known as sampire is to make necro leeches scale off spirt speak also negative and positive karma spell should damage the opposite" -- Grimbeard

"Curse Weapon was a perfect balance.. u need to actually cast the spell (fizzle) without SS the lenght is just ridiculous.. casting tons of curse weapon lower the karma just enough to make the pally healing and cure worthless.." -- Kroduk

"Sampire should not exist as it is. The amount of returned HP should scale with Spirit Speak. The HP returned should also reduce as Chivalry is inceased" -- Pawain

---------------------------------------------

I unironically support all of the above.

Admittedly it's not exactly a selfless position on my part since I already run a no-chiv sampire with spirit speak just because I happen to like it that way, but it is a bit less strong than the standard meta sampire build and deals less well with certain specific situations. I'm not an expert on the current high-end chiv melee meta, but I do think it's possible to arrive an an equilibrium where both builds are at least generally equally viable.

I really wish someone from the development team would talk about this out loud. For like twenty years now the subject has been shrouded in a sort of baffling silence, where obvious nerfs are never made and instead they just slap leech immunity on to the occasional mob, like being OP part of the time and worthless other times averages out to being balanced.

I have a sneaking suspicion that part of it is thus: If they made these changes, sure the Average Joe Sampire would be able to pick up spirit speak instead of chivalry, but they'd be stuck wearing a dexer suit with no LRC and need to carry necro reagents. Nobody wants to carry regs, and asking every sampire to replace their suit is viewed as too great a demand.

If that is the case, then I think they should just add a weightless insurable reagent sack and call it a day. Nobody actually likes LRC, they just hate carrying reagents so much that they're willing to nerf their suits over it. It's a convenience stat, so just give everyone the convenience and call it a day. I already wear a dexer suit with LRC since I like using my necro spells, so it's nothing to me either way, although I guess I'd look into a new suit if I didn't really need LRC anymore.

Pawain · November 27

Are you sure I said that? Sounds more intelligent than my normal writing style.

Turn back on Tainted life leech on paras is good enough.

I play a tamer year round, but have to use other templates to get fat lootz during this event.

KroDuK · November 27

Pawain said:
Turn back on Tainted life leech on paras is good enough.

As much as i'm bothered by sampie bots and the improper balance.. This is not a viable solution in my opinion. This is just an heresy to another heresy.. multi-heretic layers.

Personally a very unpopular opinion i believe.. vampire as beast/lich/wraith, should not be able to be mounted.. the things that would kill my old sappire; at gauntlet: only a double oath.. or freaking ranged mobs on a champ spawn for example, cuz I was on foot; adding delay between me and my meals/travelling time.

To me it always made sense being that OP and being that vulnerable (on foot)
Like do not remove them their god like power.. just make them vulnerable.. like a zerker class.
You could also make use of animated dead like an animal form window for vampire to summon limited mount. (trying to slow them at least)

PS: also nerf tamers

LilyGrace · November 27

Quit trying to nurf my fighter, Pawain.

I don’t want to be punished for players kiting 6 characters or for bots. There’s plenty of samps out there that don’t do either of those things.

Pawain · November 27

LilyGrace said:

Quit trying to nurf my fighter, Pawain. I don’t want to be punished for players kiting 6 characters or for bots. There’s plenty of samps out there that don’t do either of those things.

Would only affect players attacking Paragons.

KroDuK · November 27

Sampies cannot kite 6 guys ^^

It's a simple matter of fact they are broken.. no more resources management.. they can even eliminate timing with protection while also beating it with heretic items; overcapping everything.

You just need to give samp a small vulnerability and look how it goes.. i'd say to make it fun to play, some could say to not be totally brain dead.

They'd still have an easy mode.. they just need a flaw. (the anti leech mechanics in event is an EASY fix.. ain't a fair one imo.)

Lord_Nythrax · November 27

Pawain said:
Turn back on Tainted life leech on paras is good enough.

Right up until your little tamer is doing something other than event paragons and gets stunted on by a sampire, then you'll be right back here complaining.

KroDuK said:
Personally a very unpopular opinion i believe.. vampire as beast/lich/wraith, should not be able to be mounted..

This is game-quittingly terrible and inconvenient and I'm not even convinced it would be that much of an actual nerf.

KroDuK said:

i'd say to make it fun to play, some could say to not be totally brain dead.

They'd still have an easy mode.. they just need a flaw. (the anti leech mechanics in event is an EASY fix.. ain't a fair one imo.)

There are no PVM templates in this game that require much in the way of skill. Not archers, or tamers, or spellweavers, or anything else. UO is a very simple game in terms of combat mechanics, and PVM outcomes are mostly determined by builds and gear, not skilled execution.

If you want to gripe about which builds are "brain dead" or not, go play a game with aggro management, crowd control, positioning, dodging, blocking, countering. Go play something where "Encounter Designer" is an actual job title. Not Ultima Online, where every monster waddles forward in a straight line casting the same handful of spells at random.

Macrophage · November 27

Is this a thread about sampires or is this a thread about having a blessed bag of regs?

Lord_Nythrax · November 27

Macrophage said:

Is this a thread about sampires or is this a thread about having a blessed bag of regs?

I guess that depends. I don't need one, and I only care about it to the extent that having one exist might make them more willing to enact actual balance changes. But if you want to weigh in, let her rip.

popps · November 27

Lord_Nythrax said:

"The proper way to nerf the abomination known as sampire is to make necro leeches scale off spirt speak also negative and positive karma spell should damage the opposite" -- Grimbeard

"Curse Weapon was a perfect balance.. u need to actually cast the spell (fizzle) without SS the lenght is just ridiculous.. casting tons of curse weapon lower the karma just enough to make the pally healing and cure worthless.." -- Kroduk

"Sampire should not exist as it is. The amount of returned HP should scale with Spirit Speak. The HP returned should also reduce as Chivalry is inceased" -- Pawain

---------------------------------------------

I unironically support all of the above.

Admittedly it's not exactly a selfless position on my part since I already run a no-chiv sampire with spirit speak just because I happen to like it that way, but it is a bit less strong than the standard meta sampire build and deals less well with certain specific situations. I'm not an expert on the current high-end chiv melee meta, but I do think it's possible to arrive an an equilibrium where both builds are at least generally equally viable.

I really wish someone from the development team would talk about this out loud. For like twenty years now the subject has been shrouded in a sort of baffling silence, where obvious nerfs are never made and instead they just slap leech immunity on to the occasional mob, like being OP part of the time and worthless other times averages out to being balanced.

I have a sneaking suspicion that part of it is thus: If they made these changes, sure the Average Joe Sampire would be able to pick up spirit speak instead of chivalry, but they'd be stuck wearing a dexer suit with no LRC and need to carry necro reagents. Nobody wants to carry regs, and asking every sampire to replace their suit is viewed as too great a demand.

If that is the case, then I think they should just add a weightless insurable reagent sack and call it a day. Nobody actually likes LRC, they just hate carrying reagents so much that they're willing to nerf their suits over it. It's a convenience stat, so just give everyone the convenience and call it a day. I already wear a dexer suit with LRC since I like using my necro spells, so it's nothing to me either way, although I guess I'd look into a new suit if I didn't really need LRC anymore.

Rather then nerf Sampires, why don't the Developers "beef up" the other Templates, at least those most used by players like Tamers, Spellcasters, Bards, and make them capable of doing the same fighting as Sampires can or, at the very least, excel better then Sampires for some fights ?

While Sampires shine on fights against groups of MoBs, Tamers, for example, could be made a much better template when fighting against 1 vs 1 Bosses if the damage from pets halved limitation was to be removed...

Rhel · November 27

This would actually not fix anything. It would only hurt the players that aren't botting.

As a returning player who just pieced together a "sampire" I have some serious, real feedback for the sampire hate.

You don't need sampire for this event. My original template was Swords, Tactics, Anatomy, Bushido, Resist Spells, and Healing. With the gear I had and was able to purchase by saving up points on my tamer, I can go toe to toe with every paragon, without VE. The only time I had to bail is when I was attacked by multiple paragons or sometimes against a skeletal horse, which for whatever ungodly reason, have insane fire resists. Now that I have the sword mastery book and onslaught, I can kill horses pretty easily.

Only yesterday did I finish skilling necromancy to 100 and replaced healing with necromancy. The difference in TTK and chance of my death didn't change. Horses are still annoying. In fact, for the majority of a moonglow invasion I didn't even realize I wasn't in vamp form until ~15 minutes before the invasion ended.

I've now swapped out Anatomy for Chiv, and I still do about the same amount of damage by spamming consecrate weapon and just like before having VE active, I rarely ever die unless overwhelmed. My Bushido is also now maxed, so I also seem to parry a LOT more.

So as a returning player, who has tested the event without the use of VE, I find the addition of VE rather lack luster, and to be honest completely negelible. Tonight I may even stone of necro and add anatomy back on. There is nothing VE gives me that can't be covered by something else, and where the leech is nice, once I added VE I was honestly disappointed by the meager amount of improvement it provides.

VE or Sampires are not the issue here, and if you nerfed sampire, people would just change to the next OP build, probably an archer or dexxer. What needs to change is restrictions on multiple accounts and or botting.

Here is an idea that the 5% of Fel players will hate. Get rid of open PvP in Fel and create specific locations that are designed for PvP. Or even arenas 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 etc that people can "queue" into. NL is already using a queuing type system. Then, change Fel into a version of tram but its only accessible by paying customers but also make the areas single character play only, and strictly enforce it. Let the bot trains fight over spawn in Tram, while paying players who only want to play one character can play in Fel. Honestly, the Fel players who won't like this idea are probably less interested in PvP and more interested in griefing/player killing, all while calling it "PvP".

Lord_Nythrax · November 27

Rhel said:

As a returning player who just pieced together a "sampire" I have some serious, real feedback for the sampire hate.

If I'm being totally honest about my selfish intentions, I don't really think there's that much wrong. I think most of the sampire hate is from inept players who do goofy shit like fail to cap out their weapon skill or who get offended when a monster is allowed to target them.

But the developers must think sampires are OP... right? Or else they wouldn't think "slap leech immunity on it" is such a clever idea when it comes to monsters. What I really want is for them to create a status quo they can live with and stop acting like being OP sometimes and worthless other times evens out to being balanced.

And if someone is getting nerfed to reach that status quo, I nominate everyone but myself. I'm already running the no-chiv template with spirit speak that these guys think they want everyone to run anyway.

Fenriswolf · November 27

Definitely dont think nerfing anything is a good idea, just create events where all templates have something to offer with the mechanics, it cant be that hard? And stop the botting, its sad logging into a town invasion only to see the same bots doing the same thing

Rhel · November 27

Lord_Nythrax said:

Rhel said:

As a returning player who just pieced together a "sampire" I have some serious, real feedback for the sampire hate.

If I'm being totally honest about my selfish intentions, I don't really think there's that much wrong. I think most of the sampire hate is from inept players who do goofy shit like fail to cap out their weapon skill or who get offended when a monster is allowed to target them.

But the developers must think sampires are OP... right? Or else they wouldn't think "slap leech immunity on it" is such a clever idea when it comes to monsters. What I really want is for them to create a status quo they can live with and stop acting like being OP sometimes and worthless other times evens out to being balanced.

And if someone is getting nerfed to reach that status quo, I nominate everyone but myself. I'm already running the no-chiv template with spirit speak that these guys think they want everyone to run anyway.

I just feel they should focus their fixes on what the problem actually is, and that's the multi boxers running around on one character with 3 sampires or archers following behind, unmanned.

One simple fix is to create or change another facet, where it is strictly single boxing and violators will be punished even if they're paying for their accounts. Let the boxers have their lag in Tram, and let paying customers who want to play single characters without lag play on a facet that's ruleset is specifically no unmanned/played characters.

Or create a new server with this ruleset and allow free character transfers for anyone who wants to play on it. Let the community speak for what they want. If the server is low population, then you'll know that people want to multi box. If a large amount of people move to the server, you'll know a large amount of people don't want to multibox.

This goes back to the devs determination in finding some way to encourage 95% of the player base to play in Fel. For almost two decades, the majority have spoken through action that no matter what incentives they provide, 95% of the population doesn't enjoy playing in Fel. Yet the devs continually ask "What can we do to get you to play in Fel?" The answer is obvious to 95% of players; turn Fel into Tram v2.0, and anger 5% or less of your (arguably more toxic) player base.

Fenriswolf · November 27

with regards BOTS, maybe they are the ones keeping the game alive by paying with multiple accounts? If this is the case then just simply admit it and we can all move on?

loop · November 27

The issues of Sampires and bots aren’t entirely related. While the invincibility of Sampires makes botting easier, there are just as many non-Sampire bots as there are Sampire ones in this event.

Concerning rebalancing Sampires, the suggestions from the OP and others are reasonable, but the ship has sailed. In general, players are so ultra powerful these days that Sampires are mostly overkill anyway.

In discussing Sampires, folks focus on the topic of life leech, but there are more synergies at play that warrant revisiting. For example, Bushido and whirlwind are ubiquitous for PVM melee characters.

Urge · November 27

I've always been anti samp but Loop is right.

I was shopping at a vendor house when 1-2-3-4-5 throwers logged on one by one and stacked on each other getting ready to farm.

Really though if samps are nerfed they'll just multibox other temps and have a separate mage following with a health scan script.

They need to just cut the head off the snake completely.

Amelia · November 27

For me Sampire is the most fun template to play in UO (like doing Champion Spawn). Game would not be the same if they nerf it. There is already a lot of content which is not possible on Sampire due to Tainted Life Force.

If I would nerf it I would disallow having Chivalry skill when you have Necromancy. This way Chivalry belongs to Paladins and Necromancy to Sampires. I already dropped Chivalry on my Sampire, it is playable just more problematic where there is no Slayer for Monster.

And about event on Atlantic I think Sampires loses with Archers, because they are always faster.

popps · November 27

Urge said:

I've always been anti samp but Loop is right.

I was shopping at a vendor house when 1-2-3-4-5 throwers logged on one by one and stacked on each other getting ready to farm.

Really though if samps are nerfed they'll just multibox other temps and have a separate mage following with a health scan script.

They need to just cut the head off the snake completely.

To my opinion, if players stopped Real Money Trades and to spend real money to purchase items or gold for Ultima Online, a big reason to script would go away not to mention the money to cover all those accounts subscriptions that are scripted and botted...

But " why " do some UO players want to spend their real money on UO items and Gold ?

Perhaps, just perhaps, because, to their feeling, it takes too much of their time to be spend to get those items, gold, in-game House because of the unreasonable grinding that it takes to get anything that is worth to be done in the game and they figure that it is more efficient for them to spend their real money rather then their time to get stuff in the game which would otherwise take way, but waaaay too much of their time ?

So, perhaps, just perhaps, the root of the problem might be that too much grinding, and too much time is necessary to get things done in the game ?

If it was more reasonable to get even high end things in the game, and not take so much grinding and time, players would not spend their real money for game stuff and the most relevant reason for scripting and botting would go away...

At least, that is how I see it.

@Kyronix , perhaps the Design to get stuff in the game is one that takes too much grinding and time ? Maybe making it less hard and difficult to get, even higher end stuff, would take away reasons to UOm players to script and BOT ?

username · November 27

Kinda irrelevant to this post but on my old sampire I've dropped necro completely and just use some of the new 100% leech weapons. Seems to keep me alive as well if not better than vampire form + extra skill points to add healing and resist spells. Personally I'd support this but seems like we're 20 years a bit late on the nerf and they're not super meta anymore, just a lazy outdated template, so meh.

KroDuK · November 27

A lot of coping around.. without loop and urge i was about to lose it ^^

"make other template stronger" *smh*

You mean make all other template self sustaining for days? no timing nor resource management required for ALL the other templates!?

sappire before SA.. was OP and balanced.. it was better for super boss than a tamer.. but overall the tamer was superior to do Magic Find.. a sappire for champ spawn shouldn't be a thing.. since sampies suck ass at PvP..
Would u go do a champ spawn on your Magic Finder tamer? If the answer is yes.. I cannot help you on that.
Personally i'd modify my tamer to be less effective PvE wise and capable to hold his ground PvP wise.

Wich is why i wouldn't bring a good balance sappire on a solo champ spawn

Edit: they only way i could kill people on my sappire back then when doing a champ spawn.. was abusing of wraith form (can run through ennemies) and bola by using mobs to get my ennemy stuck.. they couldn't take the heat.. without spawn to keep me alive and help me kill my ennemies.. I was slow and easy to pick on.. a good price to pay to be that OP in PvE..

A samp on a spawn should be like a MF tamer was.. u bring them to clear the spawn and the boss.. but u need to protect them.. like u protect a trammy.. Good PvPer can't do great PvE and the opposite should also be true.

Cookie · November 27

I actually find it offensive that the most basic template is the most powerful ingame.

This is counter intuitive to the entire concept of an MMORPG, and in fact any game or situation on the planet.

{At least with Bots, I can respect the intelligence behind them!!}.

KroDuK · November 27

Cookie said:

I actually find it offensive that the most basic template is the most powerful ingame.

This is counter intuitive to the entire concept of an MMORPG, and in fact any game or situation on the planet.

{At least with Bots, I can respect the intelligence behind them!!}.

Imagine, despice a samp control by a human and respect the same sampire if control by AI.

Pawain · November 27

Is there a difference?

Lord_Nythrax · November 27

Well crap guys, you've all convinced me. Don't nerf sampires, everything is fine. Haters BTFO.

I'm still going to throw my poopy diapers around some more next time they slap leech immunity on to some mob just for the hell of it though. Like either re-balance the template or don't.

KroDuK · November 27

Pawain said:

Is there a difference?

I can only control and keep alive one samp during this event.. AI can do infinite numbers 24/7.

I don't despice the easy button.. not everyone is try hard. I dislike the easy button is now braindead PvE wise.. make it unfun.. but i'm 100% gonna use my sappire to solo gauntlet like i used to/ by necessity (still keeping in mind nythrax tip for the new meta there)

This is so ridiculous that I have to respond to this question from someone that played the game for 25 yrs+.. but in same time it make sense tamer main.. no offense.. they're the most wholesome users on UO usually after the crafters.. but they got that trammy knowledge & mentality.. #hating on anything not taming or trammel related.

from my experience a MAIN tamer user is like: controlling 2 pets at once? HARD!
what is the difference between a human control samp and a botted one? no lo se! *roll eyes*

KroDuK · December 1

Lord_Nythrax said:
If you want to gripe about which builds are "brain dead" or not, go play a game with aggro management, crowd control, positioning, dodging, blocking, countering. Go play something where "Encounter Designer" is an actual job title. Not Ultima Online, where every monster waddles forward in a straight line casting the same handful of spells at random.

I'm editing stuff and found that.. note how i change my approach when i notice the third drake, look how i need to retreat a few sec fighting that said drake or I how position myself in middle of the 3 mage caster to AoE them all at once not in melee range from that third drake?

This is what I meant by non brain dead on top of the resources management.. on my sappire i would have aggro all three drake at the same time and ask for more, ignoring all that.

PS: it happen 5-6 days ago.. hnv't played UO past 3 days.. i'm not sponsoring what going on in this game.. we need to fight; demanding EA a change in the management:

Lord_Nythrax · December 1

KroDuK said:
I'm editing stuff and found that.. note how i change my approach when i notice the third drake, look how i need to retreat a few sec fighting that said drake or I how position myself in middle of the 3 mage caster to AoE them all at once not in melee range from that third drake?

This is what I meant by non brain dead on top of the resources management.. on my sappire i would have aggro all three drake at the same time and ask for more, ignoring all that.

PS: it happen 5-6 days ago.. hnv't played UO past 3 days.. i'm not sponsoring what going on in this game.. we need to fight; demanding EA a change in the management:

You stepped out of melee to go AOE a couple of casters, this is an average five seconds of an average Diablo 2 run at best. Like I won't argue that sampire isn't pretty simple, you cast a couple buffs and then go to town, maybe swap weapons when it's time to AOE, but if you think this little bit of basic movement somehow elevates things then you have extremely low standards.

UO is one of the lowest-skill PVM games still available on the market. Here's a cheat sheet on how to kill some random raid boss in WoW for comparison.

Grimbeard · December 1

We are missing that dreaded paragon this time around every event there is one that sends sampire running n8t this year

Pawain · December 1

Grimbeard said:

We are missing that dreaded paragon this time around every event there is one that sends sampire running n8t this year

Ya the vocal new players don't understand how the devs dumbed this dynamic "dungeon" down. But it lasts a long time, in a while the cities will have one or two defenders, nothing spawns that new players, or players with crafted suits can't kill.

Grimbeard · December 1

Pawain said:

Grimbeard said:

We are missing that dreaded paragon this time around every event there is one that sends sampire running n8t this year

Ya the vocal new players don't understand how the devs dumbed this dynamic "dungeon" down. But it lasts a long time, in a while the cities will have one or two defenders, nothing spawns that new players, or players with crafted suits can't kill.

I love waiting at dungeon entrance with tamer watching the screaming sampires running

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