Upcoming combat changes in Publish 103

cobb · October 2018

Also I would like to point out that many of the returning players seem to enjoy playing the traditional 1 tile dexer. It's what they remember playing.

However the splintering nerf is going to make their playstyle obsolete and will drive those players away.

cobb · October 2018

The nerf is going to hurt the dexer much more than it would affect a mage that uses weapons.

I can see many mages dropping their weapon skill and Tactics and just using a Mage Weapon with Splintering on it instead. Why have weapon skill and Tactics if you cannot proc splintering with specials? Splintering by itself is much superior compared to other specials especially when combined with spell combos. They can have a spell precasted while waiting for a splintering proc now, since they no longer need to toggle a special. Also they will get to save a lot of skill points.

and bokuto mages don't really need splintering anyway, so they won't be affected at all.

In contrast, the dexer gets crippled by this change.

Cetric · October 2018

I dunno, the more I think about the splinter change the more I think it's a Nerf but it's not that bad. Mainly, you would be hitting with base hits trying to get splinter to proc between weapon hits. So you wouldn't see cases like 4 straight ai-splinters or dp splinters etc.

Still think an immunity would be a good fit as well

Still think evasion needs something fixed, not parry.

Fire pies-good riddance.

CovenantX · October 2018

@Bleak

Scrap the Parry Dexterity requirement altogether, and just cut the parry chance by -40% to -50% if there are any spell-casting schools (Magery, Necromancy, Mysticism, & Spellweaving) combined with it.

Excluding only Bushido & Ninjitsu since they're all weapon-based "spells".

Chivalry would likely need to be looked at afterwords, but it's mostly weapon-based spells as well.

Discord... personally, I think it doesn't belong in pvp tbh, Bards already assist at Harrowers & Spawns by discording the champ/boss & typically running buff songs from Peacing or Provocation, they're good enough without discord being usable in pvp. not to mention, peacing & provo are far better than the new discord effect already anyway.

Fish pie nerf is perfect.

Splintering nerf isn't what I wanted, but it's much better than how it works on live shards.

Mervyn said:

You lot are jokers

they introduced tactics as a requirement to do specials SPECIFICALLY to nerf bok mages.

Then you all campaign to remove/reduce the tactics requirement for specials and they do so.

now suddenly surprise surprise bok mages are a problem...

they should increase tactics requirement for weapon specials to 70 and 90...

i hate being so old and watching mistakes repeat in cycles.

I don’t like this idea of having things not work if magery is over 70, it was a botch fix for chivalry fast cast and it would really over complicate the already overly complicated game mechanics.

@Mervyn ; I suggest you go to stratics and read the suggestions made in the threads during the Tactics reduction publish (pub 96) again, many of the suggestions only work if they're done in combination with others. you leave something out and it causes another imbalance.

Parry was OP (defensively) and still is. because it wasn't changed whatsoever

Tactics Requirement for specials was Reduced, I couldn't believe it took so long for it to be considered to begin with, but it's one of the best changes they made.

Parry added to break focus spec.

Focus spec was also narrowed from a +/-15% SDI difference to a +/-5% SDI difference.

It's the combination that made bok mages the meta, but you know why Bok Mages are OP?

It's because of parry. You know, back in the day when you didn't need tactics for specials, most bok mages didn't have the ability to evade because Resist => Parry, and mages would destroy people without resist, at bare minimum a mage would remove their offense entirely with mana vamp..

Powercreep is another major culprit, but it's far too late to change that without really pissing people off at this point. as far as this goes, I would just suggest a skill "bonus" cap of 60-80 somewhere around there.

cobb · October 2018

Cetric said:

Still think an immunity would be a good fit as well

I believe about 5 to 8 seconds would be a good duration for the immunity timer and much better solution than the proposed change

Bleak · October 2018

I'll be on Test Center for a couple of hours if anyone wants to swing by Yew Gate.

Cetric · October 2018

Ah damn not at home

Cetric · October 2018

cobb said:

Cetric said:

Still think an immunity would be a good fit as well

I believe about 5 to 8 seconds would be a good duration for the immunity timer and much better solution than the proposed change

I think even longer honestly like 10-15s

Cetric · October 2018

CovenantX said:

@ Bleak

Scrap the Parry Dexterity requirement altogether, and just cut the parry chance by -40% to -50% if there are any spell-casting schools (Magery, Necromancy, Mysticism, & Spellweaving) combined with it.

Excluding only Bushido & Ninjitsu since they're all weapon-based "spells".
Chivalry would likely need to be looked at afterwords, but it's mostly weapon-based spells as well.

Discord... personally, I think it doesn't belong in pvp tbh, Bards already assist at Harrowers & Spawns by discording the champ/boss & typically running buff songs from Peacing or Provocation, they're good enough without discord being usable in pvp. not to mention, peacing & provo are far better than the new discord effect already anyway.

Fish pie nerf is perfect.

Splintering nerf isn't what I wanted, but it's much better than how it works on live shards.

Mervyn said:

You lot are jokers

they introduced tactics as a requirement to do specials SPECIFICALLY to nerf bok mages.

Then you all campaign to remove/reduce the tactics requirement for specials and they do so.

now suddenly surprise surprise bok mages are a problem...

they should increase tactics requirement for weapon specials to 70 and 90...

i hate being so old and watching mistakes repeat in cycles.

I don’t like this idea of having things not work if magery is over 70, it was a botch fix for chivalry fast cast and it would really over complicate the already overly complicated game mechanics.

@ Mervyn I suggest you go to stratics and read the suggestions made in the threads during the Tactics reduction publish (pub 96) again, many of the suggestions only work if they're done in combination with others.   you leave something out and it causes another imbalance.

Parry was OP (defensively) and still is. because it wasn't changed whatsoever
Tactics Requirement for specials was Reduced, I couldn't believe it took so long for it to be considered to begin with, but it's one of the best changes they made.
Parry added to break focus spec.
Focus spec was also narrowed from a +/-15% SDI difference to a +/-5% SDI difference.

It's the combination that made bok mages the meta, but you know why Bok Mages are OP?
It's because of parry.   You know, back in the day when you didn't need tactics for specials, most bok mages didn't have the ability to evade because Resist => Parry, and mages would destroy people without resist, at bare minimum a mage would remove their offense entirely with mana vamp..

Powercreep is another major culprit, but it's far too late to change that without really pissing people off at this point.   as far as this goes, I would just suggest a skill "bonus" cap of 60-80 somewhere around there.

Honestly, my biggest issue with any change to parry is I don't want to get mowed down by a buncha archers. Besides splinter which is being looked at a bit, lethal poison spamming and archers can demolish non parry chars without slot of opposition. Before most people ran parry every mage out there had poisoning and alot of people were busy getting run down by maximum damage archers.

Yes archers were nerfed but moving shot is still incredibly effective, even with parry

KoD · October 2018

I pvp since 1997.... and the pvp is very well balanced nowadays. Even too much. 1vs1 is hard to kill people that before I could demolish within 30 seconds. Why? Because of all the uber armour and assets the game offers ( pies, refined suits, eaters etc etc).

I am ok with that but in order to kill people on a melee dexer you need to get splinter off with a special, and even then you need to be extremely lucky with the rng. Unless your opponent does some mistakes, a melee dexer does not kill anyone 1vs1 with no splinters.

Remove splinters from specials ONLY if you have magery skill.

We used to have many toons without parry. We could overcap the dci as someone said. We need to overcap the dci if the toon has no parry skill on, this way we could have spellbooks again.

Give some small bonuses to mages who equip spellbooks and have no parry.

Fix wrestling mastery ( for the ones who have 0 parry), make wrestling be interesting in pvp

We need diversity , ie more toons to choose.

Nerfing parry evasion is not needed. Big fights are crazy now, you have 5 to 10 mages holding a high end spell. After you get cursed you DIE, instantly. The only way to survive a sync precasted spell is to hit FAST the evasion macro.

It’s funny to see someone crying about evasion,
evasion is the only bareer that separates this game to its end. It’s not funny to go fight 7vs7 and all you need to do is precast a high end spell (ex nether cyclone) and drop it on a target. It’s insta death if you do not evade. Nobody will xheal that. Fights will last 3 seconds.

The game is balanced already, ok removing pies. Not good having bards in PvP. They can already give very high buffs to their party in case.

Add diversity!!! Overcapping dci without parry is the only solution. Nowadays without parry you get killed very fast in a big fight.

ezikel · October 2018

The weapon hit property splintering no longer triggers on special moves ,its not good and only kill dexxer.just add a immunity time 10 15 sec ,make healing heal and remove bleed of the splintering and make focus attack dont boost splintering.

discord in pvp bad idea .

make pet usefull in pvp.

canofbeans · October 2018

if someone has parry, you will be lucky to hit them more then once out of 10-15 shots and you will be all out of mana. making moving shots only physical damage was a great way to balance but now it never hits and leaves the archer with no mana. before the archer nerf if you got a kill vs a parry mage 1v1. now after the nerf, its a impossibility. its hilarious to me that cetric says moving shot is still incredibly effective against people with parry when it hits them 1-2 times in 10-15 shots most of the time.

canofbeans · October 2018

please take your archer and go fight a decent parry mage. don't do it in the arena though you will die 100%. you won't win on the field either but atleast you can run

cobb · October 2018

I would just like to know whose bright idea was it to nerf melee dexers, because they will be hit the hardest with this publish. In most pvp discussions there is always somebody mentioning the fact that melee is underpowered. NOBODY was complaining about melee dexers, but let's go ahead and nerf them anyway? That makes zero sense! Seems like a good way to kill template diversity.

They need a buff and not a nerf. This is the opposite of game balancing when you take an already weak character class and make them even weaker than before.

Mervyn · October 2018

whatever adjustments are made, please make the game mechanics less complicated, not more.

I think removing the bleed effect from splintering would be a good compromise, and just reducing the general effectiveness of parry, and/or being able to disarm shield.

KoD · October 2018

cobb said:

I would just like to know whose bright idea was it to nerf melee dexers, because they will be hit the hardest with this publish. In most pvp discussions there is always somebody mentioning the fact that melee is underpowered. NOBODY was complaining about melee dexers, but let's go ahead and nerf them anyway? That makes zero sense! Seems like a good way to kill template diversity.

They need a buff and not a nerf. This is the opposite of game balancing when you take an already weak character class and make them even weaker than before.

I totally agree...

when you use a melee dexer you take many minutes to put yourself into a condition to kill someone 1vs1...

Melee dexers are very weak 1vs1, remove splinter from their specials and they become totally useless in a solo scenario

hunter11 · October 2018

Parry really did need a buff yesterday i was fighting a wrestle parry mage while bleak was at the yew gate and he went into protection i couldnt hit him enough to stop him from nonstop healing himself every once in awhile i would get a force arrow in there to fizzle or poison arrow but not enough that i would have killed him and if i did even get close run up disarm spam kept me just standing there like someone said that was there a wrestle parry mage is a deffensive temp if they cant kill me they need to be a less defensive temp and a more offensive one and as far as running shot it hardly hits

hunter11 · October 2018

and thats after changing to max damage archer

Mervyn · October 2018

By buff, do you mean nerf? If the char was Pollyanna, that was me, it’s hard to test anything on US shards, can’t cast anything, without a ping zapper.

The_Higgs_1 · October 2018

if parry gets nerfed properly melee dexxers will definitely be a lot better. You do NOT need splintering on a melee char to be effective, just stop the crying already about it. Splintering was the biggest OP change in UO since mysticism first came out. It needs to be fixed.

Corpse · October 2018

So this is some stuff of the top of my head I would like to see.
1. fix Deadly poison- Cure potions should guarantee cure after 5 potions.
2.fix Evasion- Evasion should be based on parry chance and should not give the huge bonus to parry. or the bonus should not apply if you have magery above 69.9.
3.Splinter- Remove splinter with apples. Or a short timer between splinters.
4.Change Potions set a limit on chugging so you cannot spam potions. example= "you're to full to drink this right now" .
5.Parry- Parrying Should require a secondary skill. TACTICS.
6. Chivalry- Remove curse should have a timer or become weaker if spammed.
7. Pies- need to have the effect wear out after being hit a certain amount of times.

Optimus · October 2018

@Bleak

Addressing proposed changes:

Parry/Evasion - Implementing a 15 stat point stat tax on parry mages is lazy, and does not rationally address the problem. Not saying parry doesn't need some sort of nerf, but that definitely isn't it. Evasion is a much bigger issue in PvP. I suggest a much longer cooldown timer [1 minute+], or changing the mechanics entirely; e.g. the more you evade, the longer the cooldown [like apples], or evasion cutting damage by a percentage, rather than negating it entirely.

Splinter - The proposed change is too much, and will render 1 tile dexers useless. Aside from the game mechanic implications, if you want to see players stop playing the game en masse, devalue hundreds, or thousands of dollars worth of their gear in one fell swoop, while making their toons unplayable in any competitive fashion. Splinter was the only thing keeping 1 tilers viable. Making something necessary and integral in PvP for years, then ripping it out like you plan to, is going to have repercussions. I suggest a cool down or immunity timer instead, and it should be able to be removed with apples. While providing a needed nerf, it won't completely ruin an entire play-style.

Fish pies - This could have solved this with a cool down as well. Being able to eat one an hour or so would have been reasonable. As seems to be all too common, instead of a moderate, thought out change being proposed, the plan is to essentially just remove it from the game. Fish pies were an interesting addition, with many effects possible, but due to an issue with 2 versions of those pies, it is to be ripped out entirely. Lazy.

Discord/Skill increase - Seems like it could have some potential to be fun, and spice things up a bit, but will be very problematic, and probably too big of an undertaking to trust to go smoothly. Skill increase jewels/items aren't the boogeyman, and people that spend the time and effort to build their high skill increase suits and make them work should enjoy the fruits. I do think insta-changing suits on the fly using EC is ridiculous though, and should be addressed. You shouldn't be able to cycle though 2-3 different templates just by pushing a single button.

Chivalry remove curse - Needs to be addressed as well, again with a target based cool down, or diminishing results if spammed.

Funny, most of these issues can be solved with creating/extending a cool down timer.

KoD · October 2018

Corpse said:

So this is some stuff of the top of my head I would like to see.
1. fix Deadly poison- Cure potions should guarantee cure after 5 potions.
2.fix Evasion- Evasion should be based on parry chance and should not give the huge bonus to parry. or the bonus should not apply if you have magery above 69.9.
3.Splinter- Remove splinter with apples. Or a short timer between splinters.
4.Change Potions set a limit on chugging so you cannot spam potions. example= "you're to full to drink this right now" .
5.Parry- Parrying Should require a secondary skill. TACTICS.
6. Chivalry- Remove curse should have a timer or become weaker if spammed.
7. Pies- need to have the effect wear out after being hit a certain amount of times.

The game does NOT need all of this ... only the pies need to be removed. The game is very well balanced. Nerfing evasion has no sense since it has already a timer. And you can be disarmed too.

We need diversity, ie add more usable templates... before we could overcap dci, this is why mages had spellbooks or mage weapons without any parrying.

We need to be able to overcap dci to be able to create more templates, overcapping dci should be possible if you have 0 parry.

Splintering is necessary for melee dexers to be able to be at least decent 1vs1, any nerf to it is pointless.

it would make sense to remove specials possibility for spell channeling splintering weapons.

but once again this is not so much overpowered, the game is already ultra balanced if you would pvp often you could notice it really fast.

KoD · October 2018

Did you ever play lately a melee dexer? I am sure you did not. Use some logic. No splinter ok?

you disarm someone, he runs till he can rearm, so u deal no more dmg to him.

you hit with armour ignores, he will just move till he heals

and so on

the only usable solution is to dismount someone with a no dachi and hope that he has no ninja.

so please, don’t talk about templates you never used.

melee dexers are useless 1vs1 without splintering weapons, you would deal 0 dmg when the enemy feels to be low health or disarmed ie you will NOT kill anyone.

The_Higgs_1 said:

if parry gets nerfed properly melee dexxers will definitely be a lot better. You do NOT need splintering on a melee char to be effective, just stop the crying already about it. Splintering was the biggest OP change in UO since mysticism first came out. It needs to be fixed

cobb · October 2018

The_Higgs_1 said:

if parry gets nerfed properly melee dexxers will definitely be a lot better. You do NOT need splintering on a melee char to be effective, just stop the crying already about it. Splintering was the biggest OP change in UO since mysticism first came out. It needs to be fixed.

nerfing parry isn't going to fix dexers and you know it.

cobb · October 2018

recently on Stratics there was a long bitter thread about pvp balancing. It was 8 pages long before it got locked. Most of it consisted of ppl complaining about how dexers are so weak compared to mages. Some even claimed a mage should never lose a 1v1 to a dexer even without parry. So how is nerfing parry going to solve the problem?

So the solution to dexers being weak is to make them more weak?

Call me crazy, but I have serious doubts about solving a problem by making it worse

CovenantX · October 2018

cobb said:

The_Higgs_1 said:

if parry gets nerfed properly melee dexxers will definitely be a lot better. You do NOT need splintering on a melee char to be effective, just stop the crying already about it. Splintering was the biggest OP change in UO since mysticism first came out. It needs to be fixed.

nerfing parry isn't going to fix dexers and you know it.

If a mage doesn't need Parry to beat dexers more often than not, what do you think Parry would end up doing?

If they nerf parry the right way, splintering could be removed and dexers would still be useful. gotta love when the consistency is pointed out =D

cobb · October 2018

not sure what you mean by what would parry be doing... Lot of ppl take parry so they don't get wiped out quickly during group fights

But according to you parry isn't even needed to kill a dexer 1v1 ever, because that's just how stronger mages are.

Even if you take parry out of the equation, the mage is still stronger, but your solution is to nerf the dexer anyway?

The_Higgs_1 · October 2018

The proposed change is just to not proc with specials, which is needed at minimum for splintering. I prefer there being a immunity timer of at least ten seconds. Any other nerf is just going to lead to mages being better off with splintering weapons then melee. You cant base changes on people running, everyone is going to run regardless if they get low. Since splintering came out everyone has one and its because its OP.

I don't have any issues with my melee macer and he doesn't even use a splinter weapon. I just don't play it much cause everyone has parry. Parry has to be fixed first then youll see a change in what templates can be played.

Pies have no place in pvp either. As far as chivalry goes all they need to do is add bushido to list of what breaks 4/6. I would nave no issues if evasion was raised to 30 sec cooldown. I also personally think the no dachi is OP as well, there needs to be a time on that dismount that you can mount even if its slightly longer then normal dismount.

cobb · October 2018

The_Higgs_1 said:

Any other nerf is just going to lead to mages being better off with splintering weapons then melee.

Why not just put the restriction for mages only as others have suggested here? So characters with more than 70 Magery cannot use Splintering with specials. That way it won't be better for mages.

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Upcoming combat changes in Publish 103

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