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f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  The Gaming Graveyard  |  Ultima Online  |  Topic: Neckbeard - Melee Idea (IPY) 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
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Author Topic: Neckbeard - Melee Idea (IPY)  (Read 14934 times)
Cheddar
I like pink
Posts: 4987

Noob Sauce


on: October 06, 2009, 05:57:06 AM

This is a proposal to fix the disparity of melee compared to other skill sets.  This is based off classic server ruleset; the talk of a reemergence of IPY got me thinking. 

The idea is to make the skill investment of melee on par with Magery.  Currently the melee class is almost defunct for high end PvE; even though you can hybrid skills to be somewhat effective, the idea is to make melee more desirable to the PvE element. 

A few assumptions:

On a scale of 1-10, along with "required" skills in parenthesis, base templates from strongest to weakness are:

10 Taming (Animal Taming, Animal Lore, Veterinary)
8 Bard  (Musicianship, Provoke, Peacemake)
7 Magery  (Magery, Meditation, Spell Resistance)
2 Melee (Melee, Tactics, Healing, Spell Resistance)

I did not include archery for this proposal.

Proposed mechanic changes:

1.  Armor no longer affects Dexterity - it affects Intelligence.  This is more in line with Ultima Lore, and will open up the viability of utilizing plate armor.  20 int. penalty with a full suit of Plate Armor.

2.  Armor provides "spell avoidance."  This I have not fully thought through; I am thinking it will either augment current Spell Resistance or act as an additional mechanic (not meant to replace spell resistance).  I can post more detail on this.  A Full GM Plate Suit would give 50% spell avoidance; higher tiered magic armor a bit more (up to 60% for balance reasons, maybe).

3.  Parry now includes "spell avoidance."  25% at 100% Parry skill.  Parry will once again be a viable skill for many templates.

4.  Include more high end magical items with spells; remove the use per mechanic.  A Sword of Fireballs will not run out of charges with use.

5.  Boost damage melee weapons do to monsters across the board; at least double damage of current melee numbers.  Leave damage the same verse other players.

6.  Special moves; include special moves for the different weapon types.  No longer uses mana; they will use Stamina. 
     -Mace = Stamina Loss (25% from max stamina pool).
     -Fencing = "Bleed" ability.  Similar to poison, but does not interupt spell casting or healing.
     -Sword = Huh

7.  Introduce a delay in refresh potion use (like the healing potion delay).  Maybe once every 30 seconds?

These changes should bring melee up as far as usability compared to Magery.  There is still a bit more skill investment, but this is offset by not needing to use reagents.

No Nerf, but I put a link to this very thread and I said that you all can guarantee for my purity. I even mentioned your case, and see if they can take a look at your lawn from a Michigan perspective.
Azaroth
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Posts: 1959


Reply #1 on: October 06, 2009, 05:45:20 PM

I have one blanket comment that basically addresses the entire post and hopefully doesn't disrespect the thought process or intent behind it:

This would really piss PvPers off.

Take a vanilla classic ruleset (or one slightly tweaked like IPY, whatever) - melee characters compete with magic users in PvP. At worst, highly annoying. Played well, very powerful. A good melee PvPer pulls out all the stops with pots, bandaids, some spell use, deadly poison on weapons, and plenty of intelligent field tactics. It's an interesting character choice in that it's simple to do poorly and very difficult to master.

The problem with them at the moment is that group PvP has turned into an exercise in little more than precisely timing spell dumps to instantly kill opponents before they can be healed. They're not helpful there. This isn't a problem that needs solving - synchronized dumps is a problem that needs solving, considering how many ways there are to automate it using various programs.

That's my comment when we're talking about IPY.

If we're talking about something else?

A lot of thought needs to go into melee. If I'm to be totally honest... it's thought that I haven't gotten around to yet. Magery and spellcasting in general gets a massive, incredibly PvP -and- PvE effective upgrade. So this thread is right on track as far as the things I need people to be discussing.

My guidelines would essentially be these:

1) Try thinking about interactivity. Always avoid luck based mechanics with anything that can be used in PvP combat. But requiring three hands and crack UO skills isn't always the best idea, either.

2) Remember that we're avoiding the UO:R > 3D > AOS (and so on) evolution. Avoid item based combat (where it affects PvP). Remember that we're not trying to coerce WoW or Diablo fans.

3) Balance is hard. Proposing changes when you don't have the full picture or concept of the ruleset is harder. Try to come up with general ideas for making melee combat more fun - not necessarily just more powerful. Ideas like that can be integrated more easily if they're good, regardless of other factors to an extent.

4) The new shard is a place, above all else, to address the shortcomings of a classic ruleset while going down a completely different path of evolution. Think about what classic UO lacks. Think about the goals EA had when they changed things - address them while finding alternatives that make more sense in terms of staying relatively true to what oldschool UOers like as a general philosophy. The alternative should be there for a reason, never just for the sake of being different. Not even just for the sake of being more powerful.

5) As a general rule, power is increased horizontally - not vertically. Your Magic Sword of Awesome doesn't level up from 1d4 to 2d4 to 2d6+2. It levels up sideways, providing options in function. These options don't necessarily need to be level restrictive - for the most part, someone may have chosen the function you decided to pick at level 10 when they were level 4. And so on.

6) Consider modern cheat programs like EasyUO. Can this be automated? Think long and hard about finding a solution that can't be.

7) Remember the crafters. Remember that they make their living and are useful in the world when they provide items to players (and those items eventually go away somehow, requiring crafters to be useful for a longer period of time than one purchase). Remember the raiders, and that they want to get something useful and cool from spending six hours trying to beat Morgold The Magnificent Mollusk. Remember that many crafters don't want to be raiders, and keep this all in mind when you think about the items that people (and mostly melee characters) are using.


So hopefully I'm being useful. If I'm not, I blame the three beer I had at dinner trying to quench the heat from my vindaloo.

In the end, keep this discussion going either way. I've yet to figure out melee, so it's a nice place to start.

Cheddar's number 5 is an interesting one, because this is something you get with silver weapons in classic UO and it increases ability to farm monsters with a melee character immensely. I've put some thought into evolving the silver/slayer weapon items beyond just "Double Damage!!". There's an unlimited amount of things you can do here, they all benefit melee characters in a PvE sense, and they won't cause anyone PvPing to cry foul (hopefully).

« Last Edit: October 08, 2009, 08:42:26 AM by Azaroth »

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Cheddar
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Noob Sauce


Reply #2 on: October 06, 2009, 06:00:27 PM

I just threw the IPY acronym on the post to show that we are discussing non-production shard mechanics.  SOMETHING needs to be done, thats why I broke it down at the beginning.  I went with the PvE structures for one reason; the majority of the players will be doing PvE.  They may not be the most vocal, but those are your bread and butter players.

No Nerf, but I put a link to this very thread and I said that you all can guarantee for my purity. I even mentioned your case, and see if they can take a look at your lawn from a Michigan perspective.
Azaroth
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Posts: 1959


Reply #3 on: October 06, 2009, 07:04:52 PM

Absolutely, I completely agree.

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Azaroth
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Reply #4 on: October 08, 2009, 01:12:22 PM

I'm also interested in thoughts on crafting - incase anyone has been tucking away any great ideas.

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Cheddar
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Noob Sauce


Reply #5 on: October 08, 2009, 05:00:36 PM

I'm also interested in thoughts on crafting - incase anyone has been tucking away any great ideas.

What direction were you thinking about taking crafting?  I think one of the things you should have your devs do (I assume you are not soloing that aspect) would be sit down and come up with an evaluation method for current skillsets.

Should crafting be completely seperate from adventuring or should it be integrated with it?  Personally, I liked AI's idea whereby crafters could create magic items (to some extent).  It required certain drops and created an interesting mechanic by which adventurers sold said drops to the crafters who in turn created items and sold them back.

No Nerf, but I put a link to this very thread and I said that you all can guarantee for my purity. I even mentioned your case, and see if they can take a look at your lawn from a Michigan perspective.
Azaroth
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1959


Reply #6 on: October 08, 2009, 05:25:12 PM

I'm always big on crafters being specialists, interdepedencies between crafters and other crafters as well as crafters and adventurers.

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Cheddar
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Noob Sauce


Reply #7 on: October 08, 2009, 09:15:49 PM

I will work a write up and post a new thread.  Hopefully we get some good discussion on it; there are a lot of craftard types here on f13.

No Nerf, but I put a link to this very thread and I said that you all can guarantee for my purity. I even mentioned your case, and see if they can take a look at your lawn from a Michigan perspective.
Azaroth
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Posts: 1959


Reply #8 on: October 08, 2009, 09:54:24 PM

That's what I'm hoping.

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Cheddar
I like pink
Posts: 4987

Noob Sauce


Reply #9 on: October 10, 2009, 06:05:10 AM

Hmmm.  Without a serious discussion on what direction to go I cannot really think of opinion on crafting.  I guess this needs expanded on - and I need to review your blog again.  Egads!

No Nerf, but I put a link to this very thread and I said that you all can guarantee for my purity. I even mentioned your case, and see if they can take a look at your lawn from a Michigan perspective.
Cheddar
I like pink
Posts: 4987

Noob Sauce


Reply #10 on: October 11, 2009, 09:01:16 AM

I am leaning more towards making crafting worthwhile as it is.  For example: make plate armor palatable.  Currently no one wears it because of the penalties imposed; instead people tend towards "Dex Suits" and leather armor.

No Nerf, but I put a link to this very thread and I said that you all can guarantee for my purity. I even mentioned your case, and see if they can take a look at your lawn from a Michigan perspective.
Azaroth
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1959


Reply #11 on: October 11, 2009, 09:27:10 AM

Well, it'd be nice to accomplish that at the same time you're tying crafting into raiding (while leaving both entirely independent). The idea being that the buyer purchases the suit of armour from the crafter and upgrades the suit during the raid.

The best way I see of doing that is to leave penalties mostly as is, but increase gem slots in armour both with crafting expertise and as the armour gets heavier (leather>ring>chain>plate). You're starting to infringe upon PvPers when you talk about item upgrades and such, but the gems could be mostly used for upgrades versus certain monster types, or against monsters in certain dungeons, and to give out some of the powers that spellcasters are getting with the new magic system.


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WindupAtheist
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Badicalthon


Reply #12 on: October 11, 2009, 01:20:32 PM

The idea is to make the skill investment of melee on par with Magery.  Currently the melee class is almost defunct for high end PvE; even though you can hybrid skills to be somewhat effective, the idea is to make melee more desirable to the PvE element.

If you want to balance PVE alone without upsetting PVP balance, it makes more sense to change the monsters than to change the players. Increasing monster movement speed, getting them to give target priority to players over energy vortexes or pets, maybe giving high-end critters some sort of more powerful attack that they only do from range, those sorts of things would lessen the disparity without opening you up to PVP balance tears.

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Arnold
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Reply #13 on: November 12, 2009, 08:38:25 PM

I'm also interested in thoughts on crafting - incase anyone has been tucking away any great ideas.

I'd take something like the original spell research system from Asheron's call and apply it to crafting equipment.  It would need to be tweaked though because that one got cracked. 
Azaroth
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1959


Reply #14 on: November 12, 2009, 09:53:44 PM

Can you give me an overview?

I never played AC.

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