Thoughts on Osi's PvP Changes

Archery: Well I definately like this point. As far as I interpretate the changes they weaken most of the archery nerfes, meaning the slow firing rate, and the extreme delay after equipping. Now they deal with the real problems, making it *easier* to hit, comparable to you hit chance in melee combat. So will archery be that much kicking again? Definately not, because they nerfe the maximum damage (who wants 60hp bolts....I certainly dont) while maintaining an good avarage damage by raising the minimum damage. They are also looking into the "hitting-people-while-running" stuff....sounds great to me, and gives me the opportunity to try an archer again.

officially derat approved pvp change!

Poisoning: Again good changes here. I don't know WHY it should be impossible to heal while poisoned, but it will definately make the poison spell something to deal with (ok we all have greater cure potions, but this makes them necessary....also helping the player economy maybe;)! Now people will cry saying "AAAAAA POISONING SO STRONG".....well not really. As said you have an easy to use defense, and poisoning even gets nerfed. It will destroy your weapons, players will help you solve that problem, again a point in economy stuff (now I understand we all got an alchy, but WHO got a tailor? hands up! 3? 4? 10? good idea! =))). And they also make 2-handed weapons unpoisonable....removes those nasty overpowered 50HP dpoisoned hally hits....though 2-handed weapons don't gfet useless as we see later.

officially derat approved pvp change!

Parrying: Not much to say. It's good to higher the amount you defend, because this actually makes a shield useful, when we come to other changes later. Now you're not only a dex-monkey, you can decide to be an offensive or a defensive dex-monkey.....might not sound that great, but it's a step. Parrying will be able to save your ass from double-damage hally hits.....worth to consider this skill I guess.

officially derat approved pvp change!

Lumberjacking and Axes: Well some concerns on my side here. I think one way to power up your weapon using anatomy is fine, adding lumberjacking might get players into some trouble. Imagine someone with all damage boni + lumberjacking 100....I know he has to spend 100 points on lumberjacking, but well thats possible for a fighter.....and then be somewhat lucky and do 100damage in a single blow with a simple axe.....realistic but not really useful for good fights if some crazy axe-swinging maniac keeps chopping everyone off their horses. I see Osi's point in this though. I mean, WHO uses one of the axes in combat? hands up again! I count maybe 2 who use it occasionally on DF...2 I know of, I used to when I still had a swords-fighting townie......way before any changes =)by now axes are not used at all. This will get them a nice revival. Though I think there is a lot of balancing to do here.....maybe 20% are a bit too much. A positive thing about this is, it takes a great amount of time to get 100lumberjacking. So no one can complain about creating a 3-day char killing people in one blow....it's easier to build a good mage than to get 100 lumber....

*derat wants to see this in-game before making a statement*

Two-Handed Weapons: Ugh I say. Hallies doing 90+ damage in a single blow.....I see it coming. But you got to consider some things about this. a) 2-handed weaps are slow! b) more intelligence will make your chance better....but you will be even slower! still I think a 20% base chance is WAY too high. Let it start at maybe 5% working up with intelligence....anyway these changes will make it possible for everyone to consider WHICH weapon to use. You can make a decision on what you want to be more important, you want a fast disturbing weapon? you want to blow through that 40plate armor+gm parry guy's defense? the decision is yours =) NOT everyone will be using a katana. The half int blow is...well excuse me but this goes too far. Someone walks up to me, gives me 50points with his lumberjacking mega axe, halves my mana to 50 unequips the axe and rips me apart with a dpoisoned katana...dont think halving mana for 30! seconds is in any way funny.....they got rid of the tank-mage anyway if they bring in this...no need to give the rest of us playing mages such a hard drawback. 50int not only means less mana, it also means slower mana regeneration, leaving me with no choice in my spells. I'll need my mana for heals, no way to be offensive. The paralyze blow....well this MIGHT get paralyze back into the game. If you have a team of different parts, you might be able to paralyze quite a lot, making your victim run out of pouoches. Something that was rarely possible just with mana-paralyze...just make sure to loot pouches of those people with 30 trapped ones on them...might get para back into the game as I said. As something useful I mean.

*derat wants to see some real good balancing on this before it goes on the public shards!*

Maces: Well it was about time this went in. I was getting sick of EVERYONE using a q-staff. Now you again have to make choices. The slow, 2-handed really punching and stamina draining mace-weaps, or you still prefer the q-staff ? Not saying that a club would be slow and punching....anyway more options, more possibilities, more variety in combat.

officially derat approved pvp change

Hitting and Dexterity: Well here we go. This is the Tank-Mage nerfe as far as I can see it. Why should a mage use a hally if everyone is going to run away from it, and ruin the whole combo? Why use any weapon, if the only thing you do is score some lucky hits? I can't see any point for me to stick to the usual tank-mage style, and this is exactly what is wanted. And I must say I like it. If you decide to take the versatility (correct?) of a mage, using all those spells, you just won't be able to be Mr.IdUellU@Ll. Still you can give it a try, using the poisoning spell revival I mentioned earlier, not to forget that the old mana dump combo still does quite some damage, especially if you know how to enhance it (I dont mean exploiting a certain bug which I won't mention here, there are other ways). And in a good team paralyze might have its revival too, leaving every good PvP Group in NEED of a good mage....but you're most likely not going to win the next duel contest......

officially derat approved pvp change *tears in my eyes ;)* I'll miss the tank

Thievery changes: Oh my god....why do they do that? No one of us liked the stealing skill to be THAT useless (if you didnt want to mock some reds in bucs....you bastard! ;)). But come on, don't we remember the old times? One time I couldn't move, always out of stamina, and I didn't know why. Well I found out, I piled up so many drobes over my regs bag, I was just overloaded. Do YOU want that to come back? Hell not! You can't put your regs in a locked chest anymore either. Now this is definately NOT good! Just another possibility to annoy people....

remove this!!!!

Armor Changes: Certainly a good thing to do. People won't be able to heal that fast in big armor, they won't hit that fast, but they will be able to survive almost everything as we know ;) Now this was the decision between offensive and defensive fighting I mentioned before. Definately worth that bone armor is now useless...I don't see why anyone should use it. It doesn't only look stupid, it now drains your dex...;() And this also makes leather armor usable, like it is on Siege, which is again not only good for mages, but also for player economy.....GM Made leather armor might get quite popular soon.....with mages and with fighters. Well done Osi ;)

officially approved derat pvp change

Recall: Well if they don't want PK's why don't they say so? This will lead to even more gang banging PK's.....no one will take the risk of 20%loss alone...in a group you are relatively safe. Sad to see. Now don't say it works on siege....there is a small difference there...you got no statloss over there !

remove this!!!! in genereal PvP it is good, but PK's are nerfed enough...

Wrestling Moves: Umm...what the? Am I playing Streetfighter? Soon UOAssist will have a timing tool always pulling off your wrestling special attack macro when it is ready? Not that anyone except mages really has a high wrestling....though these usually lack the anatomy....which micht change soon.....might...I won't say everything I think here :D Anyway I just don't like playing Hulk Hogan Online....nor do I like the way these special moves work. I mean placing my weapon in my backpack....oh my god this will screw up my keyboard, because I always press "insert" to equip it again....certainly a major drawback....I'll be poor in no time because I buy a new keyboard, just for the insert key....=( And paralyzing them....well I can agree to this at all, concerning my theorie of para being useful again....but come on whacking on your helm with my fist won't knock you out...don't like this. Really.

remove this ridiculous thing!

Spellbooks: Like this. Yeah you understood me, and this is not a typing fault. Why? Well despite being part of the tank-mage nerf, this will give warriors a harder time too. It's not like they could cast without a spellbook. This eliminates the possibility of disturbing my heal with a quick harm and finishing me with your 90hp hally hacks hehe...anyway it might not seem logical, but it removes the casting ability of warriors more than that of mages. You got Parrying? Well think about taking magery hehe you won't be able to use it in time anyway *G* That is why this patch seems so well thought about in my opinion. You can't have it all anymore, you've got to make decisions. I'm looking forward to a tournament some day, to see how the different "classes" perform against each other.

officially approved derat pvp change

Magic Reflect: Now this one is great. I can just go up and Flamestrike dex-monkeys, reflect items ain't so powerful anymore, and when I hit my reflect macro accidently as I often do (next to my ebolt macro) it will have SOME use for me ;) It seems well thought about too.

officially approved derat pvp change

I just saw, that the healing changes are not mentioned in In Concept. Interesting. Overall this seems to be some sort of a great patch, even if we will have to kiss our tanks good bye...Some time ago I said "Osi got to give us other options before they take precast away", well seems they heard me. I'll send this review to Osi, hoping they listen to what I say (yeah sure ;)))

Thanks for your interest ;)

ADD ON (16.2.00): Well some more thoughts came up. Healing changes are definately in, so we can only hope for some real good balancing on this. Applying a bandage in 3 seconds even overpowers the healing spell. Spells take mana at all......equipping a bandage in like 8seconds would be ok IMO.

I've also received some comments like "hell! dex-monkeys rip us apart and you say the patch is ok? crazy?". Well certainly this patch won't help the dex problem, which is not at all adressed in here. This patch nerfes the tank out of the mage, which is good IMO. This patch also makes some skills and spells (e.g. archery, parrying, posion spell, paralyze in general) somewhat usable again. It MIGHT also give us some sort of player economy again.....MIGHT I say.....can't predict everything. We still have the old problem, that 100dex are a dumb and boring way of fighting. But with these changes I can see tactics coming into warrior-combat....what about giving you a hit out of my hvy xbow before charging you with a poison and then hopefully disturbing your spells? Ok I might have to steal your gcure potions before...well I can. If I decide to. It's a matter of a well-mixed group if I can beat your over-powered healing. Another thing is revamping eint/resist...which should be done I think. So for general group-combat I see a nice future. What about duels? Well I can't really say.....were they really fun with precast? I dont know, but certainly they will be even less fun after this. It mostly comes down to if MY type of a fighter was made for 1on1 and has the right skills to match your way of fighting.

The general problem we have is an overpowered healing. I can heal with spells, bandages and potions, adding to my 100str I am practically invincible against a single opponent. Cause of this I wouldn't power up healing, I'd rather give the greater heal spell a longer casting time. More healing is bad for duels, less healing makes it more interesting (remember the times gh potions got the 10 second delay ? It definately added sth to the duels.....didn't depend on you clicking your macro fast enough anymore.....you couldnt just drink more potions than your enemy....). Still we have a fact right now: Mages can't duel very well after this, and warriors still don't have a duel system which matches the one mages had......sad but true.