Treasures of the Fey Feedback

Pawain

Jepeth said:

As I said, this could be done with one skilled player playing two accounts or a pair of players. You really don't have a single friend?

The other player that plays on Origin it too busy complaining on the internet to help him.

Seth

Jepeth said:

As I said, this could be done with one skilled player playing two accounts or a pair of players. You really don't have a single friend?

Paragon Shadow wryms, Greater Dragons, Phoenix and the guy with Wings.

Can we have normal game play for fully geared vet players that:
1) Doesn't need 2 accounts to play
2) Doesn't need to read this forum on how to play
3) Caters to low pop where.. we have frens but not always on at the same time.
4) Reasonable regulation of Paragons and not have 5 Virtuebane on Steroids chasing us around.

And not be so narrow minded that only very very specific template can work like the full armed Macing Master or Disco Tamer. 

So what? We train them up so that once they become popular they will nerf as usual for all future events? Why waste the effort? Look at sampires. 

Once something becomes too good and powerful, they will design future events to stop u from using them.

McDougle

Seth said:

Jepeth said:

As I said, this could be done with one skilled player playing two accounts or a pair of players. You really don't have a single friend?

Paragon Shadow wryms, Greater Dragons, Phoenix and the guy with Wings.

Can we have normal game play for fully geared vet players that:
1) Doesn't need 2 accounts to play
2) Doesn't need to read this forum on how to play
3) Caters to low pop where.. we have frens but not always on at the same time.
4) Reasonable regulation of Paragons and not have 5 Virtuebane on Steroids chasing us around.

And not be so narrow minded that only very very specific template can work like the full armed Macing Master or Disco Tamer. 

So what? We train them up so that once they become popular they will nerf as usual for all future events? Why waste the effort? Look at sampires. 

Once something becomes too good and powerful, they will design future events to stop u from using them.

+1

Jepeth

Seth said:

Jepeth said:

As I said, this could be done with one skilled player playing two accounts or a pair of players. You really don't have a single friend?

Paragon Shadow wryms, Greater Dragons, Phoenix and the guy with Wings.

Can we have normal game play for fully geared vet players that:
1) Doesn't need 2 accounts to play
2) Doesn't need to read this forum on how to play
3) Caters to low pop where.. we have frens but not always on at the same time.
4) Reasonable regulation of Paragons and not have 5 Virtuebane on Steroids chasing us around.

And not be so narrow minded that only very very specific template can work like the full armed Macing Master or Disco Tamer. 

So what? We train them up so that once they become popular they will nerf as usual for all future events? Why waste the effort? Look at sampires. 

Once something becomes too good and powerful, they will design future events to stop u from using them.

Hyperbolic much? Look, folks were saying how insurmountable that pile in the picture was, I offered a counter strategy rather than complaining on the forum. This is an MMO. In fact it's the MMO. How is banding together, information seeking, and overcoming a hostile environment not the core of Ultima Online gameplay? 

If the dungeon is too hard, go hunt eggs.

PlayerSkillFTW

Jepeth said:

So let's talk about this for a second. There's a couple ways a pair of players or a skilled single player running two accounts on two monitors could handle this situation. So many of you seem desperate to reduce the difficulty in these events. That's your prerogative, but this is not an unmanageable situation. You don't need to wait it out until server restart.

I won't lie and say that if I walked down that ramp and saw all that waiting for me, my first inclination would be to curse. But that pile is by no means insurmountable. Let's also set aside the "I didn't create this mess and therefore shouldn't have to clean it up" thing. Valor is a virtue, afterall.

I'm going to start by analyzing that picture, what's in it, and where it is.

I see at least three para  shadow wyrms, two para lattice seekers, a para weald protector, a para dragon whelpling, a para unicorn, a para wyrm. Later in this long post I'll talk about strategies I'd use for each.

The biggest advantage here is the location. You have ramps up to 1 and down to 3, as well as all of 2.

First strategy should be to setup a base camp either on the ramp down to 2 from 1 or up from 3 to 2. Control that area before you tackle the para pile. If you have paras on level 1 at the ramp to 2 OR the ancient wyrm hanging out on the ramp up to 2 from 3 you're just compounding the problems.

Second strategy should be to then control an area of 2. If you haven't done a Treasures event in a dungeon before you likely did setup a runebook with lots of locations before the spawn started. There was a good couple weeks where we knew Destard was going to host this event. A smart player will have marked runes all over the dungeon for situations exactly like this. If some place is blocked, use your rune to get behind the trouble.

The paras pile up because players run down, aggro things, and then exit the ramp. This blocks access from the ramp but likely means the other areas on 2 are para free. This is how we start to pick the para pile apart. You recall out of the way and try and aggro a para individually, pulling it back from the pile into your basecamp on 2. If you get more than you intend, run back up to 1 or down to your base on 3 and reform the para pile. Recall to your spot on 2, start again.

So let's say you and your two screens or you and your buddy are successful in getting one of the meaner paras over to you. How should you proceed?

The only para in Destard that presents a problem, in my experience, is the para greater dragon. It's nasty and has the HP to make a fight last. But luckily they aren't down on 2 ever. Instead you've got the para shadow wyrm. It's a glass cannon. You can take it apart in less than a minute. Here's the types of characters I use.

I use my 120 swords/healing/parry/bushido dragoon and my 120 macing/healing/parry/resist stagger fighter. I have two monitors and them set to auto-hit. Importantly both are using dragon slaying weapons. Both these characters have 75 resists to mitigate that one-hit damage special. On each client I have macros setup to cross heal (the real power here!) and to hit AI. I go back and forth between clients firing off the cross heal macro, AI, and using the stagger mastery spell on the macer. Stagger drops their stamina hit rate to nothing. If you keep it going the para shadow wyrm can't do much to overcome your fast crossheals. 

That's one set of templates.

Alternatively, a regular old 120 tamer running consume on their pet as a tank and some other template to deliver high damage (think, again, the 120 swords dragoon or a 120 ABC archer here) can, again, take the shadow para down in no time at all. Instead of the swords guy, use a macer instead and continue to keep stagger going to provide a little room for the tamer's pet's health. Here my fight cadence is like Stagger, AI, AI, repeat. In this example I or my buddy playing the tamer isn't doing anything other than letting the pet tank and keeping its health going with consume. But some dragon slayer spellbook flame strikes could end the fight faster.

You could do this with two tamers, too. Again, one pet on consume as the tank and then another tamer and pet delivering more damage.

But the strategy basically remains the same: keep aggro on one character/pet that can handle the one-hit damage. Mitigate the para's damage with the second character while delivering the bulk of your team's damage against it.

If you and your pal can pull the pile apart and take down the para shadow wyrm alone basically nothing else there is an issue. Fey slayers for the fey, dragon slayer for the dragon. If more than one starts to come for you, break fight and head to the basecamp on 1 or 3. Recall to your safe spot on 2 and start over. 

Throw in a bard as a third character running peace songs and your little band of three can take down the para greater dragons. It just takes time and strategy.

Yep. A Disco/Tamer and a Death Ray Tamer/Mage © combo can take down that pile as well. Have the Disco/Tamer run Consume Damage on a FWW+PB Najasaurus, and throw the Naja into the pile first and grab aggro on everything. While under Consume Damage the Naja's resists will allow it to tank everything with almost no incoming damage (it's only weak resist is Cold, which virtually nothing in Destard deals, other than a fraction of the Shadow Wyrm's damage), it's completely Poison status immune so nothing can interrupt your spell healing on it (the 50% Poison damage from the Weald Protectors won't even scratch the Naja either due to 100% Poison Resist), and it has such high Resist skill that Blood Oath doesn't bother it at all. Throw a Knight of Humility on the Naja from the Death Ray Tamer/Mage © for good measure. The Disco/Tamer tries to discord the Shadow Wyrms first.

Then have the Death Ray Tamer/Mage © sick his 120 Disco+CB Triton on one of the Shadow Wyrms, while channeling Death Ray on it with a Dragon Slayer spellbook, nuke it down.

You can take on the entire pack that way, with the Naja basically being impervious while tanking them all. The only danger is in the Paragons switching target to one of the Tamers, so you have to be on your toes with invisses. The Naja's frequent FWW and Poison ticks will help sustain aggro on it, even if a Paragon does peel off for a second.

McDougle

Me and two guild mates on Pac  gated into such a mess and a few deathrobes we cleared it party balance is important. On Origin i am currently using my thrower for basic hunting then luring tough paragons to door and using a  second account with tamer to tank but things being possible and things being balanced are two different things. As i have stated over and over acknowledgement and accountability for goodness sake communicate with the players and this could have been a decent event instead of the disaster in every way it's become. And unfortunately this will be the legacy of the development team...

Archangel

Jepeth said:

As I said, this could be done with one skilled player playing two accounts or a pair of players. You really don't have a single friend?

no, everyone hates me for taking all their eggs   =P

McDougle

Archangel said:

Jepeth said:

As I said, this could be done with one skilled player playing two accounts or a pair of players. You really don't have a single friend?

no, everyone hates me for taking all their eggs   =P

And people have stopped bothering with dungeon the other night more people tossing white nets than in destard ....

Pawain

McDougle said:

Me and two guild mates on Pac  gated into such a mess and a few deathrobes we cleared it party balance is important. On Origin i am currently using my thrower for basic hunting then luring tough paragons to door and using a  second account with tamer to tank but things being possible and things being balanced are two different things. As i have stated over and over acknowledgement and accountability for goodness sake communicate with the players and this could have been a decent event instead of the disaster in every way it's become. And unfortunately this will be the legacy of the development team...

What are they supposed to tell you?  The dungeon works as designed, people are getting drops.

Or you can gather eggs.

They have changed the dungeon three to four times.  There is spawn in the spawn area finally.  There is spawn all over the dungeon.  The spawn increases as players increase.

McDougle

Pawain said:

McDougle said:

Me and two guild mates on Pac  gated into such a mess and a few deathrobes we cleared it party balance is important. On Origin i am currently using my thrower for basic hunting then luring tough paragons to door and using a  second account with tamer to tank but things being possible and things being balanced are two different things. As i have stated over and over acknowledgement and accountability for goodness sake communicate with the players and this could have been a decent event instead of the disaster in every way it's become. And unfortunately this will be the legacy of the development team...

What are they supposed to tell you?  The dungeon works as designed, people are getting drops.

Or you can gather eggs.

They have changed the dungeon three to four times.  There is spawn in the spawn area finally.  There is spawn all over the dungeon.  The spawn increases as players increase.

Do we need to quote your post from may 3rd ? Even you the prototypical fan boy must admit this a farce of an event in every way..

Pawain

McDougle said:

Pawain said:

McDougle said:

Me and two guild mates on Pac  gated into such a mess and a few deathrobes we cleared it party balance is important. On Origin i am currently using my thrower for basic hunting then luring tough paragons to door and using a  second account with tamer to tank but things being possible and things being balanced are two different things. As i have stated over and over acknowledgement and accountability for goodness sake communicate with the players and this could have been a decent event instead of the disaster in every way it's become. And unfortunately this will be the legacy of the development team...

What are they supposed to tell you?  The dungeon works as designed, people are getting drops.

Or you can gather eggs.

They have changed the dungeon three to four times.  There is spawn in the spawn area finally.  There is spawn all over the dungeon.  The spawn increases as players increase.

Do we need to quote your post from may 3rd ? Even you the prototypical fan boy must admit this a farce of an event in every way..

They have changed the Dungeon 3 times since then.

Lack of participation is from the rewards not being wanted.

People do other content with and even smaller chance of a reward. Because they want that one.

Seth

Seth said:

Jepeth said:

As I said, this could be done with one skilled player playing two accounts or a pair of players. You really don't have a single friend?

Paragon Shadow wryms, Greater Dragons, Phoenix and the guy with Wings.

Can we have normal game play for fully geared vet players that:
1) Doesn't need 2 accounts to play
2) Doesn't need to read this forum on how to play
3) Caters to low pop where.. we have frens but not always on at the same time.
4) Reasonable regulation of Paragons and not have 5 Virtuebane on Steroids chasing us around.

And not be so narrow minded that only very very specific template can work like the full armed Macing Master or Disco Tamer. 

So what? We train them up so that once they become popular they will nerf as usual for all future events? Why waste the effort? Look at sampires. 

Once something becomes too good and powerful, they will design future events to stop u from using them.

Hyperbolic much? Look, folks were saying how insurmountable that pile in the picture was, I offered a counter strategy rather than complaining on the forum. This is an MMO. In fact it's the MMO. How is banding together, information seeking, and overcoming a hostile environment not the core of Ultima Online gameplay? 

If the dungeon is too hard, go hunt eggs.

That was what we are doing and complaining. Why should the game be designed for the few? Did we see the same number of complaints in past events. No, and so stop teaching us what to do because we went through all of them and know the diff.

Mariah

If this thread is going to descend into bickering, a lock will be applied.

McDougle

Pawain said:

McDougle said:

Pawain said:

McDougle said:

Me and two guild mates on Pac  gated into such a mess and a few deathrobes we cleared it party balance is important. On Origin i am currently using my thrower for basic hunting then luring tough paragons to door and using a  second account with tamer to tank but things being possible and things being balanced are two different things. As i have stated over and over acknowledgement and accountability for goodness sake communicate with the players and this could have been a decent event instead of the disaster in every way it's become. And unfortunately this will be the legacy of the development team...

What are they supposed to tell you?  The dungeon works as designed, people are getting drops.

Or you can gather eggs.

They have changed the dungeon three to four times.  There is spawn in the spawn area finally.  There is spawn all over the dungeon.  The spawn increases as players increase.

Do we need to quote your post from may 3rd ? Even you the prototypical fan boy must admit this a farce of an event in every way..

They have changed the Dungeon 3 times since then.

Lack of participation is from the rewards not being wanted.

People do other content with and even smaller chance of a reward. Because they want that one.

Have they changed it 3times? How would you know? Maybe 6 times but with lack of communication no one knows and the rewards are totally fine but why earn death robes when script earn ingots are hovering around 700k ...

Seth

Mariah said:

If this thread is going to descend into bickering, a lock will be applied.

Discussion and arguments could still be constructive.

We know all the workarounds. 
Stop teaching Veterans about workarounds. 

The spellbook does not go back to strap, workaround: Put it in youself. 
Can't find friends to help clear a spawn, workaround: Use 2 accounts with xxx templates, etc.
Shard-bound, workaround: Play in your own shard. 

We are talking about the issue, not asking for workaround. 

My workaround for the current event is to pick up eggs and its boring as hell.

Even blackthorn captains are still more fun and well rewarded - we can keep doing this now and then - even when we have enough of the items. 

Jepeth

Nah, this sounds like bickering. Because fundamentally there is a disagreement about whether or not this is even an issue. I and others contend that it is not. That there are perfectly viable ways to play the event in multiple approaches. You want to vent your frustrations that your expectations for the event aren't being met, and you're well within your rights to do so. But it's still your personal expectations. 

Pawain

@seth the paragons are meant to be done with a group. Using multiple players to kill them is not a work around. It is what you should do as intended gameplay.  I guess some are correct. Time to clear some dead shards if you can not call in chat and find players on your shard. We have players calling in chat   to go to  Mel nightly.  Do you think they get anything good? We have players doing our 3 weekly hunts.  Either your shard is dead or you need to learn how to motivate the few that are left.

McDougle

Contrary to popular belief i don't post so much because I love to complain. How many players have to  say something is an issue before it is? In the case of pet costume not one complaint here yet we got a hot fix. That's the level of service I'd like to see my issues addressed with. I know everyone is tired of acknowledgement and accountability but is it an unreasonable request or expectation? 

Seth

Pawain said:

@ seth the paragons are meant to be done with a group. Using multiple players to kill them is not a work around. It is what you should do as intended gameplay.  I guess some are correct. Time to clear some dead shards if you can not call in chat and find players on your shard. We have players calling in chat   to go to  Mel nightly.  Do you think they get anything good? We have players doing our 3 weekly hunts.  Either your shard is dead or you need to learn how to motivate the few that are left.

Its not my job to motivate other players to stay on UO, let alone motivate them to help me kill paragons persistently for a month.

Call it bickering whatever he OR she likes, we have done group work for Blackthorn, EM events or Shadowguard. We have swapped skills to accommodate the different needs. There is no need to teach any if these.

PlayerSkillFTW

Seth said:

Jepeth said:

As I said, this could be done with one skilled player playing two accounts or a pair of players. You really don't have a single friend?

Paragon Shadow wryms, Greater Dragons, Phoenix and the guy with Wings.

Can we have normal game play for fully geared vet players that:
1) Doesn't need 2 accounts to play
2) Doesn't need to read this forum on how to play
3) Caters to low pop where.. we have frens but not always on at the same time.
4) Reasonable regulation of Paragons and not have 5 Virtuebane on Steroids chasing us around.

And not be so narrow minded that only very very specific template can work like the full armed Macing Master or Disco Tamer. 

So what? We train them up so that once they become popular they will nerf as usual for all future events? Why waste the effort? Look at sampires. 

Once something becomes too good and powerful, they will design future events to stop u from using them.

Sampires have completely and utterly dominated PvM content for the past 10+ years. So much so, that bandy cross healing became an ancient, lost art that only a few of us Greybeards still know.

Personally, i love how the "Treasures of " Events have breathed like back into two previously extinct skills, Healing and Macing. Macers were damn near extinct since shortly after AoS came out (when they lost their extra Armor/Stamina damage component), just compare the price of a 120 Macing PS to a 120 Swords PS.

The Swords Sampire is all offense, which synergizes with their self healing due to Life Drain, they had the best of both worlds (offense and survival) because of it. Necro/Warriors have existed in some form since AoS (i made a Necro/Swordsman that used Breath of the Dead after AoS came out), but the gear power wasn't always there to truly realize the build's full potential, not until around Mondain's Legacy was the gear really able to support the build.

Since the introduction of Weapon Masteries with the Time of Legends expansion, Macers are more defense oriented. Stagger slowing their victim's attack speed, and Toughness increasing their Max Health (even above the usual 150 cap), makes them particularly tanky. This decrease in the rate that they take damage (at least non-magical), makes Healing more viable than it was before. I can apply a 4 second bandage literally between swings of a SW/GD/AW Paragon that i have under Stagger and down to 0% Stamina with Hit Fatigue (which really should be made innate to Macing weapons again). Sampires can also take advantage of Macing and it's Masteries, but they don't benefit as much from it against most foes (excepting extreme hard hitters like the Stygian Dragon) than they would from Sword's Onslaught and better weapon selection (Double Axe for DS/WW, Daisho for DS/Feint, Bladed Staff for AI).

The Swords Sampire will still kill 98% of the creatures in the game faster than a Healing Macer will (especially when it comes to AoEing down spawns, which causes a problem for Healing). Against the few foes that are immune to Life Leech/Drain though, the "Juggernaught" Healing Macer shines.

Seth

PlayerSkillFTW said:

Seth said:

Jepeth said:

As I said, this could be done with one skilled player playing two accounts or a pair of players. You really don't have a single friend?

Paragon Shadow wryms, Greater Dragons, Phoenix and the guy with Wings.

Can we have normal game play for fully geared vet players that:
1) Doesn't need 2 accounts to play
2) Doesn't need to read this forum on how to play
3) Caters to low pop where.. we have frens but not always on at the same time.
4) Reasonable regulation of Paragons and not have 5 Virtuebane on Steroids chasing us around.

And not be so narrow minded that only very very specific template can work like the full armed Macing Master or Disco Tamer. 

So what? We train them up so that once they become popular they will nerf as usual for all future events? Why waste the effort? Look at sampires. 

Once something becomes too good and powerful, they will design future events to stop u from using them.

Sampires have completely and utterly dominated PvM content for the past 10+ years. So much so, that bandy cross healing became an ancient, lost art that only a few of us Greybeards still know.

Personally, i love how the "Treasures of " Events have breathed like back into two previously extinct skills, Healing and Macing. Macers were damn near extinct since shortly after AoS came out (when they lost their extra Armor/Stamina damage component), just compare the price of a 120 Macing PS to a 120 Swords PS.

The Swords Sampire is all offense, which synergizes with their self healing due to Life Drain, they had the best of both worlds (offense and survival) because of it. Necro/Warriors have existed in some form since AoS (i made a Necro/Swordsman that used Breath of the Dead after AoS came out), but the gear power wasn't always there to truly realize the build's full potential, not until around Mondain's Legacy was the gear really able to support the build.

Since the introduction of Weapon Masteries with the Time of Legends expansion, Macers are more defense oriented. Stagger slowing their victim's attack speed, and Toughness increasing their Max Health (even above the usual 150 cap), makes them particularly tanky. This decrease in the rate that they take damage (at least non-magical), makes Healing more viable than it was before. I can apply a 4 second bandage literally between swings of a SW/GD/AW Paragon that i have under Stagger and down to 0% Stamina with Hit Fatigue (which really should be made innate to Macing weapons again). Sampires can also take advantage of Macing and it's Masteries, but they don't benefit as much from it against most foes (excepting extreme hard hitters like the Stygian Dragon) than they would from Sword's Onslaught and better weapon selection (Double Axe for DS/WW, Daisho for DS/Feint, Bladed Staff for AI).

The Swords Sampire will still kill 98% of the creatures in the game faster than a Healing Macer will (especially when it comes to AoEing down spawns, which causes a problem for Healing). Against the few foes that are immune to Life Leech/Drain though, the "Juggernaught" Healing Macer shines.

Well said. I still use healing with bard support against Osiredon and EM events. Two cross healer with vampiric ability will be invincible. 

Every popular and successful game mechanism creatively introduced by past Dev like, Evasion, Word of Death, Vampiric, etc are eventually nerfed.

The game mechanism is getting bland while the no name monsters are getting more powerful than named. My point is the last statement above.

One fine day, if macing mastery becomes popular they will spend time to nerf it, rather than to create content to challenge that ability.

Pawain

The choice of weapon specials on particular weapons made Macing and fencing unpopular.

Swords is so much easier to get max speed on the popular specials.

McDougle

Friday night not one other person in destard on Pacific...but it's all working as intended right...

Pawain

Friday night is not a busy night in UO.  People are doing stuff.  I just did a luck hour and got 10 drops.

Same that I get in every other dungeon.  Explain broke?  

I just stayed in the spawn area and was killing stuff constantly.  Only wasted about 8 mins with tough paragons.  The spawn is much better than it was after they fixed the hole.

Again, if players want the rewards they will do what it takes to get them.  Apparently, many players got 300 drops on the first 2 days and stopped.  Eggs are constantly being turned in.  Maybe players like that method.

Pawain

The fact that the ingots, which is like a drop is selling for 1.5M on LS means the rewards are not desired.  The other dungeons were 3M towards the end.  These are below the end prices.

Pawain

Popps is getting the correct number of drops using EVs and having no Eval.

keven2002

Pawain said:

The fact that the ingots, which is like a drop is selling for 1.5M on LS means the rewards are not desired.  The other dungeons were 3M towards the end.  These are below the end prices.

That's your assumption. Don't get me wrong, it could be part of the reason but I think it's also because the market is flooded with drops.

You said it yourself that the ingots are 1.5m. No other event has had something that easy to get (you don't need any skill to get the eggs) so now every shard is flooded with ingots from scipters people that script sit at their computer gathering eggs all day long. Truth of the matter is that is what happens when people are able to farm drops with something as easy as picking up eggs from the same handful of spawn locations (with no skills required); there is no need to fight for drops in the dungeon. For many people going to gather eggs is more efficient as they are able to get more drops than if they were in the dungeon so the more people that are able to effortlessly obtain drops, the lower the price will be.

Btw same thing happened when there was that Shadowguard bug that would allow people to get multiple drops; the artifact prices went down drastically (even cameos). Surely something like a cameo was still desired?  

Victim_Of_Siege

Pawain said:

Jepeth said:

As I said, this could be done with one skilled player playing two accounts or a pair of players. You really don't have a single friend?

The other player that plays on Origin it too busy complaining on the internet to help him.

I'm not complaining, I'm posting silly Meme's.

Hippo

With rewards being shard-bound I need to get the decor rewards on the two shards I have houses on.  Gathering eggs is the most efficient at a factor of 10x  plus no insurance and no wear-and-tear on armor. My pets won't get much exercise until July.

Seth

Hippo said:

With rewards being shard-bound I need to get the decor rewards on the two shards I have houses on.  Gathering eggs is the most efficient at a factor of 10x  plus no insurance and no wear-and-tear on armor. My pets won't get much exercise until July.

Well, I did also mention if anything needs to be shard bound it should be easy to get. So that we can get on multiple shards or stock up to resell to returning or new players for low prices due to plenty of supply.

They made it happen at least with eggs. 

Shard bound wearable, functional arties should not be rare and hard to get. If it's shard bound then it should not be limited time.