99% lower reagent cost cap please

Mervyn

Mage spells have required reagents since the dawn of uo. Just as warriors require bandages to heal and archers aswell as bandages require arrows to shoot.

people used to play mages with 0 LRC and would still PvM and PvP.

This easy mode uo has gone on for far too long, people have been requesting a cap on lower reagent cost since it was first introduced. I have suggested the amount of 99% as I’m aware of how some players suffer some kind of fit when you change anything in game they are used to. Lower mana cost is capped at 40/55, how can we have no cap on LRC?

Uriah_Heep

I'd go for a cap of 50%.  Yep, I said it lol.

Mervyn

So would I but I don’t think the emergency services could handle it. 

Rock

Presumably you are speaking of Chivalry's tithing as well.  (The reagent is gold.) I could live with a 50% LRC cap on both.  It seems especially important that tithing should not be completely avoided.  Where is the honor in not paying what you owe?  Forgiving some tithe % of proven paladins (i.e. 50% LRC) would still thematically fit.

The blowback from this change could be somewhat attenuated by allowing LRC to provide a 25% reduction in reagent usage while scribing.  Also, allow LMC to function while scribing at 50% its value.  If a character had 20% LMC, inscription would benefit by 10%.  If he had 50% LMC, inscription would benefit by 20% (due to LMC cap of 40%).

Oh and get rid of the stupid Meditation delay while scribing!  I don't understand why Inscription has so many anti-QoL features.  Focus goes up if you pick your nose. Cartography has no restrictions excepting having the pens and blank maps or scrolls. Alchemy just needs a mortar and pestle, reagents, and a bottle or keg. No other power except Inscription seems to be designed to aggravate its practitioners.

Deraj

Agreed with 50% LRC cap, it is sorely needed.

I would add that to make this pill easier to swallow, there could be "reagent pouches", similar to quivers in function that could be blessed or insurable containers that only carry reagents.

Arroth_Thaiel

Oh my god. I agree with Mervyn. There is a strange disturbance in the force.

1. Follow the name of the property, it is Lower Reagent Cost, not Remove Reagent Cost.

2. Do the reagent check to see if the spell can be cast prior to checking LRC. If you don't have the reagents in your pack, you can't cast to begin with. Even if you only carry 1 of each, make it so you have to at least have the freaking reagents on you. Remember when you could have your reagents stolen and it prevented you from casting. Yes, that was actually a fun mechanic and required you to pay a lot of attention (as in, and engaging game mechanic), or carry multiple stacks of reagents. It brought something to the game.

3. Make LRC Magery specific. Don't allow LRC to affect skills other than Magery. Use LRC as an additional balancer for Magery vs. other skills.

i.e.

Magery has more methods to interact with the game world, but does not have as powerful summons (nor does it have Word of Death).

Magery has far more spells, but has LRC to offset reagent use.

Necro/Chiv/Mystic have fewer and more powerful interactions, but require reagents.

Wasn't it Leurocian that said LRC was the one thing he regretted implementing. (Can't remember the dev that said it - but I know they said it!)

crunchnasty

I proposed this in a thread just a few weeks ago, and I had ppl jumping on me like I was the anti Christ. Their argument? its been like this too long and id quit if I had to go to the trouble of getting reagents.... really? 

I think the game would be better off if you actually used the items in it. 50% LRC is reasonable. 100% is absurd. Ive said it so many times AoS has twisted the gameplay of UO dramatically for the worse. 

Pawain

How would this make the game better?  Really.  You can choose not to wear an LRC suit if this bothers you.

Mervyn

No Pawain, i’d Prefer if it only applied to you, but I’ll take one for the team and take it too if it means you have to, as would everyone else I’m sure. 

Arroth_Thaiel

Pawain said:

How would this make the game better?  Really.  You can choose not to wear an LRC suit if this bothers you.

By creating resource use and the need for reagents in the game. Also would work as a gold sink if paladins had to spend some of that gold they make! Probably a lot more of a gold sink than the 5k a pop for hunting permits.

Pawain

Mervyn said:

No Pawain, i’d Prefer if it only applied to you, but I’ll take one for the team and take it too if it means you have to, as would everyone else I’m sure. 

Really.  I guess I can use all the regs I found and stored for the last 16 years.  Prob take 16 years to use them.  You just want to annoy people with this kind of BS idea.  

Mervyn

says the tamer who was against any taming bugs to be fixed because they benefited from them personally even though it was detrimental to the community, but yeah lets question MY motives, even though all my chars except my blacksmith are mages, including my tamer. 

Dot_Warner

This cat has been out of the bag for far, far too long to even consider trying to stuff it back in.

Getting rid of LRC now would not have a positive impact on UO. Fifteen years have passed since it was introduced.

Reagent resource management isn't a fun mini-game and would be a negligible gold sink.

Mervyn

I did not propose to get rid of LRC

Teapot

I remember when AoS came out and LRC suits became a thing.  The whole loading up on reagents everytime you were going out was nothing I ever missed.  Camping out the respawn at the reagents vendor.  You say you want to improve the game for new players and for those of us that have those stashed up regs in the bank who cares about LRC.  But those new players that people are donating LRC suits to make them have some sort of chance of playing the game longer than a week would probably care.  I'm trying to see why anyone would miss that?  Dying and not being able to recall out unless you could loot your regs?  Or everyone should carry insured arcane pieces again? 

You post daily some odd stuff and it almost feels flamebaitish half the time. 

I mean yeah, lets stop dead people talking in the game unless they have SS.  Or one of your other odd requests.

Dot_Warner

Mervyn said:

I did not propose to get rid of LRC

Yet that would be the net result. Even at 99% in favor of an event causes the RNG to ensure failure an unreasonable number of times in a row.

I have a character with 98% LRC. Her failure rate when casting due to a lack of reagents is mindbendingly high. That missing 2% shouldn't be as significant as it is.

Find another windmill to tilt at.

Mervyn

(CraZy idea me trying to reduce trash talk on general chat by following game mechanic rules, what a fool I was)

You know, if someone had 99% Lower reagent cost, it would not actually mean you HAD to carry reagents/arcane jewelry, it would mainly affect PvP where you can't afford to have a spell fail, in pvm or recalling somewhere, you just cast it again..

Mervyn

are you trying to say that 1% is not 1%, is this a real post?

Sliss

Mervyn said:

You know, if someone had 99% Lower reagent cost, it would not actually mean you HAD to carry reagents/arcane jewelry, it would mainly affect PvP where you can't afford to have a spell fail, in pvm or recalling somewhere, you just cast it again..

And yet again, PvP nerfs have to screw things up for the majority of the population. Forcing players to shop for and carry a crap load of reagents on them will accomplish three things: 1) annoy players with another obsolete mechanic that has no place in a modern game; 2) accelerate power creep, because now instead of having to put LRC on every suit piece, you can put something more powerful; 3)Make even more arties irrelevant.

Uriah_Heep

Teapot said:

  Dying and not being able to recall out unless you could loot your regs?  Or everyone should carry insured arcane pieces again? 

You post daily some odd stuff and it almost feels flamebaitish half the time. 

I mean yeah, lets stop dead people talking in the game unless they have SS.  Or one of your other odd requests.

I don't get the not being able to recall part.  Am I the only one that actually keeps his runebooks charged?

Dot_Warner

Mervyn said:

are you trying to say that 1% is not 1%, is this a real post?

Your ignorance of how UO functions concerns me, which is my fault based on your ridiculous post history.

LRC isn't a 1:1 ratio just based on a straight percentage, it takes into account how many reagents are required for the spell. The more reagents required, the higher the fail rate - even with an LRC in the 90's. The demonstrable streakiness of the RNG tends to exacerbate fail rates.

Arroth_Thaiel

Dot_Warner said:

This cat has been out of the bag for far, far too long to even consider trying to stuff it back in.

Getting rid of LRC now would not have a positive impact on UO. Fifteen years have passed since it was introduced.

Reagent resource management isn't a fun mini-game and would be a negligible gold sink.

I disagree with you on the first part Dot. Just because something has been someway for a long time, doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be changed. I mean reagent use and the gold it caused to cycle through the economy was part of the game for five years before it was radically altered. I agree that per person the gold sink would in fact be negligible, but cumulatively I think it would be substantial. 

(Tangentially, and a bit tongue in cheek here..., one could make the argument that reagent use is part of the Classic Experience of UO, kinda like the classic client, or the classic rehued art. It's part of what made UO, UO, and it's removal has been a part of the problem with inflation in the economy ever since. I don't personally buy this argument, but it's out there.)

More seriously, bringing in reagent use, and tying it to a system like gardening or making Gardening/Farming an actual skill so players could grow their own reagents, that might be a nice addition to the game. While a mini-game for growing the resource might be fun, you are right, the mini-game of managing the resource for use was not.

Dot_Warner said:

Yet that would be the net result. Even at 99% in favor of an event causes the RNG to ensure failure an unreasonable number of times in a row.

I have a character with 98% LRC. Her failure rate when casting due to a lack of reagents is mindbendingly high. That missing 2% shouldn't be as significant as it is.

Find another windmill to tilt at.

To me, you've just described the real problem with LRC. LRC is not consistently lowering the cost by a scale, it is creating a use/no-use binary.

In other words, you're not using 68% less reagents with LRC 68%, you're getting a 68% chance to use no reagents at all. It's very hit or miss (as you point out, a substantially high amount of the time - miss).

The system could be changed so that spells used more reagents, but LRC reduced cost consistently. Let's say a level 8 spell took 8 reagents, but LRC of 50% always removed 50% of the cost. With 50% LRC the level 8 spell would always only consume 4 reagents. At 100% it would never consume reagents.

Then we're back to the first argument, should there be an LRC% cap so a caster is required to use a resource? And to your point, managing that resource for use was not fun.

Casters say no cap. Resource harvesters say hell yes put in a cap and require our resource. Give us a game to play! Especially if harvesters got a whole new skill to play with (like bumping gardening to farming - let us turn our custom houses into farms - need split rail fencing, and plows, that hook to horses, ooh the possibilities).

Just depends on what an individual considers the "game".

CovenantX

Dot_Warner said:

This cat has been out of the bag for far, far too long to even consider trying to stuff it back in.

Getting rid of LRC now would not have a positive impact on UO. Fifteen years have passed since it was introduced.

Reagent resource management isn't a fun mini-game and would be a negligible gold sink.

   I agree...  Something like this (much like other issues in UO) should have been addressed before it has become the new norm...  Now it's going to be impossible to change it the way that is suggested here without upsetting the player-base.

 There could just be new recipes or something for crafters to make something with the reagents or something (and other resources/items), it just can't be this.  

Dot_Warner

Arroth_Thaiel said:

I disagree with you on the first part Dot. Just because something has been someway for a long time, doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be changed. I mean reagent use and the gold it caused to cycle through the economy was part of the game for Five years before it was radically altered. I agree that per person the gold sink would in fact be negligible, but cumulatively I think it would be substantial. 

(Tangentially, and a bit tongue in cheek here..., one could make the argument that reagent use is part of the Classic Experience of UO, kinda like the classic client, or the classic rehued art. It's part of what made UO, UO, and it's removal has been a part of the problem with inflation in the economy ever since. I don't personally buy this argument, but it's out there.)More seriously, bringing in reagent use, and tying it to a system like gardening or making Gardening/Farming an actual skill so players could grow their own reagents, that might be a nice addition to the game. While a mini-game for growing the resource might be fun, you are right, the mini-game of managing the resource for use was not.

Well, not to be a contrarian, but change for change's sake isn't good either. Particularly when it could be considered, at best, regressive. I really don't believe there is a grassroots movement to remove LRC from the game, mostly just one, overly loud, persistent spoilsport voice. 

At this point in UO, I don't want a return of camping the NPC mages so you can buy out their stock of X reagent before anyone else can. That was never fun. Mysticism reagents still aren't stocked in high enough quantities for such an NPC market to be truly useful/viable, especially as a gold sink. (UO's modern economic inflation can be traced back to one person, but she shall remain nameless here as it is not relevant.)

While I'm in favor of expansions to gardening, I'm not sure how many people would jump at the chance to grow reagents en mass (in sufficient quantities to support a medium shard's mage population). Though I know people would love to get their mitts on the raw-reagent-plant-form graphics.

Arroth_Thaiel said:

To me, you've just described the real problem with LRC. LRC is not consistently lowering the cost by a scale, it is creating a use/no-use binary.

In other words, you're not using 68% less reagents with LRC 68%, you're getting a 68% chance to use no reagents at all. It's very hit or miss (as you point out, a substantially high amount of the time - miss).The system could be changed so that spells used more reagents, but LRC reduced cost consistently. Let's say a level 8 spell took 8 reagents, but LRC of 50% always removed 50% of the cost. With 50% LRC the level 8 spell would always only consume 4 reagents. At 100% it would never consume reagents. Then we're back to the first argument, should there be an LRC% cap so a caster is required to use a resource? And to your point, managing that resource for use was not fun. Casters say no cap. Resource harvesters say hell yes put in a cap and require our resource. Give us a game to play! Especially if harvesters got a whole new skill to play with (like bumping gardening to farming - let us turn our custom houses into farms - need split rail fencing, and plows, that hook to horses, ooh the possibilities).Just depends on what an individual considers the "game". 

LRC isn't a binary yes/no equation. It's based on the number of reagents a spell requires:

Number of Reagents Required to Cast the Spell	Chance to Cast the Spell without Using any Reagents
	LRC 90%	LRC 80%	LRC 70%	LRC 60%	LRC 50%	LRC 40%	LRC 30%
1 Reagent	90%	80%	70%	60%	50%	40%	30%
2 Reagents	81%	64%	49%	36%	25%	16%	9%
3 Reagents	73%	51%	34%	21%	13%	6%	3%
4 Reagents	66%	40%	24%	13%	6%	3%	1%

So 90% LRC is only binary if a spell only requires one reagent. The more reagents required, the greater the chance for failure. A scenario that isn't desireable regardless of whether one is PvPing or PvEing.

What resource harvesters? Miners? Lumberjacks? Scripters? Who really "harvests" reagents from mobs or the environment? I mean, sure, I'll collect the ones that are harder to come by or are "rare" (fertile dirt, executioner's cap, etc.) but I typically don't bother to collect stacks of regular reagents from mobs or chests (nor does anyone else I know). And yes, I have multiple scribes. 

The only people to really benefit from dramatic changes to LRC would be scripters as they could stalk the NPCs 23.75/7 and instantly buy them out, strangling any hope of meaningful economic movement.

DJAd

What are reagents?

Mervyn

ah i did not know a check was done against each reagent thanks for explaining dot

Bilbo

99% lower reagent cost cap please NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

Deraj

100% LRC and reagent cost are contradictory concepts and do not make sense in the same context. Reagent cost is a component in a resource management design. If it is possible to completely side step the cost altogether it calls into question just what is the purpose of the reagent cost in the first place, and if any 100% LRC addicts in this thread have a shred of integrity in their soul at least have the decency of asking for LRC and reagent cost to be removed altogether instead of remaining with this bizarre and senseless situation. It makes zero sense to suggest that we should have both reagent cost and 100% LRC in the game at the same time - each negate the purpose of the other. Also have the decency and consistency to ask for 100% lower ammo cost and for the healing skill to not require bandages to use, if we're just going to continue down this path of neutering the game.

The horrors of the pre-LRC days are being way overblown. Was it perfect? No. But managing reagents wasn't nearly as bad. If LRC were to be capped at 50%-60% and the devs created quiver-equivalent reagent pouches, we'd have the best of both worlds, and we can open the doors to new gameplay.

The question that should be answered is this: why should spells cost reagents?

Arroth_Thaiel

Dot_Warner said:

Well, not to be a contrarian, but change for change's sake isn't good either. Particularly when it could be considered, at best, regressive....

At this point in UO, I don't want a return of camping the NPC mages so you can buy out their stock of X reagent before anyone else can....

While I'm in favor of expansions to gardening, I'm not sure how many people would jump at the chance to grow reagents en mass...

You and I are basically in the same boat here. I wouldn't want to see the system changed just to change it, but if it was worked into an expansion of gardening (or some other resource generating skill) then I could get behind it. Especially if it reworked all of the reagent process, from growth to harvest/refinement, to use.

Mining, lumberjacking, and fishing are all already mass resource production skills. If gardening (or whatever) got built out as a resource harvesting skill at that scale, I'm sure people would play gardener as well. Hey, you'd have a built in market if you reworked LRC! 

However, I also remember the days of recalling from shop to shop looking for regs. Still have a couple Mages Shops rune books actually. What a pain. No desire to return to that. You'd need some way for players to harvest and sell in huge quantity (like mining ingot quantities) and for NPC's to carry substantial quantities. None of the "this shop only stocks 10 of those" nonsense.

Dot_Warner said:

LRC isn't a binary yes/no equation.

What resource harvesters? Miners? Lumberjacks? Scripters? Who really "harvests" reagents from mobs or the environment?

By binary I just meant that with LRC you either use all your reagents, or none. You don't just use some. There is another way to build it where you could just use some, but it'd be a pretty big rework.

I guess I should have said "potential" reagent resource harvesters. Those harvesters who would show up if you built a whole new skill for them to play with. I don't know of anyone who harvests reagents from the environment at this point (maybe that one person on Stratics who says they still pick them up off the ground.)

I would love to see LRC reworked. But I'd like to see it done with the whole reagent system in mind. Gathering of the resource, crafting with the resource, use of the resource, and how a player would store it or access it at each stage.

Actually I'd like to see the dev team do that with...well the entire game.

Lieutenant_Dan

The difference between regs, chiv tithing and archers arrows is that when you die you still have tithing and arrows (on blessed quivers) with no need to loot your body and/or restock. 
But with regs you will either have to get to your body or restock elsewhere.  Even bandages are with you if you carry a couple insured robes and scissors to cut them up with.

I'm not really sure where this would help gameplay or the economy considering we've looooong moved past a resource based gameplay in favor of item based.  There really is no going back.

That being said my vote is no.

Dot_Warner

Deraj said:

100% LRC and reagent cost are contradictory concepts and do not make sense in the same context. Reagent cost is a component in a resource management design. If it is possible to completely side step the cost altogether it calls into question just what is the purpose of the reagent cost in the first place, and if any 100% LRC addicts in this thread have a shred of integrity in their soul at least have the decency of asking for LRC and reagent cost to be removed altogether instead of remaining with this bizarre and senseless situation. It makes zero sense to suggest that we should have both reagent cost and 100% LRC in the game at the same time - each negate the purpose of the other. Also have the decency and consistency to ask for 100% lower ammo cost and for the healing skill to not require bandages to use, if we're just going to continue down this path of neutering the game.

The horrors of the pre-LRC days are being way overblown. Was it perfect? No. But managing reagents wasn't nearly as bad. If LRC were to be capped at 50%-60% and the devs created quiver-equivalent reagent pouches, we'd have the best of both worlds, and we can open the doors to new gameplay.

The question that should be answered is this: why should spells cost reagents?

LRC doesn't "neuter the game," stop being hyperbolic. It also wouldn't "open the doors to new gameplay," nobody wants more crap in their pack to keep track of. UO needs things that are fun, not anal retentive. The argument that reagents still being a requirement and the existence of LRC being paradoxical is just a strawman.

Comparing reagents to ammo isn't a 1:1 comparison. Quivers reduce weight and consumption (granted, it could be increased), plus they can also be insured/blessed. Ammo is the only consumables for archery, barring special move costs.

Magic requires both mana (ammo) and reagents (obviated with LRC). Magic users ability to fight is limited in their mana pool (while archers can carry multiple quivers and healers can carry multiple insured bandage summoning talismans). Magic users also can't reach the same damage levels most melee characters enjoy on a regular basis* (only book slayers apply, no EoO bonus, poor distribution of elemental spells amongst the spell schools (i.e. magery's cold spells SUCK)).**

The idea of a reagent pouch was floated long ago, but the devs never seemed that interested in the idea. We got LRC instead. Again, the idea that 15 years later, people have decided to complain, is laughable. 

* While WoD can do upwards of 800 damage, its usefulness is limited and brief.

** The disparity between the ridiculous ease of maxing melee DI compared to achieving the highest SDI (which tends to cripple the mage in some manner - unless you run the best gear) should also be mentioned.