Pub 104 - Rising Tide Event

Victim_Of_Siege

my .02 on the plunderbeacon. My personal opinion is they take a lot of time and ammo to defeat for the amount of drops you get.  I have been able to to get the same and more drops from the Pirate/Merchant ships, plus a return of ammo and of course the resources.  I do like the design and the encounter though, it is fun to try and kill the orcs without getting scuttled. possible give more drops of the maritime loot and maybe an ammo barrel to recoup a little ammo from it. Possibly even an orc ship part or two. 

Grace

I do like pirate hunting the most for the roleplay and it is not terribly hard to do. The merchant ships, gargoyles anyway, are a bit of a challenge but doable. Both encounters are fun and am having a blast!

The plunderbeacon, well, it is going to teach me some sailing skills I need that is for sure!

Was able to off one side of orcs, hightail it out for repairs, then go back to the other side.
Alot of cannonballs used on the lighthouse. Can we do damage with spells to it pretty please?

LilyGrace

Victim_Of_Siege said:

my .02 on the plunderbeacon. My personal opinion is they take a lot of time and ammo to defeat for the amount of drops you get.  I have been able to to get the same and more drops from the Pirate/Merchant ships, plus a return of ammo and of course the resources.  I do like the design and the encounter though, it is fun to try and kill the orcs without getting scuttled. possible give more drops of the maritime loot and maybe an ammo barrel to recoup a little ammo from it. Possibly even an orc ship part or two. 

Yes. I think you've put it better than I. The design and encounter is enjoyable. The loot needs adjustment.

Kyronix

I agree, plans to adjust the quality of the cargo are in the works!

the lighthouse takes damage from magic and ranged weapons too!

ZekeTerra

I only had a short time to test it so far, but I destroyed a Merchant ship, killing the crew but nothing dropped in my pack.  I did get 3 parcels from the boxes and hull of the scuttled ship and turned them in to the box in Brit Commons.  What are the rewards or turn-in points going to be?

Grace

I originally tried ebolt on the lighthouse, it did nothing, which is why I thought you can't use spells against it.

So I tried again today, ebolt zero damage again. Then tried Death Ray and again nothing.Then tried flamestrike and that did do some damage which was nice to do in between cannon shots. But in the end flamestriking it maybe saved me one cannonball.

So I gather the lighthouse has 100 energy resist? Would have been nice to use Death Ray since it is so rare to get an opponent that just stands there hehe.

Victim_Of_Siege

Grace said:

I originally tried ebolt on the lighthouse, it did nothing, which is why I thought you can't use spells against it.

So I tried again today, ebolt zero damage again. Then tried Death Ray and again nothing.Then tried flamestrike and that did do some damage which was nice to do in between cannon shots. But in the end flamestriking it maybe saved me one cannonball.

So I gather the lighthouse has 100 energy resist? Would have been nice to use Death Ray since it is so rare to get an opponent that just stands there hehe.

All you’re doing by hitting a lighthouse with energy is making it brighter 

lkatana0011

ok so the beacons are interesting but way too easy.
took out like 3 or 4 and suffered little to no damage.
maybe its just because im a legendary master at sea battles.
no thats not me being cocky but ive been soloing pirate ships from day 1 of the high seas beta release.
so the tally is
3 becons
2 tokuno merchents
1 gargoyal merchent
1 pirate ship

ship went from no damage to moderate damage
of that most was gotten from the pirate ship.  
the last beacon i took out my ship was still listed as slightly damage.

took out a well part of a beacon. BUG!!
the orcs spawned on the ocean but no beacon

as for the beacons not sure what the wanted mechanic is but the method i used was hit and run attack. which is the same attack ive used against the pirates for years.  its an old naval combat technique called crossing the T.  its not as easy to do in UO because ships instant turn of flip around.  the technique comes from the sea battles with the old sailing ships.  You come about upon your target crossing in front or behind their ship allowing you to fire your side cannons while minimizing their ability to fire back..  then move away and reload for another run. its very effective against hostile ships that can maneuver and fallow you.  and against those stationary beacons well its candy from babies.

now i dont know the idea behind the beacons is supposed to be but doing say we say a drive by or in this case a sail by on the side with the small cannons you can take them out in just a couple cannon shots.  dont wast your time with the orcs.  as they say just blast the ship out from under them. or in this case the beacon.

took the first out using the cross the T method and the last two merely by using my bow cannon. sailed in straight at it of with the light house directly in front of me.  fired 1 shot then backed up out of range to reload and just repeated the process.  took them out in like 3 or so hits from heavy cannons using cannon balls.  

lkatana0011

ok so now the light house cant be hurt so im guessing its supposed to be kill the orcs and then the light house will be vulnerable .

though im still finding lots of Jesus orcs ( they walk on water) or at least stand on it.
had like 3 more just standing on water tell i found the next beacon

lkatana0011

ok so recalled out to switch pets and came back to the beacon but it was destroyed.
the first 2 i found actually self destructed i saw them do it so not sure if this is intended or not.

ZekeTerra

I've taken out 8-10 Merchant and Orc ships so far.  Haven't found one of the Lighthouse things yet but  have seen the Jesus Orcs (water walkers) a few times.  I've turned in over 20 parcels by now on my Pirate Jack Sparrow.  BTW this has been in Tokuno.  I love the new machanics of just loading up the cannons with a stack of cannon balls, fuses and powder and hitting Prep and 10 seconds later hitting Fire.  Gives me plenty of time to shoot arrows at the crew.

Garth_Grey

@kyronix ;  

You've changed the way ships move for players in this first update, at least as far as the EC is concerned. I used to be able to drive my ship at an angle, but now it simply turns the ship either left or right, which  alerts other ships and makes them move away, and has always been annoying.

Kyronix

Garth_Grey said:

@ kyronix   

You've changed the way ships move for players in this first update, at least as far as the EC is concerned. I used to be able to drive my ship at an angle, but now it simply turns the ship either left or right, which  alerts other ships and makes them move away, and has always been annoying.

Are you referring to when using mouse control?

Garth_Grey

I have the same mouse I've always used. In order to speed the ship up to fast speed you move the cursor of course farther away, now when I do this, the ship is more prone to turning instead  of moving in that direction with the ship still facing it's original direction. This is in reference to the NE,NW,SE,SW directions.

ZekeTerra

Finally found a beacon and took it out.  It scuttled our ship (there were 2 of  us) even though the orcs on that side of the ship had been taken out.  Limped to a nearby island, repaired the ship (replacing a cannon that poofed (exploded?)) and went back to finish the job.  Got scuttled again but we were able to take out the orcs and destroy the lighthouse.  Speaking of scuttling the ship, is it possible for us to get Commodity Deeds in the Resource Bag when you get them at the bank, instead of the material.  The bank is too full to add them once you give the command to get the resources so you have a hard time getting the wood to the ship.  I end up having to dump most of the stuff in the bank (oh and there's no trash barrel in Brit or Luna) just to make room to add the commodity deeds so I can transfer the materials to my ship (or my house).


All in all my friend Damia and I had a lot of fun hunting down the ships and the beacon.  I've turned in about 30 or so now, but am curious as to what the rewards will be.  BTW the cargo looks awesome and we've kept one of each color for deco lol.

Kyronix

Garth_Grey said:

I have the same mouse I've always used. In order to speed the ship up to fast speed you move the cursor of course farther away, now when I do this, the ship is more prone to turning instead  of moving in that direction with the ship still facing it's original direction. This is in reference to the NE,NW,SE,SW directions.

This will be resolved - thanks for the report!

LilyGrace

I know we're moving onto loot found on Treasure Maps and MIBS which is very exciting! But I'd like to add to my wish list here. I'd love to see granite added as looy found on Pirate and Merchant ships.

Thanks!

ZekeTerra

Did 2 more Beacons tonight.  Ship got scuttled twice on each one.  The cannons didn't damage the Lighthouse on the 2nd one.  Only got 2 drops (both from Orcs) on the 2nd one.  The battles took quite a while with 3 of us running cannons and using weapons.  The damage done to our ship and time to fix it and kill the beacon the rewards weren't as good as attacking Merchant and Orc ships.  They don't take nearly as long, not much damage to our ship and the drop rate was about double of what the beacons were.  Still enjoying the experience and the changes made to the cannon firing and the graphics were spot on.  I have not spent time creating supplies since we only had a limited time so far (about an hour each night) but I plan on taking a look at that process over the weekend.  Oh and give us Pirate Flags to add to our ships

Kyronix

ZekeTerra said:

Did 2 more Beacons tonight.  Ship got scuttled twice on each one.  The cannons didn't damage the Lighthouse on the 2nd one.  Only got 2 drops (both from Orcs) on the 2nd one.  The battles took quite a while with 3 of us running cannons and using weapons.  The damage done to our ship and time to fix it and kill the beacon the rewards weren't as good as attacking Merchant and Orc ships.  They don't take nearly as long, not much damage to our ship and the drop rate was about double of what the beacons were.  Still enjoying the experience and the changes made to the cannon firing and the graphics were spot on.  I have not spent time creating supplies since we only had a limited time so far (about an hour each night) but I plan on taking a look at that process over the weekend.  Oh and give us Pirate Flags to add to our ships

What do you suppose is giving the beacon the edge - amount of cannons and time to fire?

LilyGrace

Looy? Who's looy? lol I meant loot of course.

We did a couple more beacons last night. We pulled away for repairs once with each encounter, repairing before getting scuttled. We ended up not positioning ourselves broadside where we catch full on cannon fire but instead inch up to the corners to take out two orcs on each corner. It takes awhile to dispatch all of the crew this way but our ship holds up a lot better and we burn through a lot less wood, cloth and ingots for repairs. We took the beacon out using archery, spells and the cannon at the bow of our ship.

I'm sorry I didn't pay enough attention to the drops we got. So I can't report on that. I'll pay more attention next time. I just dropped the items off in the barrel without really knowing what came from what. :-/

Maximus_Neximus

Khyro said:

LilyGrace said:

Re: Repairs
We went through a ridiculous amount of materials to keep ship repaired. If removing some of the tedium from HS adventures is of interest, I think we need a ship repair kit that holds a boatload of wood, cloth and ingots. I think it's tedious to keep peeling various materials out of the hold. I think it'd be awesome to double click a loaded repair kit and target the ship.

I like the idea. A craftable repair kit would be really convenient. At the very least I would love to see the 'Permanent Repair' option use materials directly out of the ship's hold.

A craftable repair kit sounds amazing

lkatana0011

I have noticed that ship battles haven't been to interesting.  i just took out a pirate ship via shooting it from behind using cannon balls only.  The pirate ship didnt even attempt to move at all and they didnt even deploy their cannons until i had done enough damage for the ship artwork to change and display that it has been damaged.  I also watched the cannons and as far as i could tell is they never fired even once.  And it doesnt look like this bug is just with pirate ships but merchants as well.  I remember when high seas first came out both the merchants and pirates would have deployed cannons and they were always using them.  even watched a pirate ship and a merchant ship locked in battle with each other.  it was fun as heck to watch.  the other things i have noticed is many times i find merchant ships and they arnt moving at all and they dont either even with me firing on them.  They only start to move if i recall out and recall back or i turn my ship if i maneuver my ship using the forward, back, left, right commands only they will just sit there and let me scuttle them and never fire back or move to escape.  

Though this saves me massive resources on ship and cannon repairs it dont make for a very interesting battle.

lkatana0011

sense i play on a very small shard i have been doing all my testing solo in tc1 as this will most likely be the way ill have to target these beacons once this goes live to all shards.  I dont have combat chars for the most part.  I use tamers for most of my combat.  I have notice that even using a row boat i cant get close enough to the orcs for my pet to be able to attack them.  Dont know if this suposed to be the point or not and havent had a chance to test cannons at least aginst the orcs them selves.  Ill have to test this part later.

lkatana0011

Last thought for now.
how is the dispersment of pirate ships merchant ships and beacons.
im hoping to see these beacons to be very prolific not just on the nabor hood of jeholem not to mention more pirate ships and merchant ships.  I have been farming merchant sips and pirate ships only in tokuno and only along a very small area were they seem to be most common.  But i have still had days that its taken me as much as an hour of sailing around before finding my first ship to go after.  

now i normally target merchant ships because this is how i farm resources and the pirate ships loot was so horrible that unless you were specifically hunting pirates for ship parts then there was no point to even bother with them.   Hoping that maybe you will also kick up pirate ship loot. 

We got the merchant ships which are great for crafting resources.  
think it would be a super good idea to kick up ship repair resources on pirate ships 600-900 or so of ingots cloth and boards.  Would make a huge difference for people out hunting on the seas would make the pirate ships worth the trouble of battling them out side of the farming pirates for ship plans.

lkatana0011

ok i lied its not the last thought.

well this is not so much a thought its a bug report.
I left the pirate ship i just scuttled to look for another target and again ive run into a set or orcs standing on the water with out the beacon.  Though this does allow me to get close enough to the orcs with my ship so my dragon can fight them. 

lkatana0011

so used my frost dragon and cannons with grape shot.  
I let my dragon fight the ones that were on the side of the ship it could reach and used my
cannons with grape shot.  The interesting thing is the cannons didnt do any damage to any of the orcs that were aginst the side of my ship so it basically fired over their heads and hit the orcs on the other side.  the cannons did kill 2 of the orcs in the center they were bombers or something like that.  and the end 2 were mages the mages kept using heal spell and the cannons could not kill them because they would just cast heal and i finally had to move my ship up next to them so my dragon could kill them

Now for damage calculations I was using an orc ship.
my damage to the orcs with the cannons seemed to remain at less then 100 damage with every hit.  considering the orcs all had over 2000 hp it took over well over 20 shots of grape shot.  I forgot to check my cannon for now much ammo it had before i started the fight so i have no idea how many shots i started with.  But when i did remember i should have checked that so i did at that point i did check and i had 17 shots in the cannon and i had already fired well over 10 shots already.  And i did use up all 17 shots and had to reload to finish killing the remaining 1 orc that wasnt a mage and the 2 mages i used another 5 or so shots and with all the healing they did i finaly decided to take them out with my dragon which only took a min or less where as the cannon took a very long time 5-10 min at least.  So glad they didnt have the beacon with its cannons because they would have taken me out several times over with out much effort on their part.

Garth_Grey

lkatana0011 said:

I have noticed that ship battles haven't been to interesting.  i just took out a pirate ship via shooting it from behind using cannon balls only.  The pirate ship didnt even attempt to move at all and they didnt even deploy their cannons until i had done enough damage for the ship artwork to change and display that it has been damaged.  I also watched the cannons and as far as i could tell is they never fired even once.  And it doesnt look like this bug is just with pirate ships but merchants as well.  I remember when high seas first came out both the merchants and pirates would have deployed cannons and they were always using them.  even watched a pirate ship and a merchant ship locked in battle with each other.  it was fun as heck to watch.  the other things i have noticed is many times i find merchant ships and they arnt moving at all and they dont either even with me firing on them.  They only start to move if i recall out and recall back or i turn my ship if i maneuver my ship using the forward, back, left, right commands only they will just sit there and let me scuttle them and never fire back or move to escape.  

Though this saves me massive resources on ship and cannon repairs it dont make for a very interesting battle.

You don't have a clue what you're talking about do you ? I've never once seen a merchant ship fire it's cannons at anyone, ever, until this latest publish. And I think I know what I"m talking about...

Petra_Fyde

May I heartily recommend a lumberjack's satchel when repairing the ship? Reduces the number of trips to the hold for lumber quite nicely.

Cinderella

Petra_Fyde said:

May I heartily recommend a lumberjack's satchel when repairing the ship? Reduces the number of trips to the hold for lumber quite nicely.

when you repair the ship, can the boards be inside another container or do they have to be in your main backpack? this would be a good idea if that would work, but I'd rather, to do repairs, that they should come from your hold

LilyGrace

Went after a pirate ship last night. The pirate ship's health was at 50% and it sunk. Started to sail away because there was no way to board it. Then it popped back up again and could be finished off.

Edit: Oops...meant to add... Went after a beacon this morning. I took on a good bit of damage and had to go do repairs a couple times. Orc crew was dispatched and I was taking out the lighthouse when I had to go do repairs for the second time. It only took a couple minutes before I got back into position to fire on the lighthouse again when it blew up on its own because of the timer I suppose. I thought the timer reset once the Orc crew and beacon were engaged in battle. No? Because that's a bummer to have invested a good bit of time, be in the middle of fighting it, and it blows up on its own. :-(