NEW HAVEN 5 minutes "downtime" for Escorts.... is it too long ?

popps

I recently have been trying to raise up a character on a Shard from scratch, and, since it is too weak to fight anything, I was making good use of the 500 gp available for Escorting services to place in New Haven.

I noticed the 5 minutes down time...

Now, I do understand the need to avoid players to "abuse" of it but c'mon, it is only 500 gp per escorting service...

It is not like one can become filfthy rich in UO by doing that at 500 gp per escort service, and it would be boring as hell anyways....

Furthermore, it is usefull only as long as a player has hard time killing anything with a decent payout in gold which is for a very short time, considering that lots of low creatures have a payout in gold not much less then 500 gp....

Should this 5 minutes downtime be lifted or at least reduced to only a couple of minutes, perhaps ?

TimSt

All escort quests have the 5 minute downtime.  It is not just the gold but also the accumulation of compassion points.  That is probably the reason for the 5 minutes.

Cady

A lot of us players are getting a bit older and five minutes downtime between escorts is pretty impressive to us.

MissE

Yes. 

Frankly the ONLY reason I do escorts these days is for compassion.  You can ONLY gain off the first 5 you do in a day so it isn't like you can chain em to go from 0-knight in a day.  The fact you can only do 5 negates the need to put a cooldown of 5 mins on them at all.  All it does is drags out a 5 minute job to 25 minutes and is just a pain for pains sake. 

When gold was hard to get and 100k was a lot of money in the dark ages then perhaps there was a need. But now... it needs to be removed

Killing ONE miasma or ONE Oni or Two Dragons in less than a minute will net you more gold so that is hardly a reason to keep that 5 min cooldown on them. MUCH better ways to make gold than escorts. 

Perhaps it wouldn't be a hard thing to remove and just make keeping up your compassion quicker and less of a grind.  @Kyronix

popps

TimSt said:

All escort quests have the 5 minute downtime.  It is not just the gold but also the accumulation of compassion points.  That is probably the reason for the 5 minutes.

Since I was doing them for the gold, as I said, it is a brand new character on a Shard with no help at all, so, it is a start from "scratch" and, with the difficulties to even kill mongbats, these 500 gp are the only realistic and steady help towards making some decent gold to then purchase a full suit, raise up skills etc. etc.

I had not thought about using Escorts for Compassion....

Perhaps, then, a solution could be to "increase" the Gold that is given per escorts ?

Even making it 3,000 gp per escort won't make anything to veteran players who may be doing them for the Compassion Virtue, as mentioned, the Compassion Virtue can only be gained in 24 hours over the first 5 Escorts, then it does not get added, and that is, 25 minutes and, at 3,000 gp per escort, 15,000 gp which, while being very good money to a new player, to a veteran player might be nothing....

Would 15,000 gp over about half an hour be too much ?

I do not think so, considering that Veteran players can get them in minutes, with the right hunts....

Anyways, I just thought that 500 gp and 5 minutes downtime where not much helpfull at all for a new character, and thought to speak up about that.

Marge

Which Shard?

popps

Marge said:

Which Shard?

What do you mean "which" Shard ?

This is a mechanics that is in place, likewise, on ALL Shards, not sure about Siege Perilous....

Petra_Fyde

I can't say I've ever done these quests to get gold for a new character, my priority has always been the accelerated gains quests to raise skill, however gain quests and escort quests can be taken at the same time, so why not fill in the 5 minute wait by gaining skill?

MissE

Petra_Fyde said:

I can't say I've ever done these quests to get gold for a new character, my priority has always been the accelerated gains quests to raise skill, however gain quests and escort quests can be taken at the same time, so why not fill in the 5 minute wait by gaining skill?

Doesn't solve the problem when you use them for gaining compassion.  It is an outdated system that just needs the cooldown removed.  There is really no need for it that makes any logical sense.

Petra_Fyde

possibly.  I don't use them for gaining compassion. I have a considerable stock of compassion sage from Blackthorn's dungeon. 1 bottle of sage = a full day's worth of escort quests.

Marge

popps said:

Marge said:

Which Shard?

What do you mean "which" Shard ?

This is a mechanics that is in place, likewise, on ALL Shards, not sure about Siege Perilous....

I simply meant what shard did you create your new characters on because some guilds help new to the shard people. If we knew which shard your new toons are on maybe someone could help point you in their direction.

Aenvar

I do these quests constantly, whenever I take breaks during crafting sessions. I love them but I don’t see myself farming them, not even in a new shard. 

Yes I’d like to see the timer reduced but I can live with the 5 minutes.

Drowy

You can escort Bravehorn instead. No delay, but have to wait a bit sometimes for him to respawn, especially when you dont kill him after completion. Still alot faster than the other escorts, no gold tho.

Chrille

They took away the karma loss from killing Bravehorn aswell.

Bilbo

If they did not have a timer how many escorts could one do in an hour, I would guess what maybe 30 for 15K gold an hour.  Is that really worth it?

popps

Bilbo said:

If they did not have a timer how many escorts could one do in an hour, I would guess what maybe 30 for 15K gold an hour.  Is that really worth i

If those escorts are intended for brand new characters, usually, brand new characters are not yet able to kill anything above a mongbat....

Therefore, for a brand new character it still would be good money as they do not have much better alternatives that i could think of....

MissE

Bottom line is there is no need for a 5 minute cooldown, it should just be removed. Not sure why it would even need any kinda discussion.

Bilbo

popps said:

Bilbo said:

If they did not have a timer how many escorts could one do in an hour, I would guess what maybe 30 for 15K gold an hour.  Is that really worth i

If those escorts are intended for brand new characters, usually, brand new characters are not yet able to kill anything above a mongbat....

Therefore, for a brand new character it still would be good money as they do not have much better alternatives that i could think of....

WRONG  A brand new pally can kill anything out there on Haven well that is assuming you have a clue what you are doing.  There are tons of quests for new players so they gain skills faster if you took the time to read about them.  Bottom line is if you can not kill an ettin on a new player you are clueless and 15K gold an hour aint gonna by squat.

Bilbo

MissE said:

Bottom line is there is no need for a 5 minute cooldown, it should just be removed. Not sure why it would even need any kinda discussion.

Agree for your reason stated but what popps is trying to get is totally useless esp for a new player, they will get board as hell and quit trying to make money this way and for a 20+ year vet thinking this is a way to make gold has no clue how to make a new char.

MissE

yeah all a new char needs to do these days is get enough carto to decode stash maps, and basic magery to kill mongbats and cast magic unlock lol.  Since the tmap nerf is more gold in low level maps + gems make a mil in a week easy.

popps

MissE said:

yeah all a new char needs to do these days is get enough carto to decode stash maps, and basic magery to kill mongbats and cast magic unlock lol.  Since the tmap nerf is more gold in low level maps + gems make a mil in a week easy.

But "how" a new character is supposed to get sufficient stash Maps since, I understand, the drop rate is 1 in a hundred ?

We need to remember here, that a new character starts from scratch so, without an existing stock of "to do" Maps....

MissE

All you need is to get a 'friend' on whatever shard you are on to do dark guardians in doom for 15 mins and you will have enough low end malas maps to make a mint.

Urge

MissE said:

All you need is to get a 'friend' on whatever shard you are on to do dark guardians in doom for 15 mins and you will have enough low end malas maps to make a mint.

Pets count as "friends" and add to the guardian count. I'm surprised this hasn't been nerfed yet. They're so easy to kill and it's a guaranteed map drop.

Margrette

popps said:

I recently have been trying to raise up a character on a Shard from scratch, and, since it is too weak to fight anything, I was making good use of the 500 gp available for Escorting services to place in New Haven.

@popps, if the character is too weak to fight stuff, take a look at which skills it has and focus on raising the ones that lead to increases in the Strength stat.  The table on this page might be helpful:  https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/player/stats/skills-stats-and-attributes/  

Another idea would be to just make another character with higher strength and then delete the original weakling character.

I think people could give you better feedback if you would indicate if your primary goal with this new character is to gather gold or improve it's weapon fighting skills.  There have been many, many posts made here and on Stratics over the years of ideas for raising gold on a new character, so I'm guessing that's not the issue and instead your frustration lies in the character's current build.  Give us more information and I'm sure someone can tell you how to quickly get it past the stage of being "too weak to fight anything."

Here is one example of a way you could make more gold with this character:  Between escorts, go kill bats behind the mage building in Haven.  Put a weapon in the character's hand.   Lock the weapon skill, focus, anatomy, and tactics if you're not trying to build a dexxer.   It's an almost painless way to raise a little extra gold to go with the gold from escorts.  Boring but pretty painless.  The plain old mongbats are pushovers.   Or go kill the sheep and gather the wool.  Again, put a weapon in hand and lock the related skills if you're not making a dexxer.  Make cloth and well it back to the npcs or fill bods and turn those in.  Anyway, I'm venturing into gold-making ideas and I'm sure there are much, much better ones out there for you to read if you but look for them.

If you're doing this on Mugen, just go kill the easy stuff like the bats between escorts. I doubt you'll be griefed there.  And you couldn't be doing this on Siege because it has no Haven.  

Margrette

popps said:

MissE said:

yeah all a new char needs to do these days is get enough carto to decode stash maps, and basic magery to kill mongbats and cast magic unlock lol.  Since the tmap nerf is more gold in low level maps + gems make a mil in a week easy.

But "how" a new character is supposed to get sufficient stash Maps since, I understand, the drop rate is 1 in a hundred ?

We need to remember here, that a new character starts from scratch so, without an existing stock of "to do" Maps....

You could try fishing.  You'll start getting sodden pieces of parchment around 75.5 (with no sea serpent spawn) and sea serpents with sodden pieces of parchment around 81.0.