Despawning if no one is in the area for a while?

Goldie

It would make no difference if they put a despawn timer on the paragons.  They would go back and ensure that the paragons were paragons once again once they figured out the timers.  plus their always there so they would know.

I have no problem with paragons, just a rope to tie it to an area maybe :P 


p.s.
My suggestion for next event, a rope to tie a paragon to a desired room or hallway and only cost 5 item drops   
A broken table top to go with my broken table legs, that actually stack together  10 item of drops cost
An imbuing item that gives 1 charge for a special item  like say splinter   50 turn in points

Marge

Estel_Randir said:

I almost always play a toe to toe melee. I have several melee characters that I normally use for these events. Just for the heck of it, I tried my mystic/mage/weaver (no taming) for about a week in the ice dungeon event. It was not enjoyable at all. The paragons (especially since they are beefed up), make a pure casters life heck. I have 150 SDI, top end arties, & every slayer book available. So, yeah, I can kill them with effort. But holy crap, without a pet to distract them, you spend most of the time running for your life trying to kite them. I switched back to my melee after that week. Just not worth the effort for me.

I used my mage (same as yours) the entire time - but I love my mage. By the end of it, I had even gotten the knack for killing the drakes without dying. (O - there's a reward for the next one - drake slayers!) It is a lot of running back and forth in order to cast and not die but I mainly play my mage for fighting so I'm use to it.

Arnold7

Yes, mages run a lot.  Let the paragon chase you while you get far enough ahead to get the time you need to cast a spell and let the paragon run into it.  That’s why it’s important to keep working your route to keep it as clear of enemy’s as you can.

Arroth_Thaiel

CovenantX said:

Kyronix said:

Yup, mo' points mo' phat lootz.  Paragons will give more points.

 It must not be enough extra points over non-paragons to make a noticeable difference.

I haven't tracked anything, so I don't have the data to prove it, but I think there is an increase in points based off paragon difficulty. I.E. some type of modifier based off creature strength. 

I always use gold as a proxy for points with this mechanic, so my guess is something like this (these are just made up numbers to illustrate my thinking - again I haven't done any tracking for this):

Creature	Gold (Normal)	Points (Normal)	Gold (Paragon)	Modifier (Paragon)	Points (Paragon)
Skeleton	50	50	65	0.01	66
Lich	150	150	225	0.1	248
Poison Elemental	600	600	1000	2	3000

In other words, if we're just killing paragon lich's we're not going to notice much difference, but if we're killing the paragons of the hardest monsters, it noticeably impacts our drop rate. At least this is what I experience with this mechanic.


Some caveats:

1. There is a background mechanic reducing the points per creature as we fight the same creature repeatedly (Or fight in the same area repeatedly?). (Wouldn't be surprised if paragons are considered "normal" for this calculation, so by the time we clear an area and force a paragon to spawn, it's reduced in point value - for us anyway, not for a new player entering the area who has not been killing that creature).   

2. I think the points split between damagers (Top 16 damagers maybe? That was the Doom mechanic.)

3. I'm not sure the points reset when the creature regen's to full health, if the other damagers are still in that "location".

4. Faster for my mage to kill 20 Lichs than 1 Paragon Poison Elemental (couldn't do it!), so alot of this is still going to be down to personal/character ability.

5. UO's RNG. We both know that UO is not going to be "you get a drop at 20k points". It's probably more like: you most often get a drop between 18-24k points, but you can get a drop anywhere from 8k-64k points. The tails on the UO-bell curve are spectacular. This also makes it difficult to see exactly how paragon's factor into your drop rate, even paragons with lots of "points". 

keven2002

IIRC the way the treasures drops work is based on damage done which converts to points. This is a very watered down explanation of what is likely in place but essentially I think once you get to X amount of damage done (aka "points") you get a drop. 

Rough example based on my understanding:
If a non-para WW has 500hp then you would get around 500 points. 
If a para WW has 1000hp then you would get 1000 points. 

So while yes you do get "double the points" from killing a paragon it's only because you have to deal double the damage to kill it.

@Kyronix - Can we get a little more clarity on the paragon piece as it relates to "boatloads on points"? Does it work as I've outlined above; essentially the only reason it's more points is because it's more HP to take damage?

Or is it where paragons actually have a multiplier used so that for each point of damage done to a paragon you get like twice the credit for damage (in the above example someone might get 2000 points for killing a 1000hp WW)?

I have a feeling the way it works is the former rather than latter but it's pretty hard to test anything with much consistency when paragons spawn randomly so I can't kill X amount of WW vs X amount of para WW to compare so confirmation here would be helpful.

Thanks!

Arroth_Thaiel

@keven2002 I too will be interested to see how much background info the team is willing to provide for this mechanic (betting it's not much more than what they've already said!).

Whether we use HP or gold as a proxy for "points", we are both asking the same question. Good luck!

Kyronix

All these calculations are based on the creatures fame, for paragons we override it based on a multiplier so it's worth the fight.  Also important to note the system works by rolling every time you kill a creature.  So it is very likely you could have a situation where you kill a paragon which gives you enough points to fall into "more likely than not" territory RNG wise, then when you kill the next creatures and you roll - BAM! phat lootz!

Pawain

In Deceit, my tamer would sit at the entry to gate dead players out or kill Paragons the NOOBs had on the first floor.  He got drops at a lot higher drops/kill than my dexxer running around.  But usually it is faster to kill more stuff and get drops. I think it is a good mix.

Now we know the secret.... Fame on the non paras.  Mariah guessed that from Deceit.

Arroth_Thaiel

Yeah, I saw Mariah's post about Fame as well. Fame makes sense. Thanks for the info Kyronix!

keven2002

Awesome to understand how the Phat lootz work, thanks @Kyronix!

Since paragons are given some sort of multiplier then I think they should not despawn. I've typically been the person in Deceit and Ice to kill the large amounts of para's simply because it gives me a little more of a challenge and breaks up the monotony of running around double striking every monster I see.

popps

Arnold7 said:

Yes, mages run a lot.  Let the paragon chase you while you get far enough ahead to get the time you need to cast a spell and let the paragon run into it.  That’s why it’s important to keep working your route to keep it as clear of enemy’s as you can.

@Marge & @Arnold7 ;

I am curious, do your Mages run Protection or not ?

The reason I am asking, is that, while in PvP one can somewhat handle not using Protection but using low level spells which have a lower chance to get interrupted, in PvM, considering the hit points that MoBs have, using low circle spells makes it quite more difficult to tear down the health bar of a Paragon, for example....

Yet, with Protection on, the casting of higher level spells is sooooo slow that often, by the time one can actually hit the Paragon, the Paragon, due to its ultra high speed, has already reached the caster (casting freezes the Template and prevents moving....) and hit it for some hefty damage....

While Warriors can hit while on the run, unfortunately this for spellcasters, especially if they use Protection, seems to me quite an impossible thing.... so, how do you actually get to fight Paragons?

Mystics are also at a gross disadvantage.... in order to cast a Rising Colossus, which is a 5 slot summon, they are forced to be on foot which, with Paragons around, does not seem a good thing to do, considering their ultra fast speed and ability to reveal "no matter what"....

McDougle

a mage/mystic fights just like a tamer get the mobs on your summons then cast away run a little invis move invis again ... it is not hard ...

popps

keven2002 said:

Awesome to understand how the Phat lootz work, thanks @ Kyronix!

Since paragons are given some sort of multiplier then I think they should not despawn. I've typically been the person in Deceit and Ice to kill the large amounts of para's simply because it gives me a little more of a challenge and breaks up the monotony of running around double striking every monster I see.

I do not see that connection....

I mean, the despawn would only occur if no player is interacting (hitting) for X time.

If a player is hitting them, their despawn timer would get interrupted giving the player the ability to kill it.

The way I see it, is that the despawn code would act in those scenarios where some players go to a dungeon, start hitting stuff to get looting rights but not actually kill them and cash on more points and thus drops which then spawns tons upon tons of Paragons which are left behind for newcomers to have to deal with.

Having a despawn code for Paragons, especially if with a short timer, would instead work as an incentive for players to actually WANT to go fight AND kill those Paragons right as they spawn so as to actually get those extra points from them.... if the Paragon they just landed a few hits to get looting rights was to despawn, because they moved elsewhere to land some more hits (without killing) for more looting rights, they would have wasted their time all for nothing....

What I am trying to say is, that if the actual goal is to have paragons be fought and killed, putting in despawn code with a short timer for them would actuallt work towards incentivate players to work for this precise goal, attack Paragons as they spawn and not just land a few hits on them for looting rights, but want to go for the entire fight and kill them....

At least, that is how I see it.

Pawain

@popps the paragons are not going to despawn.  Move to some other complaint.

Or learn to play UO before the next event.

Go to Chaos and kill Balrons with your pet until you can kill those paragons with no problems.

Arnold7

To Popps

My mages run with protection, reactive armor and refect.  Without protection I get that concentration disturbed message all of the time.  I did not have any problems with the ice elementals but the other spell caster paragons were a pain. I did not attempt to solo them.  Don’t know how many hit points they had but my spells barely moved their life lines and the rat mages were not worth the effort it took to kill them. Seems like almost all of the computer generated spell casters in this game can cast two or three spells in the time it takes me to cast just one.  I could solo paragon ogres by running and casting.  I used slayer spellbooks a lot.

popps

Arnold7 said:

To Popps

Seems like almost all of the computer generated spell casters in this game can cast two or three spells in the time it takes me to cast just one.

Indeed, something looks to me very wrong with Protection as it is... it slows way too much a caster and, as you mentioned, MoBs are not affected by any of that.... they can cast just fine without being interrupted by any hits hitting them which would make one assume that they have also Protection on YET, somehow, MoBs casting speed is not affected by that at all....

The end result is that, while a plyer with Protection on can barely cast 1 spell, the MoBs can cast in that same time well like a good 3 spells.....

The most incredible thing to me, though, is that this gross disadvantage for spellcasters also stays against dexers.... while dexers can hit every 1.25 seconds, most spells that spellcasters cast take way longer then that, if they have Protection on. Of course, this puts spellcasters at quite some disadvantage as their ability to get anything done is artificially slowed down, and quite some....

That is why, I guess, we see more and more Warriors out there and quite only very few spellcasters.... spellcasters (and Tamers,and Bards, and Rogues etc. with them) have been nerfed so much in their Template that it is simply not worth the hassle playing those Templates, much more effective to use a Warrior.... which, though, to my opinion, is sad because it reduces Ultima Online's variety and assortment of really playable Templates....

Just think about it.... why would anyone want to go through all of the hassles of "trying" to play a Spellcaster, a Tamer, a Bard, a Rogue with all of their limitations and obstacles put in through tons of nerfs to them over the Years when they can just put up a Warrior and go hit every 1.25 seconds a go-go and not care about being revealed all the time, being retargeted all the time, being outsped by a Paragon ?

Marge

My mage has always run protection; so after over 20 years I'm use to her casting speed. I could solo kill all the paragons in Ice - many times without even dying even on the drakes. If help was offered, sure it was great - went much faster; but if not; I killed them myself and moved on. My mage is 120 magery, eval, mysticism, focus, Spellweaving, and med. I use the SW 3 primer. I have around 135 hit points, 230 mana, way too much mana regen, and with the invasion spellbooks I was using had about 80 sdi.

Like someone said above, find a spot where you have running room and check it often and try to keep it as clear as you can. When there is a para you can't shake take it there and kill it. It takes a few kills to work out the distance you need to run to have time to cast. Some paragons, you can take a hit or two before you have to run to heal. The first week was a lot of trial and error and death. This is what worked best for me.

The ones below I could stand there and let them hit me while I killed them:

Frost Oozes - Ice Slayer and used 1 flamestrike FS) - gotta love overkill!

Ice Snake - Ice Slayer and used a FS (think some needed an e bolt too)

Frost Spiders - Ice Slayer and used 1 FS and then 1 e-bolt

Rats - Ice Slayer (I have a vermin slayer but I had enough spellbooks to deal with and they died easy enough.) The mages took a few more FSs than the other two.

Giant Ice Serpent - Ice Slayer and used couple of FSs

Frost Trolls - Ice Slayer and used a few FSs

Ice Elemental - Snow Elemental Slayer - 2 FSs

Snow Elemental - Snow Elemental Slayer and a few FSs with heals in between

This second group I ran them to the long hallway by the WW nest area (if they hadn't died on the trip):

Ice Fiend - Ice Slayer and FSs (These really weren't too bad as long as you stayed ahead of them.)

Artic Ogre Lords  - Ogre Slayer and FSs (These would hit me for around 40 so as long I healed after a hit I was fine. I tried EVs but found they one hit killed them so it wasn't worth the mana use for me.)

White Wyrms - Dragon Slayer and FSs (Their Mana Draining probably killed me more than their spell casting or bites. I cast greater heal and while waiting for it to hit - BOOM mana drain to one mana and then the unseen ice snake bites me and I die! They pretty much auto poof the EVs so again it wasn't worth the mana use for me.)

Drakes - Whatever book was in my hand since they have no slayer (hint hint - give them a slayer!)

FSs again. EVS were a godsend with these guys. The drakes would latch on to the EVs and stay put long enough to get a few FSs in. Once EVs poofed - run and repeat. Their bites and spells weren't bad it was the 60 damage of their dragon's breath that hurt. Just had to be careful and watch for that hit and heal up right away. Once they got below half health, their dragon's breathe damage was reduced enough I could just stand and FS them without running to heal.)

And all that was how I killed the paragons in Ice Dungeon. I mainly played in their late at night. (I was never alone in there on Chessy.) I was just planning on getting a few short hedges then quitting it but I ended liking the armor color so I decided since I had so many drops I'd make a few suits. I got a spellbook (just because it was a pretty blue and stuck it on my crafter), 75 short hedges, and about 14 complete suits. (And yes after over 600 drops, I never got a bone helm but was lucky enough to be able to buy one. I think that's why most people stayed in the Ice Dungeon throughout the event - not for the rewards but for a bone helm!) I really did not push it until the last week so I could get those missing suit pieces.

Popps - I really hope you read all this, digest it, and understand the main idea. Use the toon you most enjoy fighting with and take the time to learn what works best for you in order for you to reach whatever goal you have. Understand sometimes you may have to change a skill or suit piece in order to reach that goal. You may even have to take advice from others players. Paragons have been in the game since well forever. While they are not the most pleasant things to fight, if you want to do certain content, you will have to learn to adapt and fight them.

Everyone Else Who Made It Through This Post - It was late and I was doing BODs in between paragraphs. It helped pass the time while was waiting on my alchemy station to churn out all my potions.I had coffee and King Cake today so I'm on enough of a sugar high to actually hope this helps - well anyone.

Mariah

I believe this thread was about de-spawning ships?

Aragorn

Kyronix said:

All these calculations are based on the creatures fame, for paragons we override it based on a multiplier so it's worth the fight.  Also important to note the system works by rolling every time you kill a creature.  So it is very likely you could have a situation where you kill a paragon which gives you enough points to fall into "more likely than not" territory RNG wise, then when you kill the next creatures and you roll - BAM! phat lootz!

Luck as well as it was also previously mentioned. So in theory you should get more drops by killing in Fel due to increased in mob's fame and 1k luck bonus. 

However, I do believe it has been somewhat adjusted in the Ice event, after it has been decided to open up Fel to all shards. I have been spending most of time in Fel this time but I don't feel a notable higher drop rate in Fel than Tram. You can feel a very big difference back in the Deceit event when you used the luck statue. It was my power hour every day to get drop even I was fighting in Tram as Fel wasn't available in my shard. However this time in Ice I don't feel a increased drop rate after both using luck statue and fighting in Fel. 

Arnold7

Marge, thanks for the detailed post on how your mage worked the ice dungeon.  Have been playing a mage about two years and really enjoyed reading your post.  Wish I had thought more about trying the ev on the para drakes.  Used it all the time on the normal ones.  Guess I just thought the para drakes would dispel it the way the wyrms did.  Thanks again for the detailed post learned a lot about playing my character from it.

Marge

You welcome Arnold7! Glad it helped.

TimSt

Mariah said:

I believe this thread was about de-spawning ships?

That was my initial reason for making the post but I made the title vague in case there were other places people noticed mobs despawned if no one was in the area for a while.

Tjalle

Goldie said:

My take on this subject, paragons are not to be killed in siege, if you are a lucky person that a certain guild lets you stay for awhile to kill the small spawn slowly, but if you get caught killing a paragon that guild will kill you.
  I asked a person on siege why they dont kill paragon, I said  kyronix had said more points better stuff, well he responded with its much faster to kill the small stuff then to 

touch a paragon.

Please no more small areas for the events like this, ICE was to small. thank you. thank you

Well, that person lied to you.
The reason they didn´t want you to kill paragons is because they wanted the dungeon to be filled with them to keep others from farming, and a dungeon full of paragons made farming more difficult.
Their plan was to control the reward market so everytime they were done farming and their PKs couldn´t patrol for a few hours they filled up the dungeon with paragons.

popps

Tjalle said:
Goldie said:
My take on this subject, paragons are not to be killed in siege, if you are a lucky person that a certain guild lets you stay for awhile to kill the small spawn slowly, but if you get caught killing a paragon that guild will kill you.
  I asked a person on siege why they dont kill paragon, I said  kyronix 
had said more points better stuff, well he responded with its much faster to kill the small stuff then to 
touch a paragon.

Please no more small areas for the events like this, ICE was to small. thank you. thank you

Well, that person lied to you.
The reason they didn´t want you to kill paragons is because they wanted the dungeon to be filled with them to keep others from farming, and a dungeon full of paragons made farming more difficult.
Their plan was to control the reward market so everytime they were done farming and their PKs couldn´t patrol for a few hours they filled up the dungeon with paragons.

 A reason more to introduce despawn code with a short timer for dynamic ToT Paragons then....

It would actually not only work as an incentive to players to actually want to kill Paragons before they despawn and not just hop around the Dungeon only landing a few hits here and there to get looting rights but not actually staying for the longer kill fight, but, it would also unlock to players playing areas which were locked up, from what I seem to understand from the above post, from players purposedly not killing Paragons...

Seriously, @Kyronix , don't you think it would be a good idea and solve several issues to introduce despawn code with a short timer for dynamic ToT Paragons ? 

Pawain

Serously. @popps ; you are the only one that wants this. STOP.  Question was answered!

Learn to kill stuff in a game where you kill stuff.

TimSt

@Mariah or @Rorschach
I think it is time to close the post.  People are getting over heated.

popps

TimSt said:

@ Mariah or @ Rorschach
I think it is time to close the post.  People are getting over heated.

I am not overheated at all, just discussing game issues related to Monsters" despawn code which, to my understanding, is the topic of this Thread and the purpose of these Forums, that is, to discuss game issues.....

Why is that, when someone perhaps sees being discussed an argument that they do not like or agree with, that then, suddenly calls for locking up that Thread might come up ?

Do not like a Thread or an argument ? Do not post in that Thread.... easy as that.

A discussions Forum would not get much anywhere if legittimate discussions where to be stopped only because the topic at hand is not liked by someone, I imagine....

Tjalle

Pawain said:

Serously. @ popps  you are the only one that wants this. STOP.  Question was answered!

Learn to kill stuff in a game where you kill stuff.

I wouldn´t mind some sort of despawning coded the way popps suggested.
Why? Because of what I described in my post above.

After two of these events it´s obvious the mechanism of these events were made for prodo and not with Siege in mind.

TimSt

popps said:

TimSt said:

@ Mariah or @ Rorschach
I think it is time to close the post.  People are getting over heated.

I am not overheated at all, just discussing game issues related to Monsters" despawn code which, to my understanding, is the topic of this Thread and the purpose of these Forums, that is, to discuss game issues.....

Why is that, when someone perhaps sees being discussed an argument that they do not like or agree with, that then, suddenly calls for locking up that Thread might come up ?

Do not like a Thread or an argument ? Do not post in that Thread.... easy as that.

A discussions Forum would not get much anywhere if legittimate discussions where to be stopped only because the topic at hand is not liked by someone, I imagine....

I am the one who opened the thread. My question was answered by Kyronix. The thread has gone off on a tangent.  If you want to continue discussing the despawning of paragons please open your own thread.

Mariah

TimSt said:

  If you want to continue discussing the despawning of paragons please open your own thread.