Useless skills
Is there a reason why UO keeps useless skills?. I remember needing taste and especially item identification back in 1998. With the begging skill they at least allow some special items to get gotten during certain events. I read forensic eval allows quicker gains in honesty but that is not really needed.
Why doesn’t UO expand these skills that have been sitting there for going on 30 years? Just make 1 tweak a year. Like this year give a bonus to other skills if you have a useless skill so while you may not use it, it atleast gives a passive reason for having it. For example, give summoned creatures a bonus if you have the tracking skill. Maybe even just that energy vortex or summoned scorpion has a damage increase or increased timer. There’s really so much they could do with these skills but seem to have done nothing that I could tell after returning to UO after being away a long time.
Why doesn’t UO expand these skills that have been sitting there for going on 30 years? Just make 1 tweak a year. Like this year give a bonus to other skills if you have a useless skill so while you may not use it, it atleast gives a passive reason for having it. For example, give summoned creatures a bonus if you have the tracking skill. Maybe even just that energy vortex or summoned scorpion has a damage increase or increased timer. There’s really so much they could do with these skills but seem to have done nothing that I could tell after returning to UO after being away a long time.
Comments
I just didn’t know if over the years Ive been gone that UO had mentioned why they don’t do anything to expand those skills.
- Priorities (a lot more important things going on and a team that's really small)
- If they do too much to revamp a skill that most people think is useless, there will be a bunch of old players who loved that skill and it was crucial to their gameplay or roleplaying or whatever and they will get upset.
I think it's mainly #1. If they spent a bunch of time revamping camping and only a few hundred people care, meanwhile the thousands who have tamers or sampires or whatever have something that's being ignored, there's going to be thousands of upset players who ask why they are paying the devs to revamp something that doesn't benefit them.We saw how long it took NL to be released - they are hard-pressed for time to devote to say revamping old systems while trying to create new content for future publishes, fix bugs that affect a lot of people, make sure vet rewards, holiday rewards, anniversary gifts, etc. come out on time.
And I wouldn't be surprised if they are trying to plan the 30th anniversary.
I can't imagine what their long-term to-do list is, but right now they are working on the summer publish (some stuff with mounts and improving the classic client's graphics) and probably have the anniversary gifts on the horizon.
I guess at some point it is nice to always be moving forward.