Pub 105 - Treasure Map Update Release 3

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  • BilboBilbo Posts: 2,834
    Kyronix said:
    @ Bilbo we have other plans for acquiring the beautiful chests :)

    Re: the decay time - this is something we will address before going WW.  Loot should not decay out of your chest before you have a chance to loot it.  The chest should decay long before any items inside do.
    TY for your consideration.
  • MargretteMargrette Posts: 549
    @Drakelord, could you give this a try on TC and see what you think?

    Set up your skills like this:

    Cartography 100
    Lockpicking 100
    Animal Lore 100
    Animal Taming 105
    Veterinary 100
    Magery 100
    Meditation 60
    Remove Trap 50

    And hopefully your suit has some LMC, MR, and mana increase on it.

    Then go try a few chests and leave the remove trap at 50.  You will get some of the ancient chest guardians to spawn, which cause some hefty fire damage and you will have to be careful about not getting too far from the chest.  With 50 remove trap skill, you won't get as many as at 0 skill.  See what you think of the chest guardians and their damage and whether they are just too difficult to deal with.  They will spawn one or after another, I think about 8-10 seconds apart, and possibly up to as many as five or six of them in a row if your character doesn't die or run more than 16 tiles from the chest.

    Give it a go with that different combination of skills and see if you think it wpuld be viable at all for you on Sonoma.  After the publish, training to 50 remove trap will not be too terribly difficult, I think.  You'll be able to buy it at about 31 to 33 from an NPC thief guildmaster without also needing the 50 detect hidden/50 lockpicking after the publish goes live (if nothing changes) and I believe the puzzle trainers will give you somewhat accelerated gains and the circuit puzzles will be a lot smaller at 33-50 remove trap skill than they are once your skill gets closer to 80-100. 

    Plus, if you have plain maps on hand now, save them for after the publish.  From what I've seen on TC, if your remove trap skill is still in training and not too high, you'll likely get some moderate gains (.1 to .5 or maybe even up to 3.0) by using the remove trap skill on the chest.  On the stash chests, the ancient chest guardians are just going to be bats and orcs and zombies that cause some fire damage when they pop out but can be easily dispatched.  (I'm pretty sure you'd get the gains from the other levels of chests too, but those stash chests would be a lot quicker to get through and get the gains and then trash them for cleanup points.)

    I'm trying to finish training remove trap on Origin and Sonoma is next after that.  If you cannot find anyone else to go with you on Sonoma (not likely, there are good folks there), I will certainly be happy to go with you and we can muddle through them together.  
  • VioletViolet Posts: 408
    edited May 2019
    Drakelord said:
    @ Faeryl Yes I seen the posts no skill needed just use the skill and sit there using the skill over and over till you remove the trap. 

    With 0 Remove Trap, you need to use the skill once, twice at most (from my testing so far), and survive the countdown while your character "works on the trap".  For Trove maps that's approximately 90 seconds. Another 10 seconds if you need to press it again, but I've had no guardians spawn the second time, it just completes. It's a process similar to  how digging up the chest works where you have to wait for the process to complete (but you can heal, cast spells and move within 16 tiles)
  • DrakelordDrakelord Posts: 1,792
    Margrette  She and I went and did another map using template she posted above, I took a lot of damage and even died while doing the remove trap at 50%  I could not heal myself fast enough with the damage I was taking and the guardians that were spawning, my solo days for these maps requiring remove trap is killing my t hunter, in order to live thru it I will have to have 100% Remove trap on my character but there is NO room for it as I need Med.

    Cartography 100
    Lockpicking 100
    Animal Lore 100
    Animal Taming 105
    Veterinary 100
    Magery 100
    Meditation 60
    Remove Trap 50
    Above is what I used for the last map I did.

    I also hate to miss with my skills on a prodo shard, on TC you can set the skills, but at home you could make a huge mess on your skills that would take a while to fix.  I happen to be very happy with my t hunters skills, and I do not have remove trap on this account, I rather NOT train for it again.  Nor do I wish to make a t hunter on the account that has RT.  I would have to train up Cart on that account to do so.
    Remove Trap = Bad News
    for
    Treasure Hunters
  • MargretteMargrette Posts: 549
    The spawn of the ancient chest guardians is pretty relentless.  At 50 remove trap, it looks like you will get at least 4 per chest, at least on stash, supply and cache chests.  
  • TimStTimSt Posts: 1,866

    A few suggestions:

    1. Allow the magic unlock spell to be used on the stash and supply chests - This will allow those with no room for the RT skill to still do the low level t-maps with a less chance for RT guardians.
    2. Increase the 16 tile radius to 24 or 32 tiles. - This allows for more room to dodge attacks from RT guardians
    3. Add a visual indicator of where the tile limit is. It is real easy to accidentally go over that 16 tiles.
    4. Re-enable the item count and weight when mouse pointer hoovers over the chest.
    5. Add spell books as possible loot in the mage horde and trove chests.
  • jelinidasjelinidas Posts: 352
    TimSt said:



    1. Increase the 16 tile radius to 24 or 32 tiles. - This allows for more room to dodge attacks from RT guardians

    Agree on this one.

    Other thoughts....

    Also maybe put your puzzle training (RT) box on prodo now for those trying to skill. Overall though a much better release. My only other observation is the overkill on blue and pink drops. You're going to kill the market for those that sell.
  • Uriah_HeepUriah_Heep Posts: 915
    Yeah, give those taste ID camping herding Item ID and a few others some cleanujp point value...so we can at least get something out of them
  • LilyGraceLilyGrace Posts: 944
    I think trouble starts when we dig our heels in over something we can't solo by using whatever our favorite or most comfortable character build is. Or when we're just not as good at a thing as someone else is so we want to level the playing field to match our level of skill. 

    There is a lot of ground in the game that my rogue build can't successfully cover. I don't want to give up hiding and stealth on my rogue and replace it with Spellweaving,  Tamer skills, or other builds that I know are successfully soloing Trove maps. That's my choice. And I can't expect dev's to level the playing field for me, so my rogue can easily locate the chest, pick the lock, remove the trap, fight with a pet, cast a colossus, not run out of mana, while I stealth around.

    And even if I did create a character that is exactly what someone else is using right now on TC to successfully solo Trove maps, I don't think I would be as successful as they are. Because I don't think I'd run that character as well as they do. It is what it is.

    Cartography, Lockpicking and Removing Traps when Treasure Hunting makes sense. I think you're looking for a tough time when you're trying to be a proficient mage, proficient tamer, and proficient treasure hunter all at the same time because you want to solo the high end maps. A work-around to RT is already in place. Use it and fight your way out. Or be more flexible and change your TH template.
  • MargretteMargrette Posts: 549
    Violet said:
    Drakelord said:
    @ Faeryl Yes I seen the posts no skill needed just use the skill and sit there using the skill over and over till you remove the trap. 

    Another 10 seconds if you need to press it again, but I've had no guardians spawn the second time, it just completes. 
    I just wanted to note that when Drakelord and I did some chests together today while he had 50 remove trap on, we had one chest where we both died after the first 2 ancient chest guardians spawned.  So we both had to run and get rezzed.  When we returned, he used RT again and we had to kill four more guardians. 

    I think if your RT skill is rather high, say maybe high 80s or in the 90s, you may get a chest guardian the first time you use it and if you run too far or die, the next time you use it you may not get any guardian at all.  I think the not getting anything the second time is more a function of your skill level than anything else.  I tried several chests with RT set at 95 and sometimes there was a chest guardian and sometimes there wasn't.
  • MargretteMargrette Posts: 549
    LilyGrace said:
    I think trouble starts when we dig our heels in over something we can't solo by using whatever our favorite or most comfortable character build is. Or when we're just not as good at a thing as someone else is so we want to level the playing field to match our level of skill. 

    There is a lot of ground in the game that my rogue build can't successfully cover. I don't want to give up hiding and stealth on my rogue and replace it with Spellweaving,  Tamer skills, or other builds that I know are successfully soloing Trove maps. That's my choice. And I can't expect dev's to level the playing field for me, so my rogue can easily locate the chest, pick the lock, remove the trap, fight with a pet, cast a colossus, not run out of mana, while I stealth around.

    And even if I did create a character that is exactly what someone else is using right now on TC to successfully solo Trove maps, I don't think I would be as successful as they are. Because I don't think I'd run that character as well as they do. It is what it is.

    Cartography, Lockpicking and Removing Traps when Treasure Hunting makes sense. I think you're looking for a tough time when you're trying to be a proficient mage, proficient tamer, and proficient treasure hunter all at the same time because you want to solo the high end maps. A work-around to RT is already in place. Use it and fight your way out. Or be more flexible and change your TH template.
    Unfortunately, I think many people might have gotten the impression from the second round of testing this publish that the dev team was aiming at loosening the requirements for treasure hunting so there could be more flexibility in templates.  You could get the same loot in a cache chest as in a horde or trove chest, just with lower quantities, without the need to squeeze in lockpicking and remove trap skill.  

    I think it's wrong to be too critical of our fellow subscribers for being a bit downcast at this turn of events after several weeks of Kyronix and people like me and Arroth and Tanager trying to convince them that "template flexibility" was the name of the game in the last round of the testing.  I think we all need to make allowances for what people are feeling and give them time to wrap their heads around it and to test it.  It's only been two days so far for the shock to set in that if you want to get back to soloing the toughest maps, you probably have to squeeze in GM remove trap, as well as stop using soulstones to swap skills like cartography and lockpicking off and on through the process of digging up a chest.

    I say we give people time to absorb all of this and stop being so harsh if people are having trouble with it.  
  • MargretteMargrette Posts: 549
    edited May 2019
    Another thing I'd like to say here is that we need to start coming up with some good, sound suggestions on how people can manage the process of squeezing whatever amount of Remove Trap skill they can into an existing template without totally mucking up their character.

    Soulstone accidents are the kind of tragedy that cause people to walk away from UO permanently or at least for a long, long time.

    So, let's take Drakelord's example.  Let's figure out the mechanics of how you use skill training and soulstones to modify what he has now:

    100 Cartography
    100 Lockpicking
    105 Magery
    100 Meditation
    100 Animal Lore
    105 Animal Taming
    110 Veterinary
    720 Total

    to get to this:

    100 Cartography
    100 Lockpicking
    50 Remove Trap (a +50 gain)
    105 Magery
    60 Meditation (a -40 decrease)
    100 Animal Lore
    105 Animal Taming
    100 Veterinary (a -10 decrease) (I'm assuming this doesn't unacceptably alter his stable slots)

    If he buys RT training from an NPC thief guildmaster, it will probably total 31 to 33 points, if he's lucky.

    I think he would have to turn down meditation before visiting the NPC and buying RT training.  That should leave him at:

    100 Cartography
    100 Lockpicking
    33 Remove Trap (a +33 gain, with 17 more to go)
    105 Magery
    67 Meditation (a -33 decrease)
    100 Animal Lore
    105 Animal Taming
    110 Veterinary (still needs to lose 10 of this)

    So as he is training up RT, especially with one of the puzzle trainers or by digging up chests, he is going to have the problem that those gains are going to be very erratic.  They won't be simple 0.1 gains.  They might be bigger jumps like 3.2.

    So does he use the puzzle trainers and cross his fingers and stop training RT when he's gotten a gain that takes his meditation to exactly 60 or shortly below it?

    Assuming that's what he does, now he's looking at this:

    100 Cartography
    100 Lockpicking
    40-43 Remove Trap (still has another 10 to go)
    105 Magery
    57-60 Meditation (he wants 60 in the end)
    100 Animal Lore
    105 Animal Taming
    110 Veterinary (still needs to lose 10 of this)

    So now I think he would lock Meditation for the moment, even if it is below 60.  Then turn down Veterinary.

    Then carefully use puzzle training boxes or doing stash chests to raise Remove Trap another 5 or 6 points and lower Vet by the same amount.  

    Then switch to boxes trapped by a character with 40ish tinkering skill to raise RT the rest of the way to 50 one 0.1 gain at a time, and then lock it. Then, if Meditation is below 60, turn it up and let it gain until the skill total hits 720 and Meditation hits 60 and lock it as well.

    Anyone have some better ideas for doing this without totally blowing up his template, exceeding his stable slots, losing pets, etc.?  I cannot come up with any way for him to use soulstones to do this because he could potentially wipe out way too much of some skills.
  • TimStTimSt Posts: 1,866

    Because I use a pure-ish mage as my t-hunter the only change I would need to make to continue to solo high level maps is swap 100 RS with 100 RT and use enchanted apples in place of RS.

    The tamer mages that some people use might not have the flexibility to swap a skill like that.  Which is why I suggested for stash and supply chests let the magic untrap spell work in place of the RT skill.

    What I see some people doing is:
    Locate and start digging up the chest with 100 cart
    Mark rune
    Recall home
    Stone off cart
    Stone on lock pick
    Recall to chest
    Continue to dig up chest
    Defeat guardians
    Unlock chest
    Recall home
    Wait for battle timer to end
    Stone off lock pick
    Stone on remove trap
    Recall to chest
    Use remove trap on chest

     

  • MargretteMargrette Posts: 549
    TimSt said:

    Because I use a pure-ish mage as my t-hunter the only change I would need to make to continue to solo high level maps is swap 100 RS with 100 RT and use enchanted apples in place of RS.

    The tamer mages that some people use might not have the flexibility to swap a skill like that.  Which is why I suggested for stash and supply chests let the magic untrap spell work in place of the RT skill.

    What I see some people doing is:
    Locate and start digging up the chest with 100 cart
    Mark rune
    Recall home
    Stone off cart
    Stone on lock pick
    Recall to chest
    Continue to dig up chest
    Defeat guardians
    Unlock chest
    Recall home
    Wait for battle timer to end
    Stone off lock pick
    Stone on remove trap
    Recall to chest
    Use remove trap on chest

     

    Using the soulstone to swap skills during the process of digging up and emptying a chest needs to be tested thoroughly.  Tanager reported a possible bug on 5/21 about getting no gem/gold bag when there was no real remove trap or lockpicking skill present when the chest was dug up.

    https://forum.uo.com/discussion/comment/27407/#Comment_27407
  • Arroth_ThaielArroth_Thaiel Posts: 1,060
    Margrette said:
    Another thing I'd like to say here is that we need to start coming up with some good, sound suggestions on how people can manage the process of squeezing whatever amount of Remove Trap skill they can into an existing template without totally mucking up their character.

    A Haven Remove Trap newbie quest with accelerated skill gain to 50, maybe using the existing puzzle boxes, would be nice.

    One thing to keep in mind is that there are both SoT's and SoA's for Remove Trap, so those might help a bit with training. Obviously that is not an ideal solution, but they are at least out there.

    If you use the EC, you can right click on the skill icon in the skill list and choose "Set Auto-Lock Value". This will allow you to lock the skill at the exact 0.1 value you're looking for when training. That way you don't have to worry about going over that value and decreasing a different skill further than you'd like. Don't know if there is similar functionality in the CC.

    ***

    The Publish notes say:
    "...... You will also be able to train Remove Trap via untrapping Treasure Chests and other traps already in the gameworld....."

    Has anyone tried the floor traps in the dungeons for skill gain?

    ***

    Haven't had time to test with Release 3, hoping to do a bit this weekend.


    -Arroth
  • MargretteMargrette Posts: 549
    I tried the chests in the Yew dungeon and also at the Fel Trinsic bank and neither gave RT gains when I used RT on them while at 50 RT skill, even though several had more than one trap on them.  I'll try again and also some of the chests in NPC shops in Fel towns that have the refinement components you can steal.
  • Arroth_ThaielArroth_Thaiel Posts: 1,060
    Yeah, I saw that you'd tried the chests with no gains. That's what made me think of the floor traps as the "other traps" referred to in the publish notes.
    -Arroth
  • FaerylFaeryl Posts: 273
    @Margrette In theory, if he had at least two free soulstones, he could use them. Stone off med, train RT to a point. Stone it off, put med back on, turn it down, and put RT back on. It'll drop med by exactly whatever he has for RT.

    Then repeat with vet. Stone it off, train up RT. Stone off RT, put vet back on, then turn it down and put RT back on.

    If that makes any sense to you. I'm exhausted and may not be explaining this in the best way.
  • KyronixKyronix Posts: 1,186Dev
    Besides the puzzle trainers, you will get the absolute best gains from doing Treasure Chests.  
  • BumblebeeB2BumblebeeB2 Posts: 3
    edited May 2019
    Hey all,

    here are a few observations I have made during testing on TC.

    I did 1 each of Stash, Supply, Cache & Horde with Mobs. Then quite a few Horde without Mobs to check the Remove Trap behavior and evaluate my current build.

    The loot was really good. Multiple legendaries, greaters and also scrolls. Everytime gold and gems. Thumbs up!

    1. Multiple Remove Trap tries were necessary even at GM level; example: 1st RT spawned a little drake, stayed within the spot; after defeating him I had to Remove Trap again and a 2nd Ancient Wyrm (?) guardian spawned; I assume this is intended to up the difficulty.

    2. When I drag the healthbar from the guardian in the EC the healthbar disappears when the guardian resets to the chest; this is somewhat annoying. I know it's included in the mobiles bar but I like dragging specific monsters to a spot on the screen which is more centered when I fight agains a single enemy; I always had to drag it again. Normally if a mob is not present on the screen the bar just goes to a read-only state (disabled) but does not disappear

    3. The ancient wyrm (?) guardian sometimes spawned 2 fire breaths executing more damage I could handle and I died instantly. I also saw 2 fireballs on the screen moving to my position. I was not in a group & alone. 1 breath already is about >100 HP (for me at 40 fire resist currently).

    4. The guardians fly away on low health potentially leaving the 16 tile radius. When that happens and you fought an ancient wyrm all by yourself for minutes and nearly defeated it, it's frustrating.

    5. You already stated this: guardians can loot you and you will not receive your stuff back when killing them; also happened to me

    6. It would be really nice to visually see the radius you are allowed to move in. Especially in dense jungle areas it gets tricky to see the chest and maintain an overview of where you are at. But I assume that's hard to implement

    7. The fire damage that I took when the guardian spawned was about 60 HP at 40/70 resist. My current suit does not cap it out. Need a better one. After getting the hit you unhide and the guardian is instantly chasing you which was not easy to handle. Most of the time it instantly hits you in melee, too. I think the power of that initial strike is pretty high even though I understand why you implemented it. It should absolutely be there, but I don't know if it needs the strength it currently has.

    I struggled hard after removing the trap with the appearing guardian. It seems that 95% of the time an ancient wyrm (?) spawned at GM level of remove traps and on Horde chests. All by myself and with a provo build it was not possible to handle him. I imagine this is what you intended. I love to adapt and it's still possible to fight him with just a minor change of my build. I like that challenge.

    For everyone else that's interested. On 80 remove traps, 2 guardians are spawned. I thought it might be clever to adjust that for my provo build. But unfortunately the first guardian spawns immediately and also hits you with the flame burst while the 2nd guardian spawns after about 5-10 seconds later. They do not spawn at the same time so you can provo them onto another. So no option for me to reset to 80 skill. Still need 100 and rather show the one guardian that appears what my bard is thinking of him. xD

    Thanks for you work, really appreciate the change. For me treasure hunting in it's core will remain what it is. In my opinion it is even better than it was before (more thrill but still chill). I'm very much looking forward to the release. :-) Took a few days off in June, hope it's at the same time when the publish is released. xD


    Best regards
    BumblebeeB2

    -- edited accidentally wrote Trove, but I meant Horde every time. Did not test any Trove.
  • KyronixKyronix Posts: 1,186Dev
    Thanks everyone who has been providing feedback.  A special note - if you have any leftover "No Mob" maps please do not use them.  We are logging some data for tweaking as we move forward, and not having to kill the guardian mobs will skew the results.  Thanks.
  • Petra_FydePetra_Fyde Posts: 1,454
    edited May 2019
    If anyone is interested I made a short vid of digging a trove chest in Malas, it can be found by googling 'petra fyde youtube'.  I'm not going to clog up the forum by posting it here.
  • ZekeTerraZekeTerra Posts: 360
    I've done over a dozen Hoard maps so far, both Tram and Fel and when I fail remove trap and get the mob spawned, the RT is stopped even tho I didn't move more than 16 tiles away.  I'm thinking that moving more than 16 tiles stops the process even if the Guardian hasn't spawned.  Killing the guardian after a failure I had to use RT again each and every time.  At GM RT on the dozen or more chests I failed 3-4 times (each with the guardian).  My strategy is to start the RT at 3 tiles away (the most you can be) and then "back up" another 5 or 6 tiles and see if I fail and spawn a guardian or are successful.  Backing up has definitely helped keep me alive more than once.  My build is:
    120 Taming (90 real)
    120 Lore (90 real)
    100 Vet
    114 Magery (110 real)
    100 LP
    100 RT
    30 Med

    @Kyronix with a 2170 Luck suit, every chest in Fel was normal color, I did get Gold ones in Tram.
    I also did a couple of Hoard and 1 Trove with a friend and thought the amount of loot was acceptable, but the amount of loot in Fel was considerably higher than Tram ones.  I have yet to get a Mana Phasing Orb or a Skeleton key or any of the Named Artifacts that normally come with Level 6 or 7 on current production. 
  • KyronixKyronix Posts: 1,186Dev
    @ZekeTerra

    Luck doesn't factor into the type of chest you get, that is based on your modified cartography skill.  Luck will enhance the magic equipment that fills the chests, like it does with all loot production.  The type of chest will give different ranges for the budgets that are used in magic equipment creation with rusty being the low end and gold being the high end.

    Mana Orbs, Skeleton Keys, and Named artifacts were redistributed to lower level chests.  Check the publish notes for the full distribution.

    Utility Items (Assassin, Artisan, and Ranger Supply)
    • Legacy & New Utility Items based on package
    • New: Shield Engraving Tool
    Minor Artifacts (All packages, Supply)
    • Legacy Minor artifacts & Pub 67 Artifacts
    • Legendary Cartography Glasses (+1-5 Cartography)
  • VioletViolet Posts: 408
    edited May 2019
    Margrette said:
    I just wanted to note that when Drakelord and I did some chests together today while he had 50 remove trap on, we had one chest where we both died after the first 2 ancient chest guardians spawned.  So we both had to run and get rezzed.  When we returned, he used RT again and we had to kill four more guardians. 

    I think if your RT skill is rather high, say maybe high 80s or in the 90s, you may get a chest guardian the first time you use it and if you run too far or die, the next time you use it you may not get any guardian at all.  I think the not getting anything the second time is more a function of your skill level than anything else.  I tried several chests with RT set at 95 and sometimes there was a chest guardian and sometimes there wasn't.
    Well if you die or more too far away, it will reset. Half my testing was with Joat (up to 25 if i forget to lock RT), half with 100 (probably more like 60%/40%). Personally I find the 90 second "gauntlet" more consistent, you just have to get the timing. The fail streakiness on 100 rt is annoying you can get it 2nd attempt or 7th attempt. When it's 7th attempt, that usually ends up being upwards of 3-4minutes spent on removing trap and defeating the guardians.
    We've recorded most of our attempts because it's so much easier recording and pulling data then stopping each step to enter stuff into spreadsheets.

    @kyronix Will you be gathering our data through the weekend or? (curious how much time should be spent this weekend doing maps)
  • ZekeTerraZekeTerra Posts: 360
    @Kyronix thanks for the explanation about how the luck affects the chest; but it still doesn't explain that I didn't get a single Gold one in Fel.  I've done 12 Fel ones now and they're all the normal ones.  Also in my post I forgot to add that I have GM Cartography on that template (knew I was missing something lol).
  • Tarragon_SlayerTarragon_Slayer Posts: 38
    edited May 2019
    I dug up 5 artisan chests, one of each level. My findings are in a spreadsheet.
    My results from the cache and hoard are not entirely accurate, because I was distracted when emptying them.

    Some extra comments:

    I was disappointed by the number of times I had to double click the map in order to decode it. This ranged from 3 for a stash to as many as 30 for a trove. I find that a bit much, especially compared to the number of reads we need with the old system.
    What also struck me as unusual: Stash, supply and cache prompted: You study the treasure map but need more time to decode. However, hoard prompted the message: You fail to make anything of the map. If you don't think this is strange, then how do you explain the trove map: 29 x You study the treasure map but need more time to decode and 1 x You fail to make anything of the map.

    The amount of gold in my stash chest hardly differed from the amount in my supply chest. Both chests were gold.
    The amount of gold from my trove chest was almost the same as my cache chest. But the trove chest was regular and the cache was gold. If this is intended, then it's fine.
    60K of gold is a nice amount, but would there be a possibility of compacting it somehow? Or perhaps an option to send it immediately to the bank when clicking it? Yes, I know there's such a thing as a bag of sending, but obtaining the translocation power is such a drag (or horrendously expensive). I would love to simply empty the chest without constantly having to recall or gate (and in Ilshenar gating is impossible anyway).

    I was positively surprised to receive remove trap skill gains with my 91.9 character on the low level chests! I had started skilling up my treasure hunter mid April when I heard remove trap would (probably) be required. I suppose I don't need to bother now. The low level chests help enormously to gain RT. In my view this is an excellent improvement.

    The distribution of the loot in weapons and gear seems fine to me. My TH is an elf, and I did find a few elf items, so that figures. Since all my characters are either elves or humans, this suits me well.

    What I'm missing is loot specifically for crafters in the high level artisan chests. If the loot in hoards and troves is basically the same, why bother dividing them into warrior, ranger, artisan, mage, etc? I cannot speak for the other players, but I'd expect that if you call a chest "artisan", no matter the level, you'd expect loot in it that is useful for crafters.

    I'm considering creating a second TH, one exclusively for high level chests and the other for the small stuff. Not sure yet if I'll do that, but since (after BoD's) I spent most of my time in UO digging up treasure, investing the time and energy in a second TH would be acceptable for me. Usually, I just do the plainly upto deviously solo, while I reserve the higher levels for a group. Sure, I can solo ingeniously and diabolically, but I prefer to let others join in the fun. Considering the blue guardians which can instakill you (as I found out), it would make more sense to dig up hoards and troves with a group keeping an eye on you.

    I wouldn't mind if the RT guardians were just like the other guardians which spawn when digging up the chest or when taking out items. Why make them different? If we kill a mob, we deserve the loot, don't we?

    My final gripe is an ancient one. Would there be a possibility to make the chest spawn on a location which isn't covered by a tree's foliage? You're never entirely certain where and when the guardians will spawn.

    While I find that certain elements of treasure hunting still have room for improvement, I do consider the experience in its entirety a giant leap forward. The reduction of items is excellent, considering I have RSI. Wouldn't mind if the number of items was even further reduced. And those awful puzzles are gone; I'm overjoyed! I have 6 davies lockers containing all levels of maps, waiting to be decoded and dug up. I can hardly wait to dust off my shovel and sextant, and get back to work!

    Hope my comments help.

  • KyronixKyronix Posts: 1,186Dev
    edited May 2019
    @ZekeTerra - for the any lvl 5 chest getting a gold at GM Carto there is a chance, with the full +5 carto glasses there is a better chance.  The nice thing is you are guaranteed to get at least a standard at that level cartography, never a rusty.  Your results in Fel are based on RNG.  

    @Violet - yes we will be logging data all weekend, so keep on testing! :)

    @Tarragon_Slayer - were these newly created maps that you pulled from the clickies?  If you attempt to decode a map immediately after it is created you will run into some delays.  What you are encountering is the map basically looking for a good chest location in the world.  That takes some time.

    Re: why there is no extra loot on the ancient chest guardians, this is the tradeoff that you make for investing in skill vs. not investing in skill.  Were we to put extra loot on the higher level guardian mobs we would essentially be providing incentive to fight them for the loot, which de-incentivizes (new word!) not having RT since you don't get any tangible short term gain by fighting them.  It's a delicate balancing act that hopefully we threaded very carefully.  

    Thanks for the comments! Happy testing!
  • ZekeTerraZekeTerra Posts: 360
    @Kyronix I did 5 Stash and 3 Supply in Fel and all of them were gold.  Guess I need to get a set of those glasses.  Also ? on the Tattered Wall Map, the Pen still shows 10 Level 1, 5 Level, 3 Level 4 and 1 Level 5, so is that the old levels or has it been changed yet?
  • Hail @Kyronix: Many thanks for your reply.
    Yes, the maps were fresh from the clickies. I understand that now, and won't find it strange anymore.
    Also, I understand now why the guardians are carrying no loot, and yes this is fair for the ones who are satisfied with less than GM LP and GM RT. What about the ones who are prepared to invest their time and effort into GM RT?
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