Pub 108 - House Decay Rules Feedback

Rafman · March 2020

Lobster said:

The placing rule after a house falls still remains unchanged and scripters will continue to get unfair advantages. If it's a keep or a castle and espcially if it's in Atlantic, house sale is much more lucurative than loot and having a nice house has always been one of the biggest motivation for a player to keep subscription. I really wouldn't like to see scripters keep their advantages in house placement. Placing after IDOC needs a change as well to make this whole IDOC revamp as fair and successful as possible for normal players.

I'd suggest the random placement timer after IDOC be changed to 15-30 mins from the current 30mins-2 hours. Random is fine but 2 hours is just too long for normal players.

This wouldn't make it perfectly fair, but it'll still sure make it easier, fairer and less stressful for normal players when they're trying their luck on placing a house after IDOC.

Bad, wrong idea on the 15-30 mins change.

The timer right now is not random. Maybe it's random to the regular player, but the scripters have a way to tell when the "randomness" opens up, and to place at the exact moment. 15-30mins, or ~2hours, it's all the same.

I think the best suggestion I'd have would be to tie house placement to the Barrels - both inside the fence, and on the fence. The instant the last barrel goes *poof* - the land opens up for placement.

This doesn't give anyone an unfair advantage. Everyone is able to grab the health bar of the barrels and keep track of the last few - react quickly enough when the last one dies, and you get to place. No unfair advantage to anyone. It also opens it up for being strategic - especially in fel, where people may fight over the last few barrels, etc before anyone can place.

Lobster · March 2020

Bad, wrong idea on the 15-30 mins change.

Why ?

The timer right now is not random. Maybe it's random to the regular player, but the scripters have a way to tell when the "randomness" opens up, and to place at the exact moment. 15-30mins, or ~2hours, it's all the same.

Please explain this in detail.

We're told it's random. If it's not, then that's a bug and should be fixed first.

I think the best suggestion I'd have would be to tie house placement to the Barrels - both inside the fence, and on the fence. The instant the last barrel goes *poof* - the land opens up for placement.

This doesn't give anyone an unfair advantage. Everyone is able to grab the health bar of the barrels and keep track of the last few - react quickly enough when the last one dies, and you get to place. No unfair advantage to anyone. It also opens it up for being strategic - especially in fel, where people may fight over the last few barrels, etc before anyone can place.

There used to be no placement timer and it was the instant the previous house falls when the land becomes open so scripters always won. And that's why the random timer was introduced in the first place.

With a ranfom timer, no one can see exactly when the land becomes open. But if there's anything that indicates when the land becomes open, scripters always win because normal human players can't beat scripted characters in speed.

I strongly oppose your suggestion simply because it will only give even more advantages to scripters.

I made my suggestion only as a quick makeshift fix. There could be ideas for better placement rule/system like raffle/lottery but I thought it's probably too late for the devs to implement a whole new system before the worldwide release of the new patch.

Rafman · March 2020

Lobster said:

Bad, wrong idea on the 15-30 mins change.
Why ?
The timer right now is not random. Maybe it's random to the regular player, but the scripters have a way to tell when the "randomness" opens up, and to place at the exact moment. 15-30mins, or ~2hours, it's all the same.
Please explain this in detail.
We're told it's random. If it's not, then that's a bug and should be fixed first.

I think the best suggestion I'd have would be to tie house placement to the Barrels - both inside the fence, and on the fence. The instant the last barrel goes *poof* - the land opens up for placement.

This doesn't give anyone an unfair advantage. Everyone is able to grab the health bar of the barrels and keep track of the last few - react quickly enough when the last one dies, and you get to place. No unfair advantage to anyone. It also opens it up for being strategic - especially in fel, where people may fight over the last few barrels, etc before anyone can place.
There used to be no placement timer and it was the instant the previous house falls when the land becomes open so scripters always won. And that's why the random timer was introduced in the first place.
With a ranfom timer, no one can see exactly when the land becomes open. But if there's anything that indicates when the land becomes open, scripters always win because normal human players can't beat scripted characters in speed.
I strongly oppose your suggestion simply because it will only give even more advantages to scripters.
I made my suggestion only as a quick makeshift fix. There could be ideas for better placement rule/system like raffle/lottery but I thought it's probably too late for the devs to implement a whole new system before the worldwide release of the new patch.

Regarding the last bit - yes, when the house sign poofed, scripters used to always win, which is why random timer was introduced.

I feel it would be very different with barrels though. The two huge elements that made scripters win back then were:

1. Regular player had no idea when house would fall. Script detects it automatically. Big advantage.
2. Crazy lag when house falls. Doesn't affect the script - it affects the regular player though.

In contrast:

1. Everyone can manually follow the barrels in-game, and know when the last few are about to be destroyed. There's no timing advantage for scripters. You just have to react quickly.
2. There's no lag when the last barrel is destroyed. It's not the same as the server freezing up as all items end up on ground when a house decays - something scripters take advantage of. One barrel more or less causes no lag - everyone has the same chance.

A script isn't actually "faster" than a regular player. Both click to target. The advantages are usually in knowing when to do it.

If you still disagree and feel the last barrel gives a big advantage to scripter - then add in a 30-60 second random timer after last barrel falls. Everyone tries to place like crazy for a few seconds and a lucky winner wins.

As to the randmoness. It is not random. Scripters have a way to detect when the spot is about to open up. It has been reported to the dev's. I hope they act on it and make this change. Also - it's not a "bug" that just recently occurred - this has been in-place for many years, and gives an unfair advantage to some who know how to use this cheat.

Urge · March 2020

A raffle stone would be cool and a nice gold sink to boot. If none sold land would be up for grabs.

Tim · March 2020

A raffle/lottery system would probably work but would be labor (human) intense and have to have a lot of rules. For example would a newly created account be eligible?

Thinking about it I would suggest that a IDOC lot become account locked for a year. If during the year the lot could not be transferred and if "demolished" reenters the IDOC system. This would not affect the player who just wants a place to live. The "realtor" who is only into it for the resale would be into a year long investment so it probably would worth the 12 month subscription or more importantly writing the scripts.

Urge · March 2020

Tim said:

A raffle/lottery system would probably work but would be labor (human) intense and have to have a lot of rules. For example would a newly created account be eligible?

Thinking about it I would suggest that a IDOC lot become account locked for a year. If during the year the lot could not be transferred and if "demolished" reenters the IDOC system. This would not affect the player who just wants a place to live. The "realtor" who is only into it for the resale would be into a year long investment so it probably would worth the 12 month subscription or more importantly writing the scripts.

If said new account could place the house and afford the lotto purchase price why not? Someone with 10 accounts to purchase would obviously have 10x better odds at a win but also 10x more to lose if they don't. I think that guy is onto a decent idea.

The account locking would force homes into the 90 day game but for a full year. There wouldn't be any way around that. Home prices would reach unbearable heights that would only help those that profit from outside sales.

Rafman · March 2020

Tim said:

A raffle/lottery system would probably work but would be labor (human) intense and have to have a lot of rules. For example would a newly created account be eligible?

Thinking about it I would suggest that a IDOC lot become account locked for a year. If during the year the lot could not be transferred and if "demolished" reenters the IDOC system. This would not affect the player who just wants a place to live. The "realtor" who is only into it for the resale would be into a year long investment so it probably would worth the 12 month subscription or more importantly writing the scripts.

No.

If you demolish a house - you demolish it. No restrictions - nor should there ever be any. You'd be shocked by how many players change houses over the course of a year, or how often.

Also - players have placed and resold houses since the start of the game. Why is that a bad thing? Some really enjoy it. No need to take that away.

A raffle/lotto has a ton of limitations. I don't like this idea at all. It's also a major change - and would require the dev team to do a complete redesign to the system, so it certainly wouldn't be a quick fix to add-in to this publish, as I was suggesting.

Bleak · March 2020

Issues related to house resizing have been resolved.

Tim · March 2020

I won't bother quoting but in answer to the points raised against Account locking IDOC lots.

It would slightly drive up prices by removing IDOC houses from the resale market. All other housing would not be effected. If there is any cash dealers out there who would invest $240 for a year in the hope of selling a lot for more than that, please contact me. I have a great offer for you (just don't mention it to the cops) In other words only people looking them selves would be trying to place at an IDOC. I thought that was the idea of the proposed changes.

As for the player demolishing a IDOC house. They are free to do so. They just can't sell or transfer it (demolish then let customer place). Remember they got it for free from an IDOC so easy come easy go. The code would have to reflect the difference between resizing and demolishing (abandoning the lot).

Dryzzid · March 2020

I dig the barrel system. Just last night I watched the videos going around of the vacuum scripts and I think the barrels readily solve that issue.

I'm cool with skill not having an effect on barrel damage. To be clear, this would not have affected me: I have the skills stoned and the scrolls so that I would have had an IDOC-temp ready character in 30 minutes. However, I fully understand why others would want the playing field to be more level here: the intent of this part of the patch (I think?) is to make IDOCs more fair for all involved. While I could be post-patch IDOC ready 30 minutes after the patch drops, many others couldn't. So I have no issues here. Some things you can't stop from having an affect, like dex, but there are no cost barriers to raising dex. If any one part of the IDOC changes needs to be fair in my opinion, it is the item distribution. I feel the barrel system addresses that.

Love that EJ accounts are basically tossed out of IDOCing. Good change there.

As far as the items deleted:

Commodity Deeds

This will have no affect on me because, even though I do not regularly IDOC, I have IDOC'd enough to have more resources than I could ever need. Maybe that's the point... when an IDOC drops players get enough resources to basically eliminate their need to buy/gather, so I could see where this would be beneficial. However: it still won't affect me. I already have the bulk resources, and I imagine a LOT of veteran players do too. If they ever want to see a true use for gatherers outside of needing to put together stuff for whatever current arc is going on (sand mining to make soulbinders, for example), they need to take out some of the resources that in the world. So I support this change.

Stackable Items

Stackable items is a pretty broad thing and will affect more than just resources. Bloody bandage server births, the alternate gems from Crimson Dragons, old pagan reagents (which were heavily duped anyways), the rare untagged "scrolls", potentially any recolored or renamed stackable (think glacial regs, gold blood moss, coal ingots (any rare colored ingot really).

Not game breaking but I would maybe looking closely at what all this will affect. I suspect that some items will lose out regardless and that might be unavoidable.

A number of popular dupes over the years have involved stackable items so this also strikes me as a way to remove some duped resources and items from the game.

Account Bound Items - No issue here, not even with soulstones. I understand it from a business perspective. I imagine soulstones generate decent revenue through the store. I know I myself have bought 10-12 since 2017.

Goza Mats - No issues here. Thank you.

Bank checks - No issues here, either. It is my opinion that if someone has a box full of 1m checks in their house, those checks were most likely duped. Not in 100% of cases I'm sure, but in enough cases for me to agree with this.

House Only Items - This doesn't bother me but honestly could we get grass, sand, and snow tiles through a vendor or something like the carpet vendor? As a token reward there are limited numbers of these tiles and if they are being deleted in IDOCs, eventually the supply will dry up. Or maybe just include them on another token in the near future? They are desired items and given how long the crews have been hoovering up IDOCs, the bulk of those tiles are most likely already in their hands.

Heavy items - Things in boxes are generally used to grief at this point from my understanding (statue in a box blocks house placement). I don't see any issue here. HOWEVER, if this includes old guildstone deeds I would ask that the team PLEASE consider coding a workaround for this. Guildstones are more than just collector pieces. I still have the guild and guildstone that I was in over 20 years ago and it means quite a bit to me. I have friends who are constantly searching for their old guild's stone for sentimental reasons. It would be a shame to see them disappear.

Vet Rewards - Mixed feelings on this.

Veteran's viewpoint: I have all of the lower level vet rewards I need and generally buy decorative vet rewards and save my picks for things like house teleporters and shard shields (only 12 years right now, still working toward shields). Any vet rewards I would generally get in an IDOC I'd sell or shove into a box. Another situation where, as a veteran player, this wouldn't have much of an affect on me.

Viewpoint from when I returned a few years ago with nothing: Getting vet rewards was awesome. I could sell the decorative ones I didn't need to help pay for scrolls, artifacts, armor I needed to be competitive again. Ethies were clutch too. A new or returning player can really receive a "come up" when they nab a vet reward, but not in the same way that getting 100k ingots would in my opinion. I don't see quite as much of a balance issue with vet rewards dropping as I do with mass quantities of resources dropping.

However, I would be willing to bet my paycheck that prices on lower level vet rewards will skyrocket as a result.

Water Barrels, tubs, and water containers that weigh 255+ stones

No issues here.

Placement

House placement post-fall is still going to be tricky. Any kind of randomized timer will be overcome with scripts that attempt placement at intervals spread out enough as to not trigger the placement tool cooldown. Add in 10 other paid accounts running the same script and offsetting their start times, and they will be able to instantly place as soon as the timer ends just as they do now. Same situation if placement is dependent on the all the barrels being gone. As soon as the last barrels are gone the house placement scripts will scoop up the plot.

A lottery system sounds burdensome but as I understand it (honestly, correct me if I'm wrong) there is a system in place for house lotteries (The Abyss houses, right? And then when a few cheaters got banned they used it too, right?). You'd still have people with multiple paid accounts (me included) who would register on every account. I'm not saying that this way is the solution but I think it has less potential for outright abuse. And hey, if someone opens a few accounts for a couple extra chances to get a really nice house, the game profits, right? This is not a perfect solution by far but I'm not sure if there is one.

Mordred · March 2020

since opinion and fact matter...
this is current going on the other forum!

#7 for the win!

Soldahouse · March 2020

#7 will never work, many have said they would close accounts knowing they could get all their stuff back.. how about #8 the devs came up with a great plan, hope we get it tomorrow.

Tim · March 2020

Soldahouse said:

#7 will never work, many have said they would close accounts knowing they could get all their stuff back.. how about #8 the devs came up with a great plan, hope we get it tomorrow.

Is that the same many that were going to close their accounts if they were going to make PS available any were but Fel champ spawns or for just about any change they made in the last year or two?

Why would anyone pay to keep an account open on a game they aren't playing just to keep some stuff they aren't using. It just may get them to come back when they decide they do want to play again.

GrimReefer · March 2020

And they want this thing to go live this week. LOL. Stop rushing everything and fix whats broken.

Uriah_Heep · March 2020

Broken, I am sure, is in the eye of the beholder.
But you can bet your Bippy that this is coming as is...

Tim · March 2020

Don't you mean eye of the "gazer"

Image: https://forum.uo.com/uploads/editor/o2/oaykckxle5u1.jpg

Maximus_Neximus · March 2020

I'm really disappointed that vet rewards will be deleted

Pawain · March 2020

If we did not complain about the gargoyles sucking up all the items at IDOCs would you have removed vet rewards from them now?
@Kyronix

Trismegistos · March 2020

Maximus_Neximus said:

I'm really disappointed that vet rewards will be deleted

Same

here. Why does this threads exist if feedback does not matters? Just for beta testing?

*shakes head*

Mordred · March 2020

Trismegistos said:

Maximus_Neximus said:

I'm really disappointed that vet rewards will be deleted

Same
here. Why does this threads exist if feedback does not matters? Just for beta testing?
*shakes head*

This was supposed to be a "Discussion" between Devs and Players.
Players talked, talked and talked and suggested and showed them what is broken and what need to be addressed and all we heard was "nothing" , this was 1 monologue, they did what they wanted, moved the topic to a forum that most people dont even access anyway, and nothing, so many people went to TC and Stratics and Suggested things that must be addressed b4 goes live and Nothing, well, We already knew this would happen anyway!!

Chrille · March 2020

Reduced IDOC location notification enter range cooldown from 30 to 5 seconds on Trade Minister
Improved house sign countdown timer messaging to increase accuracy of the drop timer. (Requires client update.)
IDOC barrel fence duration has been increased from 30 minutes to an hour.
Added the following items to be deleted when a house collapses:
- Bank checks
- Heavy items – this applies to items that weigh 255+ stones that are immovable by players
- Linked attendants
- Vet Rewards
- Water Barrels, tubs, and water containers that weigh 255+ stones
Resolved issue where barrels could spawn outside of the fence.
Resolved the classic client issue that would block attacks on barrels when using the block on war options. (Requires client update.)
All damage done to barrels will be standardized and will not be modified by skills or spells.
Improved IDOC loot reward notification spam.

Everything in bold got changed/ fixed due to feedback, so they do listen they just didnt like vet rewards to stay as idoc loot.

Soldahouse · March 2020

don't know if this is true will try to test it later. someone tried today and said resizing a house still makes stuff disappear and it also does that when you convert your keeps or castles. I would think folks would pack up their house before resizing it but you don't pack up your keeps or castles you just convert them to a new house design. This was said by a player in chat and they said they did talk to someone about it. Hope its not true with converting castles and keeps.

jelinidas · March 2020

Clear win for gold sellers in my opinion.

Better mods?

Uriah_Heep · March 2020

*squelched*

Fortis · March 2020

maybe they plan to sell vet rewards on uostore.... this is the only reason i see it get deleted...if not price will double in a year or less matter of time that people get angry again.

JackFlashUk · March 2020

great to see the Dev's took NO notice of what people said here, just have to wonder what was the point of asking players to post opinions of the idoc changes.

I guess they filter out the 90% and listen to the very few who said vet rewards and commodity deed deletion was a good idea.

Imagine being this crap in your own job, you would not last 5 mins

whatever happened to the saying "the customer is always right?"

Max_Blackoak · March 2020

please @Mesanna @Kyronix @Bleak do not go live with this and think this through some more. Give it more time!

Deleting vet rewards and soulstones is simply a bad idea. Most people have been giving this exact feedback about this.

jelinidas · March 2020

Gold sellers have 1000's of vet rewards just ready to sell! The honest player suffers again. This is a horrible update, IN MY OPINION.

Please rethink as Max stated.

Garth_Grey · March 2020

You people crying about not being able to get other peoples stuff should be ashamed of yourselves, but I"m guessing you probably aren't.

JackFlashUk · March 2020

Garth_Grey said:

You people crying about not being able to get other peoples stuff should be ashamed of yourselves, but I"m guessing you probably aren't.

Not that I really pay much attention to trolls. But I think I read you used to do idocs. How people play the game is none of your business. So once again you will try to antagonise to get the post locked. You don’t do idocs then it’s none of your business is it

go troll somewhere else

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Pub 108 - House Decay Rules Feedback

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