I know on the internet (and my wife) it comes down to what have you done for me lately..  There are a ton of things to be tested by both players and staff, for the players we now can finally say bods have taken a huge leap forward.  Given until the next round and I will start posting the reward charts for all the skills, also look for new rewards being added as I look to expand this well beyond anything seen.  We also did a complete backup this morning, given the size of this monster you can imagine that tool a moment.

Update 10

I rushed 9 a bit with a crash on the server and harddrive crash on my side of things so there are a few clean up issues in this update from it.  I do apologize if this effected anyone.

PowerSkulls (105,110,115,120): Now working as intended, Throwing will be added by other means soon enough.

Iron Golem: New pet crafted by tinkerers with the special ability to mine ore. (Testing Phase)
Iron Clockwork Assembly: This is what the tinkerer crafts to create an Iron Golem. (Testing Phase)

+100 Luck Deed added
300 Luck Deed added

Evo Dragons: Pre-set the required items so it can be hatched from the egg and no need for staff assistance.  Added a new breeding check as well.

SocketScrolls: Recoded how the object is created, now you can provide the number of sockets and by pass the random number generation them.  Previous functionality not removed.

Small Tink Bod: When combining it will not take the entire stack, only 1 item off the stack.
Tinker Bods: Cleaned up alltinker,cfg and carp3.cfg
Small Bod: When combining it will not take the entire stack, only 1 item off the stack.
Small Bod: Coded to handle instruments.

Taming Bod Tools added and in some places recoded to resemble the other bod systems.

Bod Rewards Changes: Blacksmith now have level deeds, tailor has magic cloth deeds and tinker has sockets

Socket Hammer: There is now a hammer for armor, weapons and golems (Test Phase)

BaseTalisman:  Added socket flag.
Mithral Dragon Talisman:  Socket Flag set to false.

Weapon Socket Hammer Added (Testing Phase)
Armor Socket Hammer Added (Testing Phase) (Includes Talismans)
Golem Socket Hammer Added (Testing Phase)

BaseGolem creature type added

Pharoah's Burial Mask: Pulled the teeth.

Dante Save Time Effort: Version 1.0 (Just automating some things Dante does so he can answer more pages)

Note to Breeds:
Due to fixing some Evo Dragon issues I had to put in phase 1 of the breeding code.  It was not my intent, so if you breed right now you will enter the life cycle pet system.  Please excuse me while I get the rest of this system finished, give me a week max to have breeding working, better and remove the exploits that are causing issues.  Feel free to pm me if you have any questions about something happening now or any changes coming to the system in the near future.

Note to Crafters:
Special rewards based on skills:
Tailoring: Magic Cloth Deeds
Tinkering: Socket Scrolls
Blacksmith: Level Deeds

Added Doom Gauntlet
Added Doom Daemon Bone Quest
Added Astro Daemon Quest
Added Vampire Slayer Quest

Wow,  great job! 

I can't wait to see what changes are in store for Bowcraft/Fletching!

Thanks for the update, Kane.

Good job, been waiting for BOD changes well for over a year, glad to see it's a priority finally.  Now just can't wait to finally see the break down of the rewards. 


Keep it up Kane and we may just have to keep you around awhile 

Can we get info on the "lifecycle" pet system?. What are the implications of this?. Some of these changes scare me    things are changed/implemented with no description or warning.
Thanks for your work on updates and willingness to listen to us!

We will have a complete description and info on the wiki as soon as we finalize the scripts and test the system.  The "lifecycle" is a really cool addition and will make the pet have different phases during his life based on age.  There will be an optimal time to breed, additional skills during it's prime and diminished skills during old age.  It will make breeding a real business and timely, so players cannot just perpetually breed super pets.  This will create a need to buy and sell, which creates a dynamic market for players to capitalize on

Tailoring: Magic Cloth Deeds

Blacksmith: Level Deeds

These are both available in game via other means,  will something be added to treasure chests to make up for this change??

  WOW!.. is the right word here.


  The breeding system sounds awesome. I am not a tamer by trade... BUT, I really am thinking I will be soon. Mostly because it sounds fun... [Not] --tame animal-- "yer my slave now, B" ...ALL KILL!

  The emphasis on making new things that are right for the economy, That gets a giant thumbs up! 


   --Sturger--

 

@Tiea
I am working on putting it back where it does not do the bad things, I was just caught off handed with it and needed to fix the issue without absorbing to much time.  Keep your mask, it will be useful again for PvM.

the iron golem, does the assembly come from same ole creatures or are there new ones now?

It will be craftable by tinkers

magical cloth deeds: put them back on the stone. Some of us don't like to do crafting so it's not fair to those players. I had them on the stone for a year, they were never intended to be distributed that way, it was always intended for the tailor system.  Players found a way to exploit tokens and token parties, so changes are intended to balance the economy and a better way to distribute the deeds

The token reduction sucks big time.used to be that we would do token champ parties and get awesome tokens, as well as not attack each other since some reds do champs with blues, but now... there is no real reason to party up. I get the idea was to deter bank sitters but maybe putting the tokens back up to normal and putting an inactive timer on the party would be better. By that I mean, if a player is bank sitting for 5 minutes or more they get automatically kicked from the party. if the player uses the command [afk they are auto kicked right then.

not a fan of the new crafting system, though the golems sound great.
you have not even seen the system yet?  How can u possibly know you dont like it?

the taming part where pets age and die... I say BOOO!!! we bust out rumps to train up our pets and now, they're going to die? you are going to lose a LOT of people who are tamers.
They dont die, they age...again you are jumping to conclusions...we have not even put in the system yet

Also if you need anyone to test let me know

yes it sucks that the token system was abused and they had to remove the deeds. I was saving up tokens and never got to purchase any myself. But I guess its better than those people who were abusing it continuing to do so. They wont care anyway since they got everything they need out of deeds/cloth/making money selling said items.

It does seem like some things are moving away from being casual/limited play time friendly to more of a grind. But since many things are only half implemented with limited info, we will need to wait to find out and see the whole scope

I really do not think (hope) Pets are going to die though. No one will bother to breed, bio, or donate for pets if they are just going to end up dead and or useless from old age?  They will not die!  I clearly stated they age in my earlier description of the system

@Soaryn:
If we were being honest, the token system is broke and it should not be allowed to control the power level of any player.  I am already writing a new champ that will drop magic cloth deeds, magic cloth deeds will also soon be dropping from treasure maps. 

The previous crafting system was broken, period.  No where on the planet should a middle tier material create the best items.  You would also have those with 140 skill creating the same quality items as that of someone with 240 skill.  Yeah some people liked that but did it really work?

LifeCycle was added only because I had to fix something dealing with Evo Dragons and it pushed my hand.  Don't breed for a few days and nothing will happen, if you do breed it will just entire the cycle and for the next few weeks you will get additional ability points.  AND it will never die due to the LifeCycle stages.  There will also be a potion crafted by alchemists that will allow you to decrease the LifeCycle.

@Dreadwolf
If you let me get more things done you will find the casual player will have many more ways to do things and actual get useful and entertaining results with a challenge.

I am on teamspeak a lot if you wish to speak about what I am coding, voice your opinions and concerns or even give me an idea of a better way.

 "I am on teamspeak a lot if you wish to speak about what I am coding, voice your opinions and concerns or even give me an idea of a better way."
 
you have been awessome when it comes to taking feedback and discussing changes whenever I have engaged you, no doubt about that.

We have been working on these ideas for better systems for years and are very well thought out based on balance and the economy.  These changes will really help the shard grow by stimulating the trade and crafting

     I, personally, am enjoying the new content. I wasn't expecting it to be this good to be honest, but I now find that my time on Evo doing mundane tasks, has become far more rewarding. Before, if i wanted magical cloth, I had to farm tokens. Now I have options laid out in front of me. I also like the fact that nothing is being nerfed. Its being repaired. In the past I always met updates with the mindset of "what did they nerf this time" but now I am really looking forward to these. Thats very important to a lot of us and we really appreciate it.

     I am curious as to how arms lore factors into the new crafting system, if at all. Seems like a good way to throw a little more variety into the mix. I'd even consider making luck a factor. Just anything and everything to make that master smith/fletcher/tinker/carpenter stand out amongst his peers. Do the runic changes in blacksmithy affect the other crafting skills currently? I hope so. I'd love to make the most dangerous butcher knife or hatchet ever, or an awesome pvm quarterstaff.

     I am a little curious as to how the life cycle will affect the skills of say, a donation pet. I have a werewolf with 189 wrestling. I would hate to lose that. I am also wondering how pet powerscrolls figure into this, if at all, and how the aging skill loss would affect those skills. Will existing pets be grand fathered into the life cycle system? The dynamic aspect of it adds a lot of variety that I feel the current leveling system doesn't really provide. I expect the answer to this probably won't be simple so I'd be happy with a "we are taking that into consideration".

I dont think we will include donation pets in the lifecycle, still in debate atm

     On a side note, Kane. Try using spike shield in a pvp setting with a few different weapons. Please. As far as i can tell it returns 300% damage with no cool down timer.

     Love the progress,
                 †Soulsunder†

     

@Soulsunder
My plan for things like Magic Cloth deeds is to have multiple methods to acquire; in the near future you will see a new cloth deed champ, treasure maps will have new rewards such as cloth deeds, a socket deed champ and even considering doing a save lotto where you have a chance to win something such as a cloth deed.  As you notice with the token bags, I would rather fix something 10 times then simply just remove it.

Animal Lore/Taming:  Right now I plan on having those skills be key for the breeding system, such things as the higher these skills are when leveling pets could yield higher ability points.  I would also like to move away from the mindset that everything tamed equal, I would rather see some of the best tamers have a chance to tame a greater dragon that takes 1 less control slot then someone else who tamed it.  You will see something like this in the Iron Golem, the higher the tinker skill of the crafter the more features that are unlocked such as smelting and at the highest end is 1 slot less. 

Life Cycle: The only way a pet enters this system is if it originates from player breeding.  If you tame a pet, donate for a pet, special reward pet or any means other then breeding it is not part of the Life Cycle system.  (Gen 2+).  The idea behind this system is to allow tamers and those who purchase tamed pets from players to be able to have  the potential for pets on par with some donation pets.  This will create better pets for players to use as whole and give some life to a pet economy that usually starts to stagnate at some point in a shards existence.  Keep in mind this is only 1 part of a breeding system.  There will also be ways to reduce the current life cycle of a pet as well, these magical potions will be crafted by highly skilled alchemist.  Skills are not effected until the very last step, at which time there is no going back.  To give you an idea, at this moment that takes like 2 or 3 months to get to that point from birth to the final stage.

And if you like these kind of things, wait until you see what Expo and I have dreamed up for the Camping Skill.  (yes I did say camping)

PVP:  Yes on my radar that I am looking at is Spiked Shield and Para Fear, both seem to have some issues in my opinion.

I want to pitch a tent!

Kane, have you guys talked about Bowcraft? Just curious what your thoughts are on its place in this new crafting system. I'm excited to see crafting getting updated. It was always a fun pastime in UO, so I'm glad to see it getting a lot of attention.

Yes we are considering adding back arrows, advanced archery system and all of the special arrows you can craft

PVP:  Yes on my radar that I am looking at is Spiked Shield and Para Fear, both seem to have some issues in my opinion.

Quote

PVP:  Yes on my radar that I am looking at is Spiked Shield and Para Fear, both seem to have some issues in my opinion.

     I couldn't agree more. Another thing that has annoyed pvpers is the use of the personal teleporter to effectively troll pvpers. Its a great item that can get non-combatants out of a sticky situation in a hurry. I like that. What I don't like is players using it to constantly bait people as they bounce back and forth from a gate location. Now I know its not feasible to remove them, and I wouldn't want that. What I would like is a time limit delay between uses. If they wanna get out of an area fast then fine, but don't use it to immediately run back into a dangerous situation. I think this would benefit everyone in that it circumvents the anger that accompanies it and still allows non pvpers a chance to escape. Plus it forces the abusers to be responsible in their decisions.

   

If you are using area of effect its probably because you flagged them.

I am very much aware of not just the PVP concerns with the personal teleporter but also the notion that some players paid real money for them.  I have so far thought of no less then 5 different tactics to how to handle this situation. 

At present I am liking the 3-5 second delay when used in Fel. 

I do have to do some coding for Fel for it to be what I imagine, a dangerous place but fill of rewards. 

I understand the danger of fel, I do like to go there and explore, I do not like to pvp so the telaporter works great for when I get multiple reds pounding on me and I choose to leave and go some where else.

Needs a delay when using in fel. Maybe make it like it's own spell. You have to use it like a runebook but you can still use it anywhere. You should not be able to use it in dangerous situations or when mobs of monsters or other players are killing you. What fun is a game if you never die?

Well I didn't mean a delay in using it in my original post. I meant more of a cool down after using it. Players getting away isn't a problem. Its the players that abuse the teleporter as a means of trolling. Running directly into combat and waiting to be attacked so they can teleport away. Leaving you open to retaliation from their friends. That's more the issue I think. Its being used to bait people, and that's not what it was intended for.

@SoulSunder
Now that is a completely different issue then has been explained to me and I agree completely with you, I do not care how you got your personal teleporter it should not be used as a tool to troll.  Even if I put a 60 second cool down on the other side, the person in fel is still flagged and can still be involved with that players friends.  I think the 3-5 second delay causes someone to have to think twice before relaying completely on a teleporter to escape.

I agree with you Soul Sander a cool down timer after using it sounds like a good idea, that way like you said it would be more difficult for people to bait other players. I know many players enjoy pvp and that is awesome for them, but there are many that do not and the teleporter is a good balance when used properly. 

Ahh suddenly the delay makes more sense.  It would still save you from 2-3 pks running into a champ spawn but intentionally putting yourself in harms way would be a serious mistake. I like that.

Speaking of Golem Crafting....


The Tinker shop north of Britain bank is now equipped with the first publicly available Golem Crafting Apparatus. Only trained technicians are permitted to operate it at this time. Please keep your distance in case there are any residual magic effects.

That looks pretty awesome

With the Personal Teleporters, I don't think its really understood just what would be changing. Yes trolling does happen but that is only because the players being trolled allow for it to happen. Nothing says the players that keep getting ported away on have to stay in that area for it to happen again and again. They are simply hoping that the player slips up and catches that person, which happens more often then not. This falls into the leave on your own mentality.

In regards to the getting killed while champing, I honestly feel that if you are hidden, you shouldn't get flagged on that person. Now I'm sure its pretty hard to make this happen because when you are fighting someone and they hide, the tendency is to wither away and let them die hidden.  If you can't get a person to flag on you the right way, you take the murder count, which doesn't seem to be a problem for most PK's anyways, since they are red.  I'm just as guilty as anyone in doing this, but I honestly feel it shouldn't be that way. The worry you should have with champing is getting murdered, not flagging on a player and taking a kill with no repercussions for that person.

As of right now it seems like a lot of the fixes toward pvp are going toward a certain type of player. I know the dexer life is pretty much gone because of it. The way I see it is even if you have swords cloth, nothing raises the amount of dmg you do quite quite like eval int does for a mage, which hurts even more since there is no dodging a spell like there is dodging a swing. Yes a player that raises eval is more likely to get hit but still not hit as hard, and yes a player with swords can hit more, but another player and raise parry to make that swords void. there is nothing to counter magery and eval. Since spell cloth is so hard to get now as well, the few players that have it will have no slowing down like the players trying to get it. This is just how I feel about a few things. I understand updates are being made, but try to make them more even based and not toward one side. If I am missing something I do apologize but I just wanted to let everyone know how I felt about a few things.

In regards to the getting killed while champing, I honestly feel that if you are hidden, you shouldn't get flagged on that person. Now I'm sure its pretty hard to make this happen because when you are fighting someone and they hide, the tendency is to wither away and let them die hidden.  If you can't get a person to flag on you the right way, you take the murder count, which doesn't seem to be a problem for most PK's anyways, since they are red.  I'm just as guilty as anyone in doing this, but I honestly feel it shouldn't be that way. The worry you should have with champing is getting murdered, not flagging on a player and taking a kill with no repercussions for that person.

@Loial:  This is why you see so few changes being made towards Fel/PVP side of things and I am more just listening, asking questions and taking notes.  I may come up an idea or two from time to time and then will head up to one of the Public Teamspeak rooms to ask what the people involved in PvP have to say about it.  The reason I do this is because for example I know I need to change the para fear aug with a cool down but without other changes that may sway the balance even more between mages vs melee.  So am being very cautious and the fact I have other broken systems to fix gives me some time to come up with a better plan.

In my PvP circle, the main reason to stealth and flag someone is because of the mechanics of the personal teleporter. If one of Kane's ideas such as a delay was put in place, there would be less reason to for a group to sneak up on those champing.

As for manipulating grey status, in order to incite an attack and avoid getting a murder count (or tricking someone into going grey for the same reason), this has been an issue with UO since the beginning. I'm all for brainstorming about it, but after 16 years of  this being observed and complained about, I'm not aware of anywhere that has the solution for dealing with it in a Felucca setting.

Nothing says the players that keep getting ported away on have to stay in that area for it to happen again and again. They are simply hoping that the player slips up and catches that person, which happens more often then not. This falls into the leave on your own mentality.

there is nothing to counter magery and eval.

Addressing spike shield would address dexers viability against mages. Also the high eval mages have big holes in their defenses. Spike shield currently covers that hole, but in an over powered and broken way. You are right about high eval being strong but that one ability change would level the field. Also note my proposed changes to other abilities on page 1. It clearly leans heavily towards the power of dexxers. The argument over dexxer vs mage is silly anyway, going pure on either of them leaves you vulnerable. The most powerful build is a TRUE hybrid. Guaranteed.

Look, guys (and ladies ), I just reread this entire thread and everything else related to pvp. Everyone seems to want more dexxer related content. Even I do. Everyone keeps saying, eval this, eval that. Think about it people. Whats the counter to magery? A good swift weapon. Whats the problem with that? Spike shield. You can't even dex other dexxers at this point due to spike shield. You ALL have got to get eval out of your heads and realize where the culprit is. Anyone that has built a pvp suit knows you need alot of stats to pvp. These guys stacking eval are missing some of these stats. The defenses against weapons just aren't there. The only thing protecting them from your wrath is that spike shield. I assure you that you can hit even harder with a weapon than they can cast for. Explore your options. Read what your spells do. Bleed them, poison them, curse them, and start killing them. Its not even hard. Ever seen anyone use mind rot in pvp? I do. It increases the mana cost of those spells that everyone is afraid of. If you swing and miss then counter with a debuff. I'm not going to spell out everything you can do to hurt a mage, but if i did, we would be here for quite a while. Its not eval you should be worried about. Its eval mixed with the ability to make the very thing that counters it kill you instead of them. Spike shield. I hate beating this dead horse but ya'll need to wake up. You can't even fight back because you are punished for doing so. I hope this helps.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            †Soulsunder†

@Loial

there is nothing to counter magery and eval.

Yep.

Spike shield isn't even in use when a stone circle is in play, yes spike is over powered, but only if you can get in range for a hit. It means nothing otherwise. A casters ability to do 80 dmg with a pre-casted explosion, as well as follow up with a 90+ flamestrike, means you can be near death before you even realize it. Take on the fact if a player gets in range to hit with dexer weapon, a mages harm spam will squish even the fastest swinger with no remorse. I unfortunately do not agree with you SS. The culprit is eval and magery being undefendable, though spike shield also could use a bit of work.  If a caster was to stack parry along with mage/eval, they are offense and defense in one, if a dexxer raises anything, it does nothing to mitigate any spell's damage what-so-ever.  Toss along a curse that can make you lose +30 stats, or close to it, you are at a loss. I would just like to see a more even playing field. Nothing more, nothing less.

A casters ability to do 80 dmg with a pre-casted explosion, as well as follow up with a 90+ flamestrike, means you can be near death before you even realize it.

...stone circle ...pre-casted ...a mages harm spam ...toss along a curse...

...a mages harm spam will squish even the fastest swinger with no remorse.

I will wait to post further til I see what the next update holds, but I will definitely be discussing this a lot more.

Good points. I didn't realize spells could do that much damage. I play a style designed to harrass a mages ability to cast. I use alot of magery, but in a fashion to hurt a mages ability to cast. I also use quite a bit of necro. I am at 155 eval and it takes me cursing you first, to get 90+ damage out of an explosion/flamestrike combo. I think that my biggest drawback for addressing eval is that the last time this happened it forced me to raise my eval to 200+. I will say though that a fast weapon with decent hit spells could out dps someone casting flamestrike. As for harm, my harm hits between 12-15 damage at 1 tile. I have killed people with it but I usually have to paralyze them or drain their stamina first. Ya know, a hard max damage cap would work.  Like set it so that flamestrike can never do more than 75 points of damage. Set harms max output to a cap of say 18. Explosion to hmm, 35-45 ish? I think anything done to address eval directly will force people to extremes but these hard caps or a variation of them could be the answer. Keep them slightly high so people still have a reason to stack eval, but cap the damage so as not to break the server. Either way though a nerf to eval and/or sdi would also hurt a fighters ability to retaliate with basic spells. Also think of people that don't pvp and use magery. This will only hinder them. Also, thanks for responding to us Loial. We can figure all this out given time, but we won't be able to do so without an opposing thought path. I appreciate that. Maybe later on you and I could get together in game and hammer out some hard cap values through testing and see what we both feel comfortable with. I'm not sure how to set the hard caps per individual spell and keep it so monsters take full damage without cap, but I have seen it done elsewhere and know it can be done. If I find an example of the code I will post it for reference. Anyway let me know what you think of this idea.

I'm actually enjoying reading all this PRODUCTIVE back and forth talk on PvP. There are some views/situations that I hadn't thought of which were brought up here and is refreshing to see. This is why I encourage people to post more on the forums. Although not every problem will be 100% loved or resolved, if we can work towards a goal that is as accommodating as possible, it's mission accomplished in my book.

Good job all. Now keep discussing! =)

Just to clarify on these spell damage numbers.. Minos is 100% correct. There are only so many items out there that provide evaluating intelligence. With the majority of these items I have stacked my evaluating intelligence to 250 (for testing purposes since using that in the field or duels would result in major holes in defenses).


At 250 Evaluating Int -
Explodes do 45 dmg and Flamestrikes do 52 dmg.
On a cursed target - Explodes do 58 dmg and Flamestrikes do 70 dmg on a cursed target.


(Tested on a player with all resists over 70)


A total of (about) 128 damage output with the slowest combo magery has to offer and considering your target is debuffed. Very easily interrupted and spells like evasion can nullify the cast completely.
 
As a counterpoint, I have recently been two shot (over 150 damage per hit with a 1.5 second swing speed) by Loial using a soul glaive dexxer. So the damage output is there, the problem lies in late game hit chance for dexxers. Rather than giving damage bonuses, which is moving down the road of the Samurai Katana, dexxers need dexxer only bonuses that can penetrate or ignore a portion of the target's parry and/or increase their hit chance on player. Again - if something like this is implemented for everyone, the hybrid will receive the same buff. The buff should be dexxer only if you want to truly create a balance between pure classes.


Example: If you have over 200 in a weapon skill and less than 150 in evaluating intelligence then you receive a flat base 10-15% hit chance increase above the cap. The moment you increase your eval above 150 you lose this bonus. This would compliment the pure dexxer builds without buffing the hybrids at the same time.

Thats an excellent example Pumpkin. Kane had mentioned a class base system earlier (in another thread) and that same hit chance increase issue would help greatly in reguards to a warrior based class. I guess all this really depends on what changes they have in store for the class system.

And these post are why I like the forums. Its easy to say one thing when you don't understand, which unfortunately there is a lot about "mages" I don't fully understand. I do appreciate the feed back and I also like a lot of the points being made. Thank you.

Yeah this is the best time to do it. Alot of the past negativity is in the past. Its a good time for people to work together. Just because we kill each other doesn't mean we can't be gentlemen about it, and as I see it, we are being just that.

Cap Eval Int at 200-220 Enuff Said. tell me another *PvP* Oriented Shard Where You Can Get 200+ Eval Int and *Nuke* players with 300 HP and 165.. Dex Cap???. If Ya Think About It Other PvP Shards Have All Players Set To The Same Skill Cap.. So It Then Shows True Balance And Skill For All. And Truthfully Im Tired Of Hearing Mage's Say Use Evaison To Counter .. When A Flamestrike / Explode Combo Can Cast Lets Say Ruffly 2-3 Seconds.. When The Cooldown On The Evaison Spell Is 7-9 Second Cooldown. If We Ever Want To Show True Balance PvP On Evolution There Has To Be Set Skill Caps For Certin PvP Skills. Not Just A Handfull Of PvPer's Whom Have 250+ Eval Int. Thanks For Reading This Post Have A Wonderfull Day Your Pal (KG).

  I agree with Krazy G in one respect; and I know/hope Kane is taking this path.

  Finding balance is key; not necessarily this item/spell counters that item/ability. Rather, how can pvp be made exciting, brutal, and at the end of the day fair to all who have mastered it.

  Some one posted {spainkevin I think} about killing a few people and dying to a few people; sometimes beating someone one day only to die to them the next.

  This is the kind of balance I am talking about, but on a veteran/master level.

   As of right now, the top players are min maxing, [I am sure some of them are well rounded as well] but most of them are copy paste... or what's the best set up for the least chance of defeat versus X # of styles.That's not PvP, skill, or fun for all.

   IMHO, for PvP to be balanced --therefore viable-- some current things need to change, or be discontinued; while others are added on a massive scale. Those additions should be more possibilities for PvP style set ups. Weapons, Armor, Spells, Potions, and anything else that can help boost damage or defend the player from it would be a good start. Options lead to personal play style, and truthfully it is more challenging to counter some ones Warrior mentality then it is to counter the games cut and paste PvP options.

  14 years ago some one thought up the Explosion + Flame strike combo, what we need now is new set of combos.


  Thanks for reading.


    --Sturger--

These are all counter points of discussion on Sturger's post. I'm separating this from the next post.

As of right now, the top players are min maxing, [I am sure some of them are well rounded as well]

but most of them are copy paste...

or what's the best set up for the least chance of defeat versus X # of styles.That's not PvP, skill, or fun for all.

...and at the end of the day fair to all who have mastered it.

i am pro dexxer because at the moment that is the gear i have to work with. and i can say that by no means do i want to stand there and hack and slash. all i want to do is  have some sort of strategic defense against 100% hit rate spells with massive DPS. i actually think mages on evo are pretty well done. i would just like to see a couple things changed to close the gap between mages and dexing. as i mentioned in another post those things are make bushido viable with 1H weps, slightly reduce the cooldown for evasion, reduce spike shield return dmg, and drop dex cap back to 150. i believe these simple changes will go a long way in regards to evening the playing field.