What should I make for my next character?

[SighelmofWyrmgard]

Oh, Jeez!

Don't dump your character's progress: create a new character, if necessary; you can have 3 accounts!

My own archer/fisher uses a variant of my Fighter Template; substitute GM Fishing for Parry.

50 Hiding/50 Magery on your fisher is fine: put the rest of your skill points where you wish.

A non-PvP archer should see relatively little, "your fingers slip"; hence, my suggestion to maybe short Healing. Yet, even considering enough Magery to use the Cure spell, you might still want to be able to cure poison with bandages, or even Resurrect ... There's a lot of personal-preference to be considered.

My archer/fisher works for my purposes, according to my expectations.

In the interests of further thought, I'll ask you to look at this thread.

SS

[Foxhound3857]

Okay, I'm thinking like this:

GM Fishing
GM Archery
GM Tactics
GM Healing
GM Anatomy
75 Resist
48.5 Magery
51.5 Hiding
25 Tracking

How exactly does Tracking work? I've never used it before. I'm assuming that the point is to activate it and keep it running via macro in dungeons, set to track humans, and it will warn me if another player is getting closer to me?

[SighelmofWyrmgard]

Not too long ago, I sent this information to someone else:

Tracking: the "upside-down" skill: an essay.

Tracking is a great skill, but it possesses an odd flaw in its design: it's rather easy to achieve skill levels that are "too high", in that one can have "so much Tracking that the skill doesn't work" ...

Yes, this does make sense, and it is true, and I will explain.

The Tracking skill possesses a gigantic range, and will register all valid mobiles (according to the type selected) within that range when the skill is used. Unfortunately, there is a limit on the number of results that the skill is permitted to process: if the valid mobiles in range exceed that number, the skill will not work; it does not fail, as in skill-failure, it simply does not return any worthwhile result (the sysmessage says something like, "there is too much traffic in this area to track any single creature").

Tracking range: some claim that the range is 1 tile, in all directions, per point of ability (ability = skill+statbonus, and Tracking gets a lot of statbonus ...); I'm not convinced that the range is that huge, but I am convinced that it is at least half of that, which is still huge.

Return Limit: I have no 'hard' data, but it is very reasonable to assume that this limit is the maximum value of an unsigned 8-bit integer (255); if there are more than 255 valid mobiles in range when the skill is used, skill-use will not fail, but the skill won't work, either.

Skill-use-failure does not happen above 20 ability (I've never precisely plotted the break-point, but it is 19.~).

Sometime post-t2A, UO did some re-working to the Tracking skill, specifically in order to make it more difficult to use Tracking against Hiders/Stealthers: these changes are not live at UOSA; our era-accurate Tracking is 100% effective against all valid mobiles, hidden or not.

What does all this mean?

Saxmund Sighelm the Paladin (me) has 25.0 skill in Tracking (>35something ability, I forget). Let's suppose I make a brand-new friend, let's call him Cool the Hunter, who boasts that he just GM'd Tracking, and we decide to meet-up at WBB to do some trading.

"Hey, Cool, before we trade, let's make sure there aren't any thieves around."

"No worries! Aw, shit, it's too busy around here to track anything."

"Really! Wait a sec, there, Cool. Nonsense! In fact, Jerky StealFace is standing, hidden, right behind you" ...

I hope this adequately explains why I have shoe-horned a deliberately-small amount of Tracking into almost all of my templates: even 15 real-skill will raise ability above the 19.~ failure break-point, and will detect all valid mobiles within the immediate vicinity.

No one has ever stealthed into any of my houses: a few months back, I found I had a hidden porch-sitter, and I stealthed my Ranger all around her (the other toon was a female toon); if I had wanted to murder that character, I could have easily stealthed-in and positioned two alt-archer-bots, and then start throwing purple potions and ebolts ... but, I'm no murderer.

SS

[Foxhound3857]

So basically anything above 15 hard skill points will ensure that the skill always succeeds in its check, but if it gets too high then the range will more often than not produce so many different targets to track that it simply can't list them all and just gives up? But 15-25 will track everything within a reasonable range but never so many that the skill pseudo-fails because there's rarely that many targets to track within that small of a vicinity?

[SighelmofWyrmgard]

So basically anything above 15 hard skill points will ensure that the skill always succeeds in its check, but if it gets too high then the range will more often than not produce so many different targets to track that it simply can't list them all and just gives up?

Maybe I should just keep it at 15 instead of 25 then, 10 more points into Hiding (or Resists if I do end up finding that it would be worth more to me to raise it above 75).

You've got the gist of it. Whatever else is true, you need to be above the 19.~ breakpoint (assuming stat-capped, you will cross that breakpoint @ 11ish skill; Tracking benefits from a huge amount of stat influence).

But you have to know how to use it: "Jerky Stealface is to the south", "Jerky Stealface is to the west" ... ride around and you find your quarry, to the precise tile.

I mentioned my Ranger, who also possesses Hiding + Stealth: in the specific case of that 'porch sitter', I walked all around her: I determined the specific tile occupied; rather than murdering that character, "at unawares" or not, I simply conducted my business otherwise; somebody parked, with hiding and stealth (I looked up the character on MyUOSA), on my porch is not there in order to do wonderful things for me ...

Maybe that person did only want to say, "hi": it was weird; there was an abandoned horse not far away, to which I lured an Ogre and maybe a Ratman or two. To anyone who wants to say, "hi", though, don't park your stealth-mage on my porch ...

Geez, a while back I invited Vega to come by for a beer (I had, and still have, a gigantic quantity of suds, originally intended for Smith the Horse and Lola Fitzowen): hey, Vega, the stuff is going to get stale; PM me, please, let me put out some tables in the front yard, and come by; Nice Dress will serve us beers, and you can say, for the screenshot, something like, "You do know that I will kill you, later; right?".

SS

[Aeris]

Sighelm, where on earth did you get 50.1 or whatever magery for no fail recall scrolls? It's 34.0 shown skill, which will be ~25-33 real skill depending on what your INT is. I'll donate 200 recall scrolls and you can run a macro testing for sysmessage "fizzles"

[Aeris]

Just read the wiki link you posted, but that can't be correct. When you stop gaining skill casting a certain circle spell, that means you have a 100% chance to cast the spell. If there is any chance of failure (even 1%) you would be able to gain skill. You can't gain past 34.0 shown skill casting a 2nd circle spell (which is equivalent to a 4th circle scroll).

[SighelmofWyrmgard]

Crap, I forgot to mention,

Vega, I will know if our privacy is compromised: these days, I'm pretty much a one-man-guild (not entirely, but I don't think there's much there to add to security ...); however, I'm friendly-enough with some folks that, if I asked nicely and asked for the benefit of the shard, they would help me provide both security and 'safe passage', even if you are red.

Come by and help me drink these suds!

Haha! I'd love to have that me-and-you-red drinking beer to the health of the shard screenshot. You can submit the screenshot, yourslf: c'mon, what do you say?

Step up, bro! Last time I used that language, it was against that douchetard Mens Rea when he was trying to donkey-punch Kaivan's good-bye thread.

Whatever I know, I know you have more class than that!

SS

[SighelmofWyrmgard]

Just read the wiki link you posted, but that can't be correct. When you stop gaining skill casting a certain circle spell, that means you have a 100% chance to cast the spell. If there is any chance of failure (even 1%) you would be able to gain skill. You can't gain past 34.0 shown skill casting a 2nd circle spell (which is equivalent to a 4th circle scroll).

Hi, I've respected you for a long time, but your knowledge in this matter has somehow fallen aside.

I do not even know what to say, at this point: you're the guy I get information from ...

No, sorry, and I am being a jerk.

Ok, if you mean by 100% success, 99% ...

That table in the Wiki is a little upside-down (and I have remarked on this, before) in respects to how it presents its information, but the information is "spot-on".

I won't say, "you weren't there", but I will say, "I was there", and I know I was there because I was there ... the information given in the Wiki not-only commutes 100% with my recollections but, if you go climbing through The Wayback Machine, you will find that in-era Stratics gives the same information.

Now, I know you know this: else, you would be submitting an era-accuracy report ...

So, otherwise (from your contributions here at UOSA forums), I know that you are not dumb/stupid: there is something that isn't entirely right; how can I address your concern(s)?

SS

P.S. Would you help me by providing 'safe-passage' to Vega, in order to drown the son of a bitch in suds?

SS

[Drunk'n Disorder]

I'm a little drunk and late to this party... so for your next char, I suggest a tank mage. You don't need to be GM magery to be an effective tank mage, although I do suggest over 95.

[Aeris]

Just read the wiki link you posted, but that can't be correct. When you stop gaining skill casting a certain circle spell, that means you have a 100% chance to cast the spell. If there is any chance of failure (even 1%) you would be able to gain skill. You can't gain past 34.0 shown skill casting a 2nd circle spell (which is equivalent to a 4th circle scroll).

Hi, I've respected you for a long time, but your knowledge in this matter has somehow fallen aside.

I do not even know what to say, at this point: you're the guy I get information from ...

No, sorry, and I am being a jerk.

Ok, if you mean by 100% success, 99% ...

That table in the Wiki is a little upside-down (and I have remarked on this, before) in respects to how it presents its information, but the information is "spot-on".

I won't say, "you weren't there", but I will say, "I was there", and I know I was there because I was there ... the information given in the Wiki not-only commutes 100% with my recollections but, if you go climbing through The Wayback Machine, you will find that in-era Stratics gives the same information.

Now, I know you know this: else, you would be submitting an era-accuracy report ...

So, otherwise (from your contributions here at UOSA forums), I know that you are not dumb/stupid: there is something that isn't entirely right; how can I address your concern(s)?

SS

P.S. Would you help me by providing 'safe-passage' to Vega, in order to drown the son of a bitch in suds?

SS

Hhahaha, I've no idea if you're drunk or just having fun, but you're cracking me up. In any case, if you know the code for sure, then fair enough, I can't prove you wrong. Boomland has also confirmed to me in the past that magery isn't so logical as it appears. However, just for a little anecdotal mention I'll say this: I've got 3 characters on 3 accounts locked at 62.9 magery, which is when I stop gaining/fizzling from 4th circle spells. I've used these characters extensively over the years, and have recall-mined at least 700k ingots, which works out to about 25,000 recalls, and *never* has a recall fizzled. I know this, because in my mining script, there is no checking that the recall succeeded before proceeding to the next line. If a recall had fizzled, the same thing would have happen as when my rune is blocked. I've had a number of times a rune was blocked and I had to intervene and restart the macro, but "the location is blocked" was always right there in the journal Never "the spell fizzles."

I know it's just empirical, but the chance of a tmap is 1%, and I've gotten thousands of those. So if the chance at a fizzle is 1%, shouldn't I have seen at least one in over 25k recalls?

[SighelmofWyrmgard]

Hmmmm, Aeris, while I do not doubt your claims, I will say, "hmmmmmm".

When you've locked those characters @ 62.9 Magery, is that skill or ability? Same question with regard to 34 Magery and recall scrolls.

If it's the true skill values that you are giving me, what are the Intelligence scores on those characters?

I'm just wondering if we're comparing apples to apples.

I don't know how straight-forward the code is, I've just never has any reason to doubt Wiki/Stratics.

I've often observed anomalies that defy straight-forward interpretation: multiple spell-fizzles in a row, for example, when casting a circle that should hardly ever fail; with high hiding, failing to hide "too many times in a row" ... the only pattern I've discerned regarding these anomalies is that they so often occur "in a row".

I don't know if success-projections are supposed to be linear, or if there is something logarithmic built-in.

Oh, I'll add: I am sure that I have (rarely) failed to scroll-cast Recall on a character with 35.0 real-skill Magery; I don't use these characters to Recall all over Britannia, though (I use characters with higher Magery for all such trips), so such things don't happen very often.

I'll try to remember to keep an eye open for these types of occurrences, and document them.

SS

[Aeris]

The values I give for magery are always "shown" skill as that is what is used to generate your chance of success. So 62.9 for circle 4 is 56.4 "real" skill on a char with 100 INT. It will go up to 58 or 59 "real" if your character has less INT, like 25, or 40, but it will still be 62.9 shown. Also, the 34.0 I suggested for recall scroll 100% casting is also "shown", so if you have 100 INT, it should only be 25 or so "real" skill.

I don't know about the success probabilities being linear or logarithmic, but the extremes do seem to follow the 2.5% per skill point that the wiki states (e.g. at 22.9 shown skill you can have your first chance at success for a 4th circle spell, and 40 skill points later (40*2.5 = 100) you are at 62.9 and can no longer fizzle. You can test this by locking a toon at 22.8 (shown), and trying to cast 4th circle - you will fizzle forever and never gain a single skill point. Pop it to 22.9 however, and you will gain almost every attempt for the next few skill points.

In my experience the wiki does get it right a lot of the time, but I have seen it wrong in the past a couple times (for instance, the guide for GMing Blacksmithy is just horrendous). I believe it is mostly player made, but I could be wrong about this. Because of this, I don't view it as an infallible source. In any case, it generally gets the job done, just perhaps not most efficiently I haven't thoroughly tested many skills aside from magery, so I haven't been able to check if other guides are accurate (like weapon speed/dmg, resist, eval int, etc.), so in these cases I trust the wiki just out of general laziness (and the fact that there is a formula presented that does seem to correlate to my in game experience). With magery, the data didn't correlate with my in game experience, so that's why I did my own testing.

[SighelmofWyrmgard]

At the very least, your information provides valuable food for thought.

Regarding "99% maximum success chance": like you, this is something I have never directly observed; all the PvPers on the shard can likely confirm this, too, because they all would have observed several instances of fizzled Clumsys and mini-Heals and Fireballs, and such, if there indeed were a "1% minimum failure chance" attached to all Circles of Magery.

Our Wiki re-presents the data from Stratics, and the folks at Stratics were, perhaps, merely hedging their bets; if the skill-check algorithm includes a logarithmic function, then that might return something like 99.9999999 at the high end, which would not be likely observable. Now, of course, I'm just speculating.

I include that "1% failure" caution in order to hedge my bets: I would not want people to assume that success is guaranteed, and there is nothing more sinister to it than that.

Thanks for the dialogue.

SS

[SighelmofWyrmgard]

Foxhound3857,

I apologise for derailing your thread.

Your next same-account character could be any of the things that you have proposed.

A crafter would offer fletching/repairing support to your account, which would be useful: GM bows are cheap to make (and likely sufficient for your Archer-Fisher), and are available at low-skill; and you would also be making (at least some of) your own arrows.

According to Oct. 08/99 Capture of Stratics "Repairing Arms & Armor",

•If you receive the message *You fail to repair the item* you have weakened the item and it has not been repaired. This will reduce the items hps by 1 for Master/GM Smiths, 2 for Expert Smiths and 3 for Apprentice Smiths.
•If you receive the message *The item has been repaired* you have weakened the item but repaired it. This will reduce the items hps by 1 for all levels of Smiths.

and,

The current condition of the weapons/armor affects the difficulty of repairing the item. It is much harder to repair a Plate chest that is falling apart, than a Plate chest in Fairly Good condition

If you wish to generate alt characters on other accounts, you might consider making characters the can be multi-boxed alongside your Fisher-Archer: as I had already mentioned, I use another Fisher (who is also a combat-casting Mage), and an Archer-Bard for enhanced security (my Archer-Bard is also my Item-IDer; all my SoS loot is identified and sorted by the time I bring everyone home).

Anyway, do what you think will be most fun.

SS