economy magic weps/crafter wps

[BlackFoot]

just wondering if anyone else noticed the trend recently

its easier and cheaper to get a +25 vanq wep than a gm wep off of a vendor

i dont know if its anything to think about or not but it just seems odd

[RoadKill]

I'm having a terribly hard time selling +15-+20 power and vanq weapons for less than 3000gp No one wants to buy them, but everyone loooves to brag when they loot a vanq off you for some reason

[BlackFoot]

dont know if its any concern at this point i just think it is really wierd, its been a huge shift since a year ago

[Caswallon]

This is definitely becoming a problem. Power weapons are very hard to sell, force impossible, despite the fact that force is still better than GM.

Slightly OT: I think our smith market here is less productive than it should be anyway, as im willing to bet most of the larger PvP guilds have at least a guild smith[In the same way MIKES TAMER LOL is basically a communal tamer for about 5 people], which means they dont have to go buy 5 new dex suits/10 hallys every week like, which was a major player to player gold market in era, its something that is really lacking here imo, I know we cant socially engineer the shard to match the era but I feel the min skill values for smithing need to be fixed ASAP, thus making smithing harder/costlier to GM, this will have some effect long term if not short term.

We should be seeing sets of 3 dex suits, bags of 10 kats/hallys etc on vendors but I never see those things and I can only attribute it to the above.

Back on topic, its down to population explosion and more efficient farming but maybe its might be worth lowering the drop % by 25% relative to their current value. So if vanq = 5% make it 4% and so on. Divinity around the time I left had a serious problem with everyone having piles of +20/25 power/vanq weapons[you could get a 100% guaranteed +20/25 power/vanq from poison/blood eles within an hour of farming tops so its the staffs fault tbh], they decided to world deleting all magic items, and nerf the drop rate so much that only the occasional force were dropping but mianly ruin/might[a force +25 warhammer went for 125k], overkill obviously, that caused many people to leave divinity at the time so im not suggesting such drastic measures here but maybe the drop % does need tweaking to compensate for more people farming more efficiently for longer.

[Dagon]

Slightly OT: I think our smith market here is less productive than it should be anyway

Because the first thing new players do when they come here is make a smith. That's a repetition I see all the time on IRC.. smith smith smith smith smith. Everyone wants a smith. I did the same thing when I got here, but I was sort of replicating what I had on OSI all those years ago, not necessarily for the income value of having a smith; although I don't do too bad currently.. sales go up and down from time to time but generally I do alright. (Of course I'd like to sell a lot more though!)

As for Blackfoot, well I know you were being sarcastic (of I hope you were) with "its easier and cheaper to get a +25 vanq wep than a gm wep off of a vendor", but if not then you are shopping in the wrong areas cuz Yew Bank Mall has GM kats for 100gp and hallys for 200gp! Not gonna get a +25 vanq like that

The problem with a lot of this really relates to the fact that 90% of the server is OMG LEET PVP crazy.. that equates to hardly any armor because most are tank mages, and of course they want the +25 vanq hally and not a GM one.. so you're really left with dexxers, all who have their own smith , or newbs that buy armor up until they have their own smith.

As for "the min skill values for smithing need to be fixed" assuming you mean actually changing the skill level requirements to make an item, well, that just wouldn't be accurate... if the correct, accurate values are implemented now.

[Caswallon]

The min values are wrong for all our smithed items. And not just a little wrong, but way way lower than they should be. Our katana takesa round 44, it should be 66.8.

The table is here:

http://web.archive.org/web/199910131311 ... m/blac.htm

Compare it to our wiki info, which is currently correct, and you see the difference.

Its true what you say about starting players and smithing, but how many people on OSI actually GM'd it? It was one of the harder skills to GM, not so here, can be done in a day or 2 if you have the ingots.

[Derrick]

Getting the smithing levels fixed sounds like it should be a big priority. As well as possibly taking another look at gain rates.

[Caswallon]

WALL OF TEXT!

A timely bump sir!

I have been running a smith vendor for about 3 weeks now, and Dagon is correct, the money is steady if unspectacular but its nothing like it should be imo, my main back in era was a smith, and it made me very rich, some of the wealthiest people on Europa were the top smiths, the reason I went down the blacksmiths route was because I was tired of scratching around for 5k here, 10k there, and I was aware of the ability of a dedicated smith to make lots of money. It was a long hard road, but the rewards were sumptuous once you hit GM. Again I know we dont do "social engineering" but read on....

I have seen you mention it before and that its a big job, so I know its on the radar, but fixing the min skill values will have multiple knock on effects imo, as well as returning some prestige to the title "Grandmaster Smith", it will stimulate the economy as dedicated smiths will be using more ingots to create weapons, resulting in higher prices for weapons due to increased ingot wastage, we wont be seeing anymore 75-100gp Katanas/Kryss, these items will end up around 200-250gp, hallys will end up around 300-400gp, which personally is the range I recall.

Ingot supply from miners will also be placed under greater stress, boosting that facet of the economy aswell, not that it really needs it, but it should happen in time. This could potentially see the price of ingots rise slightly.

There will be, in theory, so many knock on effects in both the short and long term. Its not just a case of making it tougher/longer to GM, it will impact other areas imo.

On the subject of magics, do you feel the shard is in danger or drowning in them Derrick? This is just my personal belief but, I dont remember everyone running around with vanq weapons and invul armour, those things were saved for guild fights, duels, PK gank squads or if you fancied risking them in a guild hunt situation, so you had a chance of retaining them in the event of death. Standard equipment was GM which of course leads back to smithing profitability. Off course some of this is down to more knowledgeable players, better farming and so on but im with BF, I think drop % is a little high.[I pulled 4 vanq hallys from 46 level 1/5 level 2 maps, and numerous other vanqs, thats quite high imo]

Sorry for the spiel, but smithing is something I have always done in UO and i would love to see some of its prestige returned, as long as its era accurate in cause an effect.

[Batlin]

Maybe in the same patch that fixes blacksmithy levels, the carrying weight of pack llamas and pack horses should be fixed too as this will probably affect the ore supply.


January 2000: http://update.uo.com/design_146.html

Pack Animals
Pack horses and pack llamas will have their carrying capacity increased from 400 to 1,600 stones. If a pack animal goes wild, it will eventually drop whatever it is carrying if it is not retamed.

[nickhimself]

You know, I understand the reasoning behind wanting blacksmithing to be fixed in hopes of a more stable crafting economy. Unfortunately, i'll be the pessimist here and say that as long as people have 3 accounts to use for whatever they want we will never see an economy as we did in the days of t2a.

I'll even use myself as an example. My main account has my bard on it. I have never played a bard prior to joining this shard. Through farming and selling some weapons, I had amassed a respectable amount of around 1.7 million gold. This was definitely the most I have ever had in UO prior to UO:R where a short stint in real estate gave me some ridiculous amount of money. Anyway, using the money I had amassed I purchased around 70k - 80k Iron Ingots, and 40k - 60k boards to work Blacksmithy, Carpentry, and Tinkering up each from 30 skill to GM.

Out of pure laziness, I created myself a crafter who has never worked an honest day in his life. He has about 76 mining all from smelting weapons / armor during blacksmithy gains.

Do you want to know why I made this crafter? House add-ons and free armor repair. That's it.

I don't use GM crafted weapons or armor, I use everything that i've fished up or found while farming (force - vanq / hardening - invul).

I literally created a character and blew tons of money on him just to have a character who would be able to repair my armor and weapons whenever I needed him to, and to also make various house additions whenever I felt like re-decorating.


If I didn't have 3 accounts, I wouldn't have done that. I wouldn't have felt like taking the time to play my blacksmith over any other character who I could actually play more exciting parts of the game with.

I don't want to give up my 3 accounts, I'm sure 90%+ of the shard feels the same way. However, if we didn't have 3 accounts, the people who wanted to blacksmith would do that. Those of us who didn't really care about that stuff would rely on those people to fix our gear and DP our weapons.


As for the magic items - I agree that they seem a little too easy to accumulate. I don't feel like i've spent tons of my time fishing or farming compared to anyone else. However, I do have what feels like a ridiculous amount of power/vanq weapons and fort/invul armor. I've purchased zero of these items. MIBs have honestly been the absolute biggest contributing factor to my magic item cache.

Perhaps adjusting treasure chest loot tables for fishing (at least) is in order?

[BlackFoot]

i did 10-12 tmaps of varrying levels this morning
I came away with about 2 quality items, so I dont htink the drop rate is too bad
It may jsut be that tons of players are spending all their time doing tmaps and s.o.s
maybe the map/mib drop rate is too fast?

[Derrick]

I believe the t-map drop rate is right, but I'll see what I can find out.

Thanks!

[Mikel123]

90% of the issues on this shard, like this one, come from a few premises:

1) people have better connections today than they did in 1999
2) people are better-informed today - more active forums and communities, better data
3) our shard attracts the better and better-informed players from 1999
4) it is much easier (and more common) on our shard to have 3 accounts than it was in 1999
5) our shard has less players on it than 1999 OSI

How this applies to vanqs:

1) people die less when doing maps (and can Help --> Stuck to ressurect and get restocked and back to their body before it decays with their vanqs on it, if they're on a t-map on an island)
2) people know how to macro cartography to 100.0 and lockpicking to 95.0, and can therefore attempt more treasure maps. I think I literally threw them out in 1999.
3) we are better at farming today, so we get more t-maps per hour of hunting
4) we are more likely to try cartography here than we were in 1999 when we only had 5 characters to work with
5) we typically don't ever share spawns; if someone is at Elder Gazers, Bloods are probably open. etc. In 1999, you'd be splitting the bone magi spawn on Deceit 2 with a couple other people.

You've got to decide whether to recreate the "feel" or the "mechanics" of 1999 UO. We've chosen the mechanics, so this is one of many annoying side effects.

Though I will say... there still is a premium on high-end vanqs that make them worthwhile. A +20 vanq halberd will sell for 75k, which takes me over an hour to earn with my tamer. And, I think the more people have vanqs, the less stale consensual PvP is. If we all ran around with GM weapons, like I remember doing most of the time on OSI, it would be much harder to kill people. 1v1 with two willing participants is very often a stalemate, ESPECIALLY with GM weapons. But if people have vanqs, it's more likely to end. And, if one has a vanq and one is cheaping out with a GM weapon, the vanq-user has a (deserved!) advantage.

[Derrick]

Aye. In 1999 I was the one of two treasure hunters in my humble but not completely small guild, and doing a level 5 was a guild outing. In retrospect, I could have easily soloed them. The risk of being interrupted by another player I imagine is substantially less here as well.

The issues of more knowledgeable players coupled with a more empty shard are certainly far reaching.