Speed on Terathan Avengers and Balrons is all wrong

[EVeee]

I began this as a bug report but was told that it was a patch and is intended to be the way it is. Therefore it's an accuracy issue. I won't restate everything I already said there, just let me begin with the link (please read) - viewtopic.php?f=4&t=39755 . It might not be chock full of evidence but I made some very pertinent logical points in there.

What I intend to do here is offer enough evidence supporting my claims to get the good staff here to change it back to what it was. Now, as far as I can tell, the only evidence offered by anyone that brought about this patch speeding them up insanely - viewtopic.php?f=7&t=14831 - was this thread where a whiny PK victim made ridiculous claims supported by zero fact - viewtopic.php?f=8&p=129542 . Even if your memory of Terathans was fuzzy, the '...used to follow me even if I were 2-3 SCREENS away as long as I got the angles right.' should have tipped someone off that he was making s*** up as he went along. That thread is as good as nothing; worse actually, because nothing > lies. I encourage and beseech anyone who can find any thread with a scrap of real evidence that Terathan Avengers went Mach 1 to share it. And by that I mean I know no one will, because there can't be any, because they didn't.

If we can all agree that Terathan Keep in its current form (between jet-propelled Avengers, Balrons, and possibly more that I don't know about) is nearly sure death for people on foot, then I'd like to show pictures of people successfully adveturing there solo or in small groups on foot as evidence that the current speeds are inaccurate. A couple of years ago or so on UOSA the Balron speed was correct also. They were faster than most every other monster and a stumble into an obstacle while running from was was likely to equal death. But they were not ridiculous teleport-fast any more than Avengers were. I've tried to find evidence of that as well but it was a lot easier to find things on the Terathans.

For reference, here is a blog from October 1998 where a player refers to screenshots that I will share next - http://www.wtfman.com/oldjov/oldnews/octnews.htm . I know that the timeframe that you're seeking to duplicate here is about a year later than that, but in the absence of any evidence that the speed of Avengers or Balrons changed in that year it should be considered valid evidence.

Screenshots: http://www.wtfman.com/oldjov/scrnshots.htm (in the Lost Lands category). In particular, look at the picture of the solo bard provoking the Balron on the Avenger. Inside, without a mount. Anyone who says that's possible on UOSA now is a liar. Even if it could be pulled off, you'd die 99 times or more trying and only a moron would even attempt it in the first place.

http://www.wtfman.com/oldnews/oct99.htm - October 25th, 1999 post where the same chap handled a mob and TWO avengers with his solo bard, while communicating with a loot thief.

Era talk about Terathans and Balrons - http://groups.google.com/group/rec.game ... tiflQxf90A . I point it out because nowhere in there does it say 'Holy shizz, those things move like lightning! Zomg you must have a horse or you are dead!'. Nope, just 'Balrons are fast, huh'.

More Era talk which fully supports my statement in the Bug Reporting thread [Hell, seriously, be honest - in 1999 was any PvM experience difficult once you understood how the monster AI worked and you knew the terrain? Truth: no.] - http://groups.google.com/group/rec.game ... Gwy_OYFXmQ . Bard/Mages had it easy. It pissed some people off, but that was the way it was. Obviously these people didn't understand that you didn't build a dexxer to melee Avengers, you built one to PK the bard who took out the avengers for you.

http://www.spleens.net/oldnews.htm - go to the bottom and work your way up to confirm the date. The date of the important post is July 28, 1999 under the caption "Dergan, Terathan Slayer!". The link for that post is http://www.spleens.net/dergan.htm . It shows two guys having fun in Terathan Keep on foot, apparently in no danger of dying, screwing with a stone cold newbie who consistently evaded all manner of death including Avengers on foot even when they were trying to set him up and trip him up.

Do I need more? I'm sure I can find plenty if you need it. But I'm hoping with this information you'll just decide to fix this. The monsters were easy then. They're even easier now because we all know what we're doing and have Razor and there are only 400 potential PKs online now instead of 15,000. And yes, in a way that kinda sucks but if Secondage is really about accuracy then it should be changed back.

[Mirage]

I have said to guildmates that balrons and avengers move abnormally fast, also poison elementals while we're at it.

[EVeee]

I have said to guildmates that balrons and avengers move abnormally fast, also poison elementals while we're at it.

When I started this as a bug report I assumed that most players here would instantly say 'Oh yeah, that's all wrong' just from memory. I think maybe I overestimated the number of UOSA players who actually played during this era. It also occured to me that not everyone I saw in Terathan Keep back then was on foot; there were a lot of mounted players too - and someone who only ever went there on a mount probably wouldn't have much of an idea of how fast the monsters actually moved.

[Blaise]

I've felt like there are plenty of spawns here that are 'too fast'. So fast they appear to teleport 4-5 tiles at a time when I'm running from them.
Silver Serpents come to mind, even though they're supposed to be fast, but man it seems ridiculous. Same with the Bloodrock Orc spawn (so glad I haven't seen them in a while). Moved like lightning and destroyed armor within minutes.

[EVeee]

I've felt like there are plenty of spawns here that are 'too fast'. So fast they appear to teleport 4-5 tiles at a time when I'm running from them.

That's exactly right; you don't even see their steps, they just appear right next to you smacking on you. People are calling it tele-walking... I have no idea where that term or ability came from or whether or not White Wyrms actually had it in T2A as someone said in my other thread. I'm not looking into it though - all I'm interested in is the monsters that I know definitely did not tele-walk or even come anywhere near it. I messed with almost every premium spawn there was back in the day (including Poison Eles) and the fastest moving one I ever encountered were the Balrons, which moved almost exactly like UOSA circa two years ago and nothing like tele-walking.

Silver Serpents come to mind, even though they're supposed to be fast, but man it seems ridiculous. Same with the Bloodrock Orc spawn (so glad I haven't seen them in a while). Moved like lightning and destroyed armor within minutes.

Vesper was the home town of my very successful thief. But almost all my other characters belonged to a small and unremarkable guild called S*K (Stars of Kismet) that was based in Jhelom, so I'm very familiar with Silver Serpents. They were very fast; I would say even faster than the Balrons of that era were. Nothing approaching this tele-walk business though. They could be outrun easily enough on fairly open ground; even through the jungle if you didn't get snagged in a dead end. I'm going to check them out tonight and see how they are.

[Faust]

The only creatures that moved at the current fast paced speed(tele-walking) that I recall without a doubt were the White Wyrms and EVs. I don't really remember any other creature ever moving at their speed or pace. I always ran with a horse and used UOE's fastwalk. Running from both these creatures were difficult at times if you were not careful.

The only exception to this was the Abyss shard back in the day from its inception to it's end. The whole shard ran on foot during the color faction wars. The EVs were thrown left and right. Getting away from them was pretty much impossible on foot.

The white wyrms were nearly impossible to get away from on horseback even with UOE's fastwalk that made you run with the equivalent of 0 ping. AzN guild of Baja that resembled the early days of ACE here used them extensively.

I just don't recall any other creature ever moving at that rate of speed besides the two mentioned in my post.

[EVeee]

The only creatures that moved at the current fast paced speed(tele-walking) that I recall without a doubt were the White Wyrms and EVs. I don't really remember any other creature ever moving at their speed or pace. I always ran with a horse and used UOE's fastwalk. Running from both these creatures were difficult at times if you were not careful.

The only exception to this was the Abyss shard back in the day from its inception to it's end. The whole shard ran on foot during the color faction wars. The EVs were thrown left and right. Getting away from them was pretty much impossible on foot.

The white wyrms were nearly impossible to get away from on horseback even with UOE's fastwalk that made you run with the equivalent of 0 ping. AzN guild of Baja that resembled the early days of ACE here used them extensively.

I just don't recall any other creature ever moving at that rate of speed besides the two mentioned in my post.

Yes, I had forgotten that - EVs were ridiculously fast and extremely difficult to get away from. Far faster than the Silver Serpent. Thanks for bringing that memory back! I wish I'd gotten to see more of the White Wyrms back then - I only ever caught sight of tamed + following ones. I wish I'd taken screenshots too but I never felt like it... didn't know the day would come when they'd be nostalgic and helpful.

[Guerrilla]

I agree, i definitely remember EVS being faster and actually attacking monsters as well, when casted 1 tile away. I can't tell you how many times I've casted an EV 1 tile beside a monster, and it will still target me, doesnt feel right....

[the bazookas]

I confess that it is always very difficult to find bulletproof evidence one way or the other for many things that happened at the cut-off date, and I admire the work you have done to gather some good evidence for your argument. In the effort to be intellectually honest, however, I feel like some a bit of extra analysis of the evidence you present is in order (and I agree that if people can provide evidence for or against your argument, then they should by all means):

For reference, here is a blog from October 1998 where a player refers to screenshots that I will share next - http://www.wtfman.com/oldjov/oldnews/octnews.htm . I know that the timeframe that you're seeking to duplicate here is about a year later than that, but in the absence of any evidence that the speed of Avengers or Balrons changed in that year it should be considered valid evidence.

Screenshots: http://www.wtfman.com/oldjov/scrnshots.htm (in the Lost Lands category). In particular, look at the picture of the solo bard provoking the Balron on the Avenger. Inside, without a mount. Anyone who says that's possible on UOSA now is a liar. Even if it could be pulled off, you'd die 99 times or more trying and only a moron would even attempt it in the first place.

Here's the screenshot you point to:


I'd like to point out the wooden box in this picture--PvM was a lot easier when you could block monsters like this. (doesn't mean they didn't move slower than they do, but thought I'd point that out as a possible explanation for the lack of difficulty they apparently encountered). Note this screenshot from http://www.wtfman.com/oldjov/scrnshots/t2a/terkeep.htm

http://www.wtfman.com/oldnews/oct99.htm - October 25th, 1999 post where the same chap handled a mob and TWO avengers with his solo bard, while communicating with a loot thief.

The quote you are linking to is:

Now meanwhile in UO, the assholes as we all know are equally as abundant. However, while in the Terrathan keep, some chap kept running up and looting my kills. After he did this 3 or 4 times, I told him “listen pal, do that again and you are going to be very sad.” Surprise surprise, he did it again. Being that my character is a master bard, I decided to send two Avengers to play with him. He them proceeded to let out a lovely death moan as my two friendly Avengers chased him headfirst into a Matriarch. I was then forced to listen to about 5 minutes of angry “ooOOoOOo’s” as I recovered my loot from his corpse and went about my business.

One can only speculate regarding this scenario, but I think that one very probable speculation is as follows:
There were (as other screenshots you mention show) some safe spots that you can teleport to. Personally, I don't envision this encounter as the bard running around dodging terathan avengers / warriors / drones, etc. while some guy is looting his kills. I envision the bard sitting in a safe spot (like the one shown in later screenshots that you pointed to) getting lots of provo kills and drawing aggro (the terathan avengers could easily have been there simply hanging around him, but he was unreachable), then a dude comes and loots his kills--he tells him not to. When the guy continues, he provokes 2 of the terathan avengers hanging around his safe spot on the guy, and those avengers chase him into a matriarch. This seems to me to be the most likely scenario--not a solo bard running around in the open field getting constantly chased by terathan avengers. Note that the looter got killed by the 2 avengers (which, if they were normal monster speed, should have been pretty out-runnable). Hence, I don't feel like this story is that strong of a corroboration.

Era talk about Terathans and Balrons - http://groups.google.com/group/rec.game ... tiflQxf90A . I point it out because nowhere in there does it say 'Holy shizz, those things move like lightning! Zomg you must have a horse or you are dead!'. Nope, just 'Balrons are fast, huh'.

I think the lack of evidence FOR the fast movement is a strong point.

http://www.spleens.net/oldnews.htm - go to the bottom and work your way up to confirm the date. The date of the important post is July 28, 1999 under the caption "Dergan, Terathan Slayer!". The link for that post is http://www.spleens.net/dergan.htm . It shows two guys having fun in Terathan Keep on foot, apparently in no danger of dying, screwing with a stone cold newbie who consistently evaded all manner of death including Avengers on foot even when they were trying to set him up and trip him up.

Dergan was probably a bard since they "told him they'd like him to peacemake or something", which would obviously make it easy for him to get away, and all they were doing to set him up was to invis themselves so they avenger would go after him. Again, not the strongest evidence.

Do I need more? I'm sure I can find plenty if you need it. But I'm hoping with this information you'll just decide to fix this. The monsters were easy then. They're even easier now because we all know what we're doing and have Razor and there are only 400 potential PKs online now instead of 15,000. And yes, in a way that kinda sucks but if Secondage is really about accuracy then it should be changed back.

I agree monsters were easy then. I think they are still very easy on UOSA, once you practice a little bit. Personally, I don't think they need to be made any easier than they are (high end PvM is a good thing). However, given that the goal of this shard is era accuracy, it would be good to find some decisive evidence in this regard. As I said previously, I think your strongest evidence so far is the lack of evidence in that particular newsgroup post, which is quite compelling; proving something was NOT so 12 years ago is very difficult, since if it was truly not so, then it makes sense that nobody would say anything about it (which appears to be the case in that newsgroup thread at least)... but the lack of anybody saying anything about it also obviously makes it difficult to verify. I think it would be good to have more corroboration with more newsgroup threads that lack any evidence for sped up avengers / balrons / etc before deciding to make this change.

I don't pretend to know how it used to be, although I do seem to remember balrons (at least) being faster than regular monsters.

[EVeee]

Thanks for a polite, well-written reply. I'm glad to discuss this with someone and keep the topic alive. Of course what I said has to be able to stand up to scrutiny and critical analysis, so let's see if I can turn you into a believer. I'll have to chop up your post pretty heavily into sections but I'll try to keep it easy for everyone to follow.

1 -

I'd like to point out the wooden box in this picture--PvM was a lot easier when you could block monsters like this. (doesn't mean they didn't move slower than they do, but thought I'd point that out as a possible explanation for the lack of difficulty they apparently encountered). Note this screenshot from http://www.wtfman.com/oldjov/scrnshots/t2a/terkeep.htm

Box or not, it is clear that the bard had - on foot - dragged a Terathan Avenger into the hallway and a Balron out of his lair and provoked them into fighting each other and that would be so near impossible to do given their current UOSA speeds that, as I said before, only a moron would attempt it in the first place and he would die copiously. I know this is a subjective statement but the player/owner of those pictures and blogs doesn't strike me as a perma-grey robed moron. Even with multiple boxes, you would still get owned repeatedly by monsters that actually hit you before you even see them standing next to you.


2 -

The quote you are linking to is:

Now meanwhile in UO, the assholes as we all know are equally as abundant. However, while in the Terrathan keep, some chap kept running up and looting my kills. After he did this 3 or 4 times, I told him “listen pal, do that again and you are going to be very sad.” Surprise surprise, he did it again. Being that my character is a master bard, I decided to send two Avengers to play with him. He them proceeded to let out a lovely death moan as my two friendly Avengers chased him headfirst into a Matriarch. I was then forced to listen to about 5 minutes of angry “ooOOoOOo’s” as I recovered my loot from his corpse and went about my business.

One can only speculate regarding this scenario, but I think that one very probable speculation is as follows:
There were (as other screenshots you mention show) some safe spots that you can teleport to. Personally, I don't envision this encounter as the bard running around dodging terathan avengers / warriors / drones, etc. while some guy is looting his kills. I envision the bard sitting in a safe spot (like the one shown in later screenshots that you pointed to) getting lots of provo kills and drawing aggro (the terathan avengers could easily have been there simply hanging around him, but he was unreachable), then a dude comes and loots his kills--he tells him not to. When the guy continues, he provokes 2 of the terathan avengers hanging around his safe spot on the guy, and those avengers chase him into a matriarch. This seems to me to be the most likely scenario--not a solo bard running around in the open field getting constantly chased by terathan avengers. Note that the looter got killed by the 2 avengers (which, if they were normal monster speed, should have been pretty out-runnable). Hence, I don't feel like this story is that strong of a corroboration.

Well, there are a few things to say about this. I mentioned it myself - I used to teleport to select perches myself and cast BS/EVs down at the big baddies. Fact is those perches usually weren't easy to hit and it wasn't uncommon to have to loop around again because you missed your teleport spot. On foot. I and my guildmates would round up Avengers, Warriors, and Mats and lead them there.... you can't lead these Mach 1 Avengers anywhere on foot. You have to run as fast as you can and hope you don't die, period. Furthermore the only safe spots where you would find both Avengers and Matriarchs were inside the keep. Getting in there at all on foot is a feat in itself on UOSA and, even if you were lucky enough to make it there, you will have 30 monsters aggroed on you through various walls. Trust me, I've worked on this many times in the past week or so. Which means you're useless because if you even step near a doorway you'll be mass-slaughtered. There's no imagining that you could calmly get to one of those safe spots and then wait for beasts to just come along. I'll bet that you're right and that the author of that post WAS on a safe ledge on foot in Terathan Keep - but he'd have never, ever made it there if T2A Avengers were like current UOSA.

P.S. The fact that the author's looter got killed by the Avengers and Matriarch does not mean that they moved at super-speeds. Although I remember the speeds of these monsters quite well, this particular point doesn't prove anything either way except that he got killed. People did get killed in the keep (and out of it) by monsters that didn't move very fast. I got waxed by Terathan mobs a few times and I died to dragons even more often. Players still get killed by slower moving monsters on UOSA. It happens; more frequently with high-level poisoning creatures because not everyone is prepared to cure themselves.

3 -

Era talk about Terathans and Balrons - http://groups.google.com/group/rec.game ... tiflQxf90A . I point it out because nowhere in there does it say 'Holy shizz, those things move like lightning! Zomg you must have a horse or you are dead!'. Nope, just 'Balrons are fast, huh'.

I think the lack of evidence FOR the fast movement is a strong point.

On the surface it seems like lack of evidence for the insanely fast movement is the best argument against it. But on the other hand at some point it was changed to its current state anyway, despite a seemingly total lack of evidence supporting it.

4 -

Dergan was probably a bard since they "told him they'd like him to peacemake or something", which would obviously make it easy for him to get away, and all they were doing to set him up was to invis themselves so they avenger would go after him. Again, not the strongest evidence.

Dergan was clearly as newbie as it gets. He was a bard, but if you think that any newb-boy can ace any monster easily with his drum, you're wrong. It takes a LOT of practice. And listen - it is MIGHTY hard to escape from current UOSA Terathan Avengers on foot. No matter how experienced you are, we players all run at the same speed. You need a lot of open space to run in and you need to get a good start and keep going. You will surely die indoors trying to run from one and you sure as hell won't have time to write 'healp' no matter where you're doing it. If you did attempt a peacemake while running from a Mach 1 Avenger, you'd get exactly one shot at it before being insta-slain. And these guys not only invised themselves but stonewalled Dergan too in an attempt to get him killed. If you try a few adventures into Terathan Keep on foot, you'll see that the fact that this new guy escaped time and again is actually very strong evidence.

5 -

Do I need more? I'm sure I can find plenty if you need it. But I'm hoping with this information you'll just decide to fix this. The monsters were easy then. They're even easier now because we all know what we're doing and have Razor and there are only 400 potential PKs online now instead of 15,000. And yes, in a way that kinda sucks but if Secondage is really about accuracy then it should be changed back.

I agree monsters were easy then. I think they are still very easy on UOSA, once you practice a little bit. Personally, I don't think they need to be made any easier than they are (high end PvM is a good thing).

I spent all of my actual T2A time on foot. Not because I'm a simpleton who doesn't understand that travelling is faster and PvM, PVP, and escaping from PKs are all easier on horseback. I did it because it made the world seem larger, more impressive, more immersive. I enjoyed becoming familiar with the terrain. I didn't want to just bolt through it all at 200 mph like it was a nuisance to travel. I purposely chose to handicap myself in order to enjoy the game more. When I came to UOSA three or four years ago, I did the exact same thing. Now I tell you what - as obviously against riding on horseback as I am, I got one at a stable for the first time yesterday. Because a lot of the high-end monsters simply cannot be fought on foot now. And I hate that and more to the point it's all wrong. Not only is it not era-accurate but I'll quote from the UOSA home/about page - 'We do not intend to ever change any aspect of normal game play to particularly favor any play style....' - we're favoring the horse-lovers quite a bit now.

Let me quote your own post - ' I think they are still very easy on UOSA, once you practice a little bit.' - having ridden a horse now, I agree - so no matter how you look at it what good was the change? Before they were easy on foot, now they're easy on horseback. As a player do you feel that's better somwhow? That they're easy for you but impossible for people too stubborn or stupid to get a horse? I don't know.... seems to me that if they wanted to throw era-accuracy out the window and make monsters truly difficult then they should have gone full-tilt bozo and made them non-provokable, self-curing, stuff like that.

[Guerrilla]

i agree, that the feel is wrong, but no need to go apeshit bro...

[nightshark]

on uosa they move so quickly that i have to do the following to make sure i target them

1. run out of screen on my horse
2. wait for them to enter screen and quickly pull their bars off (may require more running)
3. wait for them to both enter the screen, then quickly provo them

often this will result in being hit by the avengers since they move so fast. a lethal poison + melee + flamestrike can nearly instantly kill a player. i always wondered how people dealt with these in 99 on slower connections, running around on foot, low skills and probably many without GC/GH pots.

i never bought the t2a expansion so never got to experience it

[EVeee]

i agree, that the feel is wrong, but no need to go apeshit bro...

I respect your comment. But I don't call writing a whole lot 'going apeshit'. When people write in all caps and use a lot of curses and insults I'd tell them to simmer down, but I'm just writing facts here without a lot of opinion. Anyone who doesn't like to read that much is free not to read it; I ain't mad.

[Jalapeno]

I must say I agree with Eveee considering the movement speed of the terathan avengers. I do not recall the terathans avenger being that much faster than his little brother, the terathan warrior. It was maybe slighty faster, but in a way you can barely notice. With the speed they currently have, it is nearly impossible to hunt them without a mount.

As for the ophidians, the avengers or knight-errants weren't faster than the original warrior/enforcer ones. I used to farm them alot to increase my archery skill back on Osi's server. When I was pulling a group of randoms ophidians to fight them at a safe location, they were grouping and reach me all at the same time. I do not remember the knights or avenger being the leaders of the pack. But I remember the mages type such as shamans and apprentice mage being a bit faster than the melees ones.

Now, for barons, I can't really tell if their speed is accurate. I need to take a deeper look into it. They are the fastest monsters in game and I think everyone agrees on that. What I remember is that it was possible to outrun them on foot if you had a great ping, choose the best path possible and not getting stuck anywhere.


I apoligize for spelling mistakes and verb tense, English is my second language, I'm still learning.

[bishyaler]

I haven't checked the Balron but I was hunting avengers today and they are way too fast.

I know for a fact they never did the tele-walk thing on OSI where you can't even tell where they are.