I know a way to fix the economy.

[Dirtybook]

Hello, it's me.. The one you both love, and hate.. Just thought I would throw in a single idea, that has the possibility towards fixing a lot of the problems with the bloated economy.

Before I mention the very idea I have in mind. Let me make one thing clear.. This is an "Idea". Not law, and not a demand.

Take away "Instant Heal".

Replace instant heal, with a gradual climb to 2.5 second heals, once 220 Dex is achieved. The original UO has a bandage capped speed, which is far slower than that.

Even 1 second heals would be too powerful for this server we all currently play on. It creates a rather sizable portion of the problem with the current economy climate.

1) Allows people who have little experience with UO, to fast track far sooner than they reasonably should be able to. Experienced players to UO, should have the benefit from their years of experience. The playing field should not be even between the people new to the game, vs Veterans of UO. That needs to be earned. (It is this way in RL, and many people treat this server as RL. Goes without saying.)

2) Players have the ability to go to a champion spawn, and go afk. (happens a lot) They then go make dinner, or watch TV. Or whatever thing they have going when they plant themselves at a champ. That in it's self, is no effort for the pay out. Players who are not well enough equipped will not survive past the third and forth stages of many champs afk, with a slower healing time. (Means they have to pay attention, at least half way through a champ.)

3) People will be more careful about fights. Especially about the use of "Enemy of One". The very spell that gives a ridiculous slayer like boost to a players damage. I have also watched Veterans at the Halloween Event, gathering up all the Sigils from players. So they can go and solo the bosses in larger number, and reap the rewards. They can easily get through the fights with strong gear, and Instant Heal. Without Instant Heal, they will not have this capability to solo multiple bosses at a time. At least not very easily. It ends up on their vendor, which creates a monopoly. (Something JW has mentioned in another post.)

4) It removes the use of many other methods of play.. Pets, Magic, Poisoning.. the list goes on for a country mile. It has negated the need for most skills in the game. Yumi, WW Weapon, Insta Heal.. done. This ends up being how everyone plays. It is easy, and the easiest way to make money on the server. Which right there, is in part to why the economy is so bloated. Money is too easy after 220 Dex is achieved. (Donations are faster, but that is a different subject entirely.)

5) The auctions. (You knew this was coming...) If you make it to where other methods of play open up. For experienced, and inexperienced players alike. You can easily add more "inventive" items to Auctions. Special pets are the first thing that come to mind. Things you cannot make with Bio Engineering. (Glacial/Quartz Golem Graphic come to mind.) With special abilities no other pet on the server has.
(The possibilities of new things on the market, could be huge.)

(6 Humans are fundamentally lazy. (Not an insult. Scientific fact.) Give them the easy road, and everyone will take it. Hence why everyone wants 220 Dex as soon as possible. Also, it's the first thing people tell a new player when they start playing EX.. That should tell you something... (Well, almost everyone. I'd say 95% of everyone.)

I could continue on, but I think a few valid points have been made here. Giving people the easy road in a game, will cause big problems to the market. I play the harder road, and it works out fine. I tend to make less than if I had 220 Dex, a Yumi/Heavy WW Weapon, and use Chivalry. (Literally 1 million gold a day less if I do not use a Yumi, or Chivalry.) But this is by choice, as I want to enjoy the game. Not destroy it, and say "I won!".

There should be no such thing, as "End Game"

Being an artist, I have a very "obsessive" mind. I can (and have) made 4 million gold in a day, using the easy road. I can and will hunt from morning, till bed time. With breaks in between. If I want something bad enough. I am not the only player that can, and will do this. If a far-off goal that would normally take 1/2 a month, to a full month could be reached within days. Then I will choose to stop being a mage, and use the easy path for a short time. It makes just over a million more gold a day when I do this. (My Hypocrisy knows no bounds when wanting to achieve a goal.)

I personally (speaking for myself here), believe if 2.5 second heals from 220 dex is to slow for anyone... then I am at a loss for words.. they would not survive regular UO.

I went and beat the Black Belt Master a couple days ago. With 169 Dex, 2 relayers, and a Player made Yumi. It has under 50% on hit Fireball and Lightning, and 53% HML. No other stats. I got hit 1 time early on, for 3/4 my HP, healed up, and kept nailing him till I won. Took me only 1 try to beat him. (That's a skill called "Kiting", not Insta Heal.) I've heard people say they got to this fight, they threw on their Yumi, went afk and let their healing and Chivalry script do the rest.. Raises an eyebrow when I hear someone say something like that.

(I personally think the Yumi is overpowered, but that's is another issue in itself.)

The bottom line of my "Idea" of how to fix the economy. Is to weaken a player's standing power. So they cannot have easy access to the afk function in this game. The idea of just letting afkers do their thing, has caused massive issues on other servers I have viewed and even played on for a time. So if anyone wants to suggest that.. don't. It's a bad idea all the way around. The actual player base was tiny compared to bot players.

Yes, I have heard many things... Things like "That's just how gaming is now.". Great.. but it does not function well here. (This server has been up for many more years than other online games. Ideas for short term games, do not work here.) Also, those games are not online after a period of time, like this server is. If they are, they are over run by bots. (Meaning the player is glancing at the screen, while the game plays it's self. Sound Familiar?)

After this possible change. It would open the doors for many other things to be changed/tweeked. (By the whim of +C, with less having to overthink a situation.) The only people who will/would complain, are those that are getting a hefty benefit from having to easy access to how fast something like Insta-Heal, slingshots them forward.

It will not hurt donations. In fact, Relayers and the need for such equipment, will pretty much stay the same. It may even increase the sales of certain items in the ED room of Trinsic. You will still need them to reach higher heights. No matter how you play. They even mean something to me, and I play Mage 80% of the time. This means I do not have 220 Dex, and I do not rely on bandages 95% of the time. I use them for curing poison and Bleeding these days. (I end up with a few hundred bandages more by the end of a day, than I started with.)

When you are good at UO, the game is only sometimes challenging. But no matter if you are great at the game, or new. 220 Dex destroys the gaming experience, and pushes an easy play mode mentality. (My opinion, of course.)

Harder Fights. Less capability to stand still and do nothing. Means a small % of effort must be used. Which will decrease the gold pulled in by none-committed players who want easy street. Then want to complain when +C does not have enough to entertain them with. Well, (again, my opinion here) If you want the server to have more to do on it, then stop asking for more things to make your ability to make gold, more convenient. Simple as that.

Additionally, the reduction in Balron gold. Actually slowed down the abusive growth of the economy. Reducing bandage heal times to something more realistic, would be the next logical step.

[Lach]

Even though you hate me, it's very valid also pets are a major advantage especially mules that's what I did back when I played here in like 2014

[HotMale]

Nerfing bandages won't do nothing, all players already have 500+ HP gear and maxed stats like HCI and DCI. If you want old-school Ultima Online experience where 1M gold was significant and owning a G-Castle was a Baller, you'd need to wipe existing gold and drastically reduce All mobs drop 10 Gold each. And ban scripting and force players use some own custom client

[culichi]

the healing timer in winter event works pretty well i dunno what the timer is but even in full relayers you have to be wide awake. not a perfect example since mobs in reindeer quest are pretty extreme. im voting for a tweak to bandage timer

[M3D1CN1]

IMHO it should be left has it is and let +c fix all these bugs and stuff people are ruin it enough the super rich are moaning about the younger player making more gold than they are ive been here over 6 years and never made enough gold to be "rich" i put nearly all of it back in the game trying to get relayers and weapons i will never have what the top players have because they they dont like it that we can earn the gold fast like the balron rush
its so sad to see the players at each other because they put money into it we all cant do that like lach did and the others do just leave it alone play the game and get on with it. you rich want more gold then work for it stop taking away for the other players ive had enough of this bikering about who has more than anyone i dont give a dam what you have i just want to play the game as it was 6 years ago not take gold away by lowering balrons gold or make it harder

thats my yearly moan

peace to all

[Lach]

IMHO it should be left has it is and let +c fix all these bugs and stuff people are ruin it enough the super rich are moaning about the younger player making more gold than they are ive been here over 6 years and never made enough gold to be "rich" i put nearly all of it back in the game trying to get relayers and weapons i will never have what the top players have because they they dont like it that we can earn the gold fast like the balron rush
its so sad to see the players at each other because they put money into it we all cant do that like lach did and the others do just leave it alone play the game and get on with it. you rich want more gold then work for it stop taking away for the other players ive had enough of this bikering about who has more than anyone i dont give a dam what you have i just want to play the game as it was 6 years ago not take gold away by lowering balrons gold or make it harder

thats my yearly moan

peace to all

Sorry man, I don't really no what else to say I just came to play, & don't have the time or energy to "Earn" 1.5 billion gold in the next 15 years......

[Turnabout]

I played this game for years without a "insta-heal" scripts, even now I don't have a so called "insta-heal" because I play under linux where easyUO and UOS are slower when compared with a windows native install. All the gold and EDs I've spent into my char to reach the full relayer setup was earned with a 2+ second UOS timer heals.

For example: if I leave my char in the middle of a champion spawn, even the most difficult, just with the UOS standard heals (not even comparable in terms of speed with the faster easyuo "BlaZin' HealR" heals), I can survive without any problem. Even inside the winter reindeer area, where the heals are really slow (2.5/3 seconds), I simply pull a large amount of mobs without any problem, like you can see here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdk_e0KLKC0

The only place where the "insta-heal" have some undeniable impact, at least for me (mid range gear), is the Halloween bosses fight and only in the 5 vs 1 case.

And to be honest, I can't see so many people around farming all day and flooding the economy with tons of gold... it seems the exact opposite: the few farmers on the server are gone because they wasn't able to compete against donators.

[culichi]

i watched the video and i dont understand how you are just sitting there whirlwinding those mobs down. i can do three bears at a time with almost full set of relayers but my health drops way lower than what i see yours dropping to so i often have to run away a bit to get healed up. i only have 466 hp unbuffed so i have to do a lot of running out of combat when my health gets low or my health bar goes orange. i have two slots with no relayer and i didnt really work much on tweaking my relayers i think i have maybe 3 bc and the rest are mainly dryad bows and SoP hehe. but even with our hp gap i dont see your health drop much lower than 200 hp from max i dont get how you are doing that against all those mobs including multiple bears. are you using potions and enhance potions?

[M3D1CN1]

lach - It's not what you did i think it was a good thing.

turnabout - i wish i could leave my char at a champ or even fight as many in your video lol i have to take 2 or 3 at a time or doa for me.

its about the richer chars who moan about the newer ones because they can earn much gold and think they will earn more than the rich char on the shard trying to make changes like lowering gold in balrons and now wanting to change things to make it harder its hard enough as it is i cant solo halloween boss not 1 never mind 5 lol if they take things like insta heal away then it will crumble and newbies will suffer also myself im a mid range player finding it hard enough.

also its not about how rich you are in real life or what you invest in the game dont change the game for the few moaning players there will always be new players.

i dont want to see changes to make it harder for anyone.



dont change anything +C

[Turnabout]

i watched the video and i dont understand how you are just sitting there whirlwinding those mobs down. i can do three bears at a time with almost full set of relayers but my health drops way lower than what i see yours dropping to so i often have to run away a bit to get healed up. i only have 466 hp unbuffed so i have to do a lot of running out of combat when my health gets low or my health bar goes orange. i have two slots with no relayer and i didnt really work much on tweaking my relayers i think i have maybe 3 bc and the rest are mainly dryad bows and SoP hehe. but even with our hp gap i dont see your health drop much lower than 200 hp from max i dont get how you are doing that against all those mobs including multiple bears. are you using potions and enhance potions?

526 base hp boosted to 698 with enhance potions+bless, vampiric embrace always on, 46% hit life leech on the weapon, curse weapon when needed. The only way I can die in that situation is linked to bad luck, specifically if life leech won't proc.

I remember using a 220+ dex char with low HP, some missing resistances and low stamina: the experience was painful. I mean, even with 220 dex it's impossible to play "lazy", a good amount of investment in relayers is still needed.

[culichi]

nice! i know about most of that stuff but i never learned to use it im pretty lazy player unless it involves rares or bods hehe.

[Omeni]

Instaheal is a right of passage just like working towards your first relayer
it is not meant to be easy

[fingers]

Greetings Dirtybook and thanks for bringing up this issue. I myself started a similar thread on this forum (concerns about the economy) in 2010. I started to play on UOEX in 2008. For the fisrt few years Ed's would usually go for around 35k gold. Then, around 2010 some players started to buy every ED available and once they had close to a monopoly, they charged over 100k for them. What I first want to say is that your concern for the issue proves to me that you love this shard and want it to succeed. Also, the fact that Culichi, a veteran player that I respect very much, agrees that puting a few seconds timer for heals would be a good thing tells me that you probably bring a good point.

That being said, the best way to fix the economy and, more importantly, to make our community grow and secure it's sustainability, is to make this shard a blast for new players.

From my point of view, it is hard to sell anything that is not rare or very high end on UOEX because most of the 120-150 players online at any time are vets who have pretty much everything that they want. In 2010, if I recall correctly, a 120 taming or archery scroll could go for up to 2 mil, organics went for at least 100 gold per and oinments 1k per. The Mage inquisition pieces were worth 300 eds/9 mil, and so on. But today, nobody wants any of that. Why? Most of the RP folks, those here to chat and have fun seem to be gone. Those willing to help are still here, but they are more of the exception. Also, as you mentioned in your OP, there seem to be only one way to play that brings a reasonable return on your effort to farm gold and buy cool stuff: 220 dex + max relayers.

This can certainly be changed by making this place friendly for new players. How? I am not sure, but at the very minimum, we could start by making sure that we welcome every new player warmly when they first connect. When we see a message that says that they died, we could ask them if they need help. I am not involved enough on the shard to do it myself, but perhaps, the active guilds could throw them an invite.

Also, as much as I know that this opinion won't be very popular, I would really love to see some hunting scripts to be unallowed (mainly auto-target, auto-recall and auto-heal) I have often seen players running scripts recalling right in front of me and kill whatever I was fighting or about to fight, kill it and recall out right away. This is a long enough post, so I will conclude by saying that I would like other members of our community to chip in on things that we could do to welcome new players and make them love UO as much as we do!

[Silent]

That being said, the best way to fix the economy and, more importantly, to make our community grow and secure it's sustainability, is to make this shard a blast for new players.

Definitely this. By having new content or simply by having a lot of events + seasonal quests.

Really want to fix everything? easy: Nuke all "set self repair to 5 deeds" and remove all bags of holding + resources bag. Weight + instant healing and no need for repair or crafting = disaster in any uo economy. Add to this allowed macroing and a few years of existence and you get the economic problems of excelsior... Since reworking everything would mean total chaos for this shard the best bet is attracting new players by GM generated events or content. I've said this more than 5 years ago but nothing changed besides the player base...

[Turnabout]

We got a nerf recently, i don't know how another nerf in less than 1 year will help the economy or new players.