I know a way to fix the economy.

[fingers]

I agree with Turnabout: nurfing is usually not something that makes players happy. That being said, as Dirtybook mentionned, having only one way to go if you want to have your fair share of rewards in the game (insta heals + hp and str as high as possible) is quite frustrating for people like him and and me, who are quite creative and would like other paths to explore. My first crush for UO happened 20 years ago on Atlantic shard when I sold a slayer weapon that I crafted. On UOEX, not only crafted weapons are worthless compared to a relayer, but they are penalized in the leveling system (3xp per level vs 5 for a looted weapon). But even without that penality, being a blacksmith is still a worthless way to advance in the game IMO. An other example: I enjoy completing bods, but the rewards are for the most part completely worthless. Gathering ressources? Perhaps it would be fun, but the rewards aren't worth it at all.

One of my biggest rush on UO happened when I opened a corps and found a 4 or 5X 58 weapon. Nowadays, it has been nerfed to a point that doing anything else than claiming a corps from a distance is a huge waist of time. I am definitly in favor of making all templates worth playing and to restore some kind of a drop lottery that would make it worth to inspect every corps that I slay. And I beleive that doing so would help to recruit and keep players on our shard.

[Lach]

I agree with Turnabout: nurfing is usually not something that makes players happy. That being said, as Dirtybook mentionned, having only one way to go if you want to have your fair share of rewards in the game (insta heals + hp and str as high as possible) is quite frustrating for people like him and and me, who are quite creative and would like other paths to explore. My first crush for UO happened 20 years ago on Atlantic shard when I sold a slayer weapon that I crafted. On UOEX, not only crafted weapons are worthless compared to a relayer, but they are penalized in the leveling system (3xp per level vs 5 for a looted weapon). But even without that penality, being a blacksmith is still a worthless way to advance in the game IMO. An other example: I enjoy completing bods, but the rewards are for the most part completely worthless. Gathering ressources? Perhaps it would be fun, but the rewards aren't worth it at all.

One of my biggest rush on UO happened when I opened a corps and found a 4 or 5X 58 weapon. Nowadays, it has been nerfed to a point that doing anything else than claiming a corps from a distance is a huge waist of time. I am definitly in favor of making all templates worth playing and to restore some kind of a drop lottery that would make it worth to inspect every corps that I slay. And I beleive that doing so would help to recruit and keep players on our shard.

This 1000 times this why do you think I bought all those Ed's when I first played this game I could solo doom with 5 mules and make good gold and alot of artys now it's worthless if something needs to change. Not to mention the worthless dispell prop why is it even on the game.

[Johnny Warren]

On UOEX, not only crafted weapons are worthless compared to a relayer, but they are penalized in the leveling system (3xp per level vs 5 for a looted weapon). But even without that penality, being a blacksmith is still a worthless way to advance in the game IMO.

Weapons and relayers fall into different categories here, really. To touch on crafted weapons, they are not as weak as people presume here. Firstly, you can craft the weapon into the type you want, so no having to spend 200ed to type change your looted dagger into an ornate axe. Secondly, the Exceptional tag is a lot better than people realise. It isn't just 35% DI as stated on the weapon, there's a hidden damage buff that can be seen on your status bar. To test, grab a crafted exceptional version of any weapon, equip it and read the damage bar, then grab another not exceptional version (crafted, looted, or vanilla off an NPC BS) and equip it and read the damage bar. You'll note the hidden damage from the exceptional one (and no it has nothing to do with the 35% DI on the wep). This damage is the base number that is factor into every single swing you do. In my calculations the exceptional tag should really be considered a spell hit that does a little bit more damage than harm or MA, but it procs 100% of the time. So, when you get a good, exceptional craft. Whatever, it's stats there's also an invisible "100% hit harm" on the weapon. Feel free to test it yourself. Crafted weapons can be very good, and are much cheaper. They are definitely the way to go for new and mid-ranged players. Good crafts can sell for millions of gold, making smithing somewhat OK.

One of my biggest rush on UO happened when I opened a corps and found a 4 or 5X 58 weapon. Nowadays, it has been nerfed to a point that doing anything else than claiming a corps from a distance is a huge waist of time. I am definitly in favor of making all templates worth playing and to restore some kind of a drop lottery that would make it worth to inspect every corps that I slay. And I beleive that doing so would help to recruit and keep players on our shard.

You definitely want to be opening those peerless corpses, or at least letting Orion autoloot anything with 58% on it. They still spawn. Still rare. According to +C the drop rate on these has never been fiddled with since the shard began. Once you know which mobs have a chance to drop Yx46/58 weapons, then looting is super important. Knowing which mobs to claim and move on helps speed things up. This aspect has never been nerfed, so claiming it has is factually incorrect.

I had been working on a "Guide to weapons" which covers everything to do with weapons including templated weps, auction, crafts, builds, stats (good bad and ugly - super quick reference: Dispel is pointless, HLA is worse than dispel and you should never add SSI to anything). This document is already pages long, but incomplete. Sadly, as you may have all noticed, my desire to be a part of this place wanes with the recent developments and this project will never likely be released. Those of you that PM me in game for advice, please continue to do so, I always answer weapon/gear advice properly and make sure you don't waste a good weapon or waste resources on a poor weapon.

This 1000 times this why do you think I bought all those Ed's when I first played this game I could solo doom with 5 mules and make good gold and alot of artys now it's worthless if something needs to change. Not to mention the worthless dispell prop why is it even on the game.

1000x what? I don't see how a few comments about looted vs crafted weps have to do with buying EDs? Gauntlet is more profitable now than it was in the past. 11 years ago a BC was junk rare and wouldn't even fetch 50k gold. Then, ideas changed in the community, people started min-maxing their gear. It became the mini TH and now is worth 150ed each. You can make a lot more gold running gauntlet now that you could before - if you get lucky and hit the BC. The drop rates in gaunt have not been nerfed or changed, so your 5 mule strategy would still be fine. Yes, back in the day you didn't need gold skulls to run the gauntlet (just 1 skull for infinite rounds), but the changes to the system created a new market for daemon bones and gold skulls which are easy enough for new players to farm. I would still suggest that gauntlet is more valuable now than it was in the past due to the "all BCs" craze. Even with the tanking of Jackals and SoTs price.


As to my opinion on the thesis of the whole thread... I'll no longer be voicing those here. Everything I type regarding the economy is always misconstrued as "JW is a greedy vet trying to engage in rent seeking behaviour to maintain his status" so I will no longer bother. I am sure this sentence will make a lot of people happy. For what it's worth, I used to care, and my actions/opinions always came from that position.

[Eremite]

I've played UO and other MMOs in general for longer than I care to admit and the biggest successes in boosting the economy that I've seen are simply adding new content that requires resource, either old or new ones.

We could definitely use something that makes ingots, leather, wood, etc useful. The prices are tanked even with noone gathering. If there were quests, craftables, etc that required materials and actually provided something desirable, the prices would raise and people would be able to gather or craft as a profession.

The question is what content do you add?

New Armor? - Instantly out because of relayers being better than any armor in game.
New Weapons? - Noone would care unless it has more than 15 strength on it. People with Titan Hammers would probably be mad that it invalidates their gear.
Mounts? - Everyone just uses an ethereal you can get for free from Vet rewards.

Potential Ideas:

Housing Items/Deco? - Might appeal to a few people. Instead of just putting up those player-made deco items for gold in the Town Center, make them be recipes that take a lot of materials. Adjust as appropriate for what's being displayed.

Artifact Crafting - I've mentioned this before, but being able to break down trash artifacts, then using a set amount of those materials along with a lot of ingots/wood/leather/etc to craft another artifact adds value to resources and junk artifacts. Problem is artifacts like Titan Hammer seem to be held as a big auction item, so unless that's possible to craft, noone would care or use the system.

Modifying Weapons: Use resources to modify the rolls on a weapon, either re-roll a stat on one (Dispel) or add a new stat if it's under the 5x stats. Since it's randomized, it's a bit of a gamble and the price to add more stats should increase as you reach the 5x value. Gives crafters something to do to earn money, provides a dump for resources, will raise a market for weapons that would normally be trash (like a 2x58 or an otherwise good weapon with Dispel, etc) since smiths would buy it up to modify, etc.

General Problems:

There's no focus on player economy or adding ways for players to craft or generate high-dollar items. They are held exclusively to be used as an auction item to enforce rarity at the expense of the rest of the economy. Since they can only be gained through gold and auctions, all other behavior is quashed in favor of maximum gold per hour farming of mobs, etc.

I've done so many idea dumps like this and I'm not sure why. This seems to be a decade-long thing that isn't easy to rectify, but I think the above systems would be easy enough to implement with minimal need to go in and modify existing code.