Things I wish PF would fix

     PF isn't perfect, folks. I almost feel obligated to add that, yes, it is one of the best shards out there and no, I don't want to change it to add skill gates or free artifacts or whatever other stupid "arguments" people like to make when anyone brings up fundamental problems with the shard. It's a great shard and I freely and openly tell people that. It's far from perfect, though.

I'm not the kind of person to just blindly complain about things, however. There is a lot of basis for the things I'm about to talk about, and if you've ever read anything on this blog before you already know I'm going to say a lot about these things.

So, breaking things down in a few little groups; we'll start with things that need to be added, then things that need to be fixed/balanced, and finally things I'd love to just see removed.


Add:

* Scrapper's Compendium
     I honestly don't know why this isn't already in. The shard has had nigh full ML content for years, at the least since I started. Of all the things that can be crafted, this is the only one I've ever noticed is missing. Even before the big upgrade, where none of the ML craftables required recipes and ML ingredients, it was absent and it remains absent today. I've requested it more than once and never heard so much as an explanation as to why it isn't in.

* Bard Masteries
     Bards are one of those things that are basically neglected on PF. For years on end, there wasn't even the barding difficulty cap that came in with, what, AoS or sooner? Only last year, when I finally requested it, did it get implemented. Bard Masteries are nowhere to be seen and there doesn't seem to be any plans for adding them. Maybe if I request again we'll get lucky, but I have my doubts.

* Monster stealing
     Admittedly, part of this is something I have seen done elsewhere, but it's a good enough of an idea that I'd like to see it on PF. It's also because I'm a sucker for giving use to unused skills as well. Basically, it would be really nice to see a system in play for monsters to have steal-only rares and artifacts. Either a specific area's monsters, specific types of monsters, or some sort of random flagging like the paragon/terragon sort that marks a monster as holding an item that can only be stolen. This would be especially cool if it required you not trigger combat with the creature in order to steal these things. Encourage a bit of stealth. Even if what you were getting were basically trophies to say "I robbed a Ratman Mage and got away with it," there'd be a certain fun factor involved in something on the shard that didn't take hours of effort to do.



Fix/Balance/Improve:
     This section will be much longer-winded. The things that PF does wrong are pretty few, but they're glaring. I've mentioned some of these before on the PF forums, but I've never gotten a good response. Needless to say, they still bug me.


* Spellcrafting (Belated 05/06/13 update: Holy shit, they did this)
     I wish spellcrafting and Imbuing would simply merge. This is another topic I got heat over before, but until someone actually manages to explain what the flaw is in my thinking, I'm going to keep believing that these systems would be far better together than they are apart.

For one thing, using Imbuing on PF as simply a damage boost to Mysticism is stupid. The only other skill that does this is Tactics, but it at least works on FIVE skills for its purpose. Spirit Speak and Evaluate Intelligence are both stand alone skills outside of their benefits to Necromancy and Magery; granted, they may not be very useful but they do have a use. Additionally, Focus also works for Mysticism in some places and could easily just be the skill for Mysticism instead.

Imbuing *HAS* a use, normally. It's a crafting skill. I understand why they turned it off. I'm saying it was a mistake. Imbuing has a couple things going for it that Spellcrafting doesn't; a place on the skill list, a robust resource system, and useful gump features that are sorely missed. It wouldn't be hard at all to put the two systems together, even if that was simply making it a 85% Spellcrafting-15% Imbuing system.

Why would you want to do this? Oh, I'd be so very glad to tell you.

First off, visibility. Spellcrafting DOES NOT have it. If you don't read the website- no, not the new one, the old one -or the wiki, there is NOTHING that tells you about spellcrafting other than players. If Spellcrafting fell into the Imbuing spot, it would gain a place on the skill list that would catch people's attention. They would KNOW that it was there and it would prompt questions; you can't ask questions about something you don't even know is there.

Secondly, a better gump menu. The spellcrafting book bit was nice before we got all the content to SA, but now that we have it all we should be making use of it. Putting the spellcraft menu into a real gump would give us a lot of convenience things like having the menu automatically re-open after each attempt, telling us in a clear spot what the result of our attempt was, and quicker access to the craft we want via a "spellcraft last" type option. Another bonus the gump might be capable of is telling us just what our crafting range is; I would love to know, without trial and error, just what I could best hope to get at my current skill. I would love a gump like that. Spellcrafting is frustrating enough without a cumbersome gump, so this would go a long way to ease tensions.

Thirdly, more resources to play with. Magic jewels could still be the primary resource, but I honestly like the idea of having more things to collect. Why not? It takes ingots and gems to make jewelry. It takes rare ML ingredients on top of other resources to make the ML artifacts. Why shouldn't something as powerful as spellcrafting require some of the extra resources that Imbuing naturally brings with it? It makes better sense and it adds more challenge to the system, which is something that staff seems to overly love anyway.

Finally, it puts Spellcrafting in it's own place. Yes, it's very clever that we got Spellcrafting thanks to high Alchemy and Inscription skills. But it's time to let that go. It doesn't have to go away; Alchemy and Inscription could still play a part, but Spellcrafting has a chance to shine on it's own and it really should. It is, all flaws and complaints considered, really a beautifully done system and it would be much better if people could see it. Turn Imbuing into Spellcrafting, with it's own skill and skill points, let it be 80% of the equation alone, while Alchemy and Inscription are 10% of things each.

This would put the bulk of the attention on Spellcrafting itself, where it belongs, but still retains a bit of the old system as well. Getting 120s for Alchemy and Inscription would still be very helpful, but perhaps moreso because of those skills themselves. Getting a 120 for Spellcrafting, however, would be the bigger goal, and honestly that's how it should be.

Notice that through this whole thing, I never said anything about making spellcrafting easier. There have been enough posts on that point without any action, so clearly that is working "as intended." The point of this change to have better access to spellcrafting and make its powers easier to use. That's what good designers try to do.

* Evos and Tames
     Evos aren't even balanced among themselves. High level evos have a definitive hierarchy, and that's always going to have mercs at the top. The "versatility" of the other evos doesn't come close. Casting spells just isn't that big of a deal. The special moves are useful, but if there's no beef behind them then the evo is just going to be a few hits out of a monster's rampage before moving on to you. The merc is easily the tankiest pet out there because it isn't hard at all to put an additional 40% resist all in his hands, no matter what his level.

Tamed creatures can't compare. They are, for the most part, exactly what you get when you tame them. The only exception to that is if they have skills under GM when you tame them, in which case you can GM those skills with a lot of work. However, if you're taming something with skills below GM, you're not taming anything remotely as powerful as an evo. Even medium stage evos are better than tames. The only exceptions, of course, are the Charger, the old Cu Sidhe, and the Chimera. I could see a case for Tutivilius, but since he doesn't bond he loses a lot of validity.

Three tames, two of which require 120 taming and one that isn't available anymore. That's what Taming has to offer. The worst part of it is evos are a 0 skill investment, while taming is 300 - 360 skill points. This is pretty horrible balance. Things that take no skill at all should not be better than things that do. That's why they balanced potions a long time ago to function better in the hands of someone with alchemy versus someone without, for example.

The trouble with balancing things here is that Evos are already factored in to quest difficulty now, so you can't tone down evos without making things much harder. Likewise, raising the power of tamable pets makes them that much harder to tame and encourages the trend of making them require 120 taming to use. Or higher, since there is a necklace that raises taming over cap. I don't think that would be a good idea. In all honesty, I don't have a great fix for this issue. It feels like one of those things that has gotten out of hand, basically nullified a playstyle, and become so ingrained in the shard balance that fixing it would take a lot of work all around.

All the same, I wish they would take the trouble to do so. I hate that taming is so useless on PF, outside of a creature that doesn't even spawn anymore.

* Items
     Items are a mess. Essentially, if it's not spellcrafted or an artifact, it just isn't used. If my understanding of the way drops work is correct, there's a fairly easy solution to this: Make drops actually worthwhile. Instead of using the same intensity drops that Production UO uses, increase the property intensities to just above spellcrafting levels. Cap items to only spawn with one or two properties.

What this does is create a reason to look at all the items that are dropped by monsters for more than things with old school properties. Imagine finding a chest piece that had 23 HP bonus on it; that's just ripe for spellcrafting more sweet properties on. As long as creatures aren't dropping items with a full five mods better than spellcrafting, it's not outright over-powered. Even if you find a piece with 23 HP bonus, you still have to hope like a mofo that you don't blow it up the second you try to place the next mod on it. Believe me, even if higher powered items like that were dropping, the vast, vast number of them would be lost in the process of filling the remaining slots.

Alternatively, just stop dropping gear items at all. In their place, drop ingots, leather, and/or gems. Or their base cash value. I just feel that it's pointless to sort through 10~15 items on a terragon creature to see that none of them are even worth selling. The item hunt is half of the purpose of a game like this considering what inspired the drastic shift AoS brought. It would be nice if that wasn't completely nullified.


Regardless of the above, the Mage Weapon and Spellchanneling properties should be removed entirely. They're pointless; spellchanneling is innate throughout the shard. Mage Weapon is only useful when skill caps are in play. Any item that seems Mage-ish but still has Mage Weapon, and thus a penalty to Magery skill, is just wasting time. The *only* use for Mage Weapon is as a way to speed up gaining Magery in the first place, which is not remotely a valid reason for keeping this property around.


Also on the items point, I'd love to see more done with talisman, wands, and clothing. These are greatly under used and even I'm creative enough to think of fun, balanced, things to do with these items. I feel that the limits on what we can do with UO these days are far fewer than they used to be. I've seen shards, PF included, do some very creative things. I don't see why any existing resources should be left to decay like this.


On the 'really, really never going to happen' scale, I'd like to see things complete re-done so that there's less definitively best gear. I understand making donation gear as top of the line, but it's done to excess here. Nothing can compete with Undead stuff. For that matter, a lot of drops are that way as well. Skull Thunker, for instance, is really the best non-donation item in the game aside from Bequest of the Assassin, because they're both the same item other than being a sceptre and a bladed weapon of some sort. There's no such thing as dressing to impress anymore because everyone is wearing most of the same things. The difference these days is with the colors you use.

It would be nice if the difference between spellcrafted and artifacts was lessened. Artifacts with a few more properties at equal or slightly less intensity as spellcrafting can do or fewer properties but higher intensities would create a much more diverse gearing system and maybe give use to a lot of those artifacts that just lay around and collect dust. Again, it will never happen, but I dream that it could.

* Crafting
     This is a whole lot of crafting related changes that really need to happen, just to add some value back into things on the shard. I'll do this by each skill. Overall though, for anything I don't mention, since Spellcrafting has become the standard, the standard should be Spellcrafting.

     Tailoring: Leather types should be re-balanced. Make all types give the same total resists, somewhere around what Aquas or Vulcan does now. Instead of simply having more resists than the last leather, each type will build on what Production UO started. The different types have one innate property of spellcraft-level intensity. Aquas might always have 3-5 HP regen, Vulcan might have 18-22% SDI, etc. The point would be that the leathers are better balanced among themselves so that everything short of Armageddon isn't a waste (beyond filling BODs).

     Smithing: Similar but lesser effort for the colored ingots, in that things would be closer together. Most ingots would be raised closer to Platinum's level of resists and have some uniqueness to them; Plat could remain the best average resist and keep five open spellcraft slots, while the others might have slightly lower total resists but be potentially better in one area or have a really nice innate property.

     Inscription: Scrappers would be added, as would the spells and spellbooks for Spellweaving and Mysticism. Crafted Wands would be enspelled by Inscription. Crafting spellbooks would be less of a crapshoot and the properties would be greatly improved to be more like Spellcrafting levels. Books would be able to hold five properties.

     Carpentry: Craft blank wands, yo.

     Spellcrafting: Wands and Spellbooks would be allowed spellcrafts from the Jewelry pool. Add new spellcraft gems; Slayer and skill gems. Slayer would be titled after their Super Slayer variety and add only from that group, not stacking with one another (so no Demon Slayer and Gargoyle Slayer on the same weapon. Demon and Undead slayer on one weapon would be allowed). Different flavors of slayer could happen, though. The five skill gems would be grouped by certain types, which follow the standard groups that items currently drop with. As per how skills stack on items currently, the skill gems can be added on top of the five slots items already have. The groups can be seen here: Skill Bonuses

     Misc skills: Whatever needs to be added so that the item that recharges some talisman can be crafted, as intended. Any other missing crafting content should also be added. (just to cover bases)

* Spellweaving
     It's kind of trashy, because it depends on having a high level crystal. It isn't easy finding that many people that have the skill and availability to make a focus with. It also isn't really worth the time and trouble of doing so. Make the levels count double, as in a crystal made with two people is a +4 crystal. It won't fix most of the problems with Spellweaving, but it would at least help.

* Mysticism
     Really. I don't even really know what else to say about Mysticism. It's a mess. At least one other shard has it working properly, or at the least better than PF does. I don't even know that I can say it needs to be fixed as much as fully implemented.

* Summons and Mirror Images
     Mirror Images were rebalanced for the sake of "fun," then the shard was balanced around them because they've been made over-powered. They're a 10 mana, skill 20 ability, yet they do more than any other summon we have. It doesn't matter how long they last, anything that is completely disposable and has 95% all resists is going to be very useful. Even moreso when they can wheel out damage and be directed with pet commands, something only the 8th circle summons. At two control slots per image, who is going to use any of the other summons?

Especially since none of the other summons have been buffed. AT ALL. That has to change.

Blade Spirits also take two control slots, but don't have remotely the same usefulness as a mirror image. Energy Vortexes are well above Blades, but no where near MIs, also for two control slots. The other 8th Circle Summons? Psh. They're even worse off. For the cost in mana, skill, and control slots, you'd think that these things would be more useful; not remotely. Nevermind that 6 of the 8 spells in the 8th circle of Magery are, in fact, summons and therefore represent the peak of a mage's ability.

The fix? Blades should wheel out much more damage. Make them very dangerous, but just as frail, and maybe they'd be more useful. None of the 8th circle spells should be dispellable. Energy Vortexes should get their old school power to curse and deadly poison on hit. Summon Daemon might as well summon a Balron; honestly, even that powerful of a summon isn't going to make a huge difference against PF creatures. The elemental summons should be made more unique; Earth with higher resists all around, water and air with powerful spells and spellweaving or necro, and Fire with more powerful physicals on top of their existing spells. For two slots each and 50 mana, that would at least give them some function as pseudo-pets for the two minutes they live (at best).

Spellweaving gets Nature's Fury, which I have to admit are pretty powerful for their cost. No where near MI level, but they're about par for their price. Summon Fey and Summon Fiend? Trash. A horse can kill either one of those creatures. Summon Fey/Fiend should automatically give up to eight creatures. Since the creature summoned isn't altered by higher level focus crystals, make the base creature stronger; buff the health and resists on both, with the fey getting higher resists and health while fiends get better magic/eval.

Mysticism's Rising Colossus is soooo crap right now. It should be the strongest summon, period. Even at 120 skill, it has a chance to fail, something very few other abilities share (and certainly not shared by Mirror Images). If it isn't dispel immune already, make it so. It's stats and resists need a massive raise, especially energy; leaving energy as the weak resist is no big deal, but where it stands right now is just a joke. This thing is supposed to be the default tanking summon, and it should be made that way. It should, in my eyes, out tank everything but top tier evos, but maybe that's going too far. Definitely, definitely improve it a whole lot, however.

Animated weapon, eh... I don't really know what to say for that one. Maybe make it higher damage than a Blade Spirit per hit, but far lower health; good for sneaking in hits on something that is distract but nothing that will take too much time to get dead.

Necromancy... oh boy. The summons here are so bad. Animate Dead is marginally okay, but those creatures could use a bit of a buff. The revenant could stand to work, period. If it did that much, it'd be a lot better. Perfect, probably. Summon Familiar, though? It's a mess. Without a doubt, Horde Minions should be immune to dispel simply because dispelling them also destroys anything they're carrying; that's very bad. The Shadow Wisp should get the medic's non-attacking script, even if that means making it invulnerable; all it does is periodically restore a few mana, so that's not remotely over-powering. The wolf, adder, and bat need massive buffs, at least enough to make them useful against Blood/Poison elemental level things seeing as pretty much every custom creature is at least that strong. Also, it would be really nice if the special abilities of the adder and wolf actually worked.

Mirror Images should have their resists capped at 70~75. If that happened, I think I would have a lot less issue with them. I also think people would use them a lot less in favor of other summons and pets.

No summon that takes 20 skill should be better than those that require 50 or even 90 skill. It's a huge imbalance and frankly, it shows favoritism towards one playstyle over another; that's not the GM's decision to make, especially when you're playing in a sandbox that was *more* balanced between "classes" than when you changed it.

* Quest Balance
     I could link to an old forum post that resulted in some pretty epic fail on the part of staff on this very topic, but I'll refrain from that because I'm still trying to purge it from my memory.

The topic of this post is actually one I addressed before about the very same issue. It boils down to actual progress versus the perception of progress from the player's point of view. If a quest requires an item that has a 5% drop rate from a monster, this is either going to be a slightly annoying quest or a very annoying quest. If the monster in question is a mongbat, which isn't that rare and has a fairly high density spawn, the quest will be slightly annoying at the worst. If that monster is an Ancient Tree, which is somehow both rare to find *and* rare to find alone, you have a seriously annoying quest on your hands.

Yes, I was not the only person annoyed by that particular quest and for that very reason. It hinges on the fact that, in the case on PF, this quest has a lot of time where the player makes no actual progress despite their efforts; you might kill ten of those stupid trees before you get even one of the quest items you need. This is not challenging as much as it is just a time sink, and a boring one at that.

The difference between the way things are, where it may require killing 30 trees for six quest items versus (the better way of doing it) killing 12 rarer trees for a required 12 quest items is MASSIVE from the player's side of things. Even if it takes just as long to kill those 12 trees, every kill is progress in the quest. This is an important psychological difference, and one that the PF staff failed to grasp when a player dared post this same thing on their forums.

To this date, I haven't done that particular quest again. I have no intent to do so either. There are many quests that behave in a similar way and I take the same views on those. Part of the reason Merlin's Quest is as popular and over-done is because the quest drops are 100%. It's a long quest, but it doesn't *feel* long. What irks me most about the new quests is that in many cases they just flat get wrong what earlier, more enjoyable quests got right the first time.

The challenge of a quest does *not* hinge on how long it takes you to do it. It hinges on actually being challenging. The monster at the end of the Evo Tree quest was perfect, and if not for having to go through who knows how many Ancient Trees to get to her, I might do that quest again just to fight the boss.


Remove:

* Nothing
     Honestly, I don't think there's anything that PF has that I would like to see completely removed. I believe that everything on the shard is good in some way and very creative, even if it could maybe stand a bit of tweaking and polish. This might be the biggest indicator that the staff hasn't created a flustercluck of mistakes; in the 8! years the shard has been running, there's nothing they've put out yet that is so misguided that it makes even the most annoyingly analytical of players want it out.