Champ spawn suggestion

Fuschino

Adept
Hello everyone. A thread was started in the PVP forum about a similar topic but has degenerated into an anti-EQMS and $ower temper tantrum. I thought I would put it here in hopes it stays more focused.

Opinions:
-Ultimate online is hard. It should be hard. You should run the risk of losing everything on your person at any moment.
-PKing is great. It makes the game fun. It provides a risk versus reward scenario that is unmatched in virtually any other game. Whether we want to admit it or not, the danger of leaving your house is part of the reason we play this game. That should never be infringed upon.
-The endgame content here in Ultima Online Forever is very, very good. I love all of it. The champs, talismans, metas, RDA, the naval combat reborn. It's what keeps me coming back to this 20+-year-old game on this server.

Now that I've gotten all that out of the way, let's focus on what has become, in my opinion, a significant issue with champ spawns.

Problem:
The nature of the champs spawn reward system easily lends itself to the following scenario:
Group A begins the champ spawn and works it through multiple stages. As the champ spawn approaches its final stages, group B gates (with their pvp templates) in and murders group A and ensures that group A cannot rez. Group B finishes the champ, while ensuring group A can't rez.

Group B receives the three PS drops from the champ spawn because no one in group A is alive or close enough to the champ death.

I know some people will look at this and say the following: "Get better at PVP." "Join a bigger guild." "Suck it up buttercup, this is Ultima online." I honestly appreciate those perspectives. I get it. However, in my opinion, this tactic is exploiting a loophole in the champ spawn rewards. This goes beyond the usual Ultima online "hard knock life"philosophy. It's closer to exploitation of a loophole. Additionally, there is a time versus reward issue emerging with these champ sponsor. Why bother playing this awesome end game content that the staff has created, when you know you have no chance of finishing it successfully, not because of your abilities, but because of a loophole. Having said this, I believe it can be fixed fairly easily (conceptually, I'm not a coder).

Solution?
As the champ spawn progresses, and participants are actively working the spawn, they accrue champ points. When the champ finally dies, anyone who received champ points will receive a blessed currency of some type that can being used to barter for what are traditionally champ drops (power scrolls) from an npc. To receive these receive this currency, you do not need to be alive when the champ dies or even next to the champ when the champ dies. Anyone on the screen with a high enough champ score total when the champ dies should also receive a bonus to this currency reward. The price of these endgame power scrolls on the NPC's should be quite high.

Why is this a solution?
I believe this is a solution because it has a marginal impact on the playstyle of people currently engaging in the champs spawns, whether that is the champers themselves or the people exploding a loophole. PVPers can still come in and slaughter PVMers. They still can dry loot the bodies of their victims and fight for dominance of the spawn. What it solves is the loophole. People who put in time at the champ spawns, even if they are murdered, will still receive some small reward for their efforts. People who finished the spawn will receive a significantly larger reward than those who do not.

Conclusion
I'm sure this idea isn't perfect. I'm sure some of you can think up some reasons why this may not work. But I do believe it is a starting point. In my opinion, there is a significant problem with champ spawns that is not play style related. This, in turn, is gating a lot of the great stuff on the server away from all but a few people.
 

Shoko

Novice
+1

Its discouraging to do champs or RDA. This proposal gives the hardworkers, some reward instead of going home absolutely nothing, after spending an hour or two.
 

Elizabeth Gold

Grandmaster
I agree this demotivates people from doing champs and you make a few excellent points. But I also find myself agreeing with @eppy
Where is my damn edit button? I wasn't finished yet!

Anyway, in your sollution you get rewarded too easy. Champs would be farmed all the time and in a matter of months you have a shard full with 120 tamers.
 

Fuschino

Adept
Where is my damn edit button? I wasn't finished yet!

Anyway, in your sollution you get rewarded too easy. Champs would be farmed all the time and in a matter of months you have a shard full with 120 tamers.

What's the point of end game that drops 120 tameing ps if you don't want people to play them? Why even create the end game at all?
 

Vorax

Grandmaster
Having a guaranteed loot system such as this would do literally do nothing other than make everyone bored with the game... The raids are part of the risk in this game, without risk, why bother. While you're right in saying its a loophole, I'm sure there's other ways to go about it than just guaranteed loot. I'm a member of the largest PvM guild on the server(Werkt) and we still get raided on the daily, sometimes they fail, sometimes they succeed, does that stop us from doing another champ right after? No. We've lost plenty of loot, quicksilvers, 120 scrolls, you name it.

Also to answer your latest question, "What's the point of end game that drops 120 tameing ps if you don't want people to play them? Why even create the end game at all?"

The point of a 120 taming/meta pets, are to be the ultimate end game, if people are getting end game stuff in like 5 days of playing it shouldn't really be considered an endgame. You're just encouraging people to have everything and be bored in a week or two of playing.

Now that I've gave my 2 cents as someone who does numerous champs/rda's a day, I'd like to hear the raiders thoughts on how this change, or any change like this would affect the server. @girana @StegcO

#SayNoToTram
 

Shoko

Novice
the amount of currency to exchange for a 120 scroll, can be set so high that it takes months of farming to get it.

It will still be a grind but at least it encourage participation.
 

Leewald7

Grandmaster
Nothing wrong with a concelation prize to keep people coming back again some 30k item tossed in your bank after you grind a champ out, whether you win or lose. This would also solve the issue of deminishing return on Champ loot due to market saturation.
 

Leewald7

Grandmaster
I mean 30k isn't a terrible amount to a vet player but to a new player it still wouldn't be as much as they would get if they went and farmed in private, but enough to replace their suit and wep they most likely lost and give them a lil extra to atleast say it wasn't a complete wash. No one is saying PS are blessed but a lil something wouldn't hurt.

And the only ways I could see people not being onboard with making sure pleople want to come back to champs is because you either plan, they want to continue to cheat newer players out of their hard earned loot, or they don't care to help newer players get a foot hold and wish for the scale to continue to skew always to the Vet players.

Don't get me wrong I want Vet players to get rich, but because they devoted time to the game, not cuz they got lucky at the expense of everyone else around them because they stacked the deck.
 

Wolf of Velka

Neophyte
This is an idea I can get behind. As it stands PvP guilds coming in and wiping champs at the last minute is highly discouraging and if it continues it will negatively impact both the game and the economy. The more PvM guilds are discouraged from champing because they're outmatched in a PvP perspective the less champs they'll run. The less champs being run, the less power scrolls come onto the market. The majority of the PvP guilds who crash champs themselves rarely work a champ spawn from beginning to end, so it's not as if they're going to pick up the slack. The best solution is one that rewards the group that works the champ without over saturating the market in champ rewards, which I feel this proposal has the potential to do.
 

StegcO

Grandmaster
If you really want to know my opinion I think the better solution will be the PvMers use 150k creating a PVP char, equip it with a barbed suit 20x each reag and 2 or 3 each pots (so if you will die you loose basically nothing) and start to protect champ.

I want to be honest, this advice is more for me than for you becouse if PvMers appears with PvP to defende a champ I will have more fun instead killing people that run away. And if the Group A will kill me or even all of us that it means new challanges will appears and I will have more fun.

If random blues (or even more able players) will know how fucking hard is raiding with 5 Reds + MobAggroRedFirst you will understand probably you will kill us even with your PvMers chars.

BTW this is only my opinion.
 

Xiulan

Master
Champ points would definitely get more people doing champs again, by introducing at least some reward to offset the risk.

An alternate solution that's been proposed is for champ rewards to only drop for people who have accumulated enough champ points at that particular champ. But that could be griefed more easily, so Fuschino's solution might be better.

The champ point vendor shouldn't just carry powerscrolls, though -- it should include all the rewards that champs drop, such as relics, perks and skulls.
 

StegcO

Grandmaster
Just for information, if tomorrow someone kill us when we try to raid Staff revert this new feature?

Becouse if this feature is an "anti-$-feature" it make no sense, we are 5 you can rape us easily.
If this feature is a "Trammelyze" feature I'm scaried.
 

AreYouKidden

Grandmaster
At first glance I like this idea, because it'd give me a reason to spend the time on doing champs. But in essence this would increase the drops, because you are able to buy scrolls, which would depreciate the value in the end regardless of the price you set.

Just to throw this out there, if there are 3 PS that drop at the end of the champ spawn, why not split it up... At the end of Level 3 - give out a PS, at the end of level 4 give one out, then when the champ is dead give one out? Give some sort of reward for spending the time, to get the champ to the end. The biggest issue is that the raiders know when they have to gate in, in order to maximize confusion, kill the PvM'rs, and collect their loot, and it's usually just when the boss is about to die.. So spread out the reward, if they want to raid, and finish the champ spawn, let them put in some of the work, or miss out on some of the rewards, instead of bouncing from one champ boss to the next, while sitting in the room as a ghost.
 
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