taken from Thread :- Ethy Mounts Stamina UO UHall

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Comment

I have noticed lately my ethys are running out of stamina rather quickly. I usually sit on them to recharge for 10 minutes after they do, but lately they just run out of stamina after chasing people down. Is there a set time frame to sit on them to fully charge them? Or is this a problem for other people lately and has there been a change in the ethy mounts? My Charger could go a week w/o running out, now it dies ina a night.

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The whole stamina thing for a Ethereal animal just boggles my mind. I don't understand why they have to recharge stamina in the first place....

grrrr


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FoF Jan 26 '07


"[Ethereal mount stamina seems] to run out very fast! Could we get to changes to them?"
Currently, as near as we can tell with extended testing, ethereal mounts are handling stamina correctly - they use it when running, and regain it when walking or standing still. They do NOT regain stamina when in statue form - this is by design, to prevent folks from using multiple ethys to gain an unfair advantage in PvP.

However, when your ethy runs out of stamina, you need to do the same thing you would do if YOU ran out of stamina - namely, stand around for a while and wait for the regen. Further, because the ethies don’t regen if you’re dismounted, you can’t just hop off and jog for a while - well, you can, but your ethy will still be out of stamina when you get back on.

As it stands, it’s not exactly a bug - but it certainly can lead to excessive annoyance, and Wilki put together a tweak to ease the annoyance. I don’t have an ETA on when you’ll see it on Test Center, but we hear you, and we’re listening!
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Jeremy_EAMythic UO Community Coordinator
The answer wasn't "as designed" - I'm not sure where you're getting that. The answer was "Wilki is fixing it in an upcoming build".


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Likely the only characters you will notice this trouble with are ones that actually GET OFF THE ETHY.

I've never once had a stamina problem with the llama ethy my tamer uses, or the unicorn my mage rides. They never dismount. I can very literally run from Britain to Trinsic without a stamina problem.

If you hop on and hop off.. especially if you do this a lot.. yer gonna find that you have a chronically fatigued ethy. Or charger.

Sucketh muchly, too.

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I did extensive testing and found several repeatable anomalies with ethereal mount stamina. I was able to demonstrate the problems to Mesanna on test center over two months ago. I do not see how anyone can claim that “ethereal mounts are handling stamina correctly” or that this is not a bug.

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I was just speaking to someone the other day about your research on this topic, but I was unable to find the data.

Would you mind reposting it? I know you did a lot of work on it, and I think this thread would benefit from the time you invested.

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I have run some new tests using a slightly different system to try to get a more demonstrateable and repeatable result. Here are some terms that I use in the commentary below:

“Run time” is amount of time that you can run an ethereal flat out until it reaches the “too fatigued to move” state and starts rubber banding.

“Runs down” is reaching the state where the ethereal is “too fatigued to move” state and starts rubber banding.

“Rest break” is remaining stationary and mounted for 60 seconds.

In my new tests I made several identical sets of runs using band new characters with brand new ethereal horses. I made one set of runs dismounting/remounting after the rest break (ET-3/4)and another set of runs NOT dismounting/remounting after the rest break (ET-1/2). Here are the results:
[pre]
Cycle ET-1 ET-2 ET-3 ET-4
New 3:13 3:24 2:41 2:34
1) 1:13 1:12 0:49 0:48
2) 1:45 1:49 0:32 0:31
3) 2:13 2:05 0:25 0:25
4) 3:06 3:07 0:25 0:25[/pre]
Three observations from these tests:

1) Once it reaches the “too fatigued to move” state an ethereal mount will be able to run again if you remain stationary and mounted to “rest” the ethereal.

2) The amount of run time that you get after a rest break will increases with each rest/run cycle if you do not dismount the ethereal. The fact that the run time increases for the same amount of rest seems very odd. The fact that dismounting/remounting effects run time is even stranger.

3) If you dismount an ethereal after a rest break, the amount of run time will decrease rather than increase.

How you can duplicate the ET-1/2 tests on TC-1:

1) Make a new character, lock focus/med and set str=100 and dex=100. I do not believe that the character stats have anything to do with the ethereal performance but I wanted to be consistent in my tests.

2) Take a fresh ethereal mount out of the bank and mount it.

3) Run the ethereal flat out until it runs down. In my tests this will take anywhere from 2:34 to 3:24.

4) Take a rest break.

5) Run the ethereal flat out until it runs down. In my tests the run time was about 1:13 for the first cycle.

6) Take a rest break.

7) Run the ethereal flat out until it runs down. In my tests the run time was be about 1:45 for the second cycle.

8) Take a rest break.

9) Run the ethereal flat out until it runs down. In my tests the run time was be about 2:13 for the third cycle.

10) Take a rest break.

11) Run the ethereal flat out until it runs down. In my tests the run time was be about 3:07 for the fourth cycle.

In this set of tests there is a clear pattern of ever increasing run time on the same sixty second rest break.

How you can duplicate the ET-3/4 tests on TC-1:

1) Make a new character, lock focus/med and set str=100 and dex=100. I do not believe that the character stats have anything to do with the ethereal performance but I wanted to be consistent in my tests.

2) Take a fresh ethereal mount out of the bank and mount it.

3) Run the ethereal flat out until it runs down. In my tests this will take anywhere from 2:34 to 3:24.

4) Take a rest break. Dismount/remount the ethereal.

5) Run the ethereal flat out until it runs down. In my tests the run time was about :49 for the first cycle.

6) Take a rest break. Dismount/remount the ethereal.

7) Run the ethereal flat out until it runs down. In my tests the run time was be about :32 for the second cycle.

8) Take a rest break. Dismount/remount the ethereal.

9) Run the ethereal flat out until it runs down. In my tests the run time was be about :25 for the third cycle.

10) Take a rest break. Dismount/remount the ethereal.

11) Run the ethereal flat out until it runs down. In my tests the run time was be about :25 for the fourth cycle. I ran a few additional cycles on ET-4 and 25 seconds seems to be the minimum run time that you will get off of a 60 second rest break followed by a dismount/remount.

In this set of tests there is a clear pattern of ever decreasing run times on the same sixty second rest break. The only difference is the dismount/remount after the rest break. Clearly, dismount/remount has a negative effect on how long an ethereal mount should be able to run. I believe this to be a bug.

I tried to demonstrate this phenomena to Mesanna on TC-1 back in late November. Unfortunately, I had little time to prepare for the demonstration and was then out of town on business for almost the entire months of December and January.

I was not sure that Mesanna truly understood the point that I was trying to get across. As I recall the meeting Mesanna kept saying that the mount would regenerate approximately the same amount of stamina (29) each time that I stopped for a rest break. I do not think that Mesanna understood that the problem was not necessarily that the mount was not regenerating stamina but rather there is a problem with how effectively the mount was able to use what stamina it had after a dismount/remount as clearly demonstrated by the varying run times off of the exact same amount of rest.

I am very, very disappointed that they are still trying to clam that this is not a bug. Hopefully they will read the details of these new tests and finally “get it”.

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Jeremy_EAMythic UO Community Coordinator

DrDoolittle, are you counting the dismount/remount time against the 60 seconds of rest?

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No, the dismount/remount is not counted as rest time. I “rest” for 60 seconds by remaining stationary while mounted, dismount, remount and immediately start running as soon as I can move. The time you spend dismounted does not seem to be a factor.

I have repeated this tests and variations on several characters - both elf and human - with two different ethereal horses on Atlantic. I have made the tests with eight different characters across multiple accounts with several different types of ethereal mounts on TC-1. There are some variations in times but the pattern which I have reported remains consistent; rest without dismount will consistently increase run time and dismounting after resting will decrease run time. I am confident that these results are reproducible.

If I understood Mesanna's comments during my demonstration on TC-1 correctly, the mount would regenerate to about 29 stamina during the rest break. Mesanna stated that the maximum stamina for an ethereal was 87. If the mount was, in fact, regenerating to 29 stamina during each 60 second rest break then the problem must be with how effectively the mount is using it’s available stamina. During one of my first tests, I did nine rest/run cycles with no dismount and ran an ethereal horse for 25 minutes before I finally gave up trying to run it down.

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Interesting. Did you have to pause once in a while as new fields were cast? And did you did not dismount/remount while invised?

If I am not mistaken, a remount causes a screen refresh; you see any characters around you go through a little animation when you mount. I do not see that animation when moving after casting invisibility on myself but, perhaps, there is a screen refresh and that has something to do with the problem.

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Wilki_EA UO Designer

That's some interesting data you've posted, and I'm going to see if I can't whip up a little tool for players to use on TC to help flesh out where the problem is occuring.

I've already made a change to ethereals so that they regenerate some stamina in statue form, but it sure sounds like there is something else going on here that we need to figure out, which is a bit strange since "ethereal" horses are pretty much regular horses (with a bit more stamina) that are created and destroyed when you mount and dismount them. i.e. they shouldn't behave any differently than other mounts.

Thank you for taking the time to do this.

I'd chalk it up to the mount being upset that you just woke it up from it's sleep several times in a short span (dismounting/remounting).

j/k

Maybe there is something in the coding done to the ethy when it is mounted/dismounted that is causing the problem.