PvP has progressed way pass the days of a neanderthal and his viking sword. One has to develop his characters skills and his equipment as well. Just purchasing gold off ebay doesn't and wearing a suit worth millions doesn't give you the skill. Doesn't tell you what spell combos to cast, or weapons to switch to for special moves. The Ice Age of your days of PvP have long past you.

u must have not played back in the day. Cuz a person who picks the game off the shelf can now have as much skill as a person who has played the game for years just from jewels.

one does not have to develop ANY SKILLS anymore cuz they are given to u by pathetic armor and jewelry.

combos to cast? weapons to switch? do u pvp at all? No matter if its factions or guild wars, ITS GANKS. very rarely do u get a solo 1v1 unless its requested. its not how the game works, at least here on atlantic

By skills, I think he's referring to combat techniques, not the actual skills. And somehow I have a strong feeling there was such a thing as a gank before AOS.

Everyone needs to know about combos and weapon switches, regardless of ganks. If I am in a group of gankers and I see a guy doing dismounts, I will focus on that guy and use a weapon tailored to taking him out, or cast the spells to take him out first (chances are hes a power loaded archer, so he wont have resist, so para, xfield, hes out of the equation). Its more than just items. You have to have brainpower to survive, just cause you have a loaded suit and weapons cache doesnt mean you can survive. You gotta have techniques.

I guess it takes years to get the zerg, hugging the guardzone, and being a meatshield to self declare yourself a pvper.

You also wrote in a previous reply that "skills mean nothing" and that you can be at 120 from 90 skill with "random crap". Half-truth. Anyone can do that, yes, but those who do and who are actually a threat in a PvP situation are very few if any at all. If someone is using equipment to make up that many skill points, they're already losing their battles.

PvP, in my opinion, is better today in many ways. PvP today is no more or less "item based" than it originally was. Vanquishing halberds and invulnerable plate were the items making people deadly back then. These days, there is just more variety.

Complaining about insurance seems, ridiculous at best. Insurance allows us all to keep our equipment (much of which is unique post-AoS) which allows us to keep PvPing upon resurrection, instead of A) Running back to buy Cheap Heavy Archer Suit or B) going home and not PvPing again until you have replaced all the really good things you have lost.

"BUT TERNANCE!!1" they shout, "IF NOT FOR INSURANCE I CUD LOOT UR ORNY1!!"

If we didn't have insurance, there would be no "orny" on my wrist for you to loot. It would be in my bankbox or locked down in my tower. The only thing for you to loot would be..well..garbage, just like the days before insurance.

Getting back on topic, I would say yes, PvP in UO is good today and it's about to get better. UO period is improving from the dark age we entered into for a while and you might, _might_ just find even more things in UO to have fun doing besides PvP as well. It's cheap to find out!

If you have time to para and x field in the middle of a huge gank / field fight then I would be surprised. Shame on any group that lets that happen.

No, these days there is insurance. Please show me one person that would show up to fight in an orny, aof, HoM etc etc etc if there is no insurance and he would get looted upon death.

exactly.

that made pvp / pk'ing worth while. It also made factions worth fighting for with their faction blessed armor and weapons. As it stands now, insurance and item fighting have been the bane of pvp.

You have ppl that were nobodies or only average pre AOS that are self proclaimed gods because they have the best equipment or gimp templates.

There is very little skill left to show in the current version of UO to be honest with you. How many mages do you see running with mage 5 templates compared to how many archers or evasion newbies ?
Exactly. and that means that the only edge would be skill UNLESS you wanted to risk MILLIONS to lose a precious item. Prior to pub 16 looting a vanq b-sword, katana or kryss was an ultimate feeling.

It also made the thief template viable in felucca. Now thieves are reduced to picking up crap off teh ground. woopie.

pvp is crap right now. You want it to get better ? nerf the lame gimps that flock to the gimp template of the month and abuse it.

THere is no more "pvp" honor in fel since insurance brought us a zerg of trammies that will do anything to get a kill. Prior to pub 16 any stealthing character (that was not a thief) would have been laughed out of fel for being a gimp. Now, its the norm.

You have ppl that pop out of hiding and get a 35 point armor ignore to get a killshot, scream OWNED then flip a smoke bomb or turn into a dog and run into a house.

Thats not pvp. Thats not fighting.

The best pvp was during Ren I think. There were a lot of reasons to pvp on blues and reds (facts, O/C, war), Pking etc. There were balances on templates and there was still some degree of honor on the battlefield.

That was also the last time to see red solidarity. Most reds were true PK's...not trammies gone red. True pk's that held each others back because for the most part we were deep into statloss and knew what it was like to fight the bluebie zerg.

Now ? Any guild of 300 trammies has "reds" because they can throw 10412094 fields and 23512309 ev's to defend MY PRECIOUSSSSSSSS pixelcrack scrolls so that they can fatten their ebay account.


but the good news is that I saved a ton on my car insurance.

well, that was just kinda an example, I myself also doubt anyone could get an xfield in time during a fight. Someone in his guild would magic arrow him or something before you get the second field down to loosen him up. I basically wanted to say target the weakness of that guy, and do whatever it takes. Have your bokuto swingers stun him for a sec, omen-para him, or whatever. Just take that guy out of the equation and stop him from dismounting everyone in your group. Sometimes you cant break off and focus on the guy, especially when they turn into dog form and high tail away, then you can focus on the rest of the group til hes back.