source taken from UO.UHall
Comment

You can justify Golem Bashing all you want, but that doesn't mean your not exploiting the 'Guard Command' associated with Golem Bashing for effortless and even AFK combat skill gain. Yes, I know this is not the Idea's Den, but I've posted nerfs to this cheat before and already know the negotive responce from those unable to accept being weened into the way things should be.

PROBLEM


The golems Poison Resistance was lowered to 99%, but the creatures resistances are only part of the problem. The fact the 'Guard' command is being used to make it so the golem won't fight back is where the problem really lies.


SOLUTION


Altering the Guard Command is a pheasable solution, but take into consideration the other options pet owners have. What about blue training to raise magery skills on pets? Is this any less of an exploitation than a warrior bashing a golem?
First, make it so the pets under a players control may damage each other, may damage the owner, and even have the owner damage the pets while in Trammel regardless of weather their currently in a guild or not. Second, make it so the Guard command has no effect on weather or not the pet will attack the owner or fight back if attacked.


AWARENESS


By changing the 100% Poison Resiatance to 99%, the DEV's have acknowledged that Golem Bashing is a problem. Why measures haven't been taken to completly stop such cheap measures is beyond my comprehention.


If it looks like an exploit, if it smells like an exploit, and it taste like an exploit, it sure ain't fried chicken.

and

Two things...

1) Which part of how other people play the game affects you? (as long as they are not AFK).

2) It's not an exploit. You might not like it, I might not like it, Fred down the road might not like it, but EA hasn't made code changes to prevent this, so I doubt they regard it as an exploit.


Golem bashing and blue pet training may not be in the spirit of the way the games was originally meant to be played, but according to Garriot, neither was rampant PKing. Do you think the PK gamestyle is also a problem which needs to be "solved"?


*note*
I am not defending ANY form of AFK, such as golem training, but as long as the person is at the keyboard, let them play their game the way they wish as long as they play within the rules


and

HTML Code:

Simplify the solution: Player crafted golems no longer give gains.

I'd agree with this. The goal of this post is to further stop CHEATING and EXPLOITATION.

CatHat

Hmm - The way Golem bashing works right now - it does seem a bit flawed. The whole thing is kind of a grey area to me as to what 'the Dev's' group opinion of this is.

If the lead designers think its ok for folks to up their skills on Golems.. Then telling one to 'guard' while you whack away at it really ought to be changed or relabled to - "Spar with me" making it seem something more legit it can do.

The only thing that bothers me about any kind of training is when folks are scripting while AFK for long periods of time. AFK scripting is more than annoying - it isn't in the spirit of the game and one of the things we want to see become less rampant.

"First, make it so the pets under a players control may damage each other, may damage the owner, and even have the owner damage the pets while in Trammel regardless of weather their currently in a guild or not"
Heck, my wyrm does that to me all the time as it is!

The real solution (or rather, what I consider to be the real solution) is a lot more complex than people think. Just nerfing golems in some way isn't the answer. The problem with UO is the classic "low-level" dilemma in many RPGs, where in the beginning, all you're doing is bashing rats for pittance until you can finally get to the "fun" part. A lot of people scream, "UO should be more difficult!" but why not "UO should be more fun!"

I think a lot of people can back me up on this when I say that skill training (or dare I say, grinding) is easily one of the most boring aspects of this game. Easily.

Well i can understand that -heck in RL when i use a free hand to wrestle with my house cat - he usually bleeds the crud otta my hand, fingers and forearm. Spar with anyone in fencing or Martial arts and there's always the 'oops' and someone takes a miscalculated hit that should have been pulled better.

Anytime there is some training sparring of anykind there ought to be some risk of somebody getting injured - however if it was carefully planned sparring with your golem or pet - you'd expect that no matter what damage was done - it wouldnt' be anything life threatening. Having your swamp dragon pull a "Siegfried and Roy" on you and drag you off by your neck would kinda suck game play wise I couldn't see anyone going for that. But getting hit back for 1 or two points of damage might make sense.


CatHat

Then peeps will train healing and parry in addition to a weapon skill... However the need to be proactive in training will take some of the grind out...

More will undoubtedly complain about needing to repair armors too, lol... I wouldn't but I can already vision the absurd comments...

There has been talk of revamping the original UO dungeons, will any of this be more noob player friendly? Some peeps just don't have the time to grind a char to 7xGM, thus we would like an atmosphere we can have fun with while making it worth our time.

Perhaps low level - low reward events or quests?

Larger dungeons? How many times I've gone to train on lizardmen only to find 80% already dead because of leather collectors... Loot sucks too, not even of value to a low level char...

Perhaps if there was a game function that was low level friendly, like in a traditional RPG like D&D or AD&D... You can still have a blast even at low levels, the content was being offered for noobs and high level chars alike...

(perhaps the greatest aspect of AD&D and D&D, the replayability... If your char died, he/she might stay forever dead... Thus there actually was very... VERY limited content for 20th level chars compared to, say 5th-6th level... And you didn't have UBER loot that would "spawn"... That +1 sword you just lost when your character died is not that hard to replace, nor is it game dependant...)

Granted the game mechanics between the two are very different, one isn't even played on a PC... However can't we take some lessons learned via other RPGs? Lets think outside the box eh? We seem to only be retooling old systems again, that never really fixed issues...

And once more granted we don't want to make UO into a clone or another game, but my point is simply a point of concept...

(A side note: if the possibility of perm death was real, the economy would return to normal IMHO... I would never spend a single gold coin on a vendor if I was core PvP or PvM... Don't even get me started on Ebay)

Gotta agree golem bashing and blue pet training are in need of the nerf stick. Also in the target range for me would be the discordance of satyrs which is used by folk to gain skills at an accelerated rate. Oh and stopping pixies flying up onto rocks to do something about the resist trainers... seen more than a few unattended folks at that trick, and I'm amazed that they're still possible. There have been days when I've questioned my sanity in training things "properly" on my chars or their pets

Wenchy

Dont forget to make trainning dummies deal out damage as well.

ROFL

Would be a good gag to make one smack back every few hundred hits it takes - that would freak folks out.

:grin: :grin: :grin:

Cathat

I guess I am in the other group again. The only thing I can see that's wrong with 'Golem Bashing" through the use of the Guard command, is the AFK for hours at a time issue. I think if the training was done away from populated areas and no one noticed, it would not have become an issue at all. None of us like walking past three AFK groups training with their Golems. BUT, I admit, I did train that way. I was present the entire time I trained, however, and it was in an area where very few people passed through, so it created no lag or noise issue for others. My own personal finger was on the F1 key for every hit that was made. I rather thing the comparison to 'training dummies' was appropriate. The idea of adding the 'spar with me' command would not be such a bad idea, might even be fun. Minor damage taken in the sparring would be WONDERFUL in that one would (as was commented) be able to train healing as well, and I seriously need to finish my healing training!

I thought AFK was being dealt with through automatic disconnects for lack of activity. I even ate an item, moved an item in my pack to the ground and back, etc, just to make sure I did not show as being inactive. I guess I am very Naive', but that's my 2 Cents worth on the subject.

One last thing.... I cannot for the life of me figure why it is so necessary in some people's mindsets to keep gains to a snails pace. It took me 6 months to GM my Smithing.. almost a year to GM Sword and Magery each... If you are playing along, an hour or two a day, which is about what I was doing at the time, the gains shouldn't take 6 months. There were days where I spent 5 or 6 hours mining, smelting and smithing... please don't try to tell me that gains need to be kept slow for any reason. They should come at a reasonable pace throughout the training periods.. and not slow down at the end, if anything by the time you get to the upper levels, you should be able to grasp the situation and techniques more quickly!

I think the right or wrong of that sort of training comes down to how you feel a game's gain system should work. Or whether it's in the spirit of UO to allow such easy safe options. I always found myself bored to tears if I 8x8'd or trained in that way, and I've always preferred earning a bit of gold to just sitting staring at the screen. Never been a hard choice for me, but the few times I've tried things like that I always felt it was somehow cheating.

It is something that many, if not most players do now, from tamers training pets by sparring or with shadow eles to players with golems. I trained magery years ago; back then none of my friends understood why I wouldn't just get on a boat and 8x8. The only reason I did was my gains just stopped and a local griefer annoned me once too often lol.

Part of me does feel sympathy for players used to that method of gaining, suddenly finding they have to get into dungeons, but the big part says that's how they should train and it will help the UO community if dungeons are full, and newbies are training together with an element of risk from day 1. If I miss anything from the old days before Tram it was the newbie collective trying to pwn everything from dragons to PKs, with the mad thought that if only enough newbies entered the fight we'd win

Wenchy

Wenchy, I understand your feelings and it really does come down to what one enjoys in the game. I prefer to earn my points as well, but I really think sitting here with my finger on the F1 key for hour upon hour was no less work than killing monsters for hours and hours. I prefer to earn my gold as well and while I don't do the Big Monsters... I do go out hunting when I am in need of some cash. I hunt Ettin and Orc and such things. No big cash gains, not much challenge for most, but I am not really that much into scaring myself to death. I play to relax and getting myself worked up by almost dying is not fun to me.

I have family members who think much the way you do, heck, my son in law, who pays for my account, plays Doom whenever he is on. He has been Gung Ho and Full Speed Ahead ever since I introduced him to the game two years ago, but that doesn't make me want to do it either. We just play differently. I respect that others have other styles. I only ask that this be taken into consideration and it not be forced upon all of us to play the same style. Diversity is the major wealth and draw of this game.

It has to be a really tough thing to design and keep functional such a complex game system. Even so, it seems to me, the system can accommodate my style of play as well as your style.. Crafters, PvPers, High Adventurers, and those who just try to keep the countryside free of Ettin.... We should all be able to enjoy our time here.

My feelings on the Golem Training and such stand, as I am sure your own opinions do. The Powers That Be will ultimately (no pun intended) determine whether either, or both for that matter, will have to modify their play style.

Make it fair. For every gain taken off a golem, you lose twice as much upon death.