Posted by Ando at UO Stratics:

TC9 now has some of the fixes from Pub40 on it. Players will not see the changes to the targeting system or the new buff/debuff system, since those require a client patch.

Here is the list of what you will see if you log on TC9. Keep in mind that this is a preliminary list, and anything listed here is subject to change before Pub40 goes to production shards.

Combat / PVP:

• The following special moves now do less damage against players than they do against creatures: Evil Omen, Backstab, Focus Attack, Ki Attack, Enemy of One, Honorable Execution, and Momentum Attack.
• Damage bonus from Perfection and Honor will no longer affect players
• Fixed an imbalance with Poison Strike. Casting time has been increased slightly from 6 to 7, and the minimum base damage has been decreased from 36 to 32.
• CorpseSkin has had its mana cost increased from 11 to 23 and casting time increased from 6 to 8.
• Death Strike now clears its stalking bonus correctly. This fix also effects Backstab and Surprise Attack.
• Fixed an issue where auto-defend would override a player's current target
• Changed the way wands work so players cannot use them wihle casting other spells
• Updated the Swing Speed calculation to seconds: 1 tick for every 30 stamina, -1 tick per 30% SSI
• Fixed a flagging issue that involved attacking another player while in animal form

Misc:

• Lowered the amount of points it takes to increase tiers at the Zoo Community Collection
• Lowered the number of points for a buckler in the Library Collection from 16 down to 9.
• Fixed an issue where the True Harrower did not appear sometimes after the Harrower was killed
• Added a fix for some pets (ferrets/squirrels) to prevent them from having their hit points lowered under certain conditions
• Placing an Arcane focus stone into a Sacrificial Altar will now destroy it immediately
• Some creatures with spellcasting have had their range increased from 9 to 10 tiles
• Parrots can now mimic Japanese text

couple things that worried me, or atleast made me ask myself "huh?"

When has EEO worked in PvP???

Hmmm, if being hit from 2 screens away = 9 tiles, how much further will 10 tiles go?

Um, WHY? Why make it even harder to turn in something besides frostwood or verite? I don't understand. Not flaming, just really curious about this. Can someone explain the reasoning behind this one?

Oops, another one

Can someone just explain to me what this means? It's probably just that I'm brain fried at the end of the work day but I don't quite understand what that means.

Anne, they changed the points on Bucklers probly because they forgot about turning in resources, d'oh!

And the swing speed calculation basically comes from 1 tick = .25 seconds. Not sure how the stamina was taken in for swing speed before, but I think stuff will be swinging much slower than before with SSI because 30% now is a lot faster than 1 tick.

The change to SSI seems good to me, because when it's a percentage it benefits faster weapons a lot more than slower ones. And slower weapons are exactly the ones that need speed increase benefits more. With SSI being tick based, every weapon gets as much benefit from it.

The only issue is that if 30% SSI equals one tick, does that mean anything lower than 30% is useless? Or does it work together with stamina, meaning if you have like 90 stamina and 30% SSI, it works like you'd have 120 stamina... and if you have 110 stamina and 10% SSI, it amounts to the same? Would make sense but it's not made clear in the post.

Oh and another thing:
If this means we won't switch targets anymore every time something new aggros us, it's gonna rock. Always hated it when I'm fighting something and some other stupid critter becomes the target automagically.

Yeah, those are both the way I looked at it Adrianna, it wouldn't make sense to have anything before 30% SSI be worthless, and the no more auto-target anything that aggros will save me a lot of headaches too.

So if there is a - to SSI weapons, does that mean, say if we are holding a weapon with 30%SSI already on it, we will be penalized a tick for it? So does this mean that it is better to find weapons without any SSI on it? I am a bit confused here, can anyone who can decifer this stuff better than I can, chime in? If it is what I am figuring, then a weapon like the soulseeker, with 60SSI on it, will lose 2 ticks, and render it kind of useless. That is like the best spawn weapon I have used yet.

No, Bo, the - 1 tick per 30% SSI means this

(this is all stuff I'm making up to show you what's going on)

A weapon with 50 Speed and 0 SSI swings 1 time every 3 seconds

(3 seconds = 12 ticks, 1 tick = .25 second)

Same weapon, with 30% SSI swings every 2.75 seconds (30% SSI - 1 tick)

wow, that makes pretty much every weapon rather useless, as people can heal any damage you dealt by the time you get another chance to swing again. How many good weapons have that amount of base speed, then to add SSI to it to make it work. bandages take roughly 3 seconds, gheals take less than 2 seconds, pots and wands take even less....

But like I have said before, I need to test this crap and see it for myself before I can fully grasp it. I am more of a hands on learner..

once again, change ultima online to mages online....

That's not taking into effect stamina Bo.