Posted on UOHerald.com

TC4 (PvP) Publish Notes
Jeremy Dalberg
27 Jul 2007 20:44.06 EST

At long last, here are the TC4 PvP changes - we'll be taking feedback through the usual methods on all of this, and we'd really appreciate if as many people as possible would test out their templates/playstyle and make sure there are no unintended interactions.

1. Weapon special moves now require Weapon Skill and Tactics of appropriate skill levels. (i.e., 70 in each skill for primary weapon special moves, 90 in each skill for secondary weapon special moves).

a. Exceptions to the Tactics requirement are the following:

i. Wrestling special moves.
ii. Shadowstrike since it already requires 80 Stealth to perform.
iii. Infecting Strike since it already requires Poisoning skill to be effective.

2. Can no longer stack using a weapon special move and casting a spell or activating a skill ability.

3. Nerve Strike paralysis is now breakable on hit.

4. Nerve Strike paralysis is now scaled based on Bushido skill, from 50% chance at 50 skill to 90% chance at 120 skill.

5. Nerve Strike damage is now a little more variable. May be 0 to 10 damage less.

6. The Mana Regeneration item property is now subject to the principle of diminishing returns.

a. The hard cap on MR has been removed.
b. As the total MR from items increases, each successive point of MR will give less overall mana regeneration.

i. This means that adding more MR will always give more mana regeneration.
ii. This also means that as you put more MR items on, you get less of a bonus from each additional MR item.

c. Having higher Meditation and / or Focus skill will give a bonus to mana regeneration gained from MR items.
d. Meditation and /or Focus will now benefit for intermediate values and not just for multiples of 10 (i.e. 80.1 used to give you same MR bonus at 89.9).

7. Hit Point Increase from items is now capped at 25.

8. Enhance Potion from items is now capped at 50. Player characters with Alchemy skill receive an inherent bonus to Enhance Potion that can exceed this cap. The bonus to Enhance Potion equates to +10% for every 33 points of Alchemy (i.e., 80% at GM Alchemy).

9. The formula for controlling a tamed pet currently is based on 80% Taming, 20% Animal Lore. This will now be changed to 50% Taming, 50% Animal Lore so it requires more of a skill commitment to reliably control a tamed pet. The formula for actually taming a creature will remain unchanged.

10. For controlling Lesser Hiryus, a player character will now need at least 90 Bushido (the same required to ride it) or an appropriately high skill level in Animal Taming and Animal Lore.

a. Success chance for control is determined by whichever skill set is higher (i.e., Bushido or the combination of Animal Taming and Animal Lore).
b. The chance to tame a Lesser Hiryu will remain the same.

11. When a Lesser Hiryu chooses to perform the Dismount special maneuver, it will now have a 20% chance to succeed in performing the dismount. This chance use to be 100%.

12. Players now have a better chance of actively meditating at high intelligence/low mana values.

13. Ethereal mount stamina will now regenerate when a player character is not mounted. This value is stored on the character, so it will apply to any ethereal mount that character uses.

14. Evasion can now only be activated once every 20 seconds.

15. Cancel targeting cursor when using Animal Form. This is to prevent abuses such as using a bola, changing into Animal Form, running up your opponent with mount speed, changing out of Animal Form, and then instantly targeting your opponent.

16. Anything that can dismount a player character will now force an opponent out of Animal Form. This includes weapon special moves such as Dismount and Riding Swipe, items such as bolas, and any creatures with Dismount, Raging Stomp, or Bola Throwing AI. The same timer will come into play for returning to animal form after being bola'd as currently exists towards remounting after being bola'd.

17. Added remount delay for Animal Form when using bolas or the Dismount weapon special maneuver.

18. A pet that performs a Dismount special maneuver will now add a remount delay for its owner.

19. Death Strike will now cause 50% less damage when using a ranged weapon.

20. Death Strike damage cap lowered from 70 to 60.

21. Death Strike damage now scales based on the average of Hiding/Stealth from 30% to 100% of normal damage.

22. Cancel targeting cursor when using the Hiding skill. This is to prevent abuses such as commanding your pet to kill, pressing a macro to hide, and then targeting the pet’s victim.

23. Ecru Rings have been changed to possess 50% Enhance Potions.

24. Rune Beetle Corruption pet ability will now reduce each resist by one half of its value for the duration of the corruption. The Rune Beetle Corruption pet ability use to reduce all resists to 0.

25. Pets will possess the same notoriety as their masters when commanded, added as a friend, transferred to another player, etc.

26. Enchanted Apples and Grapes of Wrath will now only be edible once every 120 seconds. The Grapes of Wrath will now have a duration of 20 seconds.

27. Tinker poison trapped boxes will no longer poison the user if the user already has been inflicted with a stronger poison.

wow, that's some serious change right there. I think though, that they are only focusing on the "flavor of the moment" type of templates, and not a whole lot of the long term type of problems, while I do believe this is indeed a step in the right direction.

A lot of these changes have nothing to do with "gimp template of the week". There are a lot of good things that should have been implemented a long time ago.

i didnt say gimp, i said flavor. there is a difference.

Kinda sorta, but they have to start somewhere. What they have suggested so far is still going to need a lot of tweaking. But I agree wholeheartedly with this being a step in the right direction.

yah, it focuses on:
dismount gimp
nerve strike gimp
tamer gimp
ninja gimp
with some attempts, at controlling the rampant item vs. skill problem.

Rather decent fixes. Only some of the durations should be tweaked up. for a warrior, 120 seconds is a loooooooooooooooooong time.
By FORCING tactics in order to use special moves, they create template overcramming. Again. I like that, because it forces a rethink on all common templates, but I DUN like it because tactics is useless above 100.
Scale the damage better tactics, being a sole skill that does ONE thing, should have a MUCH higher damage impact than anatomy. anatomy should ALWAYS be 1/2 to 3/4 of the DI of tactics.
(what, make something better, instead of a universal nerf!!! WTH!)

But like JC said, most if this is three years after the fact. *shakes head* *looks at lawn service analogy* *cries*

You can't simplify what these changes may or may not "nerf" as you can see with that the applying Tactics to special moves combined with this "2. Can no longer stack using a weapon special move and casting a spell or activating a skill ability." levels the playing field for the Mage/(mageweapon)/weaponskill hybrids that use the Nerve Strike/explo/FS/NS/...

There are many more things these 27 changes attempt to fix, and some address the "flavor of the month" or "gimps of the past/present", but they have lingering effects on everything once you look into them.

Also #s 6 and 12 try to bring down the overpowered Mage compared to Dexxer which has been an ongoing inbalance since the dawn of time.

that will gimp my rp char...

using a old style archery mage - with the old style precast explo..

See my response here: http://www.uoforums.com/f1315/the-addition-of-central-united-states-servers-testing-pvp-changes-on-such-a-server-33299/

After thinking about it, I REALLY dont like the nerve strike being based on bushido skill for your % chance to land it. it is a WEAPON skill, granted it needs bushido, but that should NOT base the % chance on it. I have a spawning character, that has 90 bushido for LS on champ, and helps out my whirlwinds, and also it gives me the ability to ride a Hiryu. So now at 90% I may not get my nerve strikes off. That is my only gripe with that entire list.