Yet another taming bitchfest...
Yuri Gorlinski
It's been a week or two since my last rant
on taming, so I guess this one's long
overdue...
It's quite simple, really. I'm getting
incredibly sick of seeing all of the goddamn
tamers leading their armies of dragons
around everywhere. Seems like even the
folks who don't have enough skill to tame
dragons on their own are getting in on the fun
now, either by purchasing 'em or receiving
them as gifts from friends. This simply
should not be possible. If you don't have
enough taming skill to tame a dragon, you
shouldn't have any chance of being able to
control 'em.
It's also ludicrous that people can control
multiple dragons simultaneously. These
beasties are capable of doing 50 points of
damage with each breath attack... Even a
single tame dragon can usually make any
given situation completely unbalanced.
Multiple dragons make the whole damn game
a joke. I submit that no tamer should be
capable of simultaneously controlling more
than one dragon (or other high-level
monsters for that matter).
Acquiring dragons also seems to be far too
easy... My limited understanding of how this
typically works is that the tamers habitually
use line-of-sight glitches in the dungeons to
tame their dragons without exposing
themselves to any real danger. This runs
totally counter to the risk/reward factor
present in most other facets of the game...
The dev team fixed the barding skills several
months ago with regard to this exact same
glitch, it's way past time for them to do the
same for taming and make it reliant upon
line-of-sight.
Also, the dev team may want to consider
imposing a sharper limit upon the number of
dragons spawning on any given shard. These
are incredibly powerful creatures, and it's
rediculous that there are so damn many of
the beasts running around everywhere...
Every time I pass through Moonglow on SP I
see at least three or four dragons just
standing around at the bank -- they spend so
much time there that I wouldn't be surprised
if they soon start yelling, "VENDOR BUY THE
BANK GUARDS!" I've recently seen folks
using dragons to harvest monsters in areas
where newbies typically hunt, such as the
forests east of Yew and other equally
inappropriate areas... There are certain
guilds on LS and SP who have at least one
dragon in tow every time I see them -- on
those occassions when my guildmates and I
actually manage to kill one of their pets, the
next day we find them right back in business
with more dragons.
Dragons are supposed to be rare, wondrous,
awe-inspiring creatures, but they are
currently becoming far too common in
Britannia. The general populace has already
figured out that leading around a tame dragon
is the best and easiest way to go about things,
and I fear that if the dev team doesn't do
something to address this issue soon, one
won't be able to hear oneself think above the
din of idiot tamers yelling, "all kill!"
I'm also growing increasingly disgusted
with hearing about how Runesabre and other
members of the dev team play tamer
characters, and this is why the various
taming imbalances will never be fixed. At
first I dismissed this as a typical bullshit
conspiracy theory, but after watching the
taming situation grow more and more out of
control, after seeing how the dev team has
failed to address this issue at any level, I'm
not so sure...
And, while this has nothing to do with
dragons, the bug which allows certain pets
like Grizzly Bears to do melee damage from a
distance while teleporting close to their
victims is still going strong. If the dev team
can't be bothered with addressing all of the
various imbalances built into the taming
system, they could at least take it upon
themselves to fix this one glaringly obvious
bug.
Lord Ssu-ma Shih-ka'i, OGD
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Greywind
dev team builds in features for themselves.
Taming issues are probably just one more
in a long list.
I've never thought dragons should be tamable.
It's simply ridiculous to me... but that's
just me. although tamers need something high
level, I don't think dragons are it.
I could rant for awhile, just like you did,
but it's all been said before. The dev team
is corrupt just like the GM's...
Quaestor
> I've never thought dragons should be tamable. It's simply ridiculous to
> me...
I guess there's no taming in EQ?
Richard Cortese
news:80v8n0$gs3$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
>
> It's quite simple, really. I'm getting
> incredibly sick of seeing all of the goddamn
> tamers leading their armies of dragons
> around everywhere. Seems like even the
> folks who don't have enough skill to tame
> dragons on their own are getting in on the fun
> now, either by purchasing 'em or receiving
> them as gifts from friends. This simply
> should not be possible. If you don't have
When the animal lore patch went in on TC, I had brought a tamer up to GM
naturally but OSI put in skill gates for taming and animal lore at 95. I
eventually got my animal lore up to 80ish, but I still was never able to
control a dragon. It was kind of a retro active pisser for me: People that
heard about the skill gates and had been on the shard for 2 minutes could
control dragons but with 100 taming and 80 animal lore, I couldn't even get
them to release.
> enough taming skill to tame a dragon, you
> shouldn't have any chance of being able to
> control 'em.
I sort of agree with you here, but not exactly the same way. Seems like it
is an idiot way of doing things to have GM taming that can tame anything in
the game, but you can't control it. Bigger idiocy to have someone with
nothing but a lore skill be better at handling an animal then a tamer. It
makes for the short cut => start a character with 50 animal lore and macro
it while making $20,000 tailoring fancy shirts so I can buy a dragon in two
days. Freaking takes months for skill levels necessary for taming a dragon,
but only a few days for the ones to control it.
>
> It's also ludicrous that people can control
> multiple dragons simultaneously. These
No, you just haven't been in enough fights yet to see what happens.
Invariably, and I do mean invariably. One of the dragons will cast mass
curse type spell every single fight so they end up fighting each other. You
may see someone flaunting too much money by having multiple dragons, but to
me it just says "I don't care if these two kill each other, I will just buy
some more".
> Multiple dragons make the whole damn game
> a joke. I submit that no tamer should be
> capable of simultaneously controlling more
> than one dragon (or other high-level
> monsters for that matter).
Like what other monsters? Because really there is nothing between grizzly
bears and dragons. Take away dragons and I will completely give up taming.
It already sucks the big one that you have to wait until you have 190 points
in taming and lore before you get anything better then a grizzly bear. It is
a long way between 60ish taming and lore to that master in each before you
even get something worth while.
>
> Acquiring dragons also seems to be far too
> easy...
At the risk of being flippent, then play the game as it is currently
designed until it is changed to something more suited to your game style
i.e. going the 50 animal lore 50 tailoring route.
You have done your moral and social duty to bring the problem to OSI's
attention, you now have have the freedom to exploit the imbalance. At least
I think that is how it worked last time I checked.
> My limited understanding of how this
> typically works is that the tamers habitually
> use line-of-sight glitches in the dungeons to
> tame their dragons without exposing
> themselves to any real danger. This runs
Tell me about the LOS glitches please, I haven't found any. Unless you mean
run out into the open where the dragon blasts you and start taming, then
duck around a corner while you continue you tame. Every dragon I have ever
tamed has cost me ~100 of each heal reagent and up to three hours to tame.
The ducking thing only works to save a few reagents and shorten the time a
bit. I save every healing wand I get and pretty much just stand there with
the wand equiped healing since mana does not replentish fast enough to heal.
> totally counter to the risk/reward factor
> present in most other facets of the game...
> The dev team fixed the barding skills several
> months ago with regard to this exact same
> glitch, it's way past time for them to do the
> same for taming and make it reliant upon
> line-of-sight.
Actually, if there is a LOS problem, it should be fixed. Far as I know you
have to establish LOS to start the whole process which means you get blasted
almost every time you start taming.
> I'm also growing increasingly disgusted
> with hearing about how Runesabre and other
> members of the dev team play tamer
> characters, and this is why the various
> taming imbalances will never be fixed. At
> first I dismissed this as a typical bullshit
This is BS as far as I am concerned, someone jerking your chain.
Taming is currently so broken I don't even practice it with my tamers on
regular shards and haven't bothered working one up on TC. The all command
does not work, drop, transferring broke, loyalty munged, kind of a disaster.
Only bright spot is the skill tables may make it easier since we are losing
so many tamers.
I have seen OSI people test taming on TC, they tame a dragon, release it and
give taming the seal of approval. They have never given taming a rigorous
test and have never had it working right.
> And, while this has nothing to do with
> dragons, the bug which allows certain pets
> like Grizzly Bears to do melee damage from a
> distance while teleporting close to their
> victims is still going strong. If the dev team
Yuri, you have to do PvM more often. Orcs and Orc Lords do the same exact
thing. Ditto for silver serpents. It isn't just pets, it is everything in
the game with high dex. I imagine it is the new path finding code.
I kind of like it with the exceptions of silver serpents, they are just too
quick. But it makes PvM a little more exciting if you can't knock some hit
points off a monster before it closes with you.
Greywind
Who said anything about EQ?
Quaestor
Well, you seem to be saying you don't like UO because it has taming of dragons,
which obviously I like. So maybe you should try EQ which has no taming, or much
of anything else either (except a lot of players).
Mat
news:383354D6...@Skara.Brae...
> Greywind wrote:
> > I've never thought dragons should be tamable. It's simply
ridiculous to
> > me...
> I guess there's no taming in EQ?
*cackles gleefully*
--
Mat
Opium
> incredibly sick of seeing all of the goddamn
> tamers leading their armies of dragons
> around everywhere. Seems like even the
> dragons on their own are getting in on the fun
> now, either by purchasing 'em or receiving
> them as gifts from friends. This simply
> should not be possible. If you don't have
> shouldn't have any chance of being able to
> control 'em.
If you don't have high taming and high animal
lore, you can't control them. Dragons are useless
as gifts.
Quaestor
> When the animal lore patch went in on TC, I had brought a tamer up to GM
> naturally but OSI put in skill gates for taming and animal lore at 95. I
> eventually got my animal lore up to 80ish, but I still was never able to
> control a dragon. It was kind of a retro active pisser for me: People that
> heard about the skill gates and had been on the shard for 2 minutes could
> control dragons but with 100 taming and 80 animal lore, I couldn't even get
> them to release.
That is a bug. I control all of mine with considerably less taming. Not being
able to release is "impossible." With 0 in both skills you should be able to do
that. Bug, ok? BUG.
Eh, it's TC. WTF, it's UO! :-)
> Seems like it is an idiot way of doing things to have GM taming that can tame
> anything in the game,
Uhmmm, of the critters that are actually worth anything, the list is really
quite limited.
> but you can't control it.
You can control anything with very little Taming, though the general rule is,
without half the Taming it takes to tame it your control will be very poor
(except for "easy" ones like horses). If your experience says otherwise, you
were dealing with a bug.
> Bigger idiocy to have someone with nothing but a lore skill be better at
> handling an animal then a tamer.
Lore is a small amplifier, it gives no control (almost). With 100 Animal Lore
and zero Taming, your chance to control a dragon or other top-end pet is 2%.
With 100 Taming and zero Lore, 70%. It's not a straight-line function, but an
equal amount of AL is worth about a 25% plus to control.
You may be referring to this: I asked one nightmare owner what her numbers
were, and she said 80 AL and 40 Taming, which gave excellent control of the
nightmare. Well, for some people, excellent means you can get it to guard you,
and stay, with just a few commands given. That is all many people want from
nightmares. The thing about this is, you can buy or work Taming up to that
level in a day, and "macro" (using my favorite work-on-your-horse method) AL to
80 in a couple of days (assuming you are not too bothered about what you lose in
dealing with the skill cap), so this is a quick and dirty way to be able to ride
a black horse. But every point of Taming you raise let's you do without 4 of
AL, so continued work would be worthwhile, and give better control.
> It
> makes for the short cut => start a character with 50 animal lore and macro
> it while making $20,000 tailoring fancy shirts so I can buy a dragon in two
> days. Freaking takes months for skill levels necessary for taming a dragon,
> but only a few days for the ones to control it.
And what is wrong with that?
Fact is, without experience and magery (some with a lot of experience claim you
don't need that), you are not going to get much use out of a dragon. It cannot
travel by moongate, so you have to be able to gate it. It is very susceptible
to poison attacks, so you have to be able to cure Very well. Etc, etc, etc.
Myself with some considerable experience handling dragons and the magery to use
and protect them, I would have little problem taking mine up against 3 or 4 of
these Tailorshop DragonLords of yours and their pets.
I have considered this very point quite a bit, about jerks deciding to become
dragon holders, and I'm not concerned. The very reason why we're allowed to
tame and use dragons is that it does take a lot of work, a lot of time, before
someone can use them effectively. Jerks are just not patient types, so
dragon-handlers tend not to be jerks.
One exception from recent news is tomer, on chessy. He would stable a couple of
white wyrms in a player town, wait till there was a crowd there, get them out
and pk the whole crowd. Did this again and again, till he forced the player
town to have the stablemaster removed. And here's the catch: This character
NEVER pk'd before. The account with this GM tamer was given to the guy by a
retiring tamer.
It tends to be that way. Jerks like the power. They just do not have the
spherical fortitude to build it.
Recently there was a big ruckus from the jerks on SP, who complained loudly
enough to get the dev team talking about nerfing taming again, because the jerks
were making such a total nuisance of themselves, the tamers on SP got together
and started making these massive invasions, up to 10 tamers with dragons at a
time into the jerk hangouts, slaughtering them like sheep. The jerks never
considered raising tamers of their own, or stopping being jerks, they just cried
to OS.
Raising a dragon tamer takes far more work than jerks are willing to do, with
not much reward before you get there (other than buying dragons and using them
for hunting like I do, but you have to be extremely conservative because they
are not that difficult to lose and can be very hard to replace).
Now, what follows is the kind of thing that gets misquoted, so pay attention:
If it were not "just a game," I would consider an account for sale with a GM
tamer and nothing else to be worth at least $10,000, because that is the kind of
labor that was put into building it. This is exactly why, as tough as they have
made Taming to raise, as tedious and frustrating as it is, I'm relatively
satisfied with that, because doing that kind of work will always be a barrier to
jerks building their own tamer/killing machine.
> > It's also ludicrous that people can control
> > multiple dragons simultaneously.
You can control multiple demons. Why not dragons?
> No, you just haven't been in enough fights yet to see what happens.
They do indeed tend to have too much mind of their own. Fact is, in some
circumstances, someone who knows what they doing could probably kill one of
multiple dragons easier than the sole dragon of a tamer who has only one.
Dragon tamers tend to use 2 for hunting heavy stuff, but one for pvp.
> Invariably, and I do mean invariably. One of the dragons will cast mass
> curse type spell every single fight so they end up fighting each other. You
> may see someone flaunting too much money by having multiple dragons, but to
> me it just says "I don't care if these two kill each other, I will just buy
> some more".
They MAY be saying, "I have been careful not to allow their magery too rise
much, so they cannot cast Mass Curse." :-)
A surprising number of tamers say they often deal with certain situations by
taking a whole herd of dragons in and releasing them, or some, anyway. By the
time the jerks have cleaned up the mess, the tamer has done whatever he came to
do (blasted the troublemaker away, whatever), and goes off to replenish his
supply of drakes, dragons, and wyrms. Of course, you never used "trained"
critters for this, just fresh ones.
> > Multiple dragons make the whole damn game
> > a joke.
JERKS make the whole game a joke.
> I submit that no tamer should be
> > capable of simultaneously controlling more
> > than one dragon (or other high-level
> > monsters for that matter).
I submit that players should not be capable of attacking other players, or their
pets. NYAH!
> Like what other monsters? Because really there is nothing between grizzly
> bears and dragons. Take away dragons and I will completely give up taming.
Actually, Hell Hounds and Laval Lizards have some pretty good combat numbers,
and I'm not too far from taming those. But yes, the field of useful critters
and the range of taming that gives them is rather sparse.
> Tell me about the LOS glitches please, I haven't found any. Unless you mean
> run out into the open where the dragon blasts you and start taming, then
> duck around a corner while you continue you tame. Every dragon I have ever
> tamed has cost me ~100 of each heal reagent and up to three hours to tame.
I was recently healing one of my providers as he worked on a dragon for a long
time. He put in about 100 attempts and that dragon just would not tame. I
believe there is a relation between difficulty of taming and the strength of the
critter, so I imagine that one would have been The Badass Dragon. In that time
I threw about 60 heals, even though he did use the duck-and-cover method. This
dragon could Cook!
> Actually, if there is a LOS problem, it should be fixed.
Firedog is threatening to fix it, by adding a lot of processing ("AI") to
monsters, so they will start looking for ways around barriers or going away if
they find they cannot win a fight. I'm sure they will put in a lot of effort,
and come up with a bugged system that will screw up the game, and we will just
counter by using Paralyze on the beasts. So then what? Make them totally
immune to it? Next we put energy fields around them. Etc, etc, etc.
> Far as I know you
> have to establish LOS to start the whole process which means you get blasted
> almost every time you start taming.
Unless you have some guy willing to go in there and take the blast, so the
dragon has someone else to concern itself with. Needs to be someone who is
quick, well-connected, and knows how to survive. (Sound familiar? < looks like
a big sucker> )
> Taming is currently so broken I don't even practice it with my tamers on
> regular shards and haven't bothered working one up on TC. The all command
> does not work, drop, transferring broke, loyalty munged, kind of a disaster.
Broken? I thought these were improvements. <confused>
> Only bright spot is the skill tables may make it easier since we are losing so
> many tamers.
I keep hoping, but raising that skill does not get any easier.
> I kind of like it with the exceptions of silver serpents, they are just too
> quick. But it makes PvM a little more exciting if you can't knock some hit
> points off a monster before it closes with you.
Exciting. You have grown far too jaded if you need this for excitement. :-)
Richard Cortese
> Richard Cortese wrote:
>
> > When the animal lore patch went in on TC, I had brought a tamer up to GM
> > naturally but OSI put in skill gates for taming and animal lore at 95. I
> > eventually got my animal lore up to 80ish, but I still was never able to
> > control a dragon. It was kind of a retro active pisser for me: People
that
> > heard about the skill gates and had been on the shard for 2 minutes
could
> > control dragons but with 100 taming and 80 animal lore, I couldn't even
get
> > them to release.
>
> That is a bug. I control all of mine with considerably less taming. Not
being
> able to release is "impossible." With 0 in both skills you should be able
to do
> that. Bug, ok? BUG.
>
> Eh, it's TC. WTF, it's UO! :-)
vermin, the ones that went wild and attacked the ones that were still
tamed<?> still had me listed as controller, but the flag so I could have my
own pets attack each other apparently lost.
I guess my point is high taming skill, which is very difficult to get, is
useless w/o animal lore. Animal Lore with no taming skill if you have a
source of buying animals is an order of magnitude more powerful.
For instance, on TC now that I think about it, the gates were only good for
94.5 taming which wasn't enough to get drakes and most dragons. What I ended
up doing was taming and releasing dragons for gate users to retame and use.
Kind of sucked.
But it sucks hard on the regular shards too. ~40 animal lore seems worthless
for grizzlies no matter what your taming skill is.
I was under the impression that it was planned as a combined score for
taming and lore, that is, if you have 40 lore and 80 taming or 80 lore and
40 taming, you can control a grizzly. It has been my experience that it is
almost completely lore related.
> > Seems like it is an idiot way of doing things to have GM taming that can
tame
> > anything in the game,
>
> Uhmmm, of the critters that are actually worth anything, the list is
really
> quite limited.
I have never been killed by a tamed dragon, nightmare, or drake.
I think I have run one guy off with a nightmare, but I don't think I killed
him.
I haven't picked up a frenzied ostard yet, but I couldn't control it anyway.
It just isn't practical to use pets for killing, the stupid things will
follow people all the way to a guard zone and get you whacked.
> Lore is a small amplifier, it gives no control (almost). With 100 Animal
Lore
> and zero Taming, your chance to control a dragon or other top-end pet is
2%.
> With 100 Taming and zero Lore, 70%. It's not a straight-line function,
but an
> equal amount of AL is worth about a 25% plus to control.
Right, that is how I think it was intended to work, but I have not seen that
in practice. Fairly newbie tamer on Hokuto ~70 taming and 40 animal lore and
I can't control grizzlies worth a damn even after stuffing them with ribs.
Releasing and retaming doesn't even help.
>
> You may be referring to this: I asked one nightmare owner what her
numbers
> were, and she said 80 AL and 40 Taming, which gave excellent control of
the
> nightmare. Well, for some people, excellent means you can get it to guard
you,
> and stay, with just a few commands given. That is all many people want
from
> nightmares. The thing about this is, you can buy or work Taming up to
that
> level in a day, and "macro" (using my favorite work-on-your-horse method)
AL to
> 80 in a couple of days (assuming you are not too bothered about what you
lose in
> dealing with the skill cap), so this is a quick and dirty way to be able
to ride
> a black horse. But every point of Taming you raise let's you do without 4
of
> AL, so continued work would be worthwhile, and give better control.
That is exactly my problem, skill cap. I really like being a tamer, if I
lost 40 points off of taming to animal lore, I wouldn't even be able to tame
grizzlies anymore. If I lost 40 points off of combat skills, I would use a
name change deed to "Victim". If I lost 40 points off of magery, I couldn't
recall. If I lost 10 points off of each of them, I would be functional but
pissed.
>
>
> > It
> > makes for the short cut => start a character with 50 animal lore and
macro
> > it while making $20,000 tailoring fancy shirts so I can buy a dragon in
two
> > days. Freaking takes months for skill levels necessary for taming a
dragon,
> > but only a few days for the ones to control it.
>
> And what is wrong with that?
Nothing, I said it a bit tongue in cheek. Kind of like PKs say, "If you
don't like being PKed, learn to fight back!" Double standard to say other
people have the play the game by their rules, but when the rules favor
another type of character, they must be changed. If you don't like people
attacking you with pets, get your own.
But I have not really seen a lot of PK tamers or anything like Yuri talks
about. I think he is a special case where a few tamers have decided to hunt
him.
> I have considered this very point quite a bit, about jerks deciding to
become
> dragon holders, and I'm not concerned. The very reason why we're allowed
to
> tame and use dragons is that it does take a lot of work, a lot of time,
before
> someone can use them effectively. Jerks are just not patient types, so
> dragon-handlers tend not to be jerks.
Me too, but then a lot of jerks have GM blacksmiths. I assume that meant a
lot of GM macroing, but who knows for sure.
>
> One exception from recent news is tomer, on chessy. He would stable a
couple of
> white wyrms in a player town, wait till there was a crowd there, get them
out
> and pk the whole crowd. Did this again and again, till he forced the
player
> town to have the stablemaster removed. And here's the catch: This
character
> NEVER pk'd before. The account with this GM tamer was given to the guy by
a
> retiring tamer.
Bet you a dollar if the orignal non jerk account holder asked for his
account back, he wouldn't get it.<grin>
> Now, what follows is the kind of thing that gets misquoted, so pay
attention:
>
> It is "just a game," I would never consider an account for sale with a GM
> blacksmith and nothing else to be worth at least $10,000, because that is
the kind of
> macroing that was put into building it. This is exactly why, as easy as
they have
> made Taming to raise, as enjoyable and fun as it is, I'm relatively
> unhappy with that, because doing that kind of work will always be a lure
to
> jerks building their own tamer/killing machine.
Eh? Attendshunt?
> > Actually, if there is a LOS problem, it should be fixed.
>
> Firedog is threatening to fix it, by adding a lot of processing ("AI") to
> monsters, so they will start looking for ways around barriers or going
away if
> they find they cannot win a fight. I'm sure they will put in a lot of
effort,
> and come up with a bugged system that will screw up the game, and we will
just
> counter by using Paralyze on the beasts. So then what? Make them totally
> immune to it? Next we put energy fields around them. Etc, etc, etc.
I tried helping one guy tame a dragon that was running loose in Wind<City
section>. I had a bard with enough magery to get in, and decent peacemaking.
The dragon was down to a sliver of health and fleeing. I would peacemake
every chance I got while the tamer ran around behind it trying to tame. I
think he died three times before he gave up.
At least on TC they have almost completely shut me down. They actually go to
the trouble of putting up a barrier on Covetous level 4 so I can't launch a
boat. I think I am the one they are targetting since I am one of the few
people that used boats there.
I would rather they work on making it harder to illegally place a house vs
make my life more difficult.
Quaestor
> I still have the same problems on regular shards. Spent two nights taming
> vermin, the ones that went wild and attacked the ones that were still
> tamed<?> still had me listed as controller, but the flag so I could have my
> own pets attack each other apparently lost.
Weird. I do that all the time with no problem. When I get done with a sweep
through Iceland I usually hve two polars left, so I have one attack the other,
then poison both to make sure the survivor dies, and leave, recalling right back
to town with no problems. BUG. Got that? You have a BUG. Spray some Raid in
your HD.
> I guess my point is high taming skill, which is very difficult to get, is
> useless w/o animal lore. Animal Lore with no taming skill if you have a
> source of buying animals is an order of magnitude more powerful.
You didn't get my point. Nightmares and dragons both have about the same
control requirements. And if you have 100 Animal Lore and zero Taming your
control will be 2%. That is, with 100% loyalty, they will obey one command out
of 50 (and refuse the rest, driving their loyalty down each time). Lore gives
almost nothiing without Taming.
> For instance, on TC now that I think about it, the gates were only good for
> 94.5 taming which wasn't enough to get drakes and most dragons. What I ended
> up doing was taming and releasing dragons for gate users to retame and use.
> Kind of sucked.
>
> But it sucks hard on the regular shards too. ~40 animal lore seems worthless
> for grizzlies no matter what your taming skill is.
On Pac I have a tamer with rather poor Lore and Taming (so far). He retamed a
ferral grizzly and had no trouble controlling it just fine. Their orneriness is
slight compared to dragons. I seriously wonder if you have some sor tof account
bug or something.
> I was under the impression that it was planned as a combined score for
> taming and lore, that is, if you have 40 lore and 80 taming or 80 lore and
> 40 taming, you can control a grizzly. It has been my experience that it is
> almost completely lore related.
Actually, reading the discussions that went before the pet patch, the intent was
pretty much aimed at dragons and nightmares, that it would take 200 skill points
to have excellent (98%) control of these. I kinda doubt they gave much thought
to the grizzly at all.
> I have never been killed by a tamed dragon, nightmare, or drake.
I was when trying to take delivery of one during the Bugged Transfer days. I
mean the REALLY bugged days.
> It just isn't practical to use pets for killing, the stupid things will
> follow people all the way to a guard zone and get you whacked.
For pking, true, they are not that useful, except in dungeons, and then only
when you can corner the victim or yourself stay in contact enough to keep them
from running/recalling. They are excellent defense against pk, IF the pk is not
able to EV them or get a DP hit on them too fast, or you can cure them of the
problem. Fact is, like anything else, in this case dragons are best used in
numbers (again, without the magery to cast Mass Curse) and by surprise. Take 7
of them and lay an ambush around a dungeon level teleporter, and by the time
someone can see after stepping through they are dead.
> Fairly newbie tamer on Hokuto ~70 taming and 40 animal lore and
> I can't control grizzlies worth a damn even after stuffing them with ribs.
> Releasing and retaming doesn't even help.
Geez, your experience is so different from mine. Kai Du is not a good example,
since she has 100 AL. But I have others who control retamed grizzlies fine with
low AL and Taming.
> That is exactly my problem, skill cap. I really like being a tamer, if I
> lost 40 points off of taming to animal lore, I wouldn't even be able to tame
> grizzlies anymore. If I lost 40 points off of combat skills, I would use a
> name change deed to "Victim". If I lost 40 points off of magery, I couldn't
> recall. If I lost 10 points off of each of them, I would be functional but
> pissed.
True, the cap and Runesaber's little project of requiring Lore has forced the
Tamer into a poor choice. To really use and protect your pets you have to have
high Magery (for Gates, Dispells, and Cures). Veterinary is not required,
though it helps. a decent Tamer could be:
100 Taming
100 Animal Lore
100 Magery
100 Tactics
100 Melee
50 Healing
50 Anatomy
This gives nothing for Hiding, Tracking, and rather poor fighting ability.
With Skill Management, a more realistic list might be:
100 Taming
80 Animal Lore (I can deal with less than 98% control)
90 Magery
90 Tactics
90 Melee
40 Healing (it's just to let you heal cheap)
60 Anatomy
80 Hiding
50 Meditation
25 Evaluate (a little is better than none)
Simpler would be:
100 Taming
100 Animal Lore
100 Magery
100 Eval
100 Meditation
100 Healing
100 Veterenary (or Hiding, Anatomy, Cooking, something)
Yes, no fighting ability at all. This of course requires that you always have a
fighting pet with you.
Point is, with the simplistic skill cap, you cannot be a top level tamer and be
able to fight and do magic well. And without magic you cannot do much with your
pets. They really put a problem on us with this.
> But I have not really seen a lot of PK tamers or anything like Yuri talks
> about. I think he is a special case where a few tamers have decided to hunt
> him.
I can understand that.
> Me too, but then a lot of jerks have GM blacksmiths. I assume that meant a
> lot of GM macroing, but who knows for sure.
The problem with blacksmithing is not the work so much as the acquisition of
ingots. Since jerks steal ore and ingots from miners by the ton, I presume that
their smiths are simply created to use those. But you don't steal pets so
easily. If you draw off someone's dragon and trap it hoping to retame when it
goes ferral, likelyhood is it will kill you (since you don't know what you are
doing). If not, while trapped in that house, someone like me comes along and
calls a GM to get it out (you soon learn who in the neighborhood is a real tamer
and who is not).
> I tried helping one guy tame a dragon that was running loose in Wind<City
> section>. I had a bard with enough magery to get in, and decent peacemaking.
>
> The dragon was down to a sliver of health and fleeing. I would peacemake
> every chance I got while the tamer ran around behind it trying to tame. I
> think he died three times before he gave up.
It is tricky. I failed in my first attempt, but learned from that and have not
failed since. You have to play the entire situation, terrain, other critters,
everything. And have an amazing sense of timing. And the tamer needs his high
strength. If he cannot take 2 dragon breaths he should not be there.
> At least on TC they have almost completely shut me down. They actually go to
> the trouble of putting up a barrier on Covetous level 4 so I can't launch a
> boat. I think I am the one they are targetting since I am one of the few
> people that used boats there.
>
> I would rather they work on making it harder to illegally place a house vs
> make my life more difficult.
I have the same problem. Whenever a whole bunch of orcs spawn all at once, I'm
certain they are talking about me.
<NUDGE>
Yuri Gorlinski
>
> If you don't have high taming and high animal
> lore, you can't control them. Dragons are useless
> as gifts.
This is incorrect. Dragons can be
controlled by characters who possess far less
Taming and AL skill than would be needed to
tame them.
Yuri Gorlinski
> I seldom see dragons.
Like everything in UO, how many dragons
you encounter is largely dependant on what
shard you play on and what activities you
engage in... Rest assured, if you hung out
where I hang out, you'd be seeing 'em all the
time. 8)
> Not sure, but I think you need near GM to control them.
You are mistaken.
> > It's also ludicrous that people can control
> > multiple dragons simultaneously. These
> No, you just haven't been in enough fights yet to see what happens.
>
> Invariably, and I do mean invariably. One of the dragons will cast mass
> curse type spell every single fight so they end up fighting each other.
Unless the dragons don't have enough
Magery to cast Mass Curse... Unless the
owner posts them at a slight distance from
each other, and then sets them to attack
different targets...
> Tell me about the LOS glitches please, I haven't found any.
I believe there are several spots in Destard
where one can tame without exposing onself
to any danger. I've heard of one place where
you can tame from a bridge, and another
where you can tame through a crack in a
wall...
> Yuri, you have to do PvM more often.
This is akin to telling Otara or IceLady that
they need to do PvP more often...
> Orcs and Orc Lords do the same exact
> thing. Ditto for silver serpents. It isn't just pets, it is everything in
> the game with high dex. I imagine it is the new path finding code.
I've actually been doing quite a bit of PvM
recently, training my new Order gimp on LS
and funding my mage on SP make PvM
something of an unfortunate necessity.
While it's been months since I last fought
silver serpents, I have dispatched many orcs
and orc lords over the past few weeks, and I
can say with some certainty that they do NOT
teleport and distance-attack in the same
manner as tamed grizzlies which are set to
kill...
Yuri Gorlinski
>
> Recently there was a big ruckus from the jerks on SP, who complained loudly
> enough to get the dev team talking about nerfing taming again, because the jerks
> were making such a total nuisance of themselves, the tamers on SP got together
> and started making these massive invasions, up to 10 tamers with dragons at a
> time into the jerk hangouts, slaughtering them like sheep. The jerks never
> considered raising tamers of their own, or stopping being jerks, they just cried
> to OS.
You don't even play on SP, and you really
don't know what the fuck you're talking
about. Many of the PK guilds are in fact
making tamers now. OGD has one or two of
our own... We still believe that the
imbalances should be addressed.
> > > It's also ludicrous that people can control
> > > multiple dragons simultaneously.
>
> You can control multiple demons. Why not dragons?
Controlling multiple daemons is equally
ridiculous. In that instance, at least you
have the mana recharge time and the limited
duration of the summoning in place to keep
things somewhat under control... But I'd
rather have summoned daemons limited to
one-per-customer, just like dragons ought
to be.
> > > Multiple dragons make the whole damn game
> > > a joke.
>
> JERKS make the whole game a joke.
Especially the blue jerks... Like you.
Seriously Q, you've admitted to serving as a
blue healer in the Order/Chaos wars... In my
book that makes you more of a jerk than even
the reddest of PKs. Those who willfully
interfere with consensual PvP are some of
the lowest lifeforms in the game, and you are
apparently proud to count yourself among
them.
Yuri Gorlinski
> I have never been killed by a tamed dragon, nightmare, or drake.
IIRC I've only been killed by a tame dragon
once, while fighting in the Order/Chaos wars
on Sonoma. My Chaos gimp got smoked by an
Order guild's pet dragon right in the streets
of Trinsic. Not very sporting at all... But
the dragon did eventually earn himself a
guard-whacking after casting Mass Curse.
Now that I've learned not to melee them,
most of the time I can escape or -- with lots
of help from guildmates -- dispatch the foul
beasts. It's still a huge imbalance though...
> Nothing, I said it a bit tongue in cheek. Kind of like PKs say, "If you
> don't like being PKed, learn to fight back!" Double standard to say other
> people have the play the game by their rules, but when the rules favor
> another type of character, they must be changed. If you don't like people
> attacking you with pets, get your own.
I'd rather have the dev team address the
imbalances so that we can all compete on a
level field. I've seen you advocate measures
geared to making things more fair for the
intended victims of PKs, what you're saying
now is that balance is a one-way street,
something which blue players are entitled to
but red players are not. I disagree with this
on a fundamental level -- imbalances are
imbalances regardless of whether they're
being used to the disadvantage of reds or
blues. It's not a PK issue, it's a PvP balance
issue.
Setting SP aside, I also fight a lot of dragons
in the Order/Chaos wars, and I can assure 'ya
that this stuff causes all kinds of problems in
consensual PvP. Ever tried dealing with a
dragon in town? Without the use of heavy
offensive magical firepower, your only
option is to lead the sucker out of the guard
zone or go kamikaze on it in the hopes that it
will get itself guard-whacked.
> But I have not really seen a lot of PK tamers or anything like Yuri talks
> about. I think he is a special case where a few tamers have decided to hunt
> him.
It's not so much that they're hunting me
personally, but the various guilds that I'm
currently associated with do seem to be quite
successful in inspiring some rather bitter
rivalries...
gil
> I've actually been doing quite a bit of PvM
> recently, training my new Order gimp on LS
> and funding my mage on SP make PvM
> something of an unfortunate necessity.
> While it's been months since I last fought
> silver serpents, I have dispatched many orcs
> and orc lords over the past few weeks, and I
> can say with some certainty that they do NOT
> teleport and distance-attack in the same
> manner as tamed grizzlies which are set to
Questor told me a few months ago of an exploit he uses where you first
command a grizzly to follow your target, then you tell the griz to kill
the target. That makes the griz move extra-quickly, and I assume that
explains how they can teleport and distance-attack.
Or has that been fixed?
rend
gil'lomion LS
Quaestor
> Questor told me a few months ago of an exploit he uses where you first
LET IT GO, GIL.
Yuri Gorlinski
>
> Questor told me a few months ago of an exploit he uses where you first
> the target. That makes the griz move extra-quickly, and I assume that
> explains how they can teleport and distance-attack.
>
> Or has that been fixed?
Hmmm. That could be it... The effect I've
been bitching about hasn't been fixed so far
as I know, though it's been a week or two
since anyone's used it on me... I should
really work up a tamer and run some tests of
my own. My Order gimp on Sonoma has some
Taming, but I don't think he's good enough to
handle grizzlies...
That's funny how you heard about it from
Quaestor, though. I can't help but wonder
what other exploits Q's been taking advantage
of while spewing all of his holier-than-thou
BS here in the newsgroup... He is truly a
hypocrite of the highest order.
Richard Cortese
> "Richard Cortese" wrote:
> that this stuff causes all kinds of problems in
> consensual PvP. Ever tried dealing with a
> dragon in town? Without the use of heavy
> offensive magical firepower, your only
> option is to lead the sucker out of the guard
> zone or go kamikaze on it in the hopes that it
> will get itself guard-whacked.
get Wind to myself.
Kind of fun when you have the place to yourself. I lead deamons and dragons
into town just to fight them. Teleporting around different roofs, casting
blade spirits, running up stairs, more then a few NPCs get killed, but that
is 1/2 the fun. All magic works in the city and for some reasong I have
never been guard whacked or had a guard whack a deamon or dragon. I think
the rules are just a little bit different there and that is the other 1/2 of
the fun.
>
> > But I have not really seen a lot of PK tamers or anything like Yuri
talks
> > about. I think he is a special case where a few tamers have decided to
hunt
> > him.
>
> It's not so much that they're hunting me
> personally, but the various guilds that I'm
> currently associated with do seem to be quite
> successful in inspiring some rather bitter
> rivalries...
I did see a grizzly teleport 1/2 way across the screen today. It was on
Hokuto, but it can't be ping or packet loss related. Did an "all kill" and
the griz was instantly on top of an ettin. Bear got across the screen much
faster then an ebolt would have taken.
That particular bear was much tougher then the other ones I had today. He
was pretty much soloing ettins. Could be some grizzlies have their stats
messed up.
gil
> That's funny how you heard about it from
> Quaestor, though. I can't help but wonder
> what other exploits Q's been taking advantage
> of
I think's Q's as honest as the next folk. Well, considering the general
UO population, I think he's more honest than the average "next UO
folk". I only know of him doing the "magic-locked chest to thief-proof
yourself" exploit/trick (which I do myself, and make no apology for),
and "attended macroing snooping to raise dex" (does anyone consider that
a trick/exploit?), and that sort of thing. He may have gotten UOA
before it was legal *whistles innocently and looks up at sky* but then
again, he may not even have it now so I could be wrong...
In Q's defense, he basically tries to be good and helpful. And he does
get off some good lines (humor, that is), and he does answer a lot of
questions ingame and in the group.
I'd say more good things about him but I suddenly feel the irresistable
urge to "LET IT GO!"
*giggles*
rend
gil'lomion LS
Quaestor
> I did see a grizzly teleport 1/2 way across the screen today. It was on
> Hokuto, but it can't be ping or packet loss related. Did an "all kill" and
> the griz was instantly on top of an ettin. Bear got across the screen much
> faster then an ebolt would have taken.
You see? I TOLD you pets would increase their skills. Obviously you had this
one for such a long time, it raised its Magery from 0 to at least 40 and
Teleported.
> That particular bear was much tougher then the other ones I had today. He
> was pretty much soloing ettins. Could be some grizzlies have their stats
> messed up.
Uhmm, I wonder if this is the first instance of critters with "higher levels of
'AI?'" I expected them to learn to walk around obstacles, not start
teleporting. I could live in a world without teleporting bears, demons, and
terathans.
Corwin of Amber (WE/LS)
>> easy...
>Tell me about the LOS glitches please, I haven't found any. Unless you mean
>run out into the open where the dragon blasts you and start taming, then
>duck around a corner while you continue you tame. Every dragon I have ever
>tamed has cost me ~100 of each heal reagent and up to three hours to tame.
I dunno about the LOS glitches, but if you drain the Dragons health
down to the point it is just about going to run away, and drain its
mana you take very little damage.
A friend Mir who I believe had around 96 taming generally took 1-30
minutes to tame a Dragon. I did one with him once and we it took
about 5 minutes to tame once he got started, and fortunately not that
many heal regs ... because we didn't go down with a lot.
Corwin