Is Archery foobar?
Greywind
archery as I do.. there will be times when the darn bow just won't
fire. I'll be right next to the monster, with it pounding the shit out
of
me, and that bow won't fire.. I'm not moving, and yes, I'm actually
"attacking" that same monster. I've been playing since UO went
public so I sorta know my way around UO...
I also wonder why anyone even bothers with archery anymore.. I
just took a run and at 3 gold per arrow, I came out with a negative
balance.
I noticed a thread about OSI improving archery.. I hope they can
simply get it to work first...
Pete
In my opinion, archery is a fisherman's best friend. Sit in the middle
of your boat, and the serps can only use magic on you, and that runs out
pretty fast.
With a heavy crossbow, even a Deep Sea Serpent won't last very long.
On land, though, only ever use a bow; not a crossbow. With a bow's
slightly better rate of fire you can move and shoot, move and shoot etc
etc. Not the quickest kill, but not everybody wants to be a mage or a
tamer..... And doing this if you also have a high resist, it's pretty
easy to survive just about anything out in the open.
My archer also has bowcraft, so the cost of arrows doesn't really
concern me. The cost, however, probably compares with what it costs a
mage in reagants, to kill the same monster.
I can't remember if OSI *recently* said anything about improving
archery, but it certainly does need something to be on par with the
other combat skills. Enter a dungeon, for example, and you'll wish you'd
chosen just about any other combat skill. But in the right situations
(ie NOT toe-to-toe with the baddie) archery can do a good job. Just be
sure to use the advantage archery offers; shooting from a distance.
Eric A. Hall
"Greywind" <hjr...@yahoo.com.remove> wrote in message
news:3C54E706...@yahoo.com.remove...
> I'm just wondering if other people have the same problems with
> archery as I do..
Works great for me. Best PVM skill in the game.
Greywind
Pete wrote:
It's not even close. At 3 gold per arrow, it takes around 30-40 arrows
to kill a frost troll. With a mage it takes a few ebolts.. the mage would
have to use 10 ebolts to be on par..
> I can't remember if OSI *recently* said anything about improving
> archery, but it certainly does need something to be on par with the
> other combat skills. Enter a dungeon, for example, and you'll wish you'd
> chosen just about any other combat skill. But in the right situations
> (ie NOT toe-to-toe with the baddie) archery can do a good job. Just be
> sure to use the advantage archery offers; shooting from a distance.
Bows also seem to miss more than the other weapons.. Shooting from
a distance is nice, however, they're also more expensive to run.. you
can't repair bows, and the ammo costs $$ as well.
I was looking more for other people's experiences with the bows not
shooting when they should. Seems like they also require the target
be alot closer than I remember as well...
gil
> In my opinion, archery is a fisherman's best friend. Sit in the middle
> of your boat, and the serps can only use magic on you, and that runs out
> pretty fast.
> With a heavy crossbow, even a Deep Sea Serpent won't last very long.
Sorta changing the topic a bit, but have you tried a Fishin' Magician?
I mean a fisher with magery, instead of archery? I had one on SP for a
while, and had good luck with her. I took a pvp heal/hide mage
(magery/EI/med/resist/wrasslin) and dropped wrasslin (since I figured
most combat would be from on board my ship where I could avoid meleeing,
in which case no wrasslin was needed) for fishing. From my experience,
deep sea serps, etc., dropped faster to this mage than an archer.
On a regular shard you don't need the hide/heal as much as you do on SP
(I wanted a survivor fisher), so adding poisoning would up offense even
more, or substitue other skills as desred.
Anyways, sorry to change the topic a bit ;)
gil
Brent
>>My archer also has bowcraft, so the cost of arrows doesn't really
>>concern me. The cost, however, probably compares with what it costs a
>>mage in reagants, to kill the same monster.
>>
>
> It's not even close. At 3 gold per arrow, it takes around 30-40 arrows
> to kill a frost troll. With a mage it takes a few ebolts.. the mage would
> have to use 10 ebolts to be on par..
>
Don't forget, you can pick up arrows that you miss with. Regs go up in
smoke.
Brent
Simon
> Pete wrote:
>
> > In my opinion, archery is a fisherman's best friend. Sit in the middle
> > of your boat, and the serps can only use magic on you, and that runs out
> > pretty fast.
> > With a heavy crossbow, even a Deep Sea Serpent won't last very long.
>
> Sorta changing the topic a bit, but have you tried a Fishin' Magician?
> I mean a fisher with magery, instead of archery? I had one on SP for a
> while, and had good luck with her. I took a pvp heal/hide mage
> (magery/EI/med/resist/wrasslin) and dropped wrasslin (since I figured
> most combat would be from on board my ship where I could avoid meleeing,
> in which case no wrasslin was needed) for fishing. From my experience,
> deep sea serps, etc., dropped faster to this mage than an archer.
And the thread drifts further...
I totally agree about fishing and magery. For a while my mage/fisher was my
main money maker on Europa. The big 5 mage skills plus fishing...Mmmmm. I
kept wrestling so I could take on mobs on land. Earnt enough for a nice
house on Tram through auctioning off MIBs and Nets. You even get decent fame
off serps until Level 4. She's now converting to a bard/t-hunter. Not
wanting to drop fishing gives me a template problem though...
100 fishing - done
100 magery - done
100 evalint - 80s
100 music - done
100 provo - 60s
100 carto - 80s
100 lockpicking - 95
No resist, no wrestle, no med.
I dropped med because I figured I'd only use offensive magery to administer
the final blow.
I could, I s'pose, drop fishing and put back resist or med. Or forget the
bard bit, putting back med and resist, and only group on Level 4s and
5s.Test centre proved inconclusive. Anyone got any ideas?
Gray
news:3C54E706...@yahoo.com.remove...
> I'm just wondering if other people have the same problems with
> archery as I do.. there will be times when the darn bow just won't
> fire. I'll be right next to the monster, with it pounding the shit out
> of me
Yes, this does happen to my archer, usually when something that packs a
nasty punch like 3 or more Bone Knights are heading straight for me. I know
the distance an arrow can cover and the time between shots and sometimes
they're definitely too close and it's been too long for me not to have fired
yet. I find this often happens at the start of combat, when I first double
click on a monster and then wait for a shot to go off. It's almost like the
game hasn't registered my intent. I then start frantically double clicking
again while shouting "for gods sake fire!" and watching my health bar turn
red ;-)
> I also wonder why anyone even bothers with archery anymore.. I
> just took a run and at 3 gold per arrow, I came out with a negative
> balance.
I make my own. And archery is still my favourite combat skill. A couple of
days ago I rode into Moonglow Graveyard to find a (young) player almost
dead, his horse by his side, surrounded by zombies. Now I can kill zombies
with one shot, guess how glad he was I showed up :-) There's something
about cutting things down before others can even close to hand to hand range
that is just so stylish.
Gray
--
"Astronomers say the universe is finite, which is a comforting thought
for those people who can't remember where they leave things."
Yuri G.
> I'm just wondering if other people have the same problems with
> archery as I do.. there will be times when the darn bow just won't
> fire. I'll be right next to the monster, with it pounding the shit out
> of me, and that bow won't fire.. I'm not moving, and yes, I'm actually
> "attacking" that same monster. I've been playing since UO went
> public so I sorta know my way around UO...
I've only ever noticed this type of problem with x-bows. Normal
bows and heavy x-bows work fine for me, but x-bows always seem to be a
little buggy in terms of not firing when I expect them to. As a
result, I never use them anymore.
> I also wonder why anyone even bothers with archery anymore.. I
> just took a run and at 3 gold per arrow, I came out with a negative
> balance.
Archery still works well for me.
> I noticed a thread about OSI improving archery.. I hope they can
> simply get it to work first...
I really hope OSI doesn't go overboard here, most of the things
people have been suggesting in terms of poisoned arrows, exploding
arrows, and such would seem to be prone to PvP and PvM imbalances. I
remember when heavy x-bows were the uber-weapons of choice 3+ years
ago, would rather not go back down that road...
The one thing I'd like to see them tweak is the hit calculation
timing, it ought to be performed immediately after you fire instead of
on impact.
Mocker, IRL
Todd Bailey
<snip>
>
>I was looking more for other people's experiences with the bows not
>shooting when they should. Seems like they also require the target
>be alot closer than I remember as well...
>
I have been working on a archer and had noticed a few times where I would
"misfire". I just put it down to lag though as it did not happen too often
and sometimes I would get a "hit" without even "firing" the arrow. Once was
last night up in titan valley. There were two titans and about three
cyclopedin warriors that were on the other side of a hill. Usually I use
shoot & scoot, but there were too many so this other archer and I were
shooting at them and cross healing. Once in a while I would stop shooting
and have to "re-attack" the target to get started again. I was seeing some
packet loss at the time so I don't know what effect that might have had
though. I was using a durable/force bow.
Brian
> that is just so stylish.
I know I'm a bit tardy on the LOTR reference, but how stylish was it when
Legolas fired off 3 arrows in what, like 1.5 seconds? Or when he jumped on
the head of that cave troll and started firing arrows down into his head?
Now THAT'S stylish! Made me want to start an archer in UO.
--
This is my signature.
Myrex
rec.games.computer.ultima.online writing in message
news:xMk58.12710$n46.2...@typhoon.neo.rr.com
AH, I've done that in AC :)
Trouble is, in UO you get trees in the way and stuff, and you can't fire
over them :(
--
I stung my tongue on nettle tea,
the Herbal said 'twas good for me.
UO & AC Herbal - http://www.myrex.co.uk/herbal
Gray
news:xMk58.12710$n46.2...@typhoon.neo.rr.com...
> I know I'm a bit tardy on the LOTR reference, but how stylish was it when
> Legolas fired off 3 arrows in what, like 1.5 seconds? Or when he jumped
on
> the head of that cave troll and started firing arrows down into his head?
> Now THAT'S stylish! Made me want to start an archer in UO.
Exactly! I was always inspired by Tolkiens elves and rangers, especially
the elves with their amazing bow skills. I think that's one of the reasons
I almost always play an archer in RPG's. I fear the LotR movie and those
scenes you mentioned have only made me worse *starts to consider a UO
account with 5 archers on each shard* ;-)
Rick Cortese
<snip>
> > My archer also has bowcraft, so the cost of arrows doesn't really
> > concern me. The cost, however, probably compares with what it costs a
> > mage in reagants, to kill the same monster.
>
> It's not even close. At 3 gold per arrow, it takes around 30-40 arrows
> to kill a frost troll. With a mage it takes a few ebolts.. the mage would
> have to use 10 ebolts to be on par..
There is your problem. Frost trolls are one of the worst things to havest
gold from in the game. Huge number of hit points and they can crush even
tough tames like the same frenzied ostard that I use for killing daemons.
Even mongbats pay better, one arrow and 14 gold.
Some of the best archer gold is found on things like water elementals or the
blue robed red mages. I think it is 3-5 arrows tops, and you net ~250 gold
plus reagents and potions. Normally I go semi naked, cast a MR so they die a
bit quicker and I get poisoned a bit less. You just wait for the bow to fire
when they come in range, then run for ~4 seconds. Soon as they blunder into
range again, arrow fires and you move off before they cast again.
> Bows also seem to miss more than the other weapons.. Shooting from
> a distance is nice, however, they're also more expensive to run.. you
> can't repair bows, and the ammo costs $$ as well.
GM marked bows are way over priced, I frequently see them for 300 gold. I
normally just drop them on a vendor and let the vendor price them. IMO, a
bow is only good for ~100-200 arrows before it is ready to be tossed, this
makes the 300 gold bows really over priced.
>
> I was looking more for other people's experiences with the bows not
> shooting when they should. Seems like they also require the target
> be alot closer than I remember as well...
OSI added a bunch of LOS code to bows. The new LOS code is buggy but
workable. It takes into account elevation, so sometime when you are on bumpy
ground you can't shoot a monster 2 tiles away. You have to fire from a
stationary postion, no more shooting on the run. If the bow doesn't go off,
I move to a different tile.
Greywind
Rick Cortese wrote:
>"Greywind" <hjr...@yahoo.com.remove> wrote in message
>news:3C550A34...@yahoo.com.remove...
><snip>
>
>>>My archer also has bowcraft, so the cost of arrows doesn't really
>>>concern me. The cost, however, probably compares with what it costs a
>>>mage in reagants, to kill the same monster.
>>>
>>It's not even close. At 3 gold per arrow, it takes around 30-40 arrows
>>to kill a frost troll. With a mage it takes a few ebolts.. the mage would
>>
> ********
>
>>have to use 10 ebolts to be on par..
>>
>
>There is your problem. Frost trolls are one of the worst things to havest
>gold from in the game. Huge number of hit points and they can crush even
>tough tames like the same frenzied ostard that I use for killing daemons.
>
I was just using that as an example... I was using frost trolls to get
my archery up.. I locked it
at 90. I have 20some odd points of magery to recall around with, and I
used up the points
from healing and archery for it.. so healing/archery are locked at 90.
>>Bows also seem to miss more than the other weapons.. Shooting from
>>a distance is nice, however, they're also more expensive to run.. you
>>can't repair bows, and the ammo costs $$ as well.
>>
>
>GM marked bows are way over priced, I frequently see them for 300 gold. I
>normally just drop them on a vendor and let the vendor price them. IMO, a
>bow is only good for ~100-200 arrows before it is ready to be tossed, this
>makes the 300 gold bows really over priced.
>
>>I was looking more for other people's experiences with the bows not
>>shooting when they should. Seems like they also require the target
>>be alot closer than I remember as well...
>>
>
>OSI added a bunch of LOS code to bows. The new LOS code is buggy but
>workable. It takes into account elevation, so sometime when you are on bumpy
>ground you can't shoot a monster 2 tiles away. You have to fire from a
>stationary postion, no more shooting on the run. If the bow doesn't go off,
>I move to a different tile.
>
If they're gonna go tweaking it like that, then they should have added
the same crappy
code for mages targetting things as well.. but they didn't do that..
only archery got
screwed in the butt... could you imagine the screaming if they added
that to magery?
I don't really mind so much, but archery was already a laughable skill
in pvp, and
now they nerfed it even more. Yeah, my guy with archery is in
factions.. guess what
skill I've never used in faction fighting? hehe... I thought it could
be useful when we
fight in the strongholds though..