House of Commons from 2002-05-02

House of Commons from 2002-05-02

Kehleyr	Welcome to the 76th UO House of Commons Chat!
Kehleyr	This chat will be in a moderated format. To ask a question of the OSI Staff, please /msg or /query the question takers that will be listed in the topic of the channel. These question takers will then present the questions to the Ultima Online evelopment/community/programming team here with us this evening.
Kehleyr	Our question takers are: Kiir, Brannoc & Lord‐Xanthor
Kehleyr	They are easily recognisable by the [QT] in front of their names.
Kehleyr	I will be your moderator tonight... I will post your question into the House of Commons chat channel and the team will answer those that they can.
Kehleyr	Please remember that your question may have been asked previously or may not be able to be answered in a public forum. Please do not message or query myself or anyone from OSI, these questions will be ignored. We encourage you to read the logs of the previous Open Houses, which are available at http://uohoc.stratics.com
Kehleyr	Tonight's topic is: BARDING!
Kehleyr	All other questions will be ignored, so please only ask questions about barding or the upcoming changes to them.
Kehleyr	*LadyTygress* Are there any plans to get rid of the uber "Young" bards before publish 16?
Vex	Publish 16 itself will remove any "uberness" from [Young] bards by its very design. Once a bard character has gotten enough skill to be effective in the real tough and loot-heavy areas, he won't be young anymore. As far as *before* Pub 16, we aren't doing anything special.
Kehleyr	*Nadya_Modavia* Suppose I use targeted peacemaking on a dragon and succeed (e.g., 50% chance). Furthermore, suppose the chance of suppressing subsequent aggression is 75%. Does this mean that 3 out of the 4 times that it would attack it would return to a calmed state instead of attacking? Or will the calming effect cease if the chance of suppressing subsequent aggression fails?
Vex	Once the suppressive calming effect is broken by the dragon and it attacks someone, it will no longer be under the effects of the peacemake and will have to be calmed again.
Kehleyr	*Nadger* Any chance you could leave entice in? Just have it be when u double click on your instrament then on a monster...it was handy for bringing another monster over to provoke or leading him into an AOE.
Vex	Right now we have no plans to do that. Right now you can currently entice any monster that isn't already fighting someone/something by going into war mode and double-clicking it. To tell the truth, the Enticement skill is rarely if ever used for any legitimite purpose and there isn't much reason to keep it in. Especially at a cost of skill points.
Kehleyr	*XavierArcanus* Why was the barding "fix" made so complex? Why not change what needed to be(difficulty based provocation) and leave it at that?
Vex	Well, it actually started off a lot more complex but quickly got trimmed back. The overall solution required keeping the bard in the same location as the targets in addition to introducing a universally applyable scale of difficulty.
Vex	The former is to keep people from farming entire dungeon levels (and even multiple dungeons at once, which we have witnessed). The latter was done so we wouldn't have to keep adding in bard-specific limitations to any new content added to the game intended for group play.
Kehleyr	*SmokeSerpent* What, if any effect will targetted peacemaking have on other players?
Vex	Area-effect peacemake will work on players just like peacemake works now, by dropping them out of war mode. Targeted peacemake won't be usable against players.
Kehleyr	*BryteStar* will you consider discordance for use on players? As it stands, bards aren't the most useful people in PvP
Vex	There are a lot of issues with doing that. Stacking different effects like Discord and the Weakness spell with a Greater Strength potion has been known in the past to cause problems. Right now we don't have any space on our schedule to properly analyze and account for all the possible interactions between discordance on players and all other stat modifying effects.
Kehleyr	*haties* are the new barding features going to make a significant mark in the pvp world?
Evocare	Probably not.
Evocare	There are already a lot of moving parts with respect to PvP in publish 16, so we were careful in trying to make sure that barding didn't become one too many factors happening at once.
Kehleyr	*Jon_Snow* With the one shot peacemaking, will it be like Peacemaking is currently? If not, what's the difference?
Vex	It will be like it is now, except that the actual radius of effect is determined by your peacemaking skill. It will also activate slightly slower. To elaborate:
Vex	For fastest activation, you'll need to set up a macro to UseSkill Peacemaking/WaitForTarg/TargetSelf. The extra pause while the macro handles the targeting for you will cause a slight delay.
Kehleyr	*Nadya_Modavia* According to the testing that our bard focus group assisted with on internal test center, a bard with gm provocation, gm musicianship, and an exceptional instrument had a 50% to provoke 2 dragons. This chance goes up to 90% at 120 provocation. +40% increase. How about a less linear increase from the skill scrolls? Say 70% to provocation a dragon at GM and 90% at 120?
Vex	The calculation of the barding difficulty itself is non-linear. It works basically by totalling up the non-modified values for the creature's stats and combat skills, and applies special bonuses for special abilities like fire breat or spell use.
Vex	As far as the actual effects of skills above 120 affecting the chance to successfully perform the skill based on the difficulty of the task, I'd honestly prefer to keep it linear like it is now. However, we will take your suggestion into consideration.
Kehleyr	*BryteStar* After barding, when will the next significant PvP upgrade be?
Evocare	Expect lots of way cool stuff for combat in the next major publish after 16.
Evocare	That applies to all forms of combat of course, not just pvp =]
Kehleyr	*PeterGabriel* What do you consider a true bard, bards that have all music skills, or bards that augment thier skills with magery, combat, or even taming? How did this effect your changes to the skill?
Evocare	Actually, we base it on how many instruments you have at home. Without those, you're clearly a fradulent bard. ;]
Evocare	err, that's "fraudulent"
	* Kehleyr hands evo a dictionary *
Evocare	'n stuff
Evocare	;]
Vex	Current feedback from our player playtesters indicates that solo treasure hunting is still very doable using bard skills. It's just more difficult and risky. Right now we're happy with that feedback -- we don't want to make solo treasure hunting impossible. I'd suggest giving it a try when we open up the test shard to the public -- I think you'll be surprised!
Kehleyr	*Han Solo of GL* a proposal for t-hunters, these changes will hurt us alot, esp those of us that do freebies for newer players, perhaps Cart and picking skill can be used to add bonus to provoke, just as anat does to melee and jumber jack does to swords at 80 and again at GM. This way the all powerful bards do not control, but t-hunters can survive the hunts, few monsters hunters will go through the pains to GM cart
Kehleyr	and that answer was for that question I just posted btw
	* Vex is doing that psychic thing again, posting the answer before the question is there... :) *
Kehleyr	*Falford* will + 20 skill scrolls be comon enough for the avrage player to have a rosonable chance to get 120 provoke ?
Evocare	I'm guessing that'll be entirely dependant on how hard you try. They sure won't be falling out of the sky and landing in your bank box. =]
Evocare	Unfortunately terms like "common", "reasonable chance", etc are very subjective
Evocare	I do believe that it's certainly worth a shot though =]
Kehleyr	*XenaDragon* I'd like to see player bards play their own tunes in UO. Any chance of that happening?
Vex	To be quite honest, I see it as a very slim probability. In order to do something like that, we'd have to develop and test a whole interface for entering music, or work out a way for players to upload their own MIDIs. In either case, the number of people who would actually compose their own music this way would be small. Mostly it would be used to enter copyrighted material -- I'm not even sure if we could get the feature by EA Legal.
Kehleyr	*Neoptolemos* Is OSI planning on making formerly unprovokable creatures provokable now that barding will be much harder?
Vex	Yes. Some creatures will remain un-provokable where it is fictionally appropriate. Some creatures will have such a very high difficulty rating that they'll automatically be unbardable, but those will definitely not be the norm.
Kehleyr	*Syd* Will OSI put ALL barding changes in, or will they be revised?
Vex	I'd say "tweaked" would be a better word. I don't see another major revision to the changes happening, but we certainly do intend to make some small balance changes before Publish 16 goes live.
Kehleyr	*Siofra* You say that magical instruments will be available. Will these be craftable by tinkers with some magery or will they be loot?
Vex	The magical instruments will be available only as loot, but I can't say for certain they will never be craftable. They'll definitely not be rare items, but they also won't be so common as to devalue exceptional carpenter-made instruments.
Kehleyr	*Falford* what is the curently projected time line for pub 16 to be made available for public testing and its release ?
Evocare	There'll be no less then a month between opening for public testing and release, but I can't be any more specific then that.
Kehleyr	*Xegugg* Will the current "newbie" instruments that bard have had for sometime now be able to wear out?
Vex	Yes, existing newbie instruments will wear out. In fairness, warriors' weapons and armor wear out, mages need reagents, tamers need to feed and bandage their pets, and archers need arrows. Only bards have been able to resurrect with their primary weapon at the ready.
Kehleyr	*Lenaya* In your barding proposal, you state that exceptional instruments will grant bards 5 bonus skill points of effect. Will there be a difference between exceptional and GM made instruments?
Vex	Just like every other crafted item, there is no difference other than the maker's mark between an exceptional item made by a Grandmaster and one made by a non-GM
Kehleyr	*Kezelran* Any plans to make instruments dyeable?
Vex	Right now there are no plans for that, sorry. :(
Kehleyr	*Nadya_Modavia* Based on internal testing thus far by players and the Dev Team, What specific tweaks you are considering or will do for barding?
Vex	We are still evaluating feedback and haven't come to any firm decisions yet. I don't want to mention any specifics right yet, because anything I say now would be very subject to change. I'd hate to build false expectations.
Kehleyr	*Anthea* Any plans to fix the bug where you can entice a bunny and gain like gazillions in musicianship?
Vex	Yes. :)
Kehleyr	*Sara* The new skill of discordance replaces enticement. Does this mean that those with GM Entice will have to drop that and retrain in Discordance, or will it automatically just rename itself?
Vex	Yes, the skill reamins there and is basically renamed and given a different purpose. Any points you have in Enticement right now will automatically be transferred to Discordance with Publish 16.
Kehleyr	*Syd* What will the ratio be with GM Provoke to successful provokes on dragons: failed
Vex	It's in the neighborhood of 40:60 success:fail with an exceptional instrument to provoke two dragons on each other. The actual chance of success depends on the exact stats and skills of the dragon. No two are created equal -- the server literally rolls up their stats on virtual dice, so their actual stats and skill levels fall on a bell curve within a predetermined range.
Kehleyr	*MaydayMike* any new instruments coming? flutes for instance?
Vex	Not at this time, sorry.
Kehleyr	*LadyTygress* As a follow-up to Falford's question earlier, let us assume that the evil-in-a-can spawn is being killed off instantly as it spawns. How often should we expect to see skill scrolls under those conditions?
Evocare	That's not a simple question to answer accurately since there are some other variables such as the number of activated spawns based on the number of people on the local server.
Evocare	However, for any given active spawn that is fought with perfect efficiency, it's no more then a couple scrolls on average.
Evocare	per hour.
Evocare	There is the factor of the decreased chance to get better scrolls though, so that adds another complicating factor. ;]
Kehleyr	*XenaDragon* Do bards need to sing to their plants to make them grow faster?
Sannio	I tried growing a plant last night, and it's already dead. I'd be worried if I tried to sing to it I'd take down a whole forest. :]
	* XenaDragon chuckles *
Kehleyr	Thankyou everyone for taking the time to attend tonight's HOC and a special thankyou to everyone at Origin for being here to make it possible, as always we are grateful :)
Kehleyr	The logs will be posted at http://uohoc.stratics.com
Kehleyr	Feel free to join #ultima-online for further discussion :)
Sannio	Thanks everyone!