Thank you all for the swift feedback. First of all, there seems to be some confusion about why we're making these changes. For a good while now, Hybrid has exclusively seen new content updates, such as new dungeons, monsters, rares and crafting items. PvP mechanics have been ignored, and for a good reason; PvP mechanics are complex. We realize this, and that's why we've always liked to tread carefully.
Then came around the
Suggestion Thread, and the dialogue that opened with Ryan and krrios. One thing became clear, and that is that we need to stop adding new content for a while and focus on longstanding PvP issues. According to a vast majority, the top priority issues included wands, bolas, hybrid armor, the event league weapons, etc. From these remarks and suggestions, we are compiling the PvP changes you're seeing now.
As for wands specifically, there were many conflicting ideas about how to "fix" the issue. A popular suggestion was to remove them completely, which I believe to be a bad decision. It's very easy to say "this is bad, let's remove it completely". It requires virtually no thought. However, as we've seen in the past week, once wands are no longer prevalent in the PvP scene, bolas become the next issue. So then, we remove bolas completely? In a year's time, we'd have nothing left but 5x mages because we'll have removed everything else.
A more appropriate change for a vastly diverse game such as UO seems to be focusing on
balancing the various available mechanics. Once removing wands completely was off the table, we started to discuss ways for making them more balanced. This ranged from mana usage, a reduction in effectiveness, stopping the use of them while chasing a target, increased cast times, and so on. Eventually, we decided on the changes we made because they addressed the key issues, and because they were suggested numerous times.
The wand changes were most definitely not random nerfs. The magery penalty when equipping a wand, for example, reduces the effectiveness of wand-cast spells. Stopping them from being used while moving prevents people being killed on the move by whoever has the most wand charges. It should also be noted that, apart from showing the words of power, all of the wand changes are historical OSI changes they made to balance their wands. (Except on OSI equipped wands have a random 20-30 magery penalty. To not complicate the buying/selling we decided on a fixed 25.) This is important because Hybrid, at its core, is a "mix of eras", rather than a random set of game rules.
As for this week's changes, for the past week we've been hearing that now wands are no longer the top priority issue, we should focus on the issue of bola tamers. We considered several possible changes, such as making bolas only usable without followers, reducing the success chance of bolas (possibly based on how many followers you have), reducing the damage pets do versus players, or making them flat out require 100 tactics.
Obviously, making bolas usable only without followers is effectively removing the bola tamer template from the game, much like taking out wands completely. We're trying to find balance, not kill diversity. The 100 tactics requirement was discarded because it might favor warrior templates, which could lead to warriors becoming next week's problem.
Eventually we decided on the increased weight of bolas to limit the amount carried at any one time, thus reducing them to an occasional opportunity item (instead of a continuous gameplay style). The remount block for the thrower increases the impact of throwing a bola, for the thrower will now have to be on foot for the same duration as the target. Whether these changes are effective enough remains to be seen, but they should move us towards a more leveled playing field.
The potion weight has been suggested numerous times as well, and its purpose is to reduce the stock and combat the endless chugging that has been reported to be a problem. It is a valid point, however, that this change affects dueling tournaments negatively, when there is little time to restock in between fights. There is already a 30 second minimum pause between consecutive fights in tournaments, but we could increase this further.
The fact that Hybrid feels like a testing grounds is something we fully understand, and it's something we would very much like to avoid. However, even if we had a separate test center, traditionally we've seen that only a small fraction of players will actually play there. When the changes finally come around to the actual server, the surprised reaction remains. (The same could be said for forum polls.)
