Iksar said:No. No no no no! Please no vast random loot tables for desireable items. In a game like EQ (and I imagine this) I like knowing where I need to go for what I am after, it's very important to be able to plan what I want to do with my play time. There was absolutely no issue with certain mobs having a rare drop so you know which mob to hunt for what you need. You want a Forest Loop? Plan your nights around hunting giants in Kunark. Looking for the Dalnir monk set? You know exactly which Sarnak mobs might drop each piece and can hunt to fill your set.
There are few things so frustrating as very rare loot being entirely random, which is much like WoW's world drops. You literally cannot persue items like that and it is disheartening.
Amen
letsdance said:oneADseven said:If you get 5 belts with the same stats but a different resist, that wouldn't necessarily count as an "upgrade" but it would count as a "different special item."i'm afraid that you are right. but how would it be "memorable, deserved, cherished, and desired" to find the 5th version of belt XY with a different resist? how am i going to "remember their names" and "be in awe of what i have accomplished"? those things can only be achieved by a low item count.
Exactly. Which is why I keep bringing up Diablo. Random loot is a horrible way to do a persistent MMO world. This isn't an arcade game. People need goals and self emergent, self created and actuated quests, and that starts with static loot. Oh, so sorry, you got the Crimson Robe of Alendine with DEX instead of INT, have fun getting another one!
Kittik said: The reason I like large loot tables is because that could help prevent camps for items. If you're of the type that is max/min then you should probabaly raid. But having a chance to get something rare and cool from random mobs is what keeps normal adventuring exciting.
What this actually does is cause MORE congestion and issues. Instead of people revolving through a camp trying to get X item at a decent drop rate, they instead spend a much longer amount of time in the zone for a much lower drop rate.
Having a chance to get bronze, fine steel, and the occasional spell or gemstone in EQ was pretty exciting enough for common mobs. Kunark added a number of zones with nicer random drops from specific mob types like City of Mist, Karnor's Castle, Chardok which was also fine as they were rather rare in most cases and for the most part didn't stack up to the drops from named mobs. Often just a nice bonus while camping or fodder for lower level players who can't afford the better stuff.
Krixus said:Iksar said:No. No no no no! Please no vast random loot tables for desireable items. In a game like EQ (and I imagine this) I like knowing where I need to go for what I am after, it's very important to be able to plan what I want to do with my play time. There was absolutely no issue with certain mobs having a rare drop so you know which mob to hunt for what you need. You want a Forest Loop? Plan your nights around hunting giants in Kunark. Looking for the Dalnir monk set? You know exactly which Sarnak mobs might drop each piece and can hunt to fill your set.
There are few things so frustrating as very rare loot being entirely random, which is much like WoW's world drops. You literally cannot persue items like that and it is disheartening.
Amen
letsdance said:oneADseven said:If you get 5 belts with the same stats but a different resist, that wouldn't necessarily count as an "upgrade" but it would count as a "different special item."i'm afraid that you are right. but how would it be "memorable, deserved, cherished, and desired" to find the 5th version of belt XY with a different resist? how am i going to "remember their names" and "be in awe of what i have accomplished"? those things can only be achieved by a low item count.
Exactly. Which is why I keep bringing up Diablo. Random loot is a horrible way to do a persistent MMO world. This isn't an arcade game. People need goals and self emergent, self created and actuated quests, and that starts with static loot. Oh, so sorry, you got the Crimson Robe of Alendine with DEX instead of INT, have fun getting another one!
I am under the impression that we will see both kinds of loot in Pantheon. There will be certain pieces that are more memorable/desirable than others that have a sense of exclusivity. There will also be a lot of situational gear. VR is placing a large emphasis on having a variety of loot across the board, as well as having players rotate their gear while out of combat to prepare for the next fight. I am not a fan of the Diablo loot system, or any system that generates "random stats" on the loot. I despise any system like that. Epic Sword of Badassedness should be the same exact sword every time someone loots it. After acquiring it, though, they should be able to enchant/modify it to some degree.
As many others have suggested, I think having a large loot table is very important for the health of the game. While it isn't necessary, I would also like to see "ultra-rare/very-rare/rare" loot tables as well. A worldwide loot table is especially appealing. Beyond that, zone loot tables, mob-type loot tables, level range loot tables. The more diverse, the better. I think named bosses should all have at least 1-2 pieces of unique loot, and then perhaps a chance to drop something from a shared loot table. Trash mobs should have an ultra-rare chance of dropping something cool. A robe that warriors can wear? Yeah I spent 3 months farming a spectre robe in EQOA and never got one. I sent in a ticket to support and found out that they actually removed it from the loot table on my server when it was created. Must've killed 10k+ shade crocodiles trying to get one. Despite never getting it, I miss that grind.
I miss trying to work for something that was almost impossible to achieve. The world of Terminus will be super dangerous ... farming names and names alone for loot is pretty cliche. I like it, don't get me wrong, but the game is so much more fun when random trash mobs have an ultra rare chance to drop something awesome. Even if the stats aren't that great ... uber rare appearance gear should totally be a thing. I remember farming Cazic Thule for months and months to try and get a full set of rubicite plate armor. The stats were nothing compared to the rest of my gear but I wanted that full red plate look. It was something you would very rarely ever see. That, for me, is awesome. I don't want to see dyes that allow us to change the appearance of our gear.
if you have so many different items they are either 95% trash loot, or it all gets watered down. it cannot be different: if they have 100 different suitable weapons for 50 levels, that means 2 possible weapons per level. yes you won't find all of them, but you can still buy them. and if there's so many different items, it will be easier to get any of them as well. there's not point in adding something that never drops. getting a new weapon (even if it's situational) every level does not make it a memorable experience.
EQ did have a very low item count and it worked very well. when you looked at someone, you could often tell what weapon he was wielding and probably even knew its stats. that's what i'd like to see again.
letsdance said:if you have so many different items they are either 95% trash loot, or it all gets watered down. it cannot be different: if they have 100 different suitable weapons for 50 levels, that means 2 possible weapons per level. yes you won't find all of them, but you can still buy them. and if there's so many different items, it will be easier to get any of them as well. there's not point in adding something that never drops. getting a new weapon (even if it's situational) every level does not make it a memorable experience.
EQ did have a very low item count and it worked very well. when you looked at someone, you could often tell what weapon he was wielding and probably even knew its stats. that's what i'd like to see again.
Exactly. Newb weapon->rusty sword->tarnished sword->bronze sword->fine steel sword->mino axe->polished granite tomahawk/ashenwood shortspear/dragoon dirk. Hell, you might stop there for 20 levels before you got into Guk. You might only go through 10 weapons in 50 levels, and when you got an upgrade it meant something, you could feel it, and because the game was difficult those seemingly little improvements were actually huge. Items had meaning more than any game I've ever played.
When I say large loot tables, I don't mean large tables of crap.
If a Goblin Archer drops a nice bow. Goblin Boger Bow of Slime +10 Str +30 Agi +100 Dmg. How about that not be the only bow he drops. Goblin Slimy Bow of Bogers +10 Str +30 Agi +100 Dmg. Same stats, differnt name, different appreance. Nothing really different, it's just a different bow. I find that emersing. Thats the expansion of look tables I'm looking for. Not different items better than the last one by 1 point of arcane resist, but just varity. It's the spice of life.
I don't think developers understand tha you can make the exact same bow, name it somehting different and people will find that immensly interesting. I swear, you'll have people looking and comparing that weapon to the one they already have (if they are the exact same, but have diffenet names and appearances) for at least 10 mins the first time they see it.
Kittik said:When I say large loot tables, I don't mean large tables of crap.
If a Goblin Archer drops a nice bow. Goblin Boger Bow of Slime +10 Str +30 Agi +100 Dmg. How about that not be the only bow he drops. Goblin Slimy Bow of Bogers +10 Str +30 Agi +100 Dmg. Same stats, differnt name, different appreance. Nothing really different, it's just a different bow. I find that emersing. Thats the expansion of look tables I'm looking for. Not different items better than the last one by 1 point of arcane resist, but just varity. It's the spice of life.
I don't think developers understand tha you can make the exact same bow, name it somehting different and people will find that immensly interesting. I swear, you'll have people looking and comparing that weapon to the one they already have (if they are the exact same, but have diffenet names and appearances) for at least 10 mins the first time they see it.
Why? What net benefit does this accomplish?
What it does do is diminish the familiarity of items in the game. FBSS become what? FSBS? and FSSB? and BSFS?
auc/ WTB FBSS/FSBS/FSSB/BSFS or equivelant, PST
tell/ Hey congrats on getting your Sash, thingy, bobber, deal. What stats did you get stuck with?
player1 : shout/ Slimy Bow +cha rotting, free to anyone.
player2 : shout/ Bahahah! isnt that like 6 today with CHA?
player3 : shout/ Yeah, been here 6 hours. This is BS.
I know you're suggesting that only the name change. But for many (most?) there's something really compelling about knowing they got this particular item. It's known, it's understood, it's recognized, and it's respected. It means something that feels more special because it's that item so many others want. Not a variant of it.
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It also requires that the database balloon is size, even just for the name. Every variant name of every item has to be tracked, catalogued, stored, and maintained. Add variantial stats and it balloons exponentially. Any unnecessary bloat takes human resources to build and system resources to host. If anyone here recalls back to the EQ2 early days where there could be many versions of a crafted item based on the success of the player in the crafting mini-game, you'll also remember that the whole system was scrapped because it bloated the databases so grossly that performance absolutely tanked and it was increasingly plagued with lag and errors as the volume of "new" things were created.
I don't thing trash mobs should drop very good loot either. Very poor game design to have a random bat drop anything worth much more than ...guano.
My only point earlier in this thread is that I don't see the idea of a specific mob always having a specific item to drop as less boring than other approaches to loot - more the opposite.
I love rare items. I love hunting for them. I actually even love that I might have to try for a camp for a month (or months) before I have a chance to get the item. That sounds odd... but things that make me wait in game, give me something to look forward to in game.
So I'm more than OK with the fact that there are items I never got in EQ becuase they were too rare - or because I never got the camp when the item was relevant... because there were other items that I did get. And that, I think is the distinction. Rare items should be rare... but there should be enough of them that I can go out and hunt them. Some should drop off of single mobs in single places. Some should drop off of classes of mobs, or types of mobs, or whatever... meaning: Only ranger mobs will have a chance to drop this Ranger rare - but all ranger mobs of a given level or higher will have a chance... or... all ogre's will drop this item, but only ogre's will.. Billy Bob the Warlock is the only mob that will drop Billy Bob's magical head.
Honestly, for me personally, the hunting provides more enjoyment - or longer lasting enjoyment - than the getting sometimes. A month, or 6 months, of wanting an item is a month or 6 months invested in thinking about the item... desiring the item. Once you have the item... well, you have it. It's cool and you show it off, but it's just an item you have.
In regard to the side conversation about loot colors... GOD do I hate loot colors. The community figured out what was rare, what was good, etc... before loot colors. I'd very much be in favor of going back to that.
Wandidar said:Honestly, for me personally, the hunting provides more enjoyment - or longer lasting enjoyment - than the getting sometimes. A month, or 6 months, of wanting an item is a month or 6 months invested in thinking about the item... desiring the item. Once you have the item... well, you have it. It's cool and you show it off, but it's just an item you have.
This is soooo important, it can't be overstated.
I spent about 3 months salivating over completing a full suit of Armor of Ro. Even knowing full well that by the time I completed it I could have gotten better from other sources, I felt compelled to get that done, which required camping for multiple items in multiple dungeons, and spending a lot of cash on blacksmithing skill. And I did it all at lower level than I probably had any right to attempt. But that made it so valuable to me, far beyond the value of the stats.
I know this is about item drops and not crafting, but to me it dovetails together perfectly. When I finally got Ghoulbane I used it far longer than I should have knowing that there were better items out there within my grasp, but I felt a pride of ownership. A pride that would have been diminished by having Bane of Ghoul instead, or Ghoulbane V1.642 with +Dex and +STR instead of a proc vs undead.
Because there are more than 2 people playing the game.
Thats why you have 1000's of items. For the 10K's of people.
Make 20 items in the game and you'll have 9K people are a bored of being just like everyone else. You want a million people to play the game, you make it so a million people can feel like individuals. You make it so a million people think they are special.
Make it so everything knows they aren't special, you'll only be left with those who stick it out long enough to become the "special" ones playing a dead game.
I'm not saying make rare items common, I'm just saying, make a lot of unique items.
Kittik said:Because there are more than 2 people playing the game.
Thats why you have 1000's of items. For the 10K's of people.
Make 20 items in the game and you'll have 9K people are a bored of being just like everyone else. You want a million people to play the game, you make it so a million people can feel like individuals. You make it so a million people think they are special.
Make it so everything knows they aren't special, you'll only be left with those who stick it out long enough to become the "special" ones playing a dead game.
I'm not saying make rare items common, I'm just saying, make a lot of unique items.
That's why you have more than 20 items of a given slot that drop from an equal number of encounters meant for that level range. People can get upgrades from several locations, can move around in a longer level curve without getting bored camping one dungeon they are sick of looking at, and still feel like they aquired something of value. What you dont do is have dozens of versions of essentially the same item to a point where no one gives a crap what they have because it has no recognition to anyone and has no meaning.
having one out of 1,000 weapons won't make you special. having one out of 20 might. if there's 1,000 different weapons, no one will even recognise what you have, and the difference to 100 other weapons will be so negligible that no one cares.
in my opinion rare items should come from rare spawns and not as a low % dropchance of each trash mob. look at all the problems with legendaries in wow: people are very upset/frustrated about the random drop chance. it's a bad system.
also it's excited to run by a rare mob (which might be to high level for me) and telling my guildies/friends to come by to help me killing it.
I guess it just depends on what games you have played. I agree the loot system in WoW sucks. EQOA on the other hand had an amazing loot system that included great ultra-rare drops from trash mobs. If you haven't played EQOA then I suppose you can't really relate to that experience but they did their loot perfectly when it comes to this, IMO. The best loot system I have ever seen overall was FFXI, and it wasn't even close. I would be extremely happy to see a loot system similar to how FFXI did it.
I could see jewellery being the types of items that appear on a large random loot table - even a large random rare loot table. Add the ability to modify these jewellery items through the various crafting mechanisms (except for baking - I guess you won't be able to modify it with a baking type of crafting). It makes perfect sense that these rare jewellery items can be found off of random mobs - perhaps not trash mobs but perhaps trash mob chieftans (just to use an example) - just not a "predictable measure" - which in this day and age of computing power and even AI is totally possible. It's not like Gollum was the epic boss encounter at the end of a long quest but he sure had a pretty neat ring. Tolkein still holds a lot of sway in the fantasy realm - there were a lot of things that appeal to the "fantasy-minded" like we happen to be on this forum - not everything has to be about the game that is based on the fantasy world - some of it can be about the fantasy world. Gemstones can certainly be gained off of epic bosses (Smaug) and those can certainly be ingarined into various pieces of armour and jewellery. It is possible to have both things and keep them completely separate and yet be complementary.
So those that kill all of the mighty epic bosses and have all of the mighty pieces of armour and weapons (just not a couple pieces of jewellery) may not have that uber-earring that someone else has and has no idea just how special that item is. To me that means that person who has killed all of these epic bosses and is jealous beyond belief that he does not have one of those special earrings will have to spend some of his huge hoard of platinum to purchase the earring (what else is he going to do with all of his platinum that he got from killing all of the epic bosses?) Or will need to acquire that gemstone from that epic boss and that may need to be used instead. Or am I being totally unreasonable and completely off base?
These items are not going to be common - they are going to be rare and no one may know where it drops from - so rare that no one even is aware that items such as these exist. Some may say that when you randomly get that item that it's pretty special. Others will say that it isn't special. To me "special" means that it is a surprise and it is unexpected and it can be cherished. Others will say that "special" has to be earned and can't possibly be earned by anyone who is less than epic themselves.
Just my thoughts. It's only jewellery afterall. Not enough to affect balance, just enough to be different - just enough to be special.
Nandor said:in my opinion rare items should come from rare spawns and not as a low % dropchance of each trash mob. look at all the problems with legendaries in wow: people are very upset/frustrated about the random drop chance. it's a bad system.
also it's excited to run by a rare mob (which might be to high level for me) and telling my guildies/friends to come by to help me killing it.
While the occasional zone, or multi mob rare item, isn't a horrible idea, and has been done successfully before, I don't think people should be incentivized to do the easiest content possible.
I personally like the idea of coming across something extremely rare out in the open world (or even just hearing a rumor about it - *that* rare), even at lower levels. Sort of like Bilbo finding the ring. Even if I don't get it personally, or rumors of a rare items existance don't even pop up until six months after live, that's great - I just don't want to know the exact percentage of every item on a mobs loot table that can potentially ever drop.
It's entirely conceivable to me that a level 37 Orc could have had some adventures in his time and had ample opportunities to have come upon something special (or obtained something special from a previous victim...). In fact it's highly unlikely that with all of the various monsters roaming the world none of the grunts would ever acquire anything of value ('No, none of these millions of lizardmen will ever acquire any powerful tools, for all eternity').
That's not to say you should reliably be able to find powerful gear solo off of trash mobs at all, but the idea of an extremely rare but soloable (non-campable preferred) dynamic/mob/encounter/event adds a ton of flavor and a level of excitement at the potential of the unknown.
Once the concept of 'Hey, anything's possible, the world is full of mysteries' is shattered it just becomes spreadsheets without the magic for me.