Does anyone else have a hatred for mmos that shovel gear down your throat? iIt seems like aymore every mob you kill or every little quest you do or box you loot has gear in it. Well i dont know about you, but for me this kills the magic of filling or replacing an item slot that the old mmos of old once held. i havnt played every mmo under the sun so im sure this started long before World of Warcraft, but i recall that being that start of the gear surplus. A specific stat would be associated with an animal name and everything would drop it, greaves of the whale, boots of the tiger, bracers of the serpent , ect.
You have so many items thrown in your face that it felt kinda silly to strive for gear slots until max level because your just going to replace it any second with an item of a higher gear score( Gear score, oooof i could go on about that). I personally miss the times of being level 20 for example and not having a fair amount of Item slots filled just because i had not come across that slot yet. Dont confuse this with level restricted item slot unlocks ( unlock rings slot at level 35, hoooray i have evolved to the point of knowing how to slide something on my finger )
Maybe im ignorant and am missing something about gear being everywhere, is it for merchant trash money? is it in hopes that you can sell to other players? please inform me and let me know how you guys feel about this evolution of gear in mmos! good or bad.
Mugz
IMO:
It's a solved problem with appropriate economic design and involving NPCs with making items useable / equippable. Then, the game can have as much or as little gear/loot as anyone could want.
But yes, without those things, it's not good, healthy, or even thematically consistent, objectively and historically.
So, I would say I don't 'have a hatred for mmos that shovel gear down your throat' so much as I see every MMO made without appropriate economic design as yet another missed opportunity.
Lafael said:Yeah, I dislike MMOs that throw useless gear. Useless also includes intended for salvage as the crafting system is also ill-conceived.
Right. I think they should have different gear to reflect on what skill tree we choose. For example: Wizard: Role: Main Stat: Criitical Strike (Skill tree dependant).
Ehhh.. I dont necessarily feel that gear should be build specific either. Players may decide which gear is best for a given build but it shouldn't be made with that intent.
Like how in EQ, most casters may look for INT gear but necros loved HP gear.
Obviously my personal opinion.
But to the topic, I concur with your statement. I don't like Diablo styled loot in MMOs.
This topic has been promoted for my CM content, please continue the discussion and have fun! :)
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Hallejulah.
This is a pretty tough question because it depends on the type of gear raining down on us. Is the same piece or pieces of gear dropping repeatedly to the point it's clogging up everyone's inventory? Well it could be there so players can salvage it for mats, or show it to an NPC for a reward (bonus points if multiple NPCs take it for different rewards.) Yeah it's annoying but it serves several useful functions.
To some extent, this was the case in WoW. The dropped gear was needed to feed the disenchantment/enchantment crafting skill. Yeah lots of useless gear dropped... but it was mostly useless wasn't it? Unless you were an Enchanter. The downpour of gear in WoW was probably only actually a problem when you were at the higher end of content and needed a specific piece of gear in order to increase your iLvl so you could go to the next tier of content and get a specific piece of gear to increase your iLvl so you could go to the next tier of content and... okay yeah you get the idea. That's when a flood of randomized gear becomes actually irritating and bad. You might get annoyed while leveling up to discover you have 6 pairs of magical boots in your inventory, but in the context of the rest of the game that's really no different from having 6 orc belts in your inventory that you can turn in for a small reward (or sell to other players.)
Personally, I'd prefer all of the gear to be hand crafted as opposed to randomized and for the actual good gear to only drop in special circumstances. But if we end up with 10 pairs of -1 Boots of Walking by the end of a play session... is it really that bad? If you're fighting bandits, wouldn't you expect them to be wearing boots and swinging clubs? If you're killing bears and getting gear that's a different story.
I will agree with Lafael that a skill that levels up almost exclusively through salvaging found gear is somewhat bad design (can you tell I was an Enchanter in WoW and had to do a lot of farming for lower level gear?) but having gear drop mostly to be salvaged or sold by players isn't really a bad thing, especially if most crafting classes can salvage said gear. Getting crafting components through normal adventuring is great, in my opinion.
Gear should be fun to get. And I don't have fun in loot, when it is raining left right and center.
Loved Everquest progression. It was ok to have level 6 gear while raiding because not every slot was replaceable, or even had a huge value increase before raid gear. But if you got an upgrade, it was an amazing thing. Granted: Being in the nr 1 raiding guild back then, kind of spoiled me like WoW did,... so there is that. Every raid had at least one upgrade for some slot for almost every person. That was not MUCH different than what modern MMOs do. But at least it was tied to raiding and not just casually opening a chest near a quest area.
On a semi related note: I am totally against bind on pickup and other variations of these,... I get the need for it on raid level gear, but let us trade. If gear is rare, those with little drop luck will get annoyed AF. I am certainly in that camp with my common luck. But I am fine with it, if I can farm something else and then trade for whatever I really want.
Bottomline: Gear should be a real reward and not a thing that happens automagically by the minute.
The struggle is real.
I think all gear should be quested. I think a significant portion of the quested gear should be vague in exactly what class its "perfect" for but somewhat intuitive ("these snake-skin arms do something, I think add some AGI %'ge? I can swing weapons/cast spells more fluidly and interestingly I seem to climb ropes better and one time I was able to fit that whole pie in my mouth, suprised the *** out of me). This will also allow for gear to be swapped between classes.
I think there should be some class specific gear, "must haves", that are graduated and grow with the class/player. Epics that evolve or can be added to or the like. I think this allows for "all for one" altruistic social interaction and also provides 'back-burner" motivation for the player, the long game, something that cannot be finished right away but can be put aside and gone back to at any time.
I think newbie gear should be relatively easy to get and be a cornerstone as to what sort of stats/features are good for them generally. But newbies should not be able to be fully geared, they may be missing some pieces: caps, shoes, legs, etc, definitely no jewelry yet. They can discover the rat foot leather thong necklace that brings "luck" the next town over and has, like, 1ac only...but it's "lucky" and it fills a spot. :) (Lucky?! see snake-skin above. lucky what, lucky how?!?!)
I think crafted gear, when discovered, should be a nice intermediary between quested gear and - this is where it gets grey for me. I would like dropped gear to be significant, but then there would have to be less dropped significant gear if crafted gear will be as good if not better than group crafted gear that is made from repurposed dropped items. In other words, do I want my crafted gear to be better than the nice dropped item? or do I want the dropped item to be better than the crafted piece? Or do I want the crafted item to be a good inbetween until I get the dropped piece? and enough to hold me through multi-group encounters? Will crafted gear be the ONLY gear that can be - for lack of a better word- augmented? or re-purposed and improved from looting higher end Mats? from a loot table perspective this would allow for less finished gear pieces and more Mats or aug variations to drop from MoB's
The gear I am talking about above is "good" gear, things with stats/enhancements on them. Basic gear should be things that most MoB's have and is rolled for and has size restrictions, low to mid-levels should be rolling for banded armor/cloth pieces that drop from Goblin runts and the like. Replace that tarnished mace with this fine steel mace that dropped. If the wrong sizes drop thew workaround would be being able to reconstitute these pieces into basic plates or patchwork from which to create basic armor pieces and the rate of return will be small, like 1 lrg and 1 med torn robe makes 3 patches, that you can make one pair of patchwork leather shoes from with like 3ac and maybe 2hp or whatever.
Hatred is such a strong term. Let me just say that I agree with the OP that an over-abundance of gear is not a good thing.
Drops should be thematic. Animals should not drop gear - ever. Yes a bear could have eaten an adventurer and have a ring +1 in its belly but this is *so* abused that it is far better to have animals never give gear rewards. Which is not to say that a character with high perception should never find a ring +1 in a pile of bear poop if he or she chooses to spend the time to look at every such pile.
Humanoids should rarely drop usable gear. Trash mobs shouldn't generally have anything that would be worth using - maybe pieces that can be sold to a scrapyard. If one wants to travel back to town moving at 1/2 speed and highly encumbered by a rusty broken piece of chain armour. Even bosses - even rich and powerful bosses - will rarely have gear that fits. Wrong race, wrong size, wrong alignment and all that.
From a gameplay perspective - even if normal gear rains from the skies anything special should be rare. Plate armour needs to fit - how many game designers take into account the fact that good plate armour may have taken months or longer to create and needed to be fitted for the wearer? That is why so many used chain or leather - not just cost. You needed to be rich to have plate armour made for you and patient (and staying in one place) to wait for it to be completed. Magic gear should be something that is really special - I agree entirely with the OP.
Rarity colour is nonsense. You should see what you see with your own eyes and no more Unless you are a mage with special identification spells or have some other means to identify special features. I should be able to mouseover a set of leggings and see no more than "this appears to be a well crafted set of chain leggings for a small female orc." If I cast an identification spell on it - perhaps adding "it appears to have a faint aura of magic about it. Or maybe the aura is just a curse". Back in town maybe there would be someone capable of telling me ore. At significant cost. Or maybe not.
I liked the way D&D and early AD&D handled things. Maqic was rare. Most things you killed gave you little or nothing other than some coin and xp. Magic items were hard to identify and if you tried to wear them you were as likely to be cursed as benefitted. Death tended to be permanent - a low level party simply couldn't get people resurrected - if you died you rerolled. No I am not suggesting that for a MMO though I personally would be delighted to play a game where any death before level 10 was permanent - no God choosing to spend the effort to resurrect a low level trash character.
Named / rare Animals can / should drop gear for crafting purposes, like EQ1. (eg griffon feathers to make... cloaks or hats or added to jewelry?)
Pelts for cloaks, leather crafted items, spider silks for cloth items, beaks for necklaces, turtle shells for shields, the list goes on.
a magical item drop when group fighting about 1 every hour or 2 sounds like a very good pace, EQ1 did that until Seeds of destruction expansion, made the quest for gear half the fun.
From a game I once played: Dropped gear had random stats, often rediculous. It was fairly rare that an item was better than something you had but was very nice when it did. With crafted items you had slots available to place stat gems of your choice.
There were no "nodes" from which to gather materials everything was a drop from a creature. Those drops could be vendored, sold to others, or used to make the materials needed. The only thing bound (account bound not character) was the gear from an "epic quest" which took a long time to complete and offered what was very good gear for your class. Crafted always provided the top gear, used a lot of fairly rare materials, and could be transfered.
There was a non-changing quality (better Ql lasted longer and held more slots), and a durability and damage that varied. Damage increased with use until repaired, when durability would decrease. Full damage or durability loss broke the item, irrepairably.
Rarity color really is useless but I like having higher level items be better. Rather than level locking gear, have a con system idicate whether the gear is suitable for you or if it will deteriorate faster than normal. Pretty much everything should be transferable.
I hope gearing is much slower than other MMOS. I'd love to have that begger to hero item progression with all the motley outfits inbetween, getting excited every grip of levels to be fighting humanoids that drop leathers, then heavy leathers, then light chain etc all the way to basic heavy plate. Finding magic items and being able to keep those for anywhere from 10-40 levels depending.
mugwy44 said:While on the topic of gear, anyone else feel that the rarity color needs to go? doesnt mean anything anymore
Pretty sure we won't be seeing this in Pantheon so all good there. It is definitely pointless.
mugwy44 said:While on the topic of gear, anyone else feel that the rarity color needs to go? doesnt mean anything anymore
OMFG yes. FFS let the players decide if something is better/worse than what they have based upon the stats and how it relates to the class and, most importantly, what stats/effects/looks the player wants to emphasize.
But back to the topic at hand
Games that just puke up loot by the hundreds makes none of the loot really memorable when you're sifting through dozens upon dozens of (most likely) procedurally generated loot. Memories, good and bad, are built upon things that stand out. Do you remember the first Cracked Staff you looted in EQ1? Most likely not. But do you remember when you got your Epic 1.0? 1.5? 2.0? Or when you finished your first set of Kunkar class armor? Or got the 10th Coldain Ring or 8th Coldain Prayer Shawl? Yeah, I bet you do. Would you have remembered any of that if during your normal adventurs stuff like that was dropping off random trash mobs and you were vendor selling all of it?
Loot being tied to a location, to a specific NPC, to some actual effort involving skill (and a bit of luck) makes obtaining that loot memorable. It becomes more valuable to the player.
Gear, we've been told time and time again over the last 7.8 years, will be stuff we keep longer as it just isn't going to be that easy to come by. Lets hope that decision wasn't refactored.
Loot showering is awful. There's no point in getting an item every single quest that's marginally better and is going to be immediately replaced by the next quest. That makes gear worthless. Being able to use an item for some time before replacing it gives it some worth. I still remember getting excited when I got a fungi tunic, centi longsword, flowing black silk sash, amongst other things. Those actually lasted a long time. Completing the Monk epics was huge. I can't even remember the names of most items from all the other games I've played over the past 25 years because of how insignificant they were.
WoW is a typical gear devaluation example. I'd include Borderlands 3 and Destiny 2 as well, but those aren't MMORPGs. Epic items aren't actually EPIC when they drop left and right. Then all the legendaries WoW introduced, such as in in Legion. Sure, it felt nice to get the first one since legendaries previously were pretty exclusive in each expansion, such as Sulfuras and Thunderfury, or Dragonwrath in Cataclysm, but they completely devalued the entire legendary item system by not only creating class specific legendaries, but specialization ones as well. Something like 200+ legendaries in Legion. That's insane. And the fact that you didn't have to even go on an epic journey or quest to EARN them. It was a pure RNG world drop. Absolute trash gameplay. Gear score and gear coloring is also another problem in itself, but that needs its own dedicated thread.
Every drop should be impactful. I'm not saying every item should be EQ epic equivalent, but it also shouldn't be fodder that's easily replaced in a few levels as people tear toward the end game. Speaking of which, I hope Pantheon does intend to return to a meaningful leveling process, instead of get to max level as fast as possible because that's when the game starts, as so many other games have done. While EQ was grindy, I enjoyed the journey and meeting people along the way, having to actually interact with other players to find camps and groups, and chatting while casters medded. A lot of MMOs today are far too focused on the individual aspect, only grouping when absolutely necessary such as dungeons and raiding.
A lot of these issues that have cropped up over the years come from both the gaming industry, and its players. As technology has progressed, people have become more instant gratification driven. They want it all, right now, and a lot of people don't even want to put in the work. Game companies literally design content to keep players playing as long as possible with the higher chance of them spending money, whether it's through microtransactions, cosmetics, pay to win, level skipping (WoW), or job leveling (FFXIV). Not to mention lazy development to make more money from less content by releasing half a game and charging poeple full price for it, because people will pay for it.
I don't know about y'all, but I'm so tired of fill the bars, chore list, dailies crap fest style games. I don't want worthless participation award gear. Overcoming challenging content is so much more rewarding.
I agree with a lot of the people here. One thing I could probably suggest if you do implement that sort of thing, I rather camp and farm a type of rare red elite mob(s) than to have a certain loot drop chance of getting an upgradeable item that could possibly ruin the experience for other people. Maybe just make those types of loot from open world raid bosses so that more people are able to participate and get a chance of a piece of loot. Also, if I may add... having those said raid world bosses spawn at certain times, makes the experience more enticing as far as I can see.
While I think the very title of the post "loot showering" seems to want to shut off all opinions except the authors, their have been some opinions that I agree with in this thread. It should be possible to loot equipment that provides basic viability to fight even though I am of the "crafted sets should be better" camp.
Yes, drops should go with the kill type. Items that "intelligent" species could make/use should drop off of them. Animals would drop animal related drops and not intelligent user items unless there was specific lore that it did because it killed adventurers or NPC's that used them and collected because they were shiny like a giant raccoons might or ate them in their cave/nest/lair and the unedible equiment was left over, it could be even be in a salvage or repair for use state.
While I wouldn't want to overload my inventory after 2 fights but as a future crafter, I also plan to be a salvager so the "no drops or almost no drops" opinion of some of the posters is way too extreme for me. Plus, how hard is it to drop and item you do not want on the ground and let it decay away in "blank" amount of time.
I remember back in the start of EQ2 when I would run around the fields fighting outside town as a low level player and have to throw away copper or armor I wanted to sell. If i didn't then i would "walk" slowly hoping I wouldn't be attacked by somethong I couldn't beat i was over the weight limit or buying and selling at the in zone merchant to convert my copper to lighter silver. It was with great happiness, even if it removed realism from the game, that I applauded the coin has no weight change and finally could affordto buy or craft wieght reducing magic bags.
However the question is, which way is better? Making the player plan, and yes, sweat, over how many items they carried and how much it all weighed including coin and the number of slots they can use to bring back stuff to sell compared to their current player weight limit? Plus worry about what if they were attacked and had to run and ended up dying?
Letting harvesting crafters, levelers, questers stay out in the zone fighting longer?
if you are the instant gratification/power leveling type who doesn't want anything that isn't useful right now or having to decide what exactly was worth keeping and selling later so they can do nothing but kill over and over to level?
The I don't mind farming for mats, kill quests, harvesting for my tradeskill as I level up type and can decide what I want to keep or not type. Some people can be both, they start out as one way and when they achieve their basic goals, then they want to change it for everyone else sometimes too.
So all play aside with the "charged" language of my above post:
Loot "showering" = only if easy to drop what you do not want for the power levelers/over burdened.
No loot or low loot from mobs, just coin except for raid mobs = definitely not.
Logical loot based on mob type and lore = yes.
V/R
Oakum
I agree on the most basic part with almost all replies here, but let me add one thing:
DON'T overthink it too much.
We need LESS loot to make it MORE fun to get. That is about all we have to do in order to make Pantheon a better game. Just make sure getting an item is actially a great feeling. Nothing more, nothing less.
We don't need artificial stuff to make it different,...
... colors on gear are amazing for that quick glance of item TIER. There will always be tiers of items. Not every item can be raid quality.
Removing the colors does nothing but make the broad masses feel uneasy and remove a helpful feature. We are used to the colors for a QUICK and BASIC comparison. Blue can still be better than yellow.
So removing those colors does nothing of VALUE for the game, but it removes value. Not a good idea in my book.
Removing drops all together and only have crafting mats, would also just remove the feeling of getting something great. Having to find a crafter and possibly more items just to get a basic belt? I doubt that would be fun for most people. There is nothing wrong to ALSO have that kinda drops! But don't remove normal drops to make crafting more of a forced thing.
Basically:
Make Loot more fun to get, but don't remove features. Add to them. Improve them. Don't do stuff different, just to be different. Don't remove a feature, just because WoW or any other game has it. WoW is successful, because they know what works. Improve on that. Adjust it. Don't remove a working feature. That would just be silly.
zassik said:
mugwy44 said:While on the topic of gear, anyone else feel that the rarity color needs to go? doesnt mean anything anymore
Kill it with fire!
Why would that be? Just because?
I know, we are mainly old EQ fans here (me included) and want that old school experience back. We also need the game to actually work and be successful tho. Removing colors from gear does not do anything positive for the game, apart from a few people disliking colors. I am willing to bet that more people (by a factor of 100-1000 actually) like the colors for a quick and easy comparison of item tiers.
We need Pantheon to be a success to enjoy our old school EQ fix. Sacrifices have to be made. Keeping the colors is one of the smallest sacrifices possible (if it is one at all), but removing it would certainly have a noticeable negative impact on the games perception and player base. All the problems people put on the colors can be fixed by fixing the underlying system, which needs to happen anyway. Removing the colors is not fixing anything at all.