In today's games, it's a certainty that when you kill a raid boss, it will drop some number of its "good" items. It's not guaranteed that someone will need them, but they WILL drop.
Back in the day, you could work your way to a raid boss, kill it, and see only common junk drop - or sometimes- nothing but the dreaded fungus clump (something not useable by anybody for anything).
Should raid boss mobs always drop something that someone might want (raid loot), or should there be a risk that you can kill a raid boss and have nothing at all drop?
I think "bosses" should always drop loot, regardless of whether they are solo, group, multi-group, or raid. Personally, I have always been a fan of extensive world loot tables where trash mobs also have a really low chance to drop something nice. It doesen't need to be BiS or anything like that, but I definitely feel that there should be highly sought after items that drop from trash mobs. Some of them could be regional ... some of them could be climate-based ... some could be based on race (only drops off skeletons, only drops off cyclops, etc) -- some could be a mixture (only drops off of skeletons in frosty areas). The key is making them ultra-rare. Nobody should be able to say "Hey I'm gonna go farm frost skeletons and get Sword X." They should be so rare that players who set out to do such a thing should be prepared to potentially farm those mobs for weeks.
IMHO any raid mob should drop raid items. And more than one type item. I have limited time raiding and there were many people really upset when 3-4 groups of people would kill a raid mob only to find 1 rare iten drop so they were always a big didcussion of who was to get the item. I also remember when our small guild joined a larger guild in eq1. We went to plane of fear and started clearing it out. we were there fora few hours when a vermiculated chest dropped. I was the only druid who had not gotten this item yet. But when the item dropped it was held there by the guild leader while we waited for a druid who was not even in the raid to get there so he could give it to him. This to me was so unfair. When I asked why it was given to a person not even in the raid I was told he was in the guild longer than me and was next in line.
Needless to say my stay in the new guild was short lived.
I know this is different than a raid boss but it is an example of what happens when drops are so rare that it takes a long time to get the drop again.
I think the answer is it depends. The drop table should reflect the difficulty and relative rarity of the raid mob. Maybe the first named in the zone has a chance to drop useless loot, reflecting the fact that many guilds will be able to clear it. If, however, after a 10 hour raid, the named with a 7 day lockout drops a fungus clump, that would be a tad anticlimactic.
It depends how they do loot... if EVERYONE on the hatelist or Raid can have an RNG loot result from an event then yes sometimes rolling a zero should result in zero loot for that 1 character...
Keeping with the everyone on raid gets an item concept, you could have a pick list of loots you can choose from that is dynamic it lets you have a choice but the RNG could also pop up a blank window on you sometimes...
If it is static loot on an NPC you better have some really uber loot or make it extremely entertaining/fun to have guilds attempt events that can result in zero reward for their efforts
It's entertaining for sure. I have a somewhat controversial opinion on loot though that skews towards guaranteed results in the extreme long term.
I've always hated luck showing its face behind game mechanics. Loot, critical hits in PvP, avoidance being % based, etc. Something like this is the bane of my existence.
Warben said:It depends how they do loot... if EVERYONE on the hatelist or Raid can have an RNG loot result from an event then yes sometimes rolling a zero should result in zero loot for that 1 character...
Keeping with the everyone on raid gets an item concept, you could have a pick list of loots you can choose from that is dynamic it lets you have a choice but the RNG could also pop up a blank window on you sometimes...
If it is static loot on an NPC you better have some really uber loot or make it extremely entertaining/fun to have guilds attempt events that can result in zero reward for their efforts
If everyone gets someting:
1) Does that not shorten the viable life expectancy of a given bit of content? i.e. always getting something amounts to a shorter time horizon before you have everything.
2) Does that not reduce the oppurtunity for players to do things selflessly within the game? That is, the notion that people will go do something for no other reason than to help someone else?
Like others have said, I belive that "bosses" should always drop *something* - after all, the assumption is that bosses are among the most challenging encounters in the game, for their level. That level of challenge should equate to nice rewards.
That said, I think we need to try and avoid basing our expectations too much on what previous games have done. Just because some games tried to hande out multiple pieces of "raid-quality" loot from every boss doesn't mean Pantheon has to go to the same route. Likewise, just because some games made raid loot more like a lottery ticket also doesn't mean Pantheon has to go that way.
Finally, I'm of the opinion that *every* encounter in the game, group or raid, should carry the chance to reward something commensurate to its challenge and difficulty. After 20 years of MMOs I am tired of players talking about "trash" mobs. If an encounter doesn't have value then it simply shouldn't be in the game, in my opinion. That doesn't mean I want raids to just be revolving doors of bosses - but I want those smaller encounters that you do leading up to the raid to actually mean something to players. There's different ways to do that:
- Maybe they drop crafting or quest bits, like the components for EQ planar armor sets.
- Maybe they have a chance to drop "minor" loot. If the boss can drop a +5 sword of awesomeness, maybe the stuff leading up to the boss has a small chance to drop a +4 sword of slightly less awesomeness
- Maybe you have to clear them out to trigger the boss encounter - they're basically a gating function. This would be especially interesting if a raid zone had, say.... three different factions of mobs, and spawning the boss you wanted meant first helping one of the factions to be enough on the winning side against the others that their boss came out of hiding.
Anyway, my point is that content should be about more than just the boss fights. The boss fight is the icing on the cake. Yeah, we want the corner piece with that big icing flower on it, but we want the cake to be good too. If all we care about in the end is the boss fights, then the designer who built that zone did it wrong.
I agree, I liked the model that gave you a small amount of currency to buy the item you wanted after attending X amount of events on that tier to let you pick... I am a very patient person overall about loot if there is a concrete path like this in place.
Always relying on the NPC to drop my item was 1 frustrating aspect..and the 2nd was getting it in my hands either thru Loot councels or DKP... With currency award I felt much more in control of my fate as a player...this came into EQ later and many other games as well.
Wandidar said:Warben said:It depends how they do loot... if EVERYONE on the hatelist or Raid can have an RNG loot result from an event then yes sometimes rolling a zero should result in zero loot for that 1 character...
Keeping with the everyone on raid gets an item concept, you could have a pick list of loots you can choose from that is dynamic it lets you have a choice but the RNG could also pop up a blank window on you sometimes...
If it is static loot on an NPC you better have some really uber loot or make it extremely entertaining/fun to have guilds attempt events that can result in zero reward for their efforts
If everyone gets someting:
1) Does that not shorten the viable life expectancy of a given bit of content? i.e. always getting something amounts to a shorter time horizon before you have everything.
2) Does that not reduce the oppurtunity for players to do things selflessly within the game? That is, the notion that people will go do something for no other reason than to help someone else?
1. Yes it does, it just depends on how often someone gets nothing to control that aspect of saturating loot at that tier...and perfecting that will never be easy as you are essentially letting the RNG decide who gets loot vs any guild structured award system.
2. Yes it does, if there is an ability to click a window asking if you want not be included on loot this could help be mitigated, but for someone to be able to defer their loot to a specific person would probably be a huge drama llama fest.
100% agree with your assessment Neph. Clearing hours of "trash" to get to the bosses basically feels like a timesink. Having ultra-rare loot added to the tables of regular NPC's would help establish a value for them. The odds of getting one of these items are obviously extremely rare, but that fact that it could happen gives you something to potentially be excited about with every pull. I also like the idea of lottery spawns. I have seen this used in the past and it basically accomplishes the same thing. The more "trash" mobs you clear, the more likely you are to spawn a lottery mob that will drop something desirable. Mobs could also drop pieces, that when combined, can be used to force pop a named. Having +1 or +2 versions of crafting resources dropping also goes a long way. You never know which "brittle skeleton" is going to drop a +2 femur that is an upgrade to a primary component in a crafting recipe.
Warben said:Wandidar said:Warben said:It depends how they do loot... if EVERYONE on the hatelist or Raid can have an RNG loot result from an event then yes sometimes rolling a zero should result in zero loot for that 1 character...
Keeping with the everyone on raid gets an item concept, you could have a pick list of loots you can choose from that is dynamic it lets you have a choice but the RNG could also pop up a blank window on you sometimes...
If it is static loot on an NPC you better have some really uber loot or make it extremely entertaining/fun to have guilds attempt events that can result in zero reward for their efforts
If everyone gets someting:
1) Does that not shorten the viable life expectancy of a given bit of content? i.e. always getting something amounts to a shorter time horizon before you have everything.
2) Does that not reduce the oppurtunity for players to do things selflessly within the game? That is, the notion that people will go do something for no other reason than to help someone else?
1. Yes it does, it just depends on how often someone gets nothing to control that aspect of saturating loot at that tier...and perfecting that will never be easy as you are essentially letting the RNG decide who gets loot vs any guild structured award system.
2. Yes it does, if there is an ability to click a window asking if you want not be included on loot this could help be mitigated, but for someone to be able to defer their loot to a specific person would probably be a huge drama llama fest.
Not quite the scenario I was thinking of, yours is certainly another scenario. I was thinking of the occasion where there is no reason at all for you to go to kill a mob - but you go anyway. If mobs have something for everyone, you wouldn't have the experience of helping kill somthing you don't need until you have killed it enough to get all your stuff from it.
Part of the community dynamic is the capacity to be selfless - to go help people just becuase they need it... OR... to not necessarilly be selfless, but to go help them with their stuff because you know they will go help you with yours. (or so I think)
oneADseven said:100% agree with your assessment Neph. Clearing hours of "trash" to get to the bosses basically feels like a timesink. Having ultra-rare loot added to the tables of regular NPC's would help establish a value for them. The odds of getting one of these items are obviously extremely rare, but that fact that it could happen gives you something to potentially be excited about with every pull. I also like the idea of lottery spawns. I have seen this used in the past and it basically accomplishes the same thing. The more "trash" mobs you clear, the more likely you are to spawn a lottery mob that will drop something desirable. Mobs could also drop pieces, that when combined, can be used to force pop a named. Having +1 or +2 versions of crafting resources dropping also goes a long way. You never know which "brittle skeleton" is going to drop a +2 femur that is an upgrade to a primary component in a crafting recipe.
Clearing hours of trash? Did you ever raid Vex Thal in EQ1 by any chance? That was the pinnacle of wading through yard trash up to your ears between boss mobs.
That said, and to stay on topic, Raids = raid loot. That is why the mobs are that much harder, that much more difficulty and take so much longer than group content. You go through all that effort because you want the better loot. Yes, I've killed raid mobs for sh*ts and giggles, but that is a very short lived enjoyment. Raiding immensely powerful monsters needs to have them drop powerful items. Their loot tables should be designed that each class has the possibility to earn an item directly useful to that class.
If they follow the EQ model then most if not all of the raid mobs in a raid zone will drop good loot. In the Planes raids of early EQ pretty much all the "trash" mobs had a chance to drop pieces of the best class armor sets (many of which were BiS) as well as various random non-set pieces.
So on that note:
Raid mobs - rare chance any can drop pieces of raid quality loot (different loot than the bosses).
Raid bosses - always drop a number of items from their own loot table.
Personally I prefer there to not be any pity timers in regards to giving people guaranteed loot. If they do put it in I hope it is a rather long timer, no less than 1 month (or equivalent # of lockouts) per freebie.
I think the equivalent of 3 months of farming the same mob for a guaranteed drop is more than fair. I wouldn't mind seeing loot slightly skewed in favor of class-specific drops, either. Say double the normal droprate for anything that is limited to only one class.
Raid loot, Heck yeah!
I don't mind the lottery aspect of it, but it would be nice if the raid monster was holding a shield, the shield would drop, or if the monster used a whicp-crack spell, a whip or clicky with that effect would drop.
I mean, what am I going to do with all that crystalized sulphur?
