Loot, where is it?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Katu, Aug 19, 2020.

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  1. CICI

    CICI Avatar

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    Supply Bundles can be fix with just adding 100% chance of getting a random artifact
    Grey: common/ Yellow: uncommon/Blue: rare
     
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  2. Luno

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    This is the sad reality, a new zone, new mobs, a quest, but the outcome is just not good
    And same thing for Lamech's Bazaar, another unfinished experiment (just like may other things like player made dungeons)
     
  3. Violet Ronso

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    The answer should be simple to this half a decade old problem (if not longer)... You want a player market? No problem! You wan't high tier gear Player crafted only (yeah right...), No problem there again! The issue comes from all this RNG that comes with crafting, and way too expensive material costs (not in terms of price but in terms of how the heck does it cost me 16 trees to craft 1 staff...).

    Solution :

    1. Remove/Bypass the RNG, by adding ressources (essences and what not) to produce a garanteed enchant (50 lich essence + 5 gold bars + 10 Mandrake Root = Drain life enchant), you will allow crafters to fill out custom orders without having to make 1000x copies of the item to get that one good roll. This will make these PvE/PvP acquired ressources valuable a lot more, meaning loot will become worth more, meaning it will be easy to tune drop tables from monsters.

    2. Bulk Order Deeds/Crafters Quests. By asking crafters to bring an NPC x amount of copies of the same item (ex.: 10 copies of : Bronze longsword +5), you can generate thousands of different crafter quests. You can generate ressources, gold, special components, Crafting Artifacts/Gear, Recipees, you name it as rewards from these quests, filtering out the insane amounts of junk items crafters have, and sending them back into the loot tables.

    3. Allow some materials/components to become regional drops, ex.: Mobs such as the undead and barbarians from the norgard areas could drop savage essences, used to give Strength MWs/Enchants but the same kind of skeletons near etceter wouldn't drop these, they would drop a different kind of essence or whatever. Have the drop rate for these essences be decent, and try to split them up in areas, and you got yourself a darn nice way to promote regional grinding!


    The problem with the solution :

    Way too much manpower needed to implement all these systems, so instead of trying to rework them SLOWLY, they just keep digging their grave deeper and deeper in the same worthless direction that has made people mad for years : More RNG, More choices, less durability, pricier items, all whilst fighting stronger monsters that make the gap between the 1% and the rest of the community even bigger, because right now, yes, as long as you are a decent level with a decent build, you can generate thousands of gold with all these artifact drops and what not, but because of this, the entry point just becomes pricier and pricier...

    CICI, you found your way to make millions, problem is, not every single player is going to manage to get to that point, and if everyone was doing the same thing, the market would be saturated and no one would make money...

    as for XEE, sure your items are some of the cheapest in the market, but for newer players, it is still 40+ hours just to buy one of your items if they don't accept handouts, because the time it takes from 0 knowledge to having 50k to spare is insanely long.
     
  4. Xee

    Xee Bug Hunter

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    40 hours is nothing. it takes 1 week for me to get enough materials to make large batches just to get some really nice things that will pay me back for all the time. I could cut my costs down a little more if I didnt have to buy materials that are 2k each which puts my base costs for 1 slot at 20k to start before I even get to the enchants and masterworking. Low level players who dont have money need to shop at other low level crafters places which are in the price bracket of what you make. Im a 130+ crafter only high level guys in the higher brackets should be buying my stuff as they make the 40k because they have been around long enough to earn and find ways to make money selling as CICI put it everything. If you sell just to vendors it will take you forever to get where you want to be. If you start using public vendors or save up and buy your first commission vendor you will start to make more money, eventually you can afford a commission free and make more money. but its not that easy as you need to inform players what you have as well keep your prices at levels that will draw people. I went my first year with a basic +1 to +7 staff which was low level crafting with maybe 2 enchants/mw if I was lucky. its not a free hand out mmo where every corner an npc's is giving you money and items every day. everything is a challenge which is by design. LB style games are all like this. you have nothing and must survive and once you build up your wealth than you eventually start building your vendors, or paying people to work for you gathering etc or paying people to craft what you want. this game is so much easier today than 3 years + back. 7 years ago we made 1gold per kill lol. people think this is hard now, makes many us vets snicker and feel like grand parents stating you dont know hard, you have it easy. :) now that I put this out I do agree though that more loot is important always need something to look forward to in adventuring.
     
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  5. AzazelReborn

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    In my experience the game rigged for new and low level players. When you first start the cost of getting skill to us now might not be an issue but 100 per skills for a day old character so you have to choose wisely what skills to get.

    Then later on you realise that grouping is not really a good idea in this game because you are sharing already as people have said crap loot. You either have to spend real money or wait a month or two to hopefully acquire enough COTOS for that Commission Free Vendor in order for you to be able to sell the some what good loot you do happen to come across.

    New players coming to this game do not have that type of information and also are probably coming from traditional MMO which offer better reward and a global market. I agree that if you kill something, the cost of the kill i.e. (regents) shouldn't exceed that amount the creature gives back, this tend to put new players off using magic because the trade off is not comparable. As you level your character you will then learn to pick your fight and maybe go for area where they have denser population of mobs you can take quickly in order for you to get your monies worth.

    But there is an issue with that, you will need the right build and the gear for that build and that's what most new player facing, they want to get to the point where there can be self reliant be it's very difficult to get there and buying gear would seem insane because of the price range at that level.

    Scaling loot should of been implemented many years ago, a skeleton, a bandit or any creature at t5+ zone should never drop the same loot value as t3 and lower zone. Maybe even an intuitive looting systems should be introduce to offset the fact that an older player can kill a certain mob faster. Say it takes me 2 minutes to kill an ancient dragon and another person 20+ minutes, maybe they should get something for their work or maybe they shouldn't attempt it and come back later when they are stronger. People always like challenges, the "I can do it" mentality, maybe the dev can give them incentive for trying.

    Loot does need improving and we should feel that we have achieved something when ever we go out. Most games do offer that.
     
  6. Cora Cuz'avich

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    I don't think crafting will ever be fixed. Whenever Chris talks about it, he gives the impression that he feels that the crafting system is fine as it is, but just needs adjustments. He'll adjust the strength results of MW/ench, maybe add some new results, maybe tweak the percentages for success, put together another spreadsheet, and then declare he's fixed it. And it won't be. Loot will always suck, because other than a few components, a couple bosses that drop larger amounts of reagents, all we get is gold. It might come in other forms, like spoons or lower level potions or or caltrops or torches or whatever. But nobody else wants these things, they only have value in how much gold you can get from an NPC vendor.
     
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  7. Scanphor

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    I fear you are correct - what crafting needs is a fundamental rethink of some of its core concepts and implementation. What we're likely to get is a few tweaks and additions catering to the 0.001% that Chris listens to.
     
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  8. Gyzarus

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    Here's my 50 cents advice, stop grinding ERG, and start adventuring, the reason why you want more gold is because you are struggling with your character for dealing more damage and be more effective in the hunts etc. Not saying you can't handle the challenge but you seek better equips to improve you hunt, why not look into the advance combat system further. The game it self is focusing on players Crafting , if you want to grind for gold I can recommend ruins keep, every troll drops is worth something there, but you guys insist ERG is the only way then I have nothing to add to. Bring your friends to go Ruined keeps. If you want to be rich and have fun.
    P.s. try the Fall the PvP area, unless PvP is not your taste of a MMO then forget what I said.
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2020
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  9. A'chelata

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    Actually, i've been doing that. It's no fun to grind for 3 hours, get zero artifacts (not that they are worth much) and get 3 supply bundles which all drop next to zero worth of loot for the time invested. Meanwhile, I chugged about 40 potions in the process, used about 8K arrows, and a small amount of regs, took tons of gear damage since most of my gear is artifacts, because, archers have to wear bandit armor or be left behind, and at the end, i'm asking myself why I'm even wasting my resources and time, for a negative net result? Negative or near zero progression for grinding has cost us a lot of players. One day maybe the Devs will figure out that people play games to have fun and accomplish things, not just to grind for experience to level up your character to fight mobs with 3 times the hit points for the same crappy loot. If we wanted to feel like we spend all of our time working and never getting anywhere, we can get that every day in real life. Games should be fun and rewarding. Successful games are.
     
  10. Cordelayne

    Cordelayne Bug Hunter

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    A...f***ing...men!
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2020
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  11. kaeshiva

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    The biggest issue with loot as I see it is, as are most systems in Sota, its a lotto/slotmachine/gambling game.

    First, the front of the bus problem:
    There's no consistency. Its basically, today I went out and spent four hours and got nothing, or today I went out and spend 30 minutes and got a pricy artifact.
    Of course, to get money for said artifact you'll likely have to go through the pain of player to player selling which is the back of the bus problem.

    Being able to say "I am looking for X item" and being able to go out with some chance or hope for success and obtain that item is sorely needed.
    Too many things are in the 'global super rare drop' loot table
    The things that aren't, are still too rare considering how many you need and what you have to kill to get them (i e taming artis are localized but at 1 drop an hour IF you're lucky, needing 64 of each ...is just obscene).
    Don't get me started on the 18 months I spent trying to get a Dolus hood without single a single drop until i was finally given one out of pity, and then in a one-week timeframe pulled FOUR of the things which I just have on mannequins now out of frustration/spite.

    Its been suggested many times - incremental gains. Give meaningful progress to each play session. Consider alternate currencies, building faction with different npcs to unlock vendors who take these currency and give you the items you want, or work incremental gains into crafting somehow ...i.e., instead of dropping nothing 99.9% of the time and a hood 0.1% of the time, have cabalist drop a piece of magical black fabric every time. And require 500 of them or something to craft the hood you want. At least this way, if RNG screws you again and again, you have some guarantee of eventually getting something.

    Regarding the back of the bus problem:

    It is too tedious, too frustrating, and too irritating to get goods to the people who need them, especially as the population has dwindled there are abandoned, glutted vendors everywhere languishing and a new player trying to actually shop has no way to know if something is a good deal or not, or what they should keep vs. sell to npc, no way to know where they might find stuff or what's recently stocked, and it ends up being that everyone just goes to a handful of player markets where things have been organized/centralised as much as possible within the mechanics. I'm sure there's loads of stuff dropping that I might want to buy ...but who has time to deal with that mess? A global market would do a lot to keep prices streamlined and make it able to actually find what you're looking for. Even if we just had global BUY orders. The current loot and shopping system result for many of us is "can't farm it, it doesn't drop - can't buy it, not going to click vendors and wait for crap to load for 6 hours either, going to go play another game kthxbye.
     
  12. Barugon

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    There was a time when I was content to develop my character with the idea that the fun content was coming. Well, the fun content never came; just more grinding.
     
  13. Greyfox

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    The same complaints, year after year, yielding the same results.
     
  14. Browncoat Jayson

    Browncoat Jayson Legend of the Hearth

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    Everything you are saying was true when I quit playing online a year ago. It's even worse playing offline (assuming you don't just want to hack your character and bypass the "game"). There is no market, no option to gear up, no option to acquire gear you don't craft yourself. It's artifact drop RNG or crafting RNG. Loot sucks.

    This is literally the ONLY way to fix loot and crafting. They can keep how it works now, and add a structured system on top of it to bypass it (and if it's structured, they can implement it by adding to the table, so much less dev work). Any other changes done is just busywork until loot and crafting are fixed.

    P.S. even Diablo has merchants with random, mostly level appropriate gear. We need those, especially offline, and all of the gear can be no-drop trash so it doesn't kill the "economy".
     
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  15. Cordelayne

    Cordelayne Bug Hunter

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    You said it brother. What's the definition of insanity?
     
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  16. Charon

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    All of this really boils down to play the game with the client that the people paying to keep this game alive play.

    Go and craft t2 gear USING THE GAME CLIENT. Go gather the materials, craft the gear, enchant it and masterwork it. Spend hour after hour gathering materials or lots of gold (oh yeah .. grind the gold out to just like your players if you go that route), refine them into t2 materials, craft the item (praying to RNGesus for exceptionals doesn't help but it's worth a shot), then roll the dice on master working and enchanting. When you're done ask yourself if the juice was worth the squeeze. If the answer is no then congrats .. you've experienced what most people in this game experience with the crafting system.

    Same thing with loot. Make a new character, not a GM character, and go eat your own cooking. Take note of the loot drops you get, how slow it is to accumulate gold/items and then ask yourself if you, as Joe Newbie, can see any light at the end of the tunnel and if you'd be willing to pay for the experience to continue or if you'd rather spend your time elsewhere doing something where you felt you could actually make some headway. For grins, break out an AL 120ish character and go kill level appropriate mobs. Notice how the loot looks an awful lot like the loot you got from level 10-50 mobs? Thought you might ..
     
  17. Anpu

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    I can only relate my own experience when I started at Release, build up and worked on my character month after month and then finally got to one of the fabled (at the time for me) Tier 5 areas, Etceter Craig Foothlls.

    I ran around for a few hours on days that I had the time to do that, and then looked at the Woodwind Bows, a few sellable weapons and armor, a tiny bit more gold and sometimes (on rare occasions) a Grey Supply bundle. I was like, what an amazing and rewarding loot system we have....

    And then I stopped. And that's where I remain to this day.

    Actually, the Elf, Troll and Kobold essence was one of the better systems added to the game. It *actually* added a sense of achievement.....
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2020
  18. Sevarin

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    I think this was mentioned by someone else, somewhere... but the maze in Tartarus has a bare minimum vaguely satisfying loot drop. In a two hour session I normally get an artifact or two or a couple of pieces of bandit armour. I don't know if it's been improved but the other night in a few hours I got bandit chest, gloves and legs, and an Aether Satyr Warlock dropped Ring of Chrys and Ring of Earth at the same time . This is more the exception than the rule, but it happens. The chests scattered in the maze that you can stealth or run to have, amongst other things; gold, repair kits, Gorn's Venison, Darkstarr Oysters and occasionally pure black dyes. Ore nodes are all about too. Gold drops are pretty good off mobs. If you can't solo there, a small group would manage. There's always a few players skulking about the area.
     
  19. Ancev

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    Yeah the loot system can be pretty unrewarding in this game.

    I'd like to see Skill Scrolls added to the game. They could even be fractional. You find a scroll of Bladed Combat skill of .25 or .50 or +1 or +5, etc. It could be implemented with caps based on your adventure level and maybe you can only use so many scrolls in 1 skill tree. This would add a lot to the loot system and to the economy.

    Would also like to see different tiered locked and trapped treasure chests scattered throughout Novia and future episode lands - perhaps they could appear in adventure zones and on the overland map. One wrinkle you could put into the system is that the different tiered keys that are found only open the treasure chests partially and need to be lockpicked in some cases - so higher level keys could open lower tiered chests, but equal level keys and chests would require more effort. Or they might take multiple keys.

    Also you could have the keys that unlock the adventure zone and overland map chests spawn in player dungeons, and vice versa. Keys you find in Novia and Misrendur and would open chests that spawn in player dungeons, etc.

    This would be a far off request but I'd like to see the adventure trainers expanded so that they can teach you a unique skill associated with different types of weapon patterns (for example two handed swords have the Elven Estoc, Ancient Bastard Sword, Montante, etc.) and maybe something similar for mages too. After doing a quest line for the master trainer you'd be granted a buff, or weapon effect (or skill?) that is associated with the pattern that you've applied to the weapon. So some of these would need to be unlocked by the master trainer, but other advanced weapon techniques could obtained through the loot system or salvage system ("you find an old note tucked inside of the rusty breast plate you salvaged...")

    Also if you wander through the various Ruins and Shardfalls you see all kinds of strange looking plants and stuff.. you'd think there would be some different resources you could harvest in there...?

    Another concept that might add more interest to the loot system would be finding fetishes in the loot system and when you use the fetish in an adventure zone it summons a monster of that type. they'd have a timer on them or whatever so you could only use so many of them over a certain period of time. perhaps only usable in an area with that type of mob spawner in the area. (elf, lich, etc) it just resets the timer of a mob spawner
     
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2020
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  20. Lazlo

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    I don't think there's really much problem with being able to make gold so much as reward for difficulty is just wildly inconsistent across the game. A lot of the content that already exists would get a lot more play if that wasn't the case.
     
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