Loot, where is it?

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

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  1. kaeshiva

    kaeshiva Avatar

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    This.

    I get that nobody wants to go to work all day on a game then come home and play the same game.
    But there's absolutely value in experiencing the product before you just go in and start changing stuff.
    Yes, its important to listen to the people who do play, but it would be valuable to have sufficient insight to know which players are giving sensible suggestions and which are blowing smoke.

    If you want to have a player-based economy system relying on crafted gear - great. It can work, its worked successfully in many games, but you need to fix player to player marketing pain so people can move goods, and you need to add consistency in crafting. There's no way around it. RNG needs to go, or be severely diminished or mitigatable in some way.

    If players could work for the things they want over time, (and actually KEEP WHAT THEY EARN) we'll be much happier to sit here and tread water fiddling with our builds and making better and better gear while we wait for new content to appear. That's all a lot of us have been doing for the last couple years. Then something gets changed and all your progress turns into a pumpkin. Either a nerf, or quadruple xp rates trivialize your years of progress, or gear destruction rate becomes untenable for how much effort it takes to make due to the rng implementation.

    Chasing 0.01% or lower drop rates cannot be the only path to success.
    Loot needs to be consistent and/or incremental.
    If you want super-rare drop stuff, that's okay, but it shouldn't be essential items. I'm ok with there being houses and deeds (never looted either, in all my hours of play, but I saw someone loot one once), or rare trophy heads, and that sort of thing - I'm even ok with super rare artis, but NOT if they are so dramatically best-in-slot essential.

    The other issue is scaling.
    I've been to kill that spider queen about 10 times. Every time it dropped the exact same crap as a 500 hp spider that I can 1-shot. The amount of hassle it is to do that fight even with a group, to get such an insult of loot, I simply refuse to do it anymore. I've killed hundreds of dragons, destroyer tier creatures, etc. and every single time its disappointing. I remember spending an entire weekend doing nothing but killing demons trying to get a demon heart and after 2 days and I don't know how many demons killed net gain was zero.
    In the same amount of time, I can grind trivial mobs for cash and BUY the thing I want several times over.

    So....the best path to success seems to be finding the biggest humanoids I can steamroll, murder them repeatedly, sell everything I pick up to the vendor, repeat.
    Then spend loads of time trying to find what I want for sale, or more likely, go outside of game to forums or discord to try and find it since...screw the vendor system lol.
    So that became my gameplay. Log in, kill trivial crap, get gold, then stare at loadscreens while I shop to try and buy what I want from people who 'got lucky at slots'.
    Its a two-fold problem to do with poor loot progression and horrible marketing implementation which leaves us all feeling a bit 'meh'.

    To be successful and appealing long-term, an MMO is about progression. Gear progression, Level progression, Wealth progression. Whatever.
    If we wanted to "click a button until we get lucky" we'd go play slots.
     
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  2. Nexus-6

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    But we already have Gear progression, Level progression, Wealth progression... What wrong?
     
  3. kaeshiva

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    Only up to a certain point. The key is "long term." Right now, you can get to maximum efficient everything in a matter of days.

    Level Progression:
    You reach a point where more experience isn't really relevant. You reach it a lot faster now that the original progression rate's been cranked to 4x.
    A new player can achieve in a week what originally took years, with the progression rate change and the implementation of power-exp spots.
    Specialization has removed lateral progression/diversification and at some point vertical progression just becomes meaningless.

    Gear Progression:
    You see it over and over again "you don't need perfect gear!" We are encouraged to accept 'good enough' and just keep replacing it.
    Either that, or gear progression is "try to farm the 0.1% drop artifact and hope you get lucky on crafting RNG."
    Both of these scenarios become unpalatable long term.
    And it all breaks anyway so you have to keep grinding to stay where you are.
    And of course, the nicer your stuff is, the harder it is to replicate, meaning more tens of thousands of materials needed.
    Progression is not paddling away madly to stay in the same place.

    Wealth Progression:
    Same deal. Get more money, get more property, get more stuff. Buy super rares and watch them get senselessly destroyed in crafting mishaps or poor RNG choices.
    Grind more money and try again. Fail again repeat.
    At some point, having more gold becomes just as meaningless as having more experience.

    So yes, we have these things in a very broad sense.
    They are just all implemented in ways that make them extremely unsatisfying for long term player retention.


    -----
    If we had consistency instead of gambling in these areas, meaningful progress could be achieved each play session. There's a lot of replayability in trying new things but the amount of cost and effort required to retool a build at the high end at the moment is monumental. There needs to be somewhere for all the gold to go - grinding cash to pay nonsense sinks has a simple solution - you simply stop grinding cash / stop playing.
     
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2020
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  4. evillego6

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    The good thing is, Chris assured everyone this year would be the year of good loot!
     
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  5. Sulaene Moon

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    I asked again
    and he answered it here
    @Sulaene Moon 2020 isn't over yet! However, I'm trying to make sure I'm fixing the right things. Just adding more artifacts to the game helps one problem but makes the other problems worse which is why I'm trying to focus on crafting stuff right now. I hear and understand the frustration though.[/QUOTE]

    So he's working on it and there is still time. He's going to be fixing the right things.
     
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  6. Violet Ronso

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    Sorry for the HUGE wall here... Got into it a bit too much, and in too many directions at once...

    You see, and I know we agree here, but OP posted this :

    And then you replied with this

    So you are saying that Those items are for high end players, yet you recommend newer players to go there. Those players will see your gear, and see that the majority of the items on vendors are that level, because low level crafters/gear is even harder to come by, so what they realise is that the only way to get an upgrade is to go 1 item at a time, and work 40+ hours to get. I agree with you, it is gonna take you even more time to get the materials, but what if you could make the exact item you were looking to make by including more materials to your craft?

    Lets look at this option for a bit, Newer players could come in, look at all the options, and then realise, "Hell yeah, I want a bronze 2h sword with x,y and z." They could start out by making or buying a blank Bronze 2H sword, and then every time they have the gold/materials, they could come back to you and have you process that "upgrade", and players could progress their items through you using these essences and what not. This would still help top tier crafters stay at the top of the food chain because you guys give the better stats, which means you could charge a little "Top Tier Crafter's Fee", meanwhile lower level crafters could still work their way up through doing it cheaper for less bonuses. This would also help more players get into crafting as it doesnt seem like an insane time/material sink with basically a 0.0001% chance to actually get a decent item (because until GM in most crafting skills, you aint getting anything good, barely decent!). This would make everyone more happy with a lot less time wasted.

    Also, I know people have it easier now, I've been playing since 2016, not as long as you maybe, but for quite a while now, and honestly the ONLY reason I gave this game as many chances as I did was because my father bought me the Ancestor pack + gaver me a rig to play this game (because my own rig would have never managed to load a single scene back then). If it wasn't for that, I would have quit the game after not even a week because of how unhelpful everything was in the game. The only way to actually understand the game is to spend hours upon hours on out of game ressources (be it the player guide, these forums, youtube) just to understand the basics of the game, and when I say HOURS, I mean it, You should see the amount of time I spent while playing this game just trying to figure out things, because I had the patience to do it, but newer players won't even get to see any single fun bit before they are pushed to spending all those boring hours trying to understand this game. So yes, the game is easier, but honestly, if it wasn't, we wouldn't even have the small player base we have now, if the game was even still up, there would only be you high rollers who invested too much to let go, or people who are way too hardcore into this game.

    Back on topic though, Loot is the easiest way for a player to feel a sense of progression, because it is instant gratification : Kill X, get rewarded with Y, simple really, but the thing is, the areas where you feel like you are being somewhat rewarded are so late iinto the game progression, there is no way for a new player to reach that point without handouts! I just think of all the solo/solo(ish) players like Barugon, Cora and what not, who every time they can FINALY reach a zone that is considered rewarding, that zone is now considered "too rewarding" because now even the average player can get that, so it gets nerfed to the ground (think sieges as an example). This is the first "MMO" that I had actually managed to stick to for more than 3 months, but I finally quit (sticking around because stupidly enough I am still hopeful...) because this is also the first game that punishes the player base for getting good. If the top 10% players arent the only ones who can farm a zone, it shouldn't be a zone worth farming, and that's how the game has been for as long as I have been playing... This is why I think that even these cool loot ideas, even mine, are worthless, because that would make the game feel actually rewarding, and I do not think that is Catnips goal, this should not be a rewarding game, this should be a full time job where you are paying to actually move forward.
     
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  7. Cora Cuz'avich

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    So. Many. Times.
     
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  8. Cora Cuz'avich

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    Given that this is the "year loot gets fixed," I've decided to give it to the end of the year. If loot hasn't been fixed, or at least greatly improved, I don't see any reason to keep a subscription. If something that shouldn't be that hard to fix isn't fixed after an entire year, I'm just supporting a combination of stubbornness and incompetence, and I see no reason to continue to do so.
     
  9. Scanphor

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    This, so many times this. One of the biggest reasons I'm hardly playing.
     
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  10. Luno

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    I made a post on may 26 2019 about spider queen loot, telling that the fight was fun but loot was crap as you say, time goes by and we have the same "bosses" in this game ...
    Maybe those who created places like ruined keep, the queen cave, the rise, etc. are not among the devs anymore?
     
  11. Grimbone

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    Who is in charge of quality and polish when a system, item, mob and more is approved to be released to the live server?

    Sorry, but that person needs to be replaced ASAP.
     
  12. GMDavros

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    Can't replace someone who doesn't exist...

    Fenris
     
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  13. FrostII

    FrostII Bug Hunter

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    After reading @Luno 's post above, I got to thinking about how long I've been playing SotA and reading/posting here on the forums.

    I think it's fair to call myself a "veteran" - as my profile in Steam says I've played 15,975 hours since creating my 1st char in April, 2014 - over 6 years ago..
    I've read threads here in the "official" forums virtually every day for years, and have 4,905 posts of my own including this one.
    The VAST majority of that 15,975 hrs of game-time has been spent in combat with mobs/bosses either with my guild or alone, so I have many years of killing/looting on a daily basis.

    So, as one of the "vets" here's my personal take on loot. *Note* it most certainly doesn't take a vet to have an opinion on loot, by any means - just adding the perspective of a longtime player.........

    The last time any "meaningful"? change was made to overall loot was years ago when we screamed loud enough and long enough that they finally gave in and added all the rusty/dirty totally crap items that we're still stuck with, and apparently thought that they were doing us a favor by doing so.

    They weren't.

    It was more like a slap in the face than an improvement .

    So, here we are once again (there's been countless threads/posts on the subject over the years) spilling our guts on the subject.

    Will it make a difference ?
    If the past is any indication, then it will not.

    It has become readily apparent over the years that those who are in charge harbor some sort of paranoia over increasing the value of loot - thinking that we'll all become way to rich and unbalance the "economy".

    Economy ? Seriously ?

    What sort of "economy" is it where you can spend hrs a day and are lucky enough to harvest/loot maybe 15k worth of mats/loot (and that's a stretch for most) - while seeing the best gear at prices up to 2mill for a single "piece" of armor ?

    What sort of "economy" is it where making good armor is nowhere near cost-effective for the crafter ?

    We have no "economy" and loot is ludicrous to say the least.

    I've gone on long enough.

    Yes, loot is a sad, and very aggravating JOKE.
     
  14. Anpu

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    That isn’t the current content delivery system Chris is using for development. Many of us would like such a change in content delivery (QA test/fix before live) but no idea when or if that will ever happen.
     
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  15. Grimbone

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    Looking around the forums it seems like it is a HUGE problem that needs to be resolved immediately. I guess polished content isn't a priority so I will not be spending any more money on this game until it becomes a priority.

    Simple solution to a simple problem!
     
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  16. Scanphor

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    Very true, and probably the most disturbing part of the whole thing
     
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  17. Browncoat Jayson

    Browncoat Jayson Legend of the Hearth

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    The rusty gear was great, if it was limited to Tier 1 scenes, and then tiered up so there was a progression as you leveled. But it didn't, and between that and all the junk deco items, it overwhelmed anything else we might actually get from mobs.
     
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  18. majoria70

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    My question is what is good loot for this game. It seems that is a matter of opinion. Like in games like wow you get a great gear drop after fighting a big boss but in this game we can't get a good gear drop because best gear is crafted only. We miss some of the excitement of that for sure. So what to replace it with? Yes special resources as drops and artifacts but that too started to interfere with the best gear is crafted.

    So resources are good to get as drops but if you limit special resources to found on the big bosses only then those who don't do boss fights would have to buy them from players which is fine and good of course. Anyway my point is what is good loot? Of course I think more gold is good loot. I don't necessarily agree with experience icons but it's ok if that is what it is.

    So if we can't make gear the good loot then how about special stuff and that includes resources but also items that can be broken down to give components we can use? It could be fun to see what we get. Also salvaging gear should give better reward back. That has always been frustrating. We get some of that but more improvement is definitely needed So I vote we increase gold and experience we get for doing things and of course this needs to include producer experience also and get new items that are useful either by salvaging them or otherwise. I also think its important to give those ideas voice so Chris can have some feedback. I quoted you Evil but its a my thoughts post ;)
     
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  19. Browncoat Jayson

    Browncoat Jayson Legend of the Hearth

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    The best loot should be things like TorcDawl. You get a hammer that is *pretty* good, and could even be an artifact in name, but it can also be salvaged to put into crafting an even better item. Now, salvage rates on that suck, but the idea is sound. It was started with heavy and elven weapons, but then just kind of died out. Those "tier three" components were supposed to be the next stage in crafting.
     
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  20. macnlos

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    If I can kill a small spider and get 10 gold along with other stupid crap... at a minimum I would expect to get some multiple more of gold for harder creatures. So 10 gold for a little spider, maybe 200 for a larger and some big amount for a queen. The fact being is that if I kill something more difficult then I'm rewarded for that effort. Let's not complicate this. Let's start with this first step. Then later they can look at others ways to add more value.

    Also, I've logged on and a couple of times was killing those big trees. Hiw many Heartwoods did I get? ZERO. < - - - Just plain old dumb. How about changing it that you are more likely to get a piece of Heartwood and then you need the milling skill to combine enough into a piece that can be used in crafting. << Mind Blown >>

    And if one of you complain that I'm just adding to the "toxicity" here please re-read this because I have offered two suggestions while pointing out this deficiency in the game.
     
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