One man’s opinion

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Brass Knuckles, Nov 5, 2018.

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  1. Brass Knuckles

    Brass Knuckles Avatar

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    I’ve brought this up a year or two ago but figured one more time might be needed.

    People love to find interesting and quality loot, the problem I think we have is that crafted items are the best gear and frankly only a cpl artifacts are worth using marginally except mabey Dolus and fleet both those are a must imop.

    The crafters benefit greatly from the design I’m sure they absolutely love it. But for the massive segment of people killing and monster hunting that totally miss out on what they actually play for gear upgrades. It is my belief that the game design caters to the vast minority of players in this current design.

    My suggestion to fix this would be that better and more useful items drop where people can hunt for better gear. Also use a color system for rarity of gear, it’s exciting to find green items but blue and gold are thrilling. I know the crafting component it extreamly important and the master working and enchanting process is still key here.

    Side note: I’d love when looking for recipes the ones I don’t have would show a diffrent color when browsing a vendor.

    I welcome your thoughts and opinions.
     
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2018
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  2. Cordelayne

    Cordelayne Bug Hunter

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    I truly believe there can be a happy medium here for both crafters and folks like myself who want epic gear drops from enemies. I personally believe this is a main detractor to the game in so much that some players cannot afford the exorbitant prices of top notch gear. In my very humble opinion, there is a simple compromise which would not only help with player retention, but also maintain player crafted gear. Epic loot drops from epic boss fights!

    The way I envision this working, is that certain high level bosses have a chance (maybe 5-10%) to drop a really powerful piece of arms or armor that is completely unique in the game. These items would have no negative side effects and can also be salvaged to apply as a pattern. Now, while these items would be powerful, they wouldn't be as powerful as some of the +15-20 player crafted gear you can find out there, now. Plus, allowing the item to be salvageable for a pattern, means that you can still use it when you upgrade that item to a better player made one.

    I know for myself and a few others, that I would definitely play more if I knew various bosses dropped a really epic looking longsword or various pieces of plate armor that had a really cool effect. An example currently in game would be the @DarkStarr two-handed sword. I think that is one of coolest looking weapons in the game! I would happily grind away, KNOWING, that my effort would be rewarded with this really cool and rare epic item like that! Let me tell you, as someone who abhors grinding this would get me to do it! As we all know, it is horribly disheartening when you kill a dragon and your reward is nothing more than, a rusty spoon, 140 gold, vial c, rusty chain helmet and a rake. I think this would make the game much more fun, especially since we no longer have to worry about decay!

    At any rate, just some thoughts for the peanut gallery! :D
     
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2018
  3. Rufus D`Asperdi

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    So... like... World of Warcraft.
     
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  4. privateerFox

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    I'd love to get usable armor and weapon drops as well, it would at least make all that grinding somewhat bearable. But I don't imaging they are going to change the player crafted gear system at this point. What if all mobs dropped (semi rare) different levels of chits that could be used at any player vendor to buy gear? *Private's Weapon Chit = 5% discount on any weapon bought from a player vendor. Lieutenant's Armor Chit = 35% discount to any one piece of armor from a player vendor. General's Weapon Chit = 90% discount on any weapon bought from a player vendor. Etc.

    *Player with a Chit of 35% off would pay 65% of the asking price and the other 35% would be paid by the chit. Total price would still be paid to the vendor.

    Meh, just an idea...
     
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  5. Brass Knuckles

    Brass Knuckles Avatar

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    As far as I know world of Warcraft you can’t master work and enchant gear, it’s been ten years since I’ve played that might be new.

    Finding cool items has been around longer than wow if your talking about that part. Uo had cool drops vanq, power etc.

    The color system ok yea it’s well done why not?
     
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  6. Kara Brae

    Kara Brae Avatar

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    In another thread about castle lot taxes https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...deeds-how-much-tax.145735/page-3#post-1176964, someone posted "a group of 5-10 mid to high lvl players could easily handle 28k a day with each only playing an hour a day."

    I swallowed hard at that but it drove home to me how rich these higher level players are and how easily they earn gold. Now I'm hearing that super gear needs to drop for them as well, so they needn't buy it from crafters.

    Who will then buy things from crafters? Lower level people who can't afford it?

    I need someone to explain this to me.
     
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  7. Black FjP

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    You can enchant and gem world of warcraft gear, which is how it was when I played 10 years ago. Theres probably even more stuff you can do to it now since in a game strictly based on loot progression you have to keep adding new stuff.

    I believe kara has the right of this, and you don't need to be super high level to make that much money. Even a slower miner can mine 100 ore an hour which is worth 4k+ gold.
     
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  8. Brass Knuckles

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    Well crafting includes master working and enchanting, any gear that drops would require a exceptional crafter to work this gear. Most of crafting is the mw and enchanting anyways.

    I can invision a sick wand dropping and me rushing to Elrond to work it for me.
     
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  9. Brass Knuckles

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    That’s cool, not really a gold thread and I’m not sure what drop improvements has to do with mining but sounds good.

    As far as master working and enchanting I think sotas system is still diffrent and a billion times better.
     
  10. Kara Brae

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    I thought that only crafted gear could be masterworked. But let's assume that "sick" gear dropped in loot could indeed be masterworked as you describe. That would make the super gear even "sicker", wouldn't it? Making it even easier for the high level players to survive high level boss mobs? So what happens then? Will the scenes become even more difficult in order to remain challenging to these players? Seems like difficulty inflation to me. What is the motivation for a mediocre player or one who hasn't the time to invest in grinding to a super level to even continue playing? I'm still puzzled.
     
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  11. Black FjP

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    My point is that the market already sucks for crafters, why get rid of more of their share with dropped comparable loot.
     
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  12. Brass Knuckles

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    Well sick is in the eye of the beholder, it does not have to be more powerful than the current crafted items just desirable as a rewarding loot drop. Not everyone wants to gather bronze and spend time Turing that into a blade etc. people want useful upgrades to drop I’m sure of that. You can master work lots of non crafted items so that’s nothing new additionaly there are some tier 2 drops currently happening though boring I.e copper long sword etc. you can infact buy a sword from a npc and mw/enchant it.

    For example a sword with say 5 points to the trust skill would be a very exciting drop to someone looking for it.
     
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  13. Brass Knuckles

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    The market sucks period look at artifacts there all junk well mostly. There is no real economy anywhere atm except cotos ;)

    Currently I’m sitting on about 600 yellow and blue supply bags can’t even count how many greys.
     
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  14. redfish

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    I don't agree with this part. I don't think players should know whether an item is rare or not just by the color of its text label. I'm behind the basic philosophy that's always been behind the Ultima games, which is that you're an actual person brought into that world, and that means some degree of seeing the game through that perspective. It encourages players to actually learn about the world they're in, about the lore, and about the items from other players, in turn encouraging deeper engagement in the game and in the MMO context deeper connection with other players.

    But I do agree there needs to be a good balance between found and crafted gear. Its really cool to be able to find interesting items while out adventuring. I definitely think the artifact list should be expanded over time, so that we don't see the same artifacts over and over, and instead some are truly unique finds that players are excited to get. I think the devs can also design things in a way where artifacts can be recycled back into the crafting system, which would allow good drops while still helping crafters (I suggested artifact re-forging in this thread, where you could salvage artifact essences and reforge them into new artifacts).

    I would say that in the big picture I don't think loot is really the key to making the game more fun, because you're basically talking about rewards for grinding content. The idea is always that grinding is less boring if you get better rewards. But its still grinding. So I agree with making the loot more interesting, but I also don't think its a silver bullet for the game.
     
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  15. Black FjP

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    Upgrades do drop, in the form of gold that you can trade to crafters for upgrades they crafted, which they can use to make more gear or pay for their stuff. It's a circle.
     
  16. Brass Knuckles

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    Booooooring.... /yawn. ;)
     
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  17. Black FjP

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    What you're talking about is making another teir of gear, and then we gotta top that, and then we gotta top that, and so on and so on. I'm sure there are plans for new teir crafting materials in the future, but lets not accelerate the downward spiral while alienating our crafters.
     
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  18. Stryker Sparhawk

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    I find the OP statements very generic and need more substantial depth to why loot needs to be itemized to make it more interesting in a dropped fashion.

    One of the draws to the game is the crafting aspect to it, and having greatly exceptional non-crafted loot draws it towards a more generic MMO direction... why not just go play that MMO?
     
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  19. Brewton

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    NICE!!
     
  20. Chrystoph Reis

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    Hate the concept... PCP was a selling point on joining this game for me. I NEED this game to be different, otherwise why play it, when there are so many other MMOs out there with more polish?

    I keep hearing over and over this game needs to do X making it like so many other MMOs out there. Why does everything need to be the same. It's why games are going under because everyone is trying to be the NEXT Wow instead of being their own thing, and if you don't have the backing WOW did... you are doomed to fail as a lackluster clone.
     
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