Interesting Loot Drops

Hey guys! I was just wondering if anyone has put much thought into what structure we will have for loot drops. Personally, I would love to mix it up to the point you are happily surprised ever now and then with a rare item or lots of gold. In other words, I would rather get 1 gold piece with 99% of my kills and then get 101 gold pieces with the remaining 1% rather than get 2 gold pieces for every kill. It just makes it more interesting. I would think this is basic for MMO's but not for some recent releases.

I also love the idea where we will get player crafted weapons from drops. Hopefully that will stick.

 

I'd like to keep the minimum drops decent, so you can spend a small amount of time playing. It's not like the old days when grinding for hours was acceptable - people have less time these days. You really have to allow for a player to go out and play the game for even 30 minutes and have him feel like he didn't waste his time (like he needs to feel he can afford armour repairs he incurred and so on even if he only plays for very short periods of time). So don't change the base level of drops.

However it would be awesome to have the odd *crit* from a mob, where the crit was in the loot drop, and they dropped an extra item or three. Like a gem or something interesting (and appropriate for the kind of mob).

Even a snake or a wolf could've swallowed a gem and you found it after gutting them, so something like that for creatures seems reasonable. For sentient creatures then the odd super weapon (comparatively) or extra bag of gold would be good.

 

The average amount of loot mobs will drop needs to be determined by the economy and not exactly what I was getting at. What I was trying to say is basically I would rather not be almost certain what the loot of a creature will be before I kill it. I want it to feel like a mystery box that can surprise me.

This has nothing to do with the amount of time you have to play in a day as I am not suggesting changing the average amount of loot. In the end, you will receive the same average of loot regardless how much you play. Of course, you will have good and bad hunting outings which is the point. The only way you can get around that is have the mobs drop essentially the same loot every time which is dreadfully boring.

 

Well it does, because the thing with "averages" is they tend to only work out well over extended periods of time. Better to have the base level of loot received of a known standard then add in whatever extras they feel won't cause the economy to topple.

A player who only plays 30 minutes every day or every few days needs to know for sure he can cover his costs, and in that same day (and not have to wait 3 weeks at his 30 mins every couple days routine to find he made more after all, assuming he even realises at this point he has finally turned a profit) or he might start just not coming back to play at all.

To keep things spicy in terms of you not knowing what you're likely to receive - just add more variety to the loot table for each mob, and populate our drops at random (within certain parameters of value received) from this large table. I hope they do this in time, it's a very early alpha still and things like this probably haven't been given a second pass.

 

Scrolls_HD, I like your idea about loot variety. Though I agree with lollie, that lowering the base loot level for the 'crits', would cater towards those with longer play sessions.

Instead, we could balance the 'crit' high loot with a rare low/negative loot drop.. like finding nothing but getting diseased, or their ghost rising to suck half your life from you for revenge before disappearing with no extra xp.
(Perhaps both of these cases should have precautions to help avoid them, like a medicinal herb to ward off disease, or a 'holy' amulet to ward off the effects of the dead. but they should be expensive and shouldn't work all the time)

 

so theres no current loot system in the game yet?

 

It is difficult to have interesting loot right now since the game is being geared for items created will be loot and the game can't support that right now since all the creation features are not in yet. 1)we don't have a large enough player base to implement this yet fully. I do think we could pretend and have better loot to function during this testing phase but on the condition that this won't be necessarily be exactly the loot we'll have at launch but placeholder loot to have fun with.

 

@liquidhope: There is a basic loot system. The one being referred to by Majoria is the player created items populating into the loot table. That is a promised feature that will take time to come online because there needs to be enough crafters to populate the system. Also, no one is sure if they will use crafted items that were made during testing, or if the table will only begin to be populated after launch.

 

Loot rewards has always been a hot button and pet peeve topic of mine since the first days of UO.

Animals basically should have resources matching their physical bodies or activities (furs, skins, spider silk, meat, blood, body parts)...>NO GOLD

1. Few Large Carnivore Land Animals (perhaps after eating a hand or finger) could have a ring or bracelet
2. Rare Ravens could also have gems or Jewelry since they do collect shiny things.
3. Large Sea Animals could have gold purses and equipment items that an adventurer they ate whole or in large chucks carried

Social Monsters should have resources which they use in their home areas as well as any unique items related to their groups.......NO GOLD
ie pack of lycans, swarms of vampire Bats, giant insect colonies etc

1. Always a target of Large Quest Lines featuring multiple steps in dealing with the group
2. Can have different outcome results based on how the LQL goes along over time.....players win/lose and results factor into realm.

Solo Monsters are the roaming giants or thieving survivalist Monsters....which would have items to help them survive as well as potential coin but not always YES/NO GOLD

1. More often they have a cache or hidden stashes around the realm territory that they live around....potential TREASURE MAPS
2. Often the object of quests which reward for slaying would be from townsfolk that these beasts are bothering.

Undead Monsters are basically the dead versions of hat they would have had in life they could still have as loot......YES GOLD

Magical Monsters depending on the kind may have a hunkering for hording gold like a dragon would or be more interested in items/essences with magical properties as a need......YES/NO GOLD

Magical Humanoids are more aligned with knowledge of Magic, reagents, spells, and the usage of them for their own benefit....including commerce as occupation......YES GOLD

Elementals are forces of nature or resource that arise as a result of natural occurring circumstances or high concentrations of resource or natural essence......NO GOLD

1. Nature.....Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, Snow, Ice, Lava, Slimes.....essences.
2. Resources are more specific.....Elementals of various Ores n Metals (Silver, Gold, Iron, Copper, etc), Tree, Sand, Tar, Sea Weed, Various Gems, (Ruby, Sapphire, Diamond, etc)

Magical Incarnations after being defeated have the surviving parts and/or surviving mechanics/magic essences that made them work
ie Summoned Magical Swords.....could have swords, pieces of metal or magical binding essence......NO GOLD


Humanoid Society Enemies basically could have anything at all but also unique to their race items or valuables. Conquering settlements or encampments can have large cache rewards.
These also are like social monsters in that they can be part of LQL and results affecting the realm fabric itself.
ie Kobolds War Mace, Elf Bows, Orc Armors/Weapons etc ..........YES GOLD


I just hope the loot tables make sense basically and are as logical as possible....even in a fantasy world (ehheh)

EXAMPLE
You slay a Dragon (has no pockets or sachel) and you loot 100 gold pieces.....BZZZZZZZZ wrong.
You slay a Dragon and upon inspection you see it has alot of red sand residue on its feet and in between its belly scales.

1. you skin dragon and loot =, X dragon hide, X dragon scales, dragon teeth, Fire sack ....alot of options for rewards etc
2. you travel toward area you know has red sand in hopes of finding its lair.....MANY OPTIONS NOW....more dragons at the lair or other options for quests.
3. you return to quest giver with proof of slaying dragon for reward and further quests possibly.

 

My understanding has been that there will never be "drops" like in UO. At all.

In fact, what they have said is that the most powerful items in the game will be items crafted by players. Obviously, this is 'eventually' although even now there are crafted items which are better than any basic armor or weapons that you can purchase off of a vendor. But eventually they will be expanding even further on what properties may be put onto crafted items. In the last hangout the Devs said that they wanted to get combat more or less finished before they started working on the crafted stuff and they said that they expected combat to take one more release (i.e. this upcoming one, R19).

As Majoria mentioned, what will drop will be items which have been crafted and sold to a merchant [a small percentage of the items sold to merchants will be added to the loot table - the last time they mentioned a number on that it was 20% of what is sold - but that may change - "don't lawyer me bro"]. But this means that you might get the Leggins of Greater Haste crafted by Themo Lock or something.

I'm sure there are many reasons they are doing it this way, but I, for one, find it refreshing and am very much looking forward to it.

 

Penguins.

Slay one and there is a chance an egg will drop. No way to know if the penguin slated was the mommy or the daddy.

There is a chance that egg after being warmed will drop a baby penguin (non tamable for a pet) or an obsidian gem.

 

I love all of your post, and this in particular got me thinking:

It would be fantastic if these solo roaming mobs had complex pathing, traveling daily, (or only nightly) to their 'hidden treasures', and to look for food or more treasure, then back to a place to sleep. So sure, you could kill them when you see them, but you would be greatly rewarded if you just stood back, watched, and followed them until you learned where their hideouts are etc.

I think taking the time to add this level of complexity to a handful of mobs in a dozen hexes or so would be a great start to a more fun game.