Bag drops: rate and contents.

I appreciate there are a great many threads about the quality and quantity of drops from bags and mobs, and also a number of discussions on whether the frequency of bag drops is tied to the number of bags already 'in the world'. It has been suggested that as with other prudent game mechanics, bag drops are controlled to prevent saturation and exploits, however if there are 1000's of bags sat on vendors not churning, the drops will virtually (or literally) cease, as I suspect they almost have right now.

I am led to believe that the Devs are aware and interested and are working on stuff - from DRAFT R56 post via @DarkStarr - Crafting & Economy: We will continue to add more loot, recipes, patterns, components...

However, more could surely be done almost instantly with a very small amount of effort in the loot tables?

Currently the drops from mobs, particularly named bosses and from higher level bags (grey bags I don't expect anything special) are awful and people are getting despondent and frustrated about it. I've read so many posts form folks where they have battled really hard to defeat a boss only to be disappointed by the reward. I've seen posts from folks who worked hard in a Group to farm tougher mobs to get very few bags, if any, and what is in them a great disappointment for the effort involved.

Yes, I do appreciate the view that defeating a Boss should be at least in part its own reward, yes completing a Quest should be intrinsically satisfying and opening the chest just a bonus reward similarly. And yes, the Devs have concerns with economy and money sinks, but a subtle change to loot tables surely would have less impact than slashing the cost of daily rents for Row houses in half?

I'm not talking huge changes here, but I have just dropped my first yellow bag for over a week and in it was -

- 1x banana bread
- 1x Potion of focus, greater
- 1 x smelling salts

Seriously?

 

agreed. Im also really getting sick of the junk that drops on mobs. Ive saved all mine and will probably post a "look at all this junk" video soon on it.

 

I completely agree! The contents of the bags has now become a running joke. Is the fight/resource cost/death decay/repairs at the end of the day worth the candelabra and the rusty cutting board to go with your banana bread and focus potion? There is no risk vs. reward...it's just the risk plus a bunch of crap to haul off to the NPC vendor to then inject back into the process.

 

I remember one Yellow Bag reveal, all I got was one Bark Bread. Nothing else.

 

I am pretty certain this is just an urban legend and nothing in the game works this way. Bags are most likely just a drop % and it is possible that the rate was adjusted recently. I am still seeing regular bag drops and typically come away from UT with a few.

I believe this legend stemmed from misunderstandings around how COTO drops work. As far as I am aware, COTOs have a global server side limiter on the amount that will drop within a given time period--it is not based on how many exist in game. The rate is a fixed amount and it would be adjusted periodically based on population size to maintain the same % drop rate over time.

@Chris can you confirm?

I agree that the contents need some adjustments. I'd like to see some more predictability in the types and quantities--something like this:

Possible Contents

• Raw Materials (wood, ore, fish, cotton, seeds, gem fragments, etc.)
• Uncommon Materials (tin, bark, gem, beetle, etc.)
• Rare Materials (T3 components)
• Legendary Materials (artifact components, boss components)
• Recipe
• Player Crafted Gear

Bags
Grey: 3 - 5 Raw, 0 - 1 Uncommon, 0 Rare, 0 Legendary, 1% chance Recipe, 5% chance Player Crafted Gear
Yellow: 5 - 7 Raw, 1 - 2 Uncommon, 0 - 1 Rare, 0 Legendary, 2% chance Recipe, 5% chance Player Crafted Gear
Blue: 7 - 10 Raw, 2 - 3 Uncommon, 1 - 2 Rare, 0 - 1 Legendary, 3% chance Recipe, 5% chance Player Crafted Gear
Orange: 10 - 15 Raw, 3 - 5 Uncommon, 1 - 4 Rare, 1 Legendary, 5% chance Recipe, 5% chance Player Crafted Gear

 

Nice work @Oakenhammer, awesome stuff, I have no idea if the % drop rates you suggest are the same, or how much of a change that is but Chris obviously will.

Just to add on a more general level to your suggestions -

I think bags in general should drop more gold. A modest, but nevertheless significant amount. I would say around 50 gold for a grey rising to 100 gold for a yellow and plateauing but slightly increasing thereafter. My reason is that many players do not craft or gather. They survive by doing what they enjoy, which is combat. I have read so many posts from players who have really significant problems with income. I have none, I spend 80% of my time supporting my crafting and sell the unwanted gathered materials I don't need, however I fully respect the non crafting or gathering route, I have played several MMO's where I did not craft or gather as I didn't enjoy the mechanics. or role-played a merc, or other fully combat oriented style.

I think bags should drop more of the basic NPC purchasable recipes. The ones I am suggesting are the standard ones that retail for 250 g. For 2 reasons -
i. Combat focused players can sell them for 150/200g, make some cash.
ii. Players otherwise not inclined to craft, may out of curiosity learn a few crafting skills as they drop the recipe and perhaps get interested in a game feature they would never have considered.

 

This is a rather serious conundrum.

There are 2 distinct but related aspects to the problem:

1. rate of loot drops
2. quality of loot drops

On one hand, if there are no controls to loot drops the economy will eventually be flooded.

However, if controls are implemented to restrict loot drops based on time segments, it will be a “first come first served” race to farm loot upon each time segment reset.

I’m inclined to suggest that perhaps *each* avatar should have its own loot table, so loot cannot be monopolized by the few, and thereby not effecting other’s chances of getting loot. While this may seem fair, it is also wrong in the sense that players shouldn’t be penalized just because they have more time to play (and farm bosses over and over).

And regarding the quality of loot drops, there is nothing more disappointing than getting “paltry leftovers” as reward for the time and effort players spend on obtaining the reward. This has to change. The chintzy loot has to stop.

These loot controls should be adjusted until it reaches a reasonable state, and obviously it is not reasonable right now.

 

The problem is likely because there are so many bags in circulation on so many players.

 

I opened a bug a little while ago on orange bags that got ignored really - you think yellows are bad for the rarity? The Orange ones are laughable on average for the rarity they are supposed to be.