Enemy Loot (where's the beef?!?)

Lets face the facts. IT IS TERRIBLE! The game is fun but killing the same 4-5 types of enemies over and over and most of them don't even drop anything of value yet destroy your armor to the point of making you a pauper after 2-3 adventures is just lame. Why not boost the loot considerably and add corpses and loot to the Madrid of enemies currently in game that drop NOTHING or next to NOTHING!
Lets recap:

Lich 20-30 GP
Earth Elemental 0 GP
Ghost 0 GP
Wolves 0 GP
Bears 0 GP
Imps 60-75 GP ( good luck killing and looting one as the skeleton archers take them out and the bodies evaporate before you can loot, plus only like 1-2 per dungeon)
Skeletons 5-15 GP
Mid Skeletons 15-20 GP
Large Skeletons 30GP
Scorpions 0 GP
Elves 10-15 GP
Dragon worm things 0 GP
Kobolds 10-15 GP

I may be missing some but the point is these GP drop rates are garbage, it could be off set if there was some resources you could sell for a decent profit but the best your gonna get is a iron sword which is heavy and will likely net you a whooping 75GP if you're lucky.

With the costs of repairs and reagents this level of GP dropping for enemies is quite frankly laughable and just unrealistic in terms of playing the game in anything other than newbie/epic throw away gear. What is the purpose of this GP nerf? Can we get a realistic gold boost in R15 as it stands now this is gonna push people away form the game when they start wearing anything crafted and realize after 1-2 adventures or 2-3 duels they are completely broke and have to go back to wearing dollar store gear unless they exploited early on (if they can even afford that). Especially when you realize how tedious it is to simply make 1 pair of leather leggings or any armor for that matter. The tediousness of it actually makes me miss armor crafting in UO as it was more simplistic / maybe not as realistic but in all reality when it comes to a GAME and that's what this is the simplistic wins out in the end, who wants to spend 1 hour harvesting hides another 15 minutes of pointless crafting chores to only be able to craft one piece of armor, that after you wear into battle a few times costs more to repair than you can realistically earn wearing it and basically have to toss it or sell to an NPC for next to nothing. Call me crazy but how is that fun?

 

There's no economy, which means there are very generic and meaningless loot tables.

See this is a player driven economy and all the loot is eventually going to be created by the players - it's a little complicated. So what you're playing now is really just a "first pass" at being able to kill stuff and then get "something" it's not supposed to be balanced yet, it's really not "working" in any way shape or form.

Which leads right into repair costs. Same thing, no use complaining about it. But the feedback is still welcome, just understand that none of it is working by design and it will take probably another 6 months before we see it in a state where you can complain about X monster drop Y loot.

 

I realize this. I'm not saying the loot has to be that beefed in the final version. But at least for now with there being so little to do in game after you get past the fluff if at least people could make some decent gear and use it without going broke instantly that would give way to more realistic testing. Which in the end is what we are suppose to be doing right?!?!

At this point I have "TESTED" being broke enough!!!

 

It's cheaper to buy new armor than it is to repair it. Try doing that.

Also, you don't need reagents to cast any spells...just stand still and you won't fizzle much if at all (especially for death touch). You can then find whatever you need to level and get money from to build up your character.

 

There is good loot you just have to find it

 

Probably the biggest issue by far is actually the cost attached to repairing armour. I have always been very anti repair kits, and they should be expensive.......however whilst there is no other means of repairing items, the price should probably be about 1/4 of what it currently is.

 

I'm not too worried about the loot drops during the releases. I am pretty sure there will be more to gain by following the story line and completing tasks for folks which will balance what you feel to be too low a gain from killing things. It makes sense that animals do not have gold on their corpse for you to loot. Common sense tells you not to kill wolves unless there is a bounty on them.

 

I agree the loot on monsters is pretty lame. I mean you kill them for reward not just skill gain.

 

it's great to get $ from being a messenger boy - but it is more fun (and i feel this game is geared towards) fighting, so yeah, at least slow the rate of degradation before everyone gets pissy or at least give the skeletons repair kits as a drop.... cater to the core!

The Hendoman

 

I realize it's cheaper to buy new armor than repair (this is absurd by the way). What's at issue really is that using crafted gear is simply to expensive if you didn't exploit R14 at the start. Apparently you didn't bother to read the whole post "venger" as I actually said that in the post... There really isn't any way to defend the low drops, to elude there is loot if you know where to find it gimme a break! The basic enemies in the game need to drop basics to keep people playing / testing. I liked the idea of repair kits as loot that could help out some. But also the fact that there aren't many enemies in game and even less that drop anything of value. Sure animals should not have gold but as is what is dropped from an animal is pretty worthless to the point of making them not worth fighting unless they are Obsidan Wolves or Patriarch Bears and after about level 40 those are even questionable. If they don't do this soon it's probably going to be bad for the game in the long run. This is a beta we want people to test it not to turn away in disgust due to enemy loot tables that are so under par it's literally absurd... Let's get this FIXED in R15 people!!!

 

I find Large Skeletons quite profitable. Ask Lord Enmar.
And find the right NPC to sell those Long Swords.
That makes a Large Skeleton 200gp worth

 

For me this seems to go in the direction of grinding which Richard Garriott doesn't want in the game - at least according to the Kickstarter campaign.
I am more and more thinking that it would be better for the game to not give EXP for combat. Right now monsters are in the game just for the purpose to get EXP and loot. This makes combat to just a means to an end. But shouldn't combat be exciting, dangerous and something you have to tactically think about?

Right now it is: " Oh, there is a Lich, neat. Let's kill it to get EXP and loot."

But shouldn't it be: "A... Lich? Oh my god. A creature of the netherworlds, commanding the dead! How can I ever stand a chance against this monstrosity? Should I sneak by, run for my life or try to fight it? I'm scared and the chances are high that I might die!"

 

I think it makes sense that wolves and bears have 0 GP personally. Though you can skin and butcher them and sell their hides and meat, if you really want to make money off of them. I'm not sure where ghosts are supposed to carry gold. Some of these monsters in the final game should also be guarding areas which have either treasures or valuable resources, so they don't need loot on their person.

Right now, I feel there are plenty of ways to play where you can have enough money to continue playing and have fun. Replacing your armor is cheaper than repairing it -- its not necessary to get repair kits. You can get free swords and shields at Ferig's camp. Free swords and bows from elves, free hammers from kobolds. Their camp also has some free swords and shields just waiting for you to pick up. And in case you think you need the most l33t armor and weapons in the game to fight, I'm doing quite well in leather with light armor skills. If you lose your most l33t armor or weapons and can't afford to replace them, you could always downgrade for a while until you can afford them again. You could also do some harvesting and crafting and make new weapons and armor yourself, which will be cheaper than buying them.

All of the game mechanics need some work and love by the devs, but there's plenty of ways to enjoy the game right now.

 

Also you have to realize that the only character build they really have worked on in depth is the tank, the plate mail fighter. They have started on the Mages, but are still working on them. They haven't even touched archers or thieves, or any other leather wearing builds. Once they get around to balancing them I'm sure survive ability wil go up. For now I had the same problem, I like to play mages. The cloth and leather was getting torn up so fast I couldn't make through to the gem mines. Finally I gave in and got plate, now i go through there and my armor is still 95/100. I figure down the road they will work it out, but for now I'm a tank.

 

Personally I hope this is an indication that the direction of the game isn't going to reward simply grinding easy mobs over and over and over again instead of doing the actual quests and such in the game.

 

I feel your pain but for starters this is Pre Alpha so we have some way to go yet in terms balance of all facets of the game. I remember blowing the same trumpet many versions ago. I believe the repair kits are not suppose to be sold by NPCs and will eventually be player made only so the cost will balance out there. Have you tried making one yet to see if this is a cheaper option? On that note I find the cheapest Armour is from NPCs and is more than enough. I only use the repair kits because I'm too lazy to replace my armour and can fix them on the fly. ATM If you want to make loot you have to be selective and there ARE craftable items dropped and can be worth up to 600gps each.

It took me awhile to work out the most cost effective way to have fun whilst testing. Obviously Magery (my favorite template) is not one of them. I also scavenge everything I see, ore, leather, cotton - you name it, its going in my pack. Trust me can make a ton of gold they're just not going to make it easy for obvious reasons.

 

There is no question in my mind that R14 was out of balance. But truthfully, there is no method for people to even sell crafted items much less build an economy, so I can live it for R14. However, it would be highly discouraging if a player could enter the game and get obscenely great armor without a significant amount of game play.

 

Good point! Reminds me of my very first experience with UO. Took days to mine and build a set of Armour -- rode off into the sunset my shiny new amour only to be killed the minute I got past the guard zone.

 

There are ways to get gold sure. I've seen and done pretty much all of them. In the end though this is a game where the basics are you build up a character and you go out and fight enemies for prizes. While i can understand some people are wanting most gold to come from player based economy thats great but being an "adventurer" still needs to have rewards currently there aren't many not to mention even in a player based economy the gold has to originally come from loot or resource gathering and if thats garbage guess what the player based economy will be???

While i can understand peoples attitude of this is alpha blah, blah, blah. Look you can say that till you're blue in the face at this point they have us playing the game the servers are semi live and if they want people to continue to test they need to add more than just some new scenes and 1-2 enemies on these releases. Whats so wrong with people being able to actually "TEST" the game mechanics and not be limited by "GOLD" issues. Look until they come out and say this is it there won't be anymore wipes why would anyone really even care how much gold everyone has other than to just be annoying. Let people test the game fully with little difficulty / restrictions otherwise most people are only going to do bare bones testing or get their hat and disappear again until next R#. I was really into R14 at first but after realizing that the cost to play vs the rewards for playing are so out of sync it makes it feel kinda pointless to help alpha / beta test. If it stays the same in R15 i'll probably slip back to getting on for my hat and waiting for the next R# and it's sad that it would have to come to that!

If the devs don't want to listen to basic feedback /or when some "REAL" feedback is given people just jump on a bandwagon about how great it is to get 30GP from a large skeleton and everyone should be happy cause back when MUD's were the deal you only got 10GP come on get real!!!. It's not great and in fact it's detrimental to getting the game adequately tested by more than a small vocal minority. If you guys can give me one valid reason why gold shouldn't be easily available in an alpha test setting where what matters the most by far is people test the games systems that all essentially require gold to test them please i'd love to hear them...

 

Why would having easier access for people who weren't able to take advantage of the gem exploit be a bad thing when trying to test out the systems they currently have in place? If the game was in a final state I would 100% agree, but as it currently stands it is rather annoying to try to get any gear for testing purposes (unless they are just wanting to test the node and animal hide drop rates or how effective zero value gear and thieving with no consequence is).