Ideas To Fix Loot

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Wilfred, Dec 8, 2020.

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  1. Wilfred

    Wilfred Avatar

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    As @Grumpy Krabnevir so eloquently and forcefully pointed out in a few recent posts, and many other players have also stated before, loot needs to be fixed.

    So here are a few ideas on how to fix loot:

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    Idea #1 - Tie all artifacts and other rare loot items to specific scenes and enemy types

    If specific loot items usually dropped in specific scenes and/or from specific enemies, players could target those scenes and enemies to get the loot items they want, instead of getting a bunch of random loot items that are worthless to them.

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    Idea #2 - Provide artifacts and other rare loot in small pieces that must be combined

    If loot was mostly dropped as small pieces that could be crafted into items, then loot drops could be much more common.
    With plentiful loot drops, players would feel like they are making consistent progress, instead of hours of grinding with no progress, and only a small chance of getting a lucky drop.

    For instance, instead of rarely dropping "Ring of Wisdom, Common" a specific enemy type and/or all enemies in a certain scene could drop some quantity of "Golden Thread of Wisdom". Players could then combine some amount of "Golden Thread of Wisdom" (like 100 or 400) to make a "Ring of Wisdom, Common". The enemies could still rarely drop "Ring of Wisdom, Common" to give the thrill of a rare drop. But even when players have bad luck and get no rare drops, they would still be progressing to get the items they want.

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    Idea #3 - Reduce or Eliminate Gear Breakage

    The idea that gear needs to break is based on the false assumption that the total amount of value in SotA is fixed, and thus it is a zero-sum game where some players must lose value in order for other players to gain value.

    Actually, in both real life and in SotA, the amount of value in the economy is not fixed. People and players can produce value from nothing.
    Any time a player loots, gathers, or harvests an item; that item is additional value added to the in game economy.

    The idea that gear needs to break is also based on the false assumption that destroying stuff encourages people to buy new stuff, and thus is good for the economy.
    This false assumption is sometimes referred to as the "broken window fallacy".

    Think about it from the real world perspective. The less often stuff breaks, the more new stuff people can afford to buy. If you're constantly having to repair your car, you have less money to spend on other things.

    Destroying stuff does benefit the people selling the replacement, but overall it is bad for the economy because the people who have to replace stuff end up poorer, so they have less money to purchase other stuff.

    In the past, some crafters have requested to have gear break faster in order to make adventuring players more dependent on their crafting services.

    What these crafters are asking for is a game design where most of the value produced by adventurers is transferred to crafters.

    This creates an in game society where the adventures work hard out in the wilds fighting monsters, but most of their profit goes to buying replacement gear from the crafters. So the crafters live like feudal lords, and the adventurers live like serfs.

    However, the benefit to crafters is short lived, because adventurers will not stand for such an arrangement. The adventurers will loudly say "Loot Sucks!", and then vote with their feet and leave. So in the end the crafters are worse off than they were in the first place.

    So to any crafters asking for increased gear breakage, please stop. Your attempt to gain short term profits at the expense of other players is hurting the long term prospects of this game.

    Many crafters worry that if gear does not break, adventurers will not need their services. But this is actually false. As adventurers get stronger and wealthier, they will upgrade to more powerful gear, and buy multiple sets of gear to maximize their effectiveness in different situations. Adventurers will also buy duplicate gear sets with different skins so they can look cool in any setting.

    So the opportunity for crafters is:
    <number of adventuring players> x <number of crafted gear sets an adventurer needs to be max effective in every situation> x <number of cool weapon and armor skins> = total demand for crafted armor and weapons

    An in game economy based on gear breakage creates an in game society where crafters and adventurers are antagonistic to each other because their goals do not align.

    An in game economy based on crafters producing many different types of cool and powerful armor and weapons - to meet the needs of adventurers in any situation - creates an in game society where crafters and adventurers have a mutually beneficial relationship that strengthens each other.

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    Idea #4 - Get the in game economy running smoothly

    Currently, the difficulty in finding buyers and determining accurate market prices makes it hard for gatherers and crafters to add value to the economy. So gatherers and crafters have less gold to buy loot from adventurers.
    If the in game economy was functioning smoothly, gatherers and crafters could earn a lot more gold, so they would be able to pay higher prices for loot from adventurers.

    The three main improvements needed to get the economy running smoothly are:

    - #1 Add some form of vendor search

    Vendor search is the most important improvement needed to get the in game economy running smoothly. With a vendor search, it will be much easier for players to find what they are looking to buy, and find other players buying the stuff they want to sell. It will also be much easier for players to determine accurate market prices for items.

    More info: Universal Vendor Search without prices
    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...niversal-vendor-search-without-prices.165508/

    - #2 Enable buying and selling partial stacks on vendors

    Players who buy and sell lots of stuff like garlic, cotton, and beetles are already under a lot of strain because it takes so much time to list the sales and purchase orders on vendors.
    Gatherers who want to sell their stuff also have difficulty because they must save up items until they have enough to match a minimum purchase order.
    Once a vendor search is implemented, transaction volumes will go up, so an easy way to list large sales and purchase orders will be even more important.

    More info: Please Let Players Buy and Sell Partial Stacks on Vendors
    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...uy-and-sell-partial-stacks-on-vendors.165516/

    - #3 Make decorations stackable

    It does no good to allow buying and selling partial stacks if the items don't stack in the first place.
    So in game items should stack whenever possible.

    More info: Make Decorations Stackable
    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/make-decorations-stackable.162625/

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    References:

    Grumpy Krabnevir post 1307033:
    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?posts/1307033/

    Grumpy Krabnevir post 1307059:
    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?posts/1307059/

    Zero-sum game
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum_game

    Zero-sum thinking
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum_thinking

    Broken window fallacy
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

    Productivity
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity

    Production (economics)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Production_(economics)

    Supply and demand
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand

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    Edit: Some of these ideas have been suggested many times before by other players.
    Thanks especially to all the players who posted loot fix ideas in this thread:

    What are you guys Waiting for?
    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/what-are-you-guys-waiting-for.165691/

    Edit #2: fix spelling error

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    Last edited: Dec 12, 2020
  2. A'chelata

    A'chelata Avatar

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    So much quality information in this post, @Elgarion @Chris , please guys, our population NEEDS this so badly. So many other things would be improved just by focusing on this.


    Thank you Wilfred, I'm not sure i've ever had that term used in reference to me before. :)
     
  3. FrostII

    FrostII Bug Hunter

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    It's a bit of a "wot", but the concepts are there.
    Now....... if Chris would ever take the time to read the forums (which he pretty much avoids for the most part...)
    Gl ;)
     
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  4. Girlsname

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    +1 especially appreciate the wiki links >)
     
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  5. Xee

    Xee Bug Hunter

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    I agree with some of this for sure on the loot drops and the likes.

    the crafting side I think the current direction they have which will change the way things are done addresses the issue. Items will still continue to decay and require upkeep. New artifacts and the likes will show up in game to address adventurers concerns, however crafted gear will take on a new level with new crafting slot to support new artifact salvage components allowing for Crafted gear to be around the same level of artifacts offering more options and keeping the economy going.

    I think changing things to not break would be a bad move. Prices have already dropped a lot in gear compared to a year ago. it will continue to adjust based on supply / demand.
     
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  6. Violet Ronso

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    Do you have a source for the info on the new direction? P¨robably a Chris Stream right? Curious how it is planned
     
  7. Xee

    Xee Bug Hunter

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    watch the last 3-4 streams :)
     
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  8. oplek

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    And yet, people only need so many cars. There's a false equivalency here between "repairing items" and "replacing items". I'd rather item repair was removed entirely.

    The fact is, if everyone has everything they want, they have no need to go shopping for more. The broken-window fallacy is non-applicable here, because, again, you're falsely equivocating on the word "destruction". "Consume" would be more appropriate. We're not talking about whether natural disasters are good for the economy. We're not even really talking about an economy. This is actually backwards... the loot is being choked because they're trying to have an economy.

    We're talking about whether a person who buys and eats a hamburger may be a recurring customer down the road... or if that one hamburger will last that person forever. Having extra money isn't even that much of an issue in the game. We're not living hand-to-mouth here. I often run around with lots of extra money, not bothering spend it, because there's nothing I really need. What am I going to do, buy millions of garlic that I have no need for?

    Reducing item loss is the exact opposite to what needs to happen. Why bother going vendor to vendor when you come back with mountains of great stuff from visiting one zone?

    Are you advocating for power creep? That's already a major problem in this game, and creating endlessly more-powerful equipment won't help the situation. Otherwise, there's an upper-limit that many have already hit. Again, there's only so many things a person needs.

    Will they? Will they do this infinitely? The core problem with ideas like this, is that they're non-sustainable. It's like saying I'll go out and buy more kinds of indestructible-hamburgers. Maybe... but there's only so many different hamburger types to get. You can't build an economy on that... at beast, you'd maybe get some breathing rom.

    The part you're missing is that, if the item loss is heavy enough, we can crank up the quantity and quality of loot. So loot would stop sucking. In scenarios where item loss was high enough, both crafters and adventure loot, would be unable to keep up with demand.

    Oh no. I guess we just won't have an economy, to solve that.

    You keep pointing to real live examples, yet somehow miss that large swaths of the world operate on a consumerism model, yet are actively arguing against that being possible in the game. Whether players (who aren't compatible with the model) quit because they don't like losing items, or not, has no bearing on the requirement to have an economy. Not just a temporary improvement... but a permanent, functional, ongoing, healthy self-perpetuating economy.
     
  9. oplek

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    I wonder how well the food/potion economy would fare once we make them infinitely re-usable.
     
  10. A'chelata

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    And which, pray tell, zone would that be that you get 'mountains of great stuff from'?

    I didn't see where he said to create endlessly more powerful equipment, he said people upgrade their gear over time, which is certainly correct. I have top end gear and I constantly look for pieces with even 1 or 2 more points in the stats that are important to me. I'm constantly looking to improve pieces in each slot. That has nothing to do with endlessly more powerful equipment being created.

    The part you are missing, is, the real reason we don't have an economy is because we don't have players. You can go to any town in the game, and everyone is selling the same materials, the same deco, the same crafted goods, the same artifacts. Supply has far outpaced demand, because there is no large number of new and middle players buying up goods to skill up crafting, or buying intermediate gear because that's where they are in their game progression. If we had 5-10k players in this game instead of 800, the economy would be in much better shape.

    If you make gear decay at a much faster rate, no one is going to spend lots of gold on 'high' end gear that only lasts a short time. You can crank up the quantity and quality of it all you want but if it is quickly destroyed, all you are going to get is people participating less in activities that destroy their gear. I go through the equivalent of 3-4 essences and 50-100 potions every time I do the breach. That's pretty rough already.
     
    Last edited: Dec 9, 2020
  11. Jikininki

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    Yes! IF they added more patterns in. (and continued to) IF we could pattern all our gear. IF they made all gear dye-able.
     
    Last edited: Dec 9, 2020
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  12. FrostII

    FrostII Bug Hunter

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    Exactly what game are you playing, because it most certainly is not SotA ?

    "Mountains of great stuff from visiting one zone"

    Please, please tell us what "zone" that is.... Gotta be invisible to all except you..
     
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  13. marthos

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    You mean imitate what other successful games have done for over ten years? :)

    This idea makes the most sense and makes the game seem more like a normal MMORPG. You know that BossX drops certain items, so you go there and farm him for those items. It's like running a raid in WoW or LOTRO or any other game to get your tank the really good armor.

    The key to making this work is to spread out the items across different zones and bosses. If you're a caster and you want "end-game" tier gear, you should have to get a helm in AreaX, gloves in AreaY, boots in AreaZ, etc.

    But at this point, I'll call it a win if we just start getting TWO rusty spoons from bosses instead of one.
     
  14. FrostII

    FrostII Bug Hunter

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    If only Chris would read these posts here on the forums, he'd know how dissatisfied SO MANY of us really are with his assinine RNG... but alas, it's only a place for us to vent to each other.

    Sad really..........
     
  15. Cora Cuz'avich

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    OMG NO YOU'LL DESTROY THE ECONOMY
     
  16. Echondas

    Echondas Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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    I'm not sure if it's still accurate, bu I recall that Chris said on a livestream a few times that the # of artifacts in existence affects drop rate.

    If that was removed, it would make them easier to obtain for everyone and not just people who camp and farm monsters then hoard them for resell value.
     
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  17. Jikininki

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    Or the mass amounts of players who haven't logged in for a year more and have chests full of arties sitting in their homes, pockets and/or banks.
     
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  18. Wilfred

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    iwAcko (@Girlsname) asked Chris about what affects loot and artifact drop rates on their Twitch chat today.
    The discussion starts about 03:22:40

    Hiya Novia! Chris Interview Today!
    https://www.twitch.tv/videos/831214894

    From what Chris said, it doesn't sound like the number of artifacts in the game affects the drop rate.

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    Edit - Transcript starting about 03:28:40

    iwAcko: So, there isn't like a global artifact pool where, you know, you've got X amount of artifacts allowed a day kind of thing or?

    Chris: So artifacts don't actually go into any of those things. They're totally uncapped. Now, the artifact, that's one of the ones that was triggering it, because artifacts used to have a high gold thing. The gold attenuation value that you guys could bump up against theoretically.
    ....
    Yeah, the artifacts could cause problems because they had a high gold value. When we look at what causes inflation in the, like what we attenuate, the one gold thing we attenuate is, what we're looking at is the pure gold per person in group type number. So, you know, if you're in a group of five and you're getting, I forget what it is, you know, two hundred and fifty thousand gold within an hour, you know, that's the type of stuff where we can start looking at attenuating. But that gold per hour is based on the value of the object being sold to a merchant. So that's why some artifacts, they were higher, and they actually had their gold value lowered. Because that's the thing that, you know, we worry about. We don't want to give out too much gold per hour. The artifacts themselves, you know there's a limited number of people, but if you, we give out a ton of, you know, hundreds of artifacts that are all worth five thousand gold or whatever, then we just gave you half a million gold. So yeah, there's no limit to the artifacts dropping per hour. Those can drop everywhere. That's just all about where you're hunting.

    iwAcko: OK, so there isn't like some invisible restriction on that?

    Chris: Nope.

    iwAcko: Oh, OK!

    Chris: Yeah, not for artifacts. Again, for some of the supply bundles, one type of supply bundle, there's a cap that ah, and the system for that works basically, it knows how often it can give one out, and we put those supply bundles in lots of different loot bundles, so they can fall, you know, they can drop off of, you know, a hundred different creatures in game or from a chest or whatever, and if it rolls one of those is says, you know, the server rolls one of those, it goes to that other system and says "Hey other system, how long's it been since one of these guys was handed out?". You know, if it's less than a certain amount of time then let's pretend that never happened and don't give them one of those things. If it's been more than that, then do it.

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    Last edited: Dec 10, 2020
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  19. Cora Cuz'avich

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    Presumably these are orange bundles. Be nice if "pretend that never happened" was "pretend it was blue instead."
     
  20. A'chelata

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    What would be nicer would be if that orange bundle actually had the value that they have assigned to it instead of just a small chance to potentially have that value.
     
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