Ideas To Fix Loot

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

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  1. Cora Cuz'avich

    Cora Cuz'avich Avatar

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    Of course. But I don't see the point in asking for water to not be wet.
     
  2. Wilfred

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    For much of history, most people struggled just to survive, to get enough food to keep from starving. And even today, many people still struggle to feed themselves.

    A person's ability to increase in wealth is determined by how much value they can produce in a day, above what they must consume in a day to survive.

    Capital, in it's basic definition, is anything useful that one can store up and save to work more efficiently; anything of value that one can accumulate to assist in speeding up and increasing production.

    For instance, someone who doesn't have much capital and lives in a poor country without good infrastructure may perform hard back-breaking labor without producing much value, and so they may barely earn enough to feed themself and maybe a few others. An example would be a farmer using a horse drawn plow (capital) to grow crops, and taking their crops to market over a dirt road (infrastructure).

    Conversely, someone who has a lot of capital and lives in a wealthy country with lots of infrastructure may perform much less rigorous labor, and still produce much greater value due to the support they get from their capital and infrastructure. An example would be a farmer using a large tractor (capital) to grow crops, and taking their crops to market over a paved highway (infrastructure).

    But even someone with lots of wealth can consume more value than they produce, and thus become poor.

    So a person's ability to grow their store of value (wealth) is based first, on how much they can maximize their production of value and minimize their consumption (food, repairs, etc.) to save the greatest percent possible. Second, using their saved value to increase their capital (knowledge, tools), and then using their increased capital to speed up and increase their production. As the cycle continues, capital compounds in a society, allowing for exponential increases in productivity.

    Of course, tools tend to wear out and break. Repairing and replacing tools consumes value, so repairs are just another form of consumption. Destruction and consumption are pretty much the same from an economic point of view. Whether something wears out, breaks, is destroyed, or is used up; the result is that it is no longer useful.

    As long as people remain creative, and so can continue to figure out ways to improve existing products and create amazing new products (think of all the amazing things that have been invented and improved in the past 100 years), there will always be new useful stuff to buy.

    Once a person has more than enough wealth to meet their needs, the best thing they can do is put their wealth and talents to work to increase capital. For example, look at what Elon Musk has been able to accomplish.

    Consumption is heavily promoted this time of year, but promoting creativity is a much better way to produce the best outcome for individual people, and for society. Give with an open heart, but try to give in a way that encourages and helps those who receive. Giving capital (knowledge and tools) helps people to become independent and interdependent, instead of dependent on handouts.

    Tom Lehrer "A Christmas Carol"


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    So what does all this have to do with SotA?

    Part of the fun is that the game environment allows players to speed up the wealth creation process and thus gain virtual riches (weapons, armor, land, houses, etc.) much faster than they would be able to gain those items in the real world.

    The game still needs various means of consumption (sinks) to consume items produced (faucets) by player activity.
    But the consumption should not be so severe that players struggle to get ahead when they attempt to gather in game wealth.

    The developers need to balance the sinks and faucets in such a way that players always feel like they are making progress (becoming more wealthy and powerful), but also in such a way that players don't progress so fast that there are no challenges.

    It is not necessary to make gear wear out and break permanently so that it must be replaced. There are much better ways to implement gear sinks.

    One good way to implement a gear sink is to create a gear improvement system with exponentially increasing costs (similar to the current skills system in SotA), so gear can constantly be improved, but every added improvement requires greater cost and effort.

    I suggested an idea for a gear improvement system with increasing costs a while back in this thread:

    Crafting Improvements To Absorb Extra Crafted Gear
    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...ovements-to-absorb-extra-crafted-gear.162414/

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    References:

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

    Capital (economics)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_(economics)

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

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    Edit: fix spelling errors

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    Last edited: Dec 12, 2020
  3. Wilfred

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  4. kaeshiva

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    Think the opening post hits a lot of nails on the head.
    Lack of satisfaction/meaningful progression in a play session is one of the main reasons I'm ...elsewhere.
    Being able to work toward something instead of relying on "lotto winner!" mechanics would make a tremendous difference.
    Being able to actually search/find/buy things on a global market as an alternative to farming would make a tremendous difference.

    At the moment, if you want X item, there's no way to work for it except grind cash and spend hours waiting for load screens and for vendors to load and hope you get lucky. Or grind bosses while watching netflix while waiting on respawn. Of course, you could do that for days/weeks and not actually get the item you wanted - best case, you get crap you could list on a vendor and desperately hope it sells so you can get more money so you can...ugh, shopping. Both of these lost all appeal for me some time ago.

    Key points for me:
    Every kill should progress you toward a goal, even if that progress is small.
    If something has a 1% drop rate, then change that to a 100% drop rate of something you need 100 of.

    Re: Gear breakage - gear breakage is fine, if gear is replaceable. With our heavy heavy RNG/waste system, its just unacceptable.
    We either need reliable, predictable, consistent, plannable crafting with no RNG bs, OR we need a gear breakage system. Having both just makes the entire game an uphill grind with no end. Crafters don't profit. Adventurers don't get what they want, they accept close enough. Nobody's happy. Since the very beginning the breakage rate of gear has been a detriment to crafters rather than a boon, as high quality gear breaks faster than the materials required to replicate it could be acquired. Nobody's going to pay the millions in materials cost that it takes to make something that's extraordinary, when they can get something 'almost as good maybe just missing one enchant' in the bargain bin because someone's trying to recoup pennies on the dollar on their failures.

    Particularly when you start looking at combined artifacts that cost millions and/or months of grinding to acquire, ruined by a poor roll on a crafter with lvl 150 skills that still manages to botch the basics. Its just demoralizing.

    Plenty of games have solid, meaningful crafting systems with no RNG in creation -and- no perma-breaking. It encourages variety and experimentation and all sorts of other things - like having multiple gear sets for multiple builds. It also means you can drip feed a new bonus every few months and everyone goes nuts reconfiguring - that's your market stimulus. Have functional economies too, and alternative consumption methods to make it work. In the 'survival' genre is where you see hefty gear breakage - but even in many of those this breakage is not permanent. Modern game creators have started to realize that if you want to retain a playerbase long-term you can't keep punching them in the face. There's simply too many alternatives out there. We don't need another bandaid, we need a complete rethink of creation/consumption.
     
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  5. Cora Cuz'avich

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    On the 12th day of farming, this stingy game gave me

    twelve shoddy longbows
    eleven aortic thrombi
    ten pots a-healing
    nine lady paintings
    eight scrolls recalling
    seven kits repairing
    six rugs a-laying

    five rusted spoons

    four unfixed bugs
    three gold coins
    two metal scrap

    and not one thing I was farming
     
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  6. Wilfred

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    Yes! This is exactly what I was trying to say.
    Thanks for writing such a nice summary! :)

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    Last edited: Dec 12, 2020
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  7. Wilfred

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    This is so true. -- I laughed so hard I almost choked! :)

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

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    I couldn't agree more with everything you said. If I could, I would hit the like button 100 times. Too bad @Chris can't understand that.
     
  9. zaweraks

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    Perhaps I will say something that I could have said earlier, but.
    What if we remove the fix behind the COTO? (Yes, it's scary, especially for a tank like me ...)

    It is also a brilliant idea to add words about attaching artifacts to certain zones. Make scripted scenes out of these zones and voila = we get a place where players can get together and go to spend a pleasant evening and receive a reward at the end. (Not 100% what they wanted, but ...) It can also push developers to use unpopular zones to use, filling those zones with similar group content instead of creating new ones that do not make sense.

    This will not completely solve the problem, but it will give a breath of freshness in this direction. Also giving the players group content in which it will be a pleasure to invest their time. (I mean just relaxing content, not standard ERG farming.)
     
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  10. Scanphor

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    I've been thinking about loot and I think there's actually a conceptual problem with the way its being 'balanced' that will prevent it ever feeling 'good'.

    From what I've heard Chris say on streams he's using a weighted average loot value to calculate the 'value' of any particular loot bundle. This adds up the value of each possible item after multiplying each by the % probability of it dropping.

    The trouble with this is that the weighted average is significantly affected by very high value items with a very low probability of a drop. Whilst the average value of a loot bundle might be reasonable, the median value will be much lower. What this means is that the majority of drops will be poor, to offset the very small chances of high value items dropping, and players will see the majority of loot drops as poor - hence "the loot is rubbish".

    I would suggest that the method being used to balance loot is the main underlying problem and if this isn't changed we'll never get away from the perception that "loot is rubbish".
     
  11. Wilfred

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    The devs should be able to make the system feel much better just by tweaking it. For instance, if they lowered the drop rate of "Ring of Wisdom, Common" by 40% and added drops of "Golden Thread of Wisdom" (400 Threads = 1 Ring) equal to 50% of the Ring drop rate, the overall loot drop rate would only be 10% higher, but it would feel much better because players would be making steady progress towards getting the artifact they want.

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    Last edited: Dec 12, 2020
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  12. Beaumaris

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    For me, its not about the loot itself, but how loot is found.

    Playing Amazon's New World Alpha I already find how loot is acquired during adventure to be much more meaningful.
     
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  13. zaweraks

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    I dare say that Chris and the development team are scared to think that players could raise a big riot and noise if they strongly affect the loot system.

    But this must be done. There will always be dissatisfied players.:oops:
     
  14. kaeshiva

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    I think for me its not that the loot is "bad" - its that the loot is pointless / not useful.
    This is because of exceedingly low drop %s and global randomness.

    If I go kill bosses and take their stuff, best case scenario is I walk away with some stuff I 'might' be able to sell -if- I want to take the time to list on a vendor, set up a shop in one of the 4 towns people might actually check anymore, etc. This gets me gold.
    What can I do with gold? I can ....tediously shop player vendors trying to find the actual item I want in case someone else got lucky and actually didn't want it but best case, are probably asking a small fortune for it.

    And here's the kicker - if gold was my ultimate goal? For the gain per hour I'd be better off grinding trivial content, mining, farming, brewing, or doing something else other than trying to poke bosses and get sell-worthy artifacts to fall out.

    I think the failure of the loot system and the failure of the market system work together to create a feeling of complete pointlessness.

    For me the best loot in game is the loot that is consistent and predictable. If I go kill bears for an hour, I know I'll walk away with a certain amount of hides, heads, carcasses, and other parts because the actual loot table on bears is small. If I go kill Corpions, same thing, I'll get a certain spread of claws, glands, etc. If I kill a dragon, even if everything else it drops is trash (and usually is) I at least know I'm likely to get a dragon haunch so it wasn't a waste of time. (I wish the same were true for say, Unicorns or the Phoenix, whose food-making items drop 10% of the time or less.) Especially considering that to fight either of them you have to endure several load screens or long respawn times respectively.

    For everything that isn't a skinnable, the loot is well, awful.
    Far too many items in the loot table with almost all of the desirable drops being super-rare.
    All the cutlery and crockery and pointless decorative crap shouldn't drop above tier 1-2 scenes.
    Before artifacts and patterns existed, humanoid/undead/etc. used to drop weapons fairly reliably - nearly 100% of the time - making them useful if for nothing else for farming cash/scraps. Now more often than not, you just get inventory clutter.

    The whole problem was made worse because in order to get anything, players got into the habit of optimizing builds for, and relentlessly camping, scene-flipping, etc. to get what they wanted from sheer murderous quantity. Which is fine for the small % of people who actually have the ability to do so (and the patience). To combat this, we added artifact combinability, making the whole situation worse in that now not only do I need a Sage's Sash, I need dozens of them, possibly hundreds once you throw in crafting RNG, and after millions in gold spent (not to mention hours/days searching, shopping, or farming) the darn thing isn't even mine forever, its going to break? Really? You see how the road starts leading to 'why bother'.

    I would suggest:
    • Stop the super-rare nonsense for desired items (ie artis). Replace with incremental system as suggested many times over the years (and again in the OP of this thread). Either use crafting mechanism to create artifact or add some sort of faction trade in system and add various currency drops as appropriate. However it is done, end result needs to be: I want a particular item, I can go to a particular scene and make progress toward that item even in a short gameplay session. None of this farmed-8-hours-got-nothing-maybe-tomorrow nonsense.
    • Same monsters have low (existing) chance to drop common version of specific artifacts for the whole 'yay' moment if you want rare jackpots
    • Fix wyvern haunch, unicorn meat and phoenix talon to drop every time as with dragon haunches so when you open the corpse and get crap all, you at least get some meat.
    • Remove all crap (housewares, fruit, etc.) from loot table and loot bags. In the old days, if you wanted that stuff to decorate, you had to hunt for it and pick it up in the world, like off of tables and such. Makes no sense that monsters are carrying it around - original system was better. I'd even say get rid of the pointless 'stealing and the guard comes' mechanics - didn't add anything to the game, didn't add a meaningful cash sink just added annoyance to getting deco.
    • Streamline loot tables so that particular monster types have limited loot subsets and adjust values if needed to allow for higher consistency. Then players know what they're likely to walk away with if they fight 'these creatures' and can decide if its worth the time. Watch the stuff that players don't bother with and tweak accordingly.
    • Keep ultra rarity on trophy drops or other purely aesthetic/cosmetic items.
    This should at least be a start on making going and killing stuff feel more satisfying/consistent.
    If you tell me I need to kill the Phoenix 100 times to get Shiny Phoenix Only Artifact of Shinyness, that's something I can go work on. And I'm happy to kill it 100 times if I know at the end of it, I will get Shiny Artifact of Shinyness. Where our current system fails is that I can kill it 100, 500, 1000 times and most likely walk away with nothing whatsoever, or best case, a handful of artifacts I can sell for a bit of gold that I could have gotten far more quickly doing just about anything else.
     
  15. King Robert

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    YEARS ago when I would make runs in the Rise mage room I would be sooooo happy because I would get artifacts and loot! And tons of xp. I cannot recall being even modestly interested in anything I looted since then. All I loot is trash I throw into my bank and once every few months I sell the crap to an NPC vendor. I LOVE this game and have spent countless hours happily grinding for XP. But loot is nonexistent (has been for years) and with the soft cap I frankly have little reason to play anymore. Which makes me sad. I respectfully request the devs stop worrying about theoretical problems (e.g., too much loot or toons with too much power vs new players) and solve the only problem a game designer must solve, viz., that players enjoy the game. Let us have fun, which means we gain power and wealth by playing. It is simple frankly - politics aside, let the free market work. Those who play well and gain levels should have markedly more power and wealth than those whom elect otherwise. Please, @Chris I beg of you - allow us to have fun by earning loot and power. If I want to be so strong I can solo anything, let me earn that. Because that means I am playing your game. A lot. And having fun. And paying for the game. Which pays @Chris and his dev team for their hard work.

    No reasoned argument exists against allowing power and wealth to be increased by playing. Without a reward for playing, what is the point? Those of us who purchased pledges (or multiple ones) deserve to have a reason to keep playing the game we love and funded. But it must be rewarding. I told another player the other day I would likely never level up again. Because it takes sooooo much XP - and that made me sad. I want to get my air tree to 200 in each skill. Because it would be awesome and an accomplishment. But the power delta makes the billions of xp not worth it. And that friends is SOTA’s death. Playing is not rewarding so fewer and fewer players keep playing. An arcade game is fun, but this game was supposed to be more. About building a toon, increasing gear and power over years. Decorating your town. Etc. A long term investment in an avatar. But that investment must pay dividends. Without more power and loot, I have less and less incentive to play. Which again makes me sad.

    Because I love SOTA. Playing reminds me of Ultima, conversations with Richard about the future of SOTA and fun times with great people I have met in game.

    I beg you to exponentially increase loot, and kill the absurd soft cap and reward exponentially XP earning. Remember how fun getting GM’s was guys? I miss that. Make level 150 skills LM (Legendary Master) which gives you a huge power bump. Then people have reason to play hours with friends slaying mobs and looting powerful artifacts. You know, playing SOTA and having fun.
     
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  16. Arkah EMPstrike

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    Had a guildy talk about this and i agree, and i think they took soem small steps twards this with combining artifacts. A good example is the death emtal slimes, which drop common artifacts at a really decent rate, but you still wanna trade with people because of the ammount of artifacts it can drop, may still take a while to get the ones you want to combine.


    I think this is a bigger issue at the moment as to why loot doesnt feel super great. The market needs to be made more readily accessible so that you dont have to spend a huge ammount of time finding a buyer or seller for your goods, and the goods themselves need to have mroe value in USE, which the thread @Elgarion started will hopefully set in motion with the new crafting changes that are on the way.
     
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  17. Justiciar

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    There are a few things that are very broken with loot:
    1. There are totally useless items such as 3-minute foods and farming implements that appear in regular loot as well as rusty/valueless tableware. These should be eliminated from loot. Why would a lich be carrying a plow into combat?
    2. The idea to spawn based on items in existence is interesting but ultimately counterproductive as the less useful items (or non-useful items) will be cloned at a huge rate, resulting in a permanent market glut.
    3. There is far too much reliance on the RNG, ESPECIALLY for bundles. I don't mind 1 chance in a million of getting a deed but getting 3-minute food, regular potions, and repair kits in a blue bundle is essentially a big middle finger to players.
    4. @King Robert Where SOTA fails is that it has yet to find a way to support high-level players. An XP cap can be justified but it must be based on the area you're in. If you're in a higher-tier area, you should get better xp and a higher xp cap if one exists. Most games simply limit XP gain by making it impossible to do enough to generate that xp in the first place, or have unlimited levels, which SOTA does not. The other problem is that most skills have pathetic gain after about level 120. In other words, level 160 isn't really that much better than level 120 everything for most skills, so at that point you're focusing on gear instead of playing, which is bad. For Crafting, the 95% hard success cap is ludicrous. Yes, this can sort of be justified in an old game with pencil, paper, and polyhedral dice, but not with computers where you can have a 0.0001 failure rate. That is, players first need a reason to reach high levels, then the ability to reach them, then a challenge to reach them. For adventuring skills the first is weak and the second is weaker. For crafting the first is non-existent and the second is iffy. Which reminds me, having level 200 if 100 is "Grand Master" is rather silly. Just eliminate the names and keep it at levels.
    5. I'm not sure how the RNG system for treasure is implemented, but a bias/plus system would be nice. That is, each set of loot has a bias for being of (a) certain type(s) and a modifier to the roll(s). So a higher tier monster has a higher probability of generating good items and a lower or zero probability of generating crap. I don't mind not getting a Shiny Orb of Shininess during a session if I have at least a reasonable amount of loot I can sell/trade.
     
    Last edited: Dec 18, 2020
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  18. Jikininki

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    Totally read that to the tune. Also it'll be stuck in my head every time I'm farming XD How many bits to get @Chris to sing this on stream?:D
     
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