Loot, where is it?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Katu, Aug 19, 2020.

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  1. A'chelata

    A'chelata Avatar

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    That is the most accurate statement of truth reflecting the working as intended structure of the loot system that I have seen posted in the forums period.

    This game isn't built around high value loot gathering as most mmo's are and it is on purpose, which also accurately explains why it continues to be ignored. If you want to understand why certain things remain as they are despite all player pleas and logical business sense, you have to understand the philosophy and agenda behind the design.
     
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  2. Glantor Edge

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    How about taking a page from other games and implementing them here? The easy to implement stuff first of course, because we all know that the number 1 priority is fixing what is currently broken (maps), plus overhauling the UI? *crosses fingers*

    For example, new loot could consist of rare Deco items / Trophies (c'mon, we all love our barbie doll houses yeah?) that give a small passive boost to Combat, Crafting etc to the Owner of the house. Simple buffs like slightly improved health/focus recovery or reducing crafting failure chance would be nice. These can be made up of Artifact components that need to be Crafted into a nice Trophy / Mounted Head / Toilet seat / rubber duckie, whatever works or injects an element of fun into the game. Would provide an incentive to new players with spanking new, non-transferable deeds to claim a home somewhere just for these trophies that help new players a lot more than they would veterans. Needless to say, veterans already have a Pokemon complex (gotta get them all), so for sure everyone would want these.

    These could even be expanded to cover entire Guilds, so that there's a bit more incentive to be in a Guild. Of course, guilds would need to work together to create these guild level crafted buff deco items, so it can be a massive POT placeable contraption like a Sun Tower (we already have moon towers, gotta let the Sun get a chance too) or an Aether Radar Dish that broadcasts these buffs all across Novia, infusing members with harmless radiation that boosts their adventure level, fishing chance or something. A guild resurrection ankh would be nice, so if you die somewhere unsafe, you can choose to rez in your guild POT.
     
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  3. Superbitsandbob

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    I wasn't going to respond again to continue the derailment but I think this kind of post needs to be called out as quite often it is let slide.

    My play time this week in SOTA has been around 50hrs. In that time I have created 2 Youtube videos that have been viewed 653 times. One was generally positive about what I am enjoying at the moment, mostly centred around taming, the other was an experiment centred around loot because of this thread. I have had various messages in that time from people thanking me for a balanced view and one viewer damning me as I was making them want to install SOTA again. One viewer said that I don't know why I still play this game and I responded that there are parts that I enjoy, that's why I play. I am currently enjoying myself in Upper Tears trying, very badly, to get a taming chest piece. I also recently resubscribed to the rewards program again as I believe in paying for the games I am playing.

    I also recently bought something from one of your vendors.

    Now none of this is to blow my own trumpet, just to call out someone like yourself making unsubstantiated claims about another player. These claims also only start, as yours did, when you are challenged and have no answer.

    I would also be interested to hear why you think I should be moderated when you can say what you like, including the dropped on my head as a baby comment. My in-game name is Beren Erchamion should you wish to continue the conversation.
     
    Last edited: Aug 22, 2020
  4. evillego6

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    Pretty disgraceful behavior at the point in the thread. Stop embarrassing yourselves.
     
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  5. Superbitsandbob

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    Most of those comments you have made are out of context but that's not surprising. That seems to be your way generally. Someone disagrees with you and so you try to discredit them here. Quite nastily as well which you dress up as zero tolerance but I am not the first I am sure.

    You forget to mention of course that I state I enjoy parts of the game and also that I think it has a lot of potential but there is also much frustration. I also don't own any of the things you have mentioned but not sure what that has to do with it. Maybe that says more about you than it does me.

    In your, quite bitter and nasty world it seems, that equates to someone who you seem to think you can talk to quite poorly but there you go, zero tolerance right? I've had many comments from other current SOTA players saying the opposite anyway and as they seem generally more reasonable, I'll go with them.

    Your obsession with Reddit and "pretending to be" are quite odd. I've only ever made one post on Reddit when someone posted a video on there of mine which I was not keen on someone doing as it does seem to indeed be a bottomless pit of negativity. Maybe you are referring to that but you or anyone could probably see on there how many posts I have ever made. I guess that wouldn't fit your message though.

    I suggest you take some time away from the forums as it does seem to be causing you an issue. I cannot believe one person having opinions on the game could cause this. Delete Reddit as well. It is clearly clouding your mind greatly and you seem a bit obsessed with it.

    Anyway good luck to you and I hope crafting gets to where you want it to be.

    Sorry OP, hope you get what you are looking for from the game in the end.
     
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  6. Fetid SirDidy

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    Maybe Edit title to “Loot for *new players*, where is it” cause thread title is a little misleading.

    <goes back to swimming in Scrooge McDuck money bin>
     
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  7. Cora Cuz'avich

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    FWIW, I hadn't been to Ruined Keep since it first got bumped up to t10. (It kicked my ass then.) I wouldn't say it's a cakewalk now, but I was able to handle it myself today. The loot, however, is great there. Its what I'd expect from a t10 scene. I don't see why we couldn't get similar loot in the newer scenes. I guess that's why I'm not a dev.
     
    Last edited: Aug 23, 2020
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  8. lordbane

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    Elite skeletons in Ruins of Ravensmoor (T10+) shouldn't be dropping Rusty Spatulas, or dropping the same amount of gold as skeletons in Bunker T (T4).
     
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  9. Barugon

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    Na, it should be "Loot, where it at?"
     
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  10. Elrond

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    Ok ...ill look forward to your next video telling us about all the parts of the game you enjoy ....
     
  11. Time Lord

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    Here is something to think about when thinking of changes to our game:
    There's a hidden book of SOTA development cannon to consider when not getting our way in things that may seem obvious that need changes made. That cannon of information, direction and vision is Lord British's personal note book. That book's beginnings began long before, years before he ever began our Kick Starter. Some things are withheld for our future and our future requires we leave certain spaces for our future to fill into. There's also a dedication to long term projects, where if our game is constantly accommodating small changes, then those long term goals may never be reached.

    The direct evidence of this can be found within the following video, as well as other very old sources:


    Our future is not exactly as liquid as we may think it is. If Portalarium shares such information with us, it then becomes thought of as "promises", which if not met, then become much larger problem within the gaming journalism that publicly describes our game to others, based on the opinions of trolls and players with passionate opposition or misunderstanding or just lack of that same information.

    Ep-1 through Ep-5, that's our game's goal, and if everything and every idea is produced today that each individual or group wants, then each episode will be deprived of new content. Some of that future content may be exactly what "some player/s" may have wanted and not because of their personal demands or "reasons to complain with dramatic dosses of passion".

    There's allot of inflation within our game. One games economy cannot be truly compared with another's because all games have their different gold sumps or lack of them.






    Ultima Online's "Siege Perilous" shard is a good example of a tough extremely cash poor economy, "when it first began". Now it's a bit flooded because of "creep". Creep is a real problem with all MMOs, whether it's power creep or monetary inflation creep. So games have choices to be made, to allow inflation creep to take over, or do something about it through limiting hunting reward. I heard one player/streamer say that 1,000,000 worth of loot a week was a decent amount to expect, which he was not able to reach due to our SOTA ways of marketing and less of a desire to invest time into our "crafting grind" as he called it, which to me, I think every game has and is a grind. Crafting in UO was a grind, so was combat stats. This side of MMO gaming has never changed in that regard. I think it's a wonderful thing that our crafting community seems to be sucking up so much wealth, because there's so much wealth to suck up around here.

    The necessary evil in all of this is our game's need for funding. COTO to extend the life span of our special equipment is a necessary evil, yet it eliminated just one important gold sump. Food to eat has not been a very inviting gold sump. So, the only way to increasing our consumption is to go on a lean diet within our hunting grounds. I'm not saying that's what has happened, I just saying that there's too much gold in the world and not enough sumps, so increasing loot doesn't seem a good idea to me unless by this time next year you'd like to hear someone complaining about loot and only making 2,000,000 a week of the stuff.


    PS: (I will remind the reader that our gold's inflation means that if a crafting player accepts gold within their transactions, then that gold a year from now has lost half it's original purchasing value, while power creep has decreased the hunting power value of the item made by far less than the depreciated gold value. By using COTO as a more preferred currency for high cost crafted items, this type of transaction has had and will have some very positive impact on our gold's inflation rate as described in one of the videos above... "yet also decreases the importance of the amounts of looted gold while increasing the value of crafting needed resources from those loot drops").
    ~Time Lord~
     
    Last edited: Aug 23, 2020
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  12. Fetid SirDidy

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    All kidding aside, I’m afraid I have blinders on due to being high level and not having a problem with making gold when i set my mind to it.
    You’re right that it does take a significant investment up front as a new player to get a shop up and running with a commission free vendor etc, and unless you’re selling mats I can’t really think of any lower level farm spots other than for beetles, ore and wood. I think I only really started ‘farming’ for things to sell when someone showed me Torc on his island in ravensmoor. Then it was the rise.

    With gear I’ve pretty much always just made my own. I have a lot of room to improve since I’m not very high level in crafting but you can make surprisingly good stuff even at lvl 100, which these days I’d imagine doesn’t take all that long to achieve - certainly not slaving away in the mines for months.

    As people have said before, this game has a steep learning curve, and there’s a learning curve for making gold. Part of the fun for me was figuring all this stuff out and I actually enjoyed researching outside of game when I was first starting out which is probably why I’m still here.
     
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  13. FrostII

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    Thx for the chuckle, @Barugon . That's a good one ! :)
     
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  14. Violet Ronso

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    If you felt in any way possible a target of my post, please do not be, because although you don't have suggestions to offer up, you still participate in some constructive manner to the discussion, my message was aimed directly at Elrond and bitsandbob who have been almost exclusively arguing between each other and almost entirely off subject, which derails the thread, brings in trolling, and gets a decent conversation locked, like it always does.

    Black Desert Online have this, I was trying out one of their "Life Skills", the equivalent of SotA's producer tree, and one of them is hunting, you cannot kill these beasts with combat, you have to use a gun, called a "matchlock" which has its own mechanics, but is the only way to slay some beasts in the game. One rare drop is the animal heads, which you can then upgrade in tiers, and then turn into furniture, which gives you buffs if you visit your house before going out to fight. Housing serves a huge purpose in BDO in terms of these buffs, but also to do some of the life skills, and also helps you to "invest" money into regional banks that can net you afk profit. Not saying we need these systems in shroud, but having some actual nice Decos that can be crafted from drops other than the heads would be a great idea, only issue I really have against it is that it wouldn't really solve the issue in the long term, it would simply be a little short term fix, a bit like how dragon/wyvern heads are fun for collections, but once you have them you don't really want to go out and find them a second or third time for the majority of the players.
     
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  15. Katu

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    I understand that the game should be hard and I have told my friends that also. But it should be fun? Right?
    We all have different definition for the fun, but this particular group finds it weird, that t1 and t10 mobs drop same stuff and that when they, by themselfs, get a big kill, there is nothing gained.
    I get and actually like the idea, that adventurers are finding items for crafters. How does that work? What items can low level group gather that crafters are buying? Wood, ore, all that is out, because sharing the forest, with 4 choppable trees with 5 players does not equal profit..

    Imagine 5 man group, with new players only, they are just starting to clear ulfheim, as a group. What loot are they getting for the effort of clearing t8 zone slowly?
    Reapers drop wood, but it's always shared by 5 man, so nothing really. It takes for ever, to be able to kill reaper alone. Wyvern drops a skin with serpent scale. Yes, that 15min battle is totally worth it.


    Few ideas, brainstorming, what ever.
    Increase gold output on low levels, to enable new players to get in to the game and feel the progress. ( If they drop out after 1 hour, they will never come back, never put single dollar in )
    When tiers go up, introduce more drops that are more player and economy demanded. ( This creates natural progression of first playing bit alone, but then you should interact with other players )
    High tiers, gold does not have to hugely increase, but drop more crafting material. ( This creates a cycle, that player is used to from other games. Kill mobs, get mats for better gear, to fight better mobs )

    Essences.
    These are great. This has been the go to thing on our group now. Elf essence and troll essense.
    However, not that many drops em. Wolfs, bears, skeletons, wyverns, reapers have none.


    Also.
    I can barely kill EP2 stuff. After big battle against the super fast, huge damage bears, I got nothing. Same loot that the first, 100hp bears give. Why would I be there hunting? Can they drop artifacts? Is there a chance for anything good?
    Rest of the new continent is out of my reach for a long time so, what ever loot they drop, I need few more billion xp to be there...
     
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  16. Powersurge

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    I will definitely say that if you do not have a mentor to show you the ropes or have multiple friends to start the game with, it can be difficult. When I started playing 5 years ago..i roamed around for a month,...yes a SOLID MONTH before I was finally told that my skills arent going up because my xp pool is too low. I was given no direction, no advice, nothing.... I joined a guild and they would take me on 2 hour trips to increase my XP pool..i went from earning 5000 xp per day to 100,000 on these small trips. They were so helpful. It is the responsibility of us players to help the new guys. We might want to point fingers to the mechanics of the game, but we have to take some responsibility ourselves. At the same time, now new players can earn MILLIONS of xp per hour if they are well informed on how and where to go with high level players. We never had that option when we started. We had to battle that skeleton with 120 hps to the death for days on end before we finally had enough skills available to overcome it. I make my own gear as well. Granted I am a 120 crafter, but thats just mediocre compared to the high end guys. And i spent YEARS getting those skills to 120. I will say again..compared to the early days the GAME IS EASY NOW. Everyone wants different things in the game. Chris said it right in the 2020 vision..."if you ask 100 people what they would do to improve the game, you would get 100 different answers". He is 100% correct...The game is getting close to being very good. They make improvements all the time. What i want is more content...vertical progression is fine, horizontal progression is fine. But if you ask 99 other people, they are going to tell you something else.
     
  17. Asbo

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    Well thought I'd just read the front page while I installed the game, not played since it first came out and thought I'd give it a shot. However have just read all the above from #1 to #20 I have decided it is time to uninstall and look elsewhere for a game to play. Shame really but I am not falling for the PTW or feed the egos, so the few will reap the rewards for a captured market and not wanting any changes to effect their stash of long hauled gold while the few scratch around like fodder to feed the above! Not going to happen...cya!!!
     
  18. majoria70

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    Hey Good luck to you. I think you would be surprised at lots of wonderful in this game since you were last here. Things such as a mail system, universal chat, teleport to zone scrolls that are a lot like a mark system, looking for group, 2 free lot deeds from questing, new creatures, quests,daily a music system and bard system, and much more.

    The game is free to play except episodes unless you have them so there can be a game at all. Some funding is necessary but it is a choice to spend or not. For example I choose to subscribe but not everyone can or will.

    I'm not sure what you heard that turned you away but as always with this game we are an opiniated lot. So perhaps you'll check it out another time. *cheers*

    Edited
     
    Last edited: Aug 28, 2020
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  19. devilronin

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    when crafted gear is the best, thinking about loot as worthwhile is wasteful.
    just how many rapid fires and spread shots are your friends using to not be able to afford some arrows, cuz with summon/tame its easy to counter arrow loss doing barb/bandit/skel encounters.
    start a band and make videos with friends being chased by dragons and aether corpions while playing music.
    work together to save up cotos for a friend/guild house, host parties, challenge each other on deco skills, fish for lava guppies.
    reenact the leeroy jenkins fail.
     
  20. Katu

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    UPDATE:
    All of my friends quit.
    Reasons including:
    Stupid boss corpions drop same loot as tinyest versions.
    Dragon takes ages to kill, got nothing with the group. Few gems, yay.
    Game is nice, Liking the idea, skills, crafting, player economy, wish we could lend us in the economy, but alas, 11gp skeleton loot with rusty spoon, not helping.

    Anyhow, I'm still here. But totally 7 friends tested this, ranging from few days to a month, with few over 100lvl characters and ok'ish gear. No rewards, no fun.

    It's a niche game, yeah Got that. It's getting nichier* every month. Somehow, other games, even the supreme UO, could handle that mobs had loot. It was mostly bad, but you got gold.
    New player experience is, that swipe that card or enjoy the less that 50gp loot all the way to the top.
     
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