Why Full Looting Is Not Used Frequently.

From UO to today's MMO's, gear has become more and more the goal in character development.
Some gear would require raiding weekly, killing bosses with full groups and just being dependent on RNG for the correct drops.
It could take weeks to months to get top end gear. Hours and hours of game time.
In UO, the gear was simple (Pre AOS)



Player Crafted Grandmaster Quality would fall between Might and Force for weapons and Guarding and Hardening for Armor. I believe the durability on said items was also between Substantial and Massive.
I can't remember the Accuracy, but I believe It also would fall between surpassingly and Eminently.

So basically, in terms of damage, Ruin < Might < GM Crafted < Force < Power < Vanquishing
So a vanquishing Broadsword might do +5 more damage than a GM Broadsword. (Not a big deal)

Example of Gear in current MMO's.



Just looking at these 2 lightsabers from SWTOR, the damage difference is about 50 pts ! And thats is only 1 tier difference (162 to 168 rating). Guess how the damage of a 20 rated lightsaber (that you would pick up early in leveling) would compare to a 168 lol. And this only factors in one item property, damage.

Also the difficulty in obtaining these weapons takes a good amount of effort. Running through a raid with a full group of people all competing for the same weapon drop. Could take you weeks to acquire that item.

Looking at these 2 examples, the difference in loss of even a vanq sword compared with the loss of one of these lightsabers to looting would be horrific.

Now SotA will not have simple gear. Darkstarr has stated this. The gear might not be as extreme as in SWTOR, but it will be nowhere near as simplified as early UO. Could you stand losing a weapon, like one of these lightsabers, due to looting? Because you were outnumbered 10-1 ? or lagged ? You want to spend another 2 weeks grinding for top gear every time you die?

In UO, I mostly PvPed in GM gear. If I looted a force or higher weapon, i might use that for the day till it was looted. However, even if they took all my GM armor and weapons on my corpse, that might set you back 15-20 mins of hunting troll to gather enough gold to re-equip from a GM Smith at the Brit Forge. Some even purchased multiple sets of GM wares to keep in stock. You lost your vanq sword? Ok, you might be sad for a few minutes, but losing tha +5 damage advantage didn't make you quit the game. You could find magic items with a little PvE effort or find some affordable options on vendor. Gold was pretty easy to obtain.

PvE is different, you don't worry about being fair to a troll, but in PvP you need more balance in terms of gear to make sure everyone is near equal ground. If you had a rated 169 sword vs 2 people with rated 10 swords, you probably would just cut through them like butter. And real opponents tend to get a bit more upset and complain then an AI Troll.

This is also the reason why some MMO split gear into PvP and PvE. PvPers don't want to be forced to do raids to acquire the best gear to compete in their preferred play style of PvP. Likewise, PvEers don't want to be forced to PvP to get the BIS (best in slot) items to improve their performance in raids.

What if you are a solo PvPer, don't belong to a large guild or your small group can't finish top end PvE content for gear? That guy is gonna get frustrated and quit the game.

Ideally, if you want full loot or 50% looting rights, then SotA would have to have PvP gear similar in value to early UO GM gear. You die and find a crafter to get their basic weapons and armor to then return to the battle. You lose some time, but not weeks !

I had suggested before, if u want full loot, have crafters make basic PvP gear (easy to afford and replace).
And for PvE, who cares, do what you want because PvE gear can't be used in PvP.

PvP is best when its fair in terms of gear and outcomes depend more on tactics and skill.

I hope this history lesson explains why looting of players (either from other players or monsters) is difficult to implement.

*** A few posts down, Primerib posted an excellent reply about how MMO's use the gear grind to their advantage. Another reason why gear has changed so much from early UO ***

 

Love of gear is the root of all evil.

I think the devs intent in SotA is to flatten the curve on gear so that you don't get such a large variation between weapons, because it is the player that should determine the outcome of a fight, not their gear.

 

Question is, nowadays, would most of the player base be happy with the simplicity of early UO gear, complex gear like SotA, or both?

I know, for example, Mishri enjoys the gear grind of MMO's and getting the next great weapon etc and that is ok, heck even I enjoy it at times. But don't force to me to grind both PvE and PvP sets lol.

 

Maybe for PvP. At the core essence if you stripped two Avatars naked and engaged in fisticuffs they should be more or less equal (minus any passive effects from skills) so that the usual skill and RNG can decide the outcome.

In PvE, strip the Avatar naked and have them engage in fisticuffs with an equally naked dragon, and the Avatar should become a snack for said dragon as in PvE encounters the natural power of some of the Opposition is on scales above the Avatar. *boom boom tish!* So there is required to be some way of raising the power level of the Avatar to be able to take on those opponents, which is typically through gear and consumables.

 

Not mega enough.

I'd rather the player was the victor on their own wits and not because of stacked gear. But if everything's run of the mill what's really worth looting but cash? Maybe some reagents you're running low on or a potion that might come in handy...but the rest would just be cheap stock with little resale value or pure bragging rights. Running around in underwear from a loot perspective doesn't sound fun either; especially if you win a hard battle and get nothing because of it.

For me personally what's on the line isn't really all that important; I fight to win - not because I find risking death or being interrupted or the unknown of what the other guy is carrying "exciting." Losing is a disappointing outcome but everyone has to expect it whether they like it or not. Whether it's against a person or a mob is only relevant if the mobs are too easy.

 

Damage should be flattened for both PvP and PvE.

Do want to be known as Gunga Din, or as the guy who owns the sword named Avenger?

 

Remember how boring his fights were?

 

I hope so. That would be great. More realistic as well.

 

PvE gear can not be used in PvP, but it can be looted by mobs. This may be the first game that has separate gear that can both be looted.

It tickles me

 

Where do you get this?

From the mega post:

PvP gear is just PvE with extras added. I see no where stated that it can't be used in PvE, or where unmodified PvE gear can't be used in PvP, unless I've missed something.

 

I honestly have no clue how they are handling gear, only that Darkstar stated it would not be simplified to the extent of early UO.

 

Gear tiers exist in WoW for 4 reasons:
1) Bragging rights
2) To force you to do most of the content, progression
3) To allow really good players to skip some of the progression, so if progression is: quest->dungeon->heroic dungeon->raid-> heroic raid, the better player might need only a piece or two to make the jump to the next tier of content. So average or even poor players can eventually do the same content as the best, but they need to grind longer and outgear it.
4) To force you to buy the expansion because the old stuff is just obsolete

The downsides of gear progression are:
1) It takes skill out of PvP
2) It trivializes old PvE content (dungeons / raids)
3) It trivializes old PvE content (huge sections of the world map)
4) Also huge areas of the map are inaccessible to lower levels.
5) Everyone ends up with basically the same gear (this is mitigated by allowing gear reskins)
6) Lower tier gear, mats, and crafting can become useless economically

Bragging rights are important and need to be maintained. If there are PvE progression tiers, Warhammer's ward system worked really well, allowing you to unlock progression without exponentially better gear. So the last piece that's missing is that if you have 5 or 10 man instanced PvE content, how do you make it an appropriate challenge for both a very strong guild group and a PUG group? And I think a better way is to have "hard mode" achievements of some kind. I know Warhammer, WoW, RIFT, etc. have all gone this route.

I understand your point. But...envy, lust, greed, etc. are simply awesome motivators for humans. And it's great that you want to play a character who's not interested in that. But I think players coveting cool looking gear makes the game much better, not worse. I will be happy playing a shepherd in beat up robes...selling fancy underwear to those who want it.

 

Thanks Primerib, wanted to mention those facts as well, but my fingers were cramping lol.

 

It's not a matter of what kind of char I'm playing; I don't want the game screwed up with yet another gear grind.

 

Sorry, I got it from this mega post (Gunga's)...4 paragraphs up from the bottom, last sentence.

 

Gunga Din, I think what you say is true in regards to the value/differential of items and how that changes how people view them. However, I can speak for myself and say that wasn't really the root of my dislike for PvP. And when I say dislike, it's that I personally don't like it, not that I don't think others shouldn't have a great time with it. I was one of those people who tried UO when it first came out and was constantly ganked and looted the minute I left town. It made for a very unpleasant experience and other than a little time with WoW, I've never played another online game due to the negativity of the experience.

 

Aye, my first 10 days in UO, the same happened to me. Dying out of east brit to tamer's dragons etc. I wasn't sure If even I would continue, but then something unexpected happened.

This guy standing next to me at the brit bank typed over his head *Taizong is attacking you*. ( In attack mode and moving towards me using the same color font you would expect.).

So, I attempted to defend myself, forgetting about guard rules, and bang ! i was dead and everyone at the bank looted me. I just had to laugh. So I went up to the guy and asked how he was able to con me into attacking him. He explained what he did and we chatted for awhile. Soon after , he saw I was just having a laugh and he returned all my gear with extra stuff.

My first online friend to be exact. He then went on to advise me and teach me to survive the treacherous lands. Got me into a guild and the rest is...history.

I'm pretty competitive anyway, so I probably would have adapted, but I could see how others wouldn't want to go through all that trouble. I introduced a few friend to UO but most didn't like the aspect of PKers.

Again, I've written posts before on why Consensual PvP must exist and do not wish negative experience to anyone. But I totally understand your point of view.

I just started to enjoy the danger more, once I knew how to soften the blow lol.

 

That happened to me too (the *attacking* thing). Another good scam was naming your character like a lizard man "thsliss" then polymorphing into a lizard man during a lizard/rat man Brit attack.

 

The good ol "xxxxx is attacking you" was my go to back in the day.

 

You used that on all the women, didn't you