Loot Changes Feedback

[definatelynothealbold]

So a bit back, there was a change to the matrix that changed what sort of loot dropped from Yellow Named mobs.

Originally you could find things like Rings, Belts, Necklaces, ect from them that had a variety of random enchantments and sometimes runes. Sometimes you could find very powerful objects this way, most of the time, it was either gear to give to starting out adventerers, or just money from selling to vendors.

Then they changed it to where you don't really get these items anymore. Now >IF< you get an item from a Yellow Mob, you don't very often seem to get a magic item, you can a random loot matrix item that.. well.. is even less useful than the items you used to get?

I started up a brand new character, took them to Cordor, and have leveled them from level 3 to 9 so far, just doing writs basically in order, no major grinding.

I've killed probably a dozen yellow named enemies in total, and found a belt that was somewhat usable (Con/Charisma and a rune) and a buncha junk items like a pair of bracers that give you a situational +2 Deflection AC vs slashing, or a +2 Sickle. That's assuming the Yellow Mobs even dropped an item, more often than not they seemed to just drop nothing at all.

In the past when you made a brand new character, you could kill a buncha yellow mobs in your first 10 levels and find some starting magic items to fill out your different slots so that you had something, they were almost never ideal items, but that was fine, they were starting items and had their uses, and were a small boon of gold if you needed it or didn't have a friend that needed the item / wasn't good for you.

This character I made in question got to level 8 from level 3, and found one item (The belt mentioned) That had any value. Between Yellow mobs not dropping anything at all and the items I did get being completely useless, by level 8 I had very little money because I was not getting items I could sell to the merchant (Because I also happened to pick a character class that didn't just get a big boost in lockpicking, so bashing chests means I get 40-100 gold, whoo) and my only magic item I had was the belt I found. My Cloak, Boots, Hands, Rings and Amulet slot was empty, and thankfully I took the gift of crafting to get my blacksmithing skill high enough to craft myself a Standard Steel weapon, armor and helmet so those slots weren't barebones too. I eventually broke down and spent over half my money to make a set of +1 attribute armor pieces for all of these slots just to have -something- in those slots.

That's even assuming you get the Yellow Named Monsters to spawn, because sometimes you can go massive swaths of time without them spawning. My character cleared the Cordor Crypt writ and didn't run into a single yellow tagged mob.

Honestly, I'm not certain if the intended change for this loot matrix change was to make things harder for Starting players or not, but I've certainly found myself struggling more on this brand new character to make progress than I have on pervious characters, thankfully this is not my first character. So I have a fair bit of OOC knowledge that I can use to fill the gaps somewhat well, but it still feels unsatisfying.

Maybe other people have had better experiences with the loot matrix change, but so far I cannot say it's made things feel better overall.

[Power Word, Haste]

I have leveled a character to 30 since this change and I found maybe 5 “magical item” drops on my way there, and I grinded a fair bit. At least I was a caster, so it didn’t matter much. I am very much not a fan of it.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

Loot drops so rarely I thought the system was broken. Is it actually dropping still?

[Cataclysm of Iron]

That seems fine? I feel like having full relevant items at Lv10 isn't something that should be expected?

I imagine the change was to cut down on the relentless number of mediocre "Magic Items" in player shops?

Either way, treat it as an opportunity for RP I reckon - find a mentor or benefactor with dweomercrafting and ask them to sponsor you with gear or make gear for you.

[Xerah]

That seems fine? I feel like having full relevant items at Lv10 isn't something that should be expected?

I imagine the change was to cut down on the relentless number of mediocre "Magic Items" in player shops?

Either way, treat it as an opportunity for RP I reckon - find a mentor or benefactor with dweomercrafting and ask them to sponsor you with gear or make gear for you.

Finding +1 STR/+1 CON (or whatever) items was not automatic, so you were not getting "full relevant items at lv10". You might get +1 main stat, +1 con and a few dual ones by 10.

The loot system was pretty sad pre yellow mob. It got annoying with junk in player's shops, so now you can choose between 12 stores selling mulitators for 15k.

Anyone, with 0 tier enchanting, can make their own dual stat items. No sponsors are needed.

[Irongron]

This was very much an intentional change on my part.

The procedurally generated 'magic items' were everywhere, and almost worthless, and were making the game even easier. Many shops were filled with them, and I strongly felt they were undermining both the actual thematic loot and recipes, AND deeomercraft, first two of which are extremely flavourful.

That being said they do still exist (with magical shields added), but exist on only 20% of yellow name boss spawn (others are GP, armour, weapon, chest or scroll loot)

In short then. I was really not a fan of obviously randomly generated magical items swamping server, and making it way too easy. My last 3 new characters had inventory pages full with the stuff.

[AstralUniverse]

I thought I was just being unlucky or it was some temporary bug. Truly couldnt even grasp the idea that loot should be further nerfed compared to how it used to be even less than a year ago. I'm quite baffled and I'm falling into conspiracy theories that the staff just really hates mundane characters and want us to only play hawt new inficasters or overpowered melee casters.

As for shops,
If shops are stocking stuff that wont ever sell, it's because they are allowed to get away with low effort shop keeping. The shop upkeep costs are nothing, and owning a shop "just because I can" has no downsides. Can anyone really believe that removing some junk from the loot matrix solves this? they'll just sell other junk.

[Irongron]

We make a lot of effort to create interesting, well written items, supported by a robust crafting and Enchantment system. Having heaps of items that are not only superior, but entirely lacking any creative vision just does not, and did not fit the vision of the server.

Many of our crafted items are stat items. The fur cloaks, str gauntlet and so on. I would much, much rather our players forage for materials, craft and trade items rather than have nameless superior items routinely thrown in their lap by a particularly charismatic passing wolverine.

I did not want these items out of shops, but to reflect, in their value how much it would cost to enchant or craft a similarly powerful stat alot item, and due to just how ubiquitous these 'magical belt' etc had become there really was none. A regular character would need to spend 50k + to have a decent chance of a +1, +1, skill item at a basin, and this system left the very same items go for 1.5k in shops so devoid of any creativity or narrative design they'd make Candy Crush Saga look like a Nebula winning entry. They were an affront to our design and an eyesore - originally intended only as a placeholder I should have removed them way sooner.

[definatelynothealbold]

If this is the intention I find it.. questionable at best, but it's your decision I suppose.

To me, it seems like a unnecessary difficulty spike to players starting out with the least amount of resources. Not everyone's going to stumble upon a sponsor or some rich bored high level player that is happy to just throw several thousand gold at a newbie that they don't know, and don't even know if they are going to be around much at all.

It also doesn't help that a majority of the loot matrix items are.. just.. bad? There's a few items here or there that are workable or usable, but a vast majority of them are just vendor trash, not to mention all significantly heavier than what you used to get with Cloaks, Rings, Amulets belts and boots. (RIP Low strength characters starting out)

I'm personally lucky that I decided to pick the gift of crafting on my new character, so that I could actually craft equipment, because even the most basic equipment has something close to a 25 DC to craft.

Feels like you need an excessive amount of OOC knowledge to equip yourself now, that was not necessary before.

[Xerah]

I can certainly understand that "magic item" trash stuff doesn't look nice, but unfortunately, this does punish melee characters far more than anyone else.

Most casters can play this game with no items at all. They only need an arcane sequencer and they can make their way to 30, no problem. Would more CON and [casting stat] be nice? Sure. But necessary? No, not even close.

Magical shields again an overall nerf to melee (aside from a battle cleric/warlock/shaman -- still casters). No melee characters want something that isn't going to give them +sheild AC, because they can't survive without it (for the same reason most people won't want helm items either, though shield pots make it not as bad as shields). These shields just dilute the pool of items that melee characters actually could use.

Now, melee will have to enchant their own stuff (which costs _8000? for +1 CON/+1 STR or DEX) instead of piecemeal putting things together as they go.

[AstralUniverse]

We make a lot of effort to create interesting, well written items, supported by a robust crafting and Enchantment system. Having heaps of items that are not only superior, but entirely lacking any creative vision just does not, and did not fit the vision of the server.

Many of our crafted items are stat items. The fur cloaks, str gauntlet and so on. I would much, much rather our players forage for materials, craft and trade items rather than have nameless superior items routinely thrown in their lap by a particularly charismatic passing wolverine.

I did not want these items out of shops, but to reflect, in their value how much it would cost to enchant or craft a similarly powerful stat alot item, and due to just how ubiquitous these 'magical belt' etc had become there really was none. A regular character would need to spend 50k + to have a decent chance of a +1, +1, skill item at a basin, and this system left the very same items go for 1.5k in shops so devoid of any creativity or narrative design they'd make Candy Crush Saga look like a Nebula winning entry. They were an affront to our design and an eyesore - originally intended only as a placeholder I should have removed them way sooner.

It was an eyesore. Definitely. You should have removed them way sooner, sure. But they also played an important part in low level economy.

There's literally 0 difference between a generic unnamed magical item found in loot and a generic unnamed magical item someone made me in the basin. The content is added by the player, through the basin, in both cases, if that's the player's desire. The only differences are 1) the stuff made in basins is custom made and wont be seen on shop shelves almost ever, and 2) the stuff found in loot saves a low level fighter around 5-8k gold per item they find who's relevant to their gear. And it's the second point that's important to keep in mind because I dont feel like the over all loot RNG was increased to compensate for those 5-8k gold and it's a pretty big deal for a low level character. It really widens the gap between casters and mundane builds and reduces the appeal to mundane builds even more.

But it was an eyesore, I agree.

[ElevenOne]

I have not played for a few months and recently started playing again.

The first thing I noticed was the loot changes and personally I loved it.

1) Looting now is easier than before and does not fill your inventory with silly items. No more selling dozens of +1str/+1dex stuff to the NPC. No more carts / shops filled with those "good items"
2) Enemies sometimes even chest goodies. Got a Water Stream book from a yellow enemy on Skal and a couple of named belts. This makes open lock/disarm trap a bit less "core skill"
3) Enemies now seems to drop more gold, so this reduced the gap between having or not appraise.

This "may" hurt starting toons on the beginning, but getting an item and add +1 str/dex on the basin is not that expensive so it does not matter that much. We can survive without that extra +1 con in the gear just fine.

My only "I wish it was improved" is:

A) addition of shields.
Tower shields are heavy (8 inventory slots, and 50 lbs) which makes them a "pass" item to loot.
Shields also their main stat is AC, so finding a "+1 con, +2 heal" shield will never be useful. A steel shield will beat most of the random shields, until they come with AC and I just had bad luck on the ones I found.
So the shields just dilutes the pool of possible usable gear and sellable gear.

B) Heal skill is only found in random items, so if someone wants to gear up they will have a harder time. The only yellow items I put on the store on the past were good gear with +2 heal and they sold kinda fast.

C) I would love if yellow enemies dropped heads to claim rewards or a trophy item with some monetary value.

[RedGiant]

I feel the OP and I understand Iron's position on this. Yet, I also feel it has stolen a bit of the magic (literally and figuratively) from low-level play.

Finding an enemy Lieutenant was one of the absolute thrills of low-level, because you were almost guaranteed, should you survive, to get something either immediately useful or, at the very least, immediately saleable.

Some of the immediate fall-out from the change is that I've actually seen Lieutenants bypassed, which turns out is a viable strategy when there is no reward. (I have the same concern here with some of the odd boss-loot strangeness and escape-teleportation, but that's another thread.)

Moreover, I don't see any real change to Dweomer-crafting. Personalized, high-end stuff always required an expert, while low-end crap still doesn't.

In short, I worry we have knee-capped a thrilling, dynamic system for an aesthetic.