Loot Revamp and The Plan

[AmonGwareth]

We wanted to take a moment to discuss the recent Content Update, the extensive feedback from players we have seen and heard, and our upcoming plans.

After carefully considering the feedback we’ve had from players both through the forums and during in game discussions, we have already made one patch to Blight with some modifications to the loot revamp and bug fixes. Further, we will be patching to Blight again hopefully next week. And then, assuming nothing critical is found, we hope to send both patches to live soon there-after. This will allow us to get significant bug-fixes and tweaks to loot onto the live servers so that players don't have to wait months for the next big update.

Some other changes we are working on, driven by player feedback, are:

1) Undead loot. We are currently evaluating the use of coin and the quantity of junk loot on the Undead. We are also looking at the lack of rare drops on lower-level undead (the lower half of each tier does not drop rare items currently).

2) Formulatrons / Techatrons. We will be updating the Formulatrons and introducing Techatrons so that players will have an alternate method of acquiring looted formulas and techniques. This updated method will require the purchase of a new token from the Formulatron/Techatron. That token is then exchanged with the Formulatron/Techatron in order to obtain a random formula/tech. The only formulas and techniques available on the Formulatrons and Techatrons will be the ones that are available as loot.

Formulatrons will provide formulas based upon a category (Dragon, Spell, Armor, Weapon, Blighted and Other) and a classification (Beginner, Journeyman and Expert). Players will be free to choose whichever they want, provided they have the proper token to hand in.

Techatrons will provide techniques based upon a category (Adventure, Defense and Spell) and a Tier (1 through 5). Players will be free to choose whichever they want, provided they have the proper token to hand in. Rare techniques, such as Boons, Bounties, and Blessings as well as Dragon tech kits, will not be available from a Techatron.

We want you all to know that we appreciate your feedback on the recent update and we hope you will give us time to work out the kinks, fix the bugs, and continue to make the game fun for all. Please use this thread to discuss these changes. Thank you and happy gaming!

Virtrium Team

[Vortura]

So people are now being given a way to avoid taking the fight to the WA completely. What's this game about? (after you get past the "I can be a dragon" part)
The WA no longer drop comps and now we only need to sit in front of a machine/NPC to get all our techs and forms, including blighted ones.

Like Phillip always said "Dude, where's my war?"

[Shinkuu]

So people are now being given a way to avoid taking the fight to the WA completely. What's this game about? (after you get past the "I can be a dragon" part)
The WA no longer drop comps and now we only need to sit in front of a machine/NPC to get all our techs and forms, including blighted ones.

Like Phillip always said "Dude, where's my war?"

Still a roll of the dice but in this case it is one RNG not two and it adds a coin sink. Actually that sounds like a solid Win to me.

As for the Aegis and Undead... What? You do not want the Repaired Weapons/Scales/Jewelry? You do not want Crystals?

There are also a number of quests which have you fight the WA and honestly that IS what should be getting you to fight them considering they are the main story-line villain and therefore should be most focused on BY the story-line and quests.

Also the Anchors are back in so the Aegis are actively trying to attack once more.

[Sigi]

hm, you can use lore tokens for the formulatrons now. Will that still be so after this change? If they will be other tokens where to get those and what to do with the old lore tokens?

[AmonGwareth]

hm, you can use lore tokens for the formulatrons now. Will that still be so after this change? If they will be other tokens where to get those and what to do with the old lore tokens?

Lore Tokens won't be used by formulatrons any longer after this change. There is a vendor in New Rachival that accepts them for coin if you want to trade them in.

[Jorev1]

I am sad to hear that Journeyman tokens from crafters can not be used for random formulas anymore as I have not reached that stage yet.

I am not a fan of making it easier for getting techs by purchasing tokens, even if it is a random reward. It sounds like that decision has been made though.

[Darkwing_Duck]

So people are now being given a way to avoid taking the fight to the WA completely. What's this game about? (after you get past the "I can be a dragon" part)
The WA no longer drop comps and now we only need to sit in front of a machine/NPC to get all our techs and forms, including blighted ones.

Like Phillip always said "Dude, where's my war?"

I gotta agree with Voltura here. Istaria`s gifted are supposed to be in a neverending battle against the WA, without a good reason to hunt in the deadlands, what`s the point in the battle anymore? Sure the WA are hard to fight, and often you need to be a good tier above them to even be able to solo the deadland, but if they drop no useful loot, what`s the point in hunting in the deadlands otherthan for quests? I just hope they continue to drop crystals, as of now that`s the only reason I even consider hunting WA anymore otherthen for RP reasons :P

[awdz]

I agree with Shinkuu. Still lots of reasons to hunt

the Repaired Weapons/Scales/Jewelry? You do not want Crystals?

There are also a number of quests which have you fight the WA and honestly that IS what should be getting you to fight them considering they are the main story-line villain and therefore should be most focused on BY the story-line and quests.

Also the Anchors are back in so the Aegis are actively trying to attack once more.

and I love the creativity involved with the junk loot. What I find frustrating is that I have to pick and choose what to carry - I want to collect them all! ;-)

[Holth]

Thank you Amon!

This sounds like a viable option for those crafters that need forms and techs and prefer not to spend days on end hunting when they would rather be crafting.

Thaalia of Order

[Shian]

So people are now being given a way to avoid taking the fight to the WA completely. What's this game about? (after you get past the "I can be a dragon" part)
The WA no longer drop comps and now we only need to sit in front of a machine/NPC to get all our techs and forms, including blighted ones.

Like Phillip always said "Dude, where's my war?"

Could be that you have to turn in 3 techs to get the token.

[Andaras]

TY Amon (and others) for listening to our feedback and trying to adjust
accordingly.

I am happy to see that a more streamlined method of gaining
techs will be implemented, to lower the amount of frustration
when seaching for a specific one.

As for a reason to hunt the Undead, I have always believed that
the EXP for the WA should be Double-the-normal. It would balance
out the difficulty and Reward ratio and give an incentive to all tiers to
hunt them over Golems or beetles. An eloquent solution that wouldn't
require massive re-coding?

A question here, I didn't see anything about the cost being adjusted
on the Master Wooden Weapon Repair formula. Can we get that
corrected? I mean, 4.1 Gold higher than the other forms?



Thanks again.
Andaras - Who read Techatron as Technotronic and heard "Pump up the Jam"
in his Head.

[Frith-Rae]

Thank you for the update and the explanations Amon! I too agree with having multiple systems in game for getting such "necessary" items.

For those who don't wish to gamble on the machines, they can gamble on the mobs and get other drops as well.

I hope if the junk is streamlined it is still valuable as its nice to be able to really make some money adventuring (wether through coins, bag drops, junk loot, whatever).

Thanks for the updates and hopefully we can all work together to continue to tweak things .

[Trust]

I’m disappointed. I thought the loot revamp was a good idea. Needed some tweeking, but a good idea. I prefer to earn what I have as opposed to running up and clicking a button to get my food pellet. More of a sense of accomplishment. Am I in the minority here?

[Venge]

So how do you get those tokens now anyway? Schools don't give them, and I haven't seen any drop, so unless you are an old player and have zillions of them are they just impossible to get now?

Venge

[LOVWYRM]

A compromise had to be found.

Thank you Amon for that fast response!
It seems to me its the first step in the right direction.

We all will have to learn that we need more compromises to satisfy the needs of the vet players and the new players to improve the game
(like Chasing described
http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...t=24121&page=2 ).

I agree that we need another reason to hunt WA.
I like Andaras`idea but would limit it to undead only.
Blights e.g. are no challange for our ubers anymore since the vet blights are gone.

[Venge]

Mind taking a look at the Isk'kuk warrior club splinters. I was hunting the Ish'kuk warriors for several hours, then Aaura joined me. We killed a lot, probaly near a hundred of them and not one splinter dropped, not one. I think it might be a bit messed up.

Correction - 1 just dropped. One

[Shinkuu]

I agree with Shinkuu. Still lots of reasons to hunt
and I love the creativity involved with the junk loot. What I find frustrating is that I have to pick and choose what to carry - I want to collect them all! ;-)

LOL. Awdz you are awesome and a bit nutty at the same time. I cannot even imagine what your storage looks like but a Screen Shot some time would be epic! You have a couple of everything in the entire game.

But I agree that the descriptions on a number of these Junk Loot things are fun to read and they can make for interesting props. *Can hardly wait to see what Awdz will do with them*

[Shinkuu]

So how do you get those tokens now anyway? Schools don't give them, and I haven't seen any drop, so unless you are an old player and have zillions of them are they just impossible to get now?

Venge

You will buy them from the Formulatrons themselves or a vender near by is what it seems Amon was saying.

[Chasing]

I believe they will be purchased with coin.

This is a very good idea, but I think balance will play a part again.

My initial thought was, why not link it into the craft quests (the ones that were turned off) to generate the tokens.

Then I realised that that would be counter productive becuase it bypasses coin.

The tokens provide another long term money sink and also provide a method for players to acquire forms/techs if they can't via trading/barter/hunting (or they don't hunt).

However here is the tricky part. The cost of the tokens needs to be high enough to not

• Create a way to spam 100's of forms/techs into the game in less than an hour.
• Encourage players to try and acquire the formula via other means first.
• Put off new players.
• Not unbalance/bypass all the loot drop ratios
• Further reduce trade/barter

Here is what I suggest

• Make the use of these robots a 'luxury' spend. If coin costs of the tokens are high then ppl will naturally try to find a bargain 1st.
• Higher than normal coin cost will also create a sub market for the tokens (if there were to be acquired from other sources in the future)
• Higher than normal coin cost will prevent the robots devaluing any loot dropped forms/techs.
• Have the beginner version at a reasonable price (new players arent sitting on mounds of coin like some of us are).
• Remove the lore token rewards from all the New Trismus craft quests (obsolete)
• Put some robots in either Kion/Sslanis/Parsinia/New Trismus so that they are actually accessible by new players. The new player quests don't guide any players to New Rachival or Dalimond (not that they can easily reach Dalimond).

If I was to roughly pick prices I would do this

• Beginner (500c to 1s) per token
• Journeyman (5s-10s) per token
• Expert (25s-50s) per token
• Master (100s+) per token

On a separate note.

This isn't a compromise, its Amon + others looking at the issues that have come out post live patch and trying to find ways to address it, without making it worse.

[Guaran]

If I was to roughly pick prices I would do this

• Beginner (500c to 1s) per token
• Journeyman (5s-10s) per token
• Expert (25s-50s) per token
• Master (100s+) per token

Some good ideas, but I would increase the price of the master token or formula (however its implemented), or not put the master formulas on a formulatron at all. There's not near as many master forms as there is expert and lower, so they would ultimately be a bit too easy to obtain.

For the WA:
Crystals and weapon bits are dropping too frequently, lower it.

Instead of the rare comps being on the regular mobs (example enraged maple treant bit), move them back to the WA with equal rarity (renamed to something new). I know this goes against the original plan, but comps for techniques remains one of the top items hunted for. The new weapons and jewelry, some are quite nice, but theres not enough of them to make the desired bits rare enough. We don't want someone hunting for a few weeks and then get all that they needed. Make them as rare as getting say a valkor weapon bit is. Once every 10 hours or so you get one. Then we will see the WA getting slaughtered. The drop rate should also be scaled to the difficulty of the mob. Example: Blights, these are a relatively easy WA mob. Kwellen Berserkers are super tough (spirit swamp ones only. Eastern Deadlands ones are easy too). Blights should have about 1/5th the chance of the average WA for drops like crystals, weapon parts(these are as easily mass farmed mob), while the kwellens should have about triple the average chance. So in these examples about once every 20 hours of farming blights might yield a new weapon bit, or maybe once every 3 to 4 hours if hunting the Kwellens that patrol with Daknor. Named like Gruk, Fafnir and Daknor could also always drop say one bit (the way valkor does), or have a better chance at dropping one than plain WA. This would need adjusted factoring in their respawn times, so if its say once every 30 minutes, then maybe a 25% chance to drop a weapon bit. Once every 4 hours, then say 100% chance to drop one bit.

The above rarity changes would definately need implemented before the dragon scales get added.

In doing the revamps of the Satyr Islands that remain to be done, I would skip the level divisioning that seems to be the current plan, or at least widen it to a 10 level range like 80 to 90 for Alged. I would also mix in some t6 patrols on Elnath to keep it spicy.

Crystals should drop only once every couple hours. The weapon crystals could also be improved by going from 5% to a 10% chance on the melee ones, and from 3% to 6% on the spell ones. Then they would be much more desired. Also, the EXP from eating a crystal should be raised by quite a bit, say 1/4th a level for the average exp per level for the tier. Make them much more rare drops as compensation. The increase in eaten exp along with the rarity will make crystals valuable, thus adding to the desireability of hunting the WA.