Forms & Techniques from Monsters

[Shinkuu]

I was going to make this a suggestion but I am a wee bit too upset about this and other things unrelated to Istaria to say this in a non-ranty way so instead I will just throw it here.

Simply put: Forms and Techs outside of Quest Specific things should come from NPC's and be buyable NOT stuck on monsters.

I have said that before but I want to reiterate it as a very keen example of WHY that is the case just presented itself.

Firstly, it does not make sense that Monsters have the Techs or Forms on their person. Sure maybe they carry the Comps but why the Forms and Techs? I mean what are THEY going to use them for? Would they want to be holding a Tech that may call for their own body parts? It is better that now only intelligent things have them but it still seems rather odd.

Secondly, it is an utter pain in the tail when trying to properly out fit yourself to take on the things you would get these techs or forms from when you cannot USE the techs and forms in question... I think that requires no real further explanation but be sure to ask if you need it.

Rant

What is my current situation? How about this... I need to make some Flame spells for my alt with Zarla. Fine fine, she has more than enough skill and such and all the forms for the spells... but OOPS somehow I forgot to buy myself Flame Damage III... So I have I/II/IV but not III. Well no biggy right? Just go buy it... oh waait... riiight... Now I have to buy it from players but the player base is either too high level or too low level to have it... Great.

So what do I have to do to get it? I have to go slaughter hundreds if not thousands of the monsters capable of dropping it in the vague hope that out of all the items they could drop that they drop a tech and that out of the hundreds of techs they could drop they drop THAT tech... It is a wicked bit of gambling and with my propensity to lose at such gambling I am sure I am looking forward to some massive time wasted searching for this one Tech... Because these guys are Semi-Intelligents they will not even drop Junk for cash so I am likely to get nothing at all for this effort except a loss of time, tons of frustration, and finally the Tech I want...

So yeah... Hunt COMPS not Techs & Forms! /Rant

[Nayuaka]

Well said.

[Jorev1]

The mosnsters that drop techs and forms are semi intelligents, therefore they have use of them and would logically carry them.

If you can't trade for something you need, you have to go out and earn it by slaughtering mobs you suspect may drop it. There should not be an easy way for you to escape this reality by insisting it be sold by NPCs.

You act as though your alt is unplayable unless you have this specific tech which is false.

[LungTien Temeraire]

Jorev1, some players might not have the time to spend days fighting mobs and looking for one tech among hundred of items. You don't need to be harsch.

[Dhalin]

OP is right:

When you need a tech that is drop-only, it sucks. Well, T5 didn't suck so badly, as a lot of times if you keep checking the connie, you will eventually find it (pre-revamp).

But T3 and lower, I doubt too many people are actually gonna consign that stuff.

Face it: T3 people have difficulties fighting T3 Semi-intelligents and undead. They are far too powerful to be fought at your own level any more than you really have to. T4 and beyond can do it, but do they have much reason to go about selling T3 stuff that probably won't be worth very much, as T3s have a lot less to spend?

That, and given the fact there are many, many techs out there, trying to get that -1- to drop is like trying to farm for a Form drop Pre-revamp.

God only knows that I killed hundreds upon hundreds of golems and only saw what, about 30-40 forms/techs? Only a couple of those were really mildly useful to me. The pool is just too large to try and farm for it.

At least with Tech Comps, each Tech Comp is dropped by -a mob-. It might be rare, but if you keep killing it, you WILL get the item. It is the only one it can drop!

That's not like trying to get a tech to drop AND get the ONE you need out of a pool of several dozen...

If a mob drops a tech 10% of the time, and there are 100 techs in total it can drop, that brings you down to 0.1% chance each kill will drop the tech you need, and that's quite ridiculous.

[LOVWYRM]

Jorev-
if there where easy solutions for our wishes, demands and probs
like you use to post here-
don`t you think we would not have found out in 7 years?

And I agree with Lung:
Pls take a look at the tone we use to communicate with each other.
A bit more courtesy would be much appreciated. Thank you.

[AmonGwareth]

This is another attempt to spur an economy in the game by forcing a market (albeit a limited one) for formulas and techniques. Change is always hard and I realize that some folks would prefer the easy way of buying everything from a merchant. But that is not the way we want this game to proceed and so some formulas/techs will remain looted, while others are sold on merchants.

For you adventurers, you now have a market for more of the things you loot. Enjoy!

[Chasing]

Okay I haven't said anything about the loot revamp yet because I wanted to see how it impacted first

I've noticed a few things but only one is relevant to this thread.

Several months ago we were asked to give feedback regarding this subject

http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=23453

Question 1.
1) Would you support a system in which some techniques were only available as loot and others were only available for purchase?

So I have gone over the what was posted in the thread (note - I can't see what was edited or deleted). I've only done this now because I'm seeing so many posts.

This is what the playerbase said (as i read it)

• Yes - 11
• No - 14
• Neutral - 1

Breakdown

• Adv, Defense drop only - 1
• All as loot - 2
• Neutral - 1
• Leave as is - 5
• Adv, Defense, Spell drop only - 7
• All purchaseable - 2
• Money is pointless - 1
• Adv, Defense, Spell, Craft drop only - 1
• Adv, Defense, Spell, Statistic drop only - 1
• Purchaseable and Lootable - 4
• Directly Yes - 1
• Directly No - 2

My point here is there isn't a clear swing either way. Implementing was 50% accepted, 50% rejected (roughly speaking).

Sorry Devs, but now that I've looked at this I believe this method shouldn't have been implemented. If the feedback is to be taken as a representation of the whole playerbase then you have just potentially alienated half of them.

Is there a better way to deal with the technique issue?

[Frith-Rae]

RNG's stacked on each other are never fun, rarely liked, rarely wanted in a game.

And this is basically double RNG's stacked on each other. WoW is getting tons of QQ about this from their new Archeology profession because its RNG stacked on RNG to achieve anything.

And so you're going to get the same here, when RNG is stacked on RNG.

And for those who may not "get" that statement, RNG refers to "random number generator" or the idea that basically its a crap shoot to get XYZ to drop. Its Random odds to get it.

The first RNG you have here that you have to grind for is the RNG that determines wether the mob you killed drops ANY tech/form in the first place. Random determinant on what the mob drops.

The 2nd RNG that's effecting is is the odds of the tech/form you are needing to drop, drops.

So you've got RNG stacked on RNG - which just frustrates everyone because its an "unfair" way of grinding. There's no garentee that the form you need will EVER drop for you, leading to frustration because you can't even know that "Eventually this will drop" as you woul if it was just ONE Rng (i.e. Staff Oober drops off Elite Mob - so you know that eventually, one day, RNG will give you that staff). With Double RNG you don't know that, because its picking the tech/form from dozens so you may never, ever, get what it is you need.

Seems like the loot revamp hasn't fixed anything, its just changed the grind to a different focus. Now you might can get those Ogre toes a bit faster, but the tech that uses the ogre toes - well that's a different story apparently.

[Diput]

Of course, there is always the option of buying the teched spell from someone who does have that tech, or even making do with a different tech until you get the one you want. I am all in favour of not being able to just buy whatever you want - in fact, I am disappointed by the quantity of forms that are now 'purchase only'.

[Shinkuu]

The mosnsters that drop techs and forms are semi intelligents, therefore they have use of them and would logically carry them.

If you can't trade for something you need, you have to go out and earn it by slaughtering mobs you suspect may drop it. There should not be an easy way for you to escape this reality by insisting it be sold by NPCs.

You act as though your alt is unplayable unless you have this specific tech which is false.

Have you ever seen an Ogre cast a Flame Spell? Hmm... Where do they actually make any of these things? Do YOU run around the world with all your forms on hand? No you run around with the things you MADE from those forms on hand.

I would think a piece of paper like these Forms would rot away in the hands of the Undead as well. Once again I cannot imagine them wanting to hang onto a Tech that has THEIR own body parts as a required Comp. I would burn it if I were them.


I do not have a ton of time to go hunting for such things in many cases and what inspired the Rant part of this was that I will be hunting for a Needle in a Haystack with an over powered character who will really just be wasting her time in the meantime. Not exactly what I want to do with my time. I already earned the levels, I already earned the Coin to pay an NPC for such an item, is there a reason why the Civilized population cannot MAKE forms and techs? Did all the Gnomian Printer Presses go on strike?


You make a pretty bad assumption there. If you have played long then you should realize by now that going into combat with an outdated weapon, armor, or spell selection against things in your range or higher = Death. You MUST be properly prepared otherwise you will not deal enough damage to kill them in a timely manner nor have the defense to survive their retaliatory attacks.

So actually your claim that it would not possibly gimp a character not to have up to date gear or spell arsenals is actually quite invalid. In my particular case it does not utterly destroy the character in-question but I prefer to keep them up to date and being slightly OCD about such things it would annoy me greatly to play them with half their spell line-up being gimped.

[Shinkuu]

This is another attempt to spur an economy in the game by forcing a market (albeit a limited one) for formulas and techniques. Change is always hard and I realize that some folks would prefer the easy way of buying everything from a merchant. But that is not the way we want this game to proceed and so some formulas/techs will remain looted, while others are sold on merchants.

For you adventurers, you now have a market for more of the things you loot. Enjoy!

Except that there are hardly enough Adventurers on that Tier ATM as I mentioned to support this new market sadly. To make matters worse most just toss that sort of thing the moment they get it or Hoard it as a Dragon.

Also, with there still being a lack of things to buy with Coin it is very hard to motivate people to spend the time selling things because they do not really want the Coin as much as they really want something else like a piece of equipment, a different tech, or a part of something.

I recently exchanged a piece of a Broken Weapon for Alchemist's Boon for instance. The person who had the Broken weapon was not interested in Coin but they DID want the Boon.

I appreciate that you are TRYING to get a market going and I also appreciate the drop on Fees at the Tech/Comp Consignors (Note to Adventurers: You are no longer charged for putting up Tech Comps or Techs at those guys so please use that new freedom and put some up!) However, a real fix there might be a way to make a Barter NPC where you could give away one item in exchange for another type of item off of an extensive list.

Another problem is that from what I have seen so far the real impact has been a drop in the amount of Techs and Forms sold and I have a strong suspicion as to why. Before you could buy these things so when you looted them if you did not need them you often either trashed them or sold them. Now because you cannot buy them you suddenly feel they could be too valuable to sell. You MIGHT need them later or for another character so instead of selling them you hoard them (in the keeping them sense) just in case. They have become too valuable to trade away simply for Coin when you know that if you needed them in the future you would have to go out and fight the Double RNG to get them.

[Andaras]

Shinkuu makes a valid point here.

Hunting with totally/Half Unteched Gear, or unteched spells
will gimp you severely. Anyone that has played a Caster
can tell you this, without the teched Armor and teched
spells -- You are pasted swiftly by anything your own level.
Without teched gear/spells you are forced to hunt below your
level if you don't want to pile up the DP's.

Note to Amon: you said this was an attempt to force an
Economy. I've said it before, and it bears repeating: It is
Ill advised to FORCE players to do something that will
inflict painful Grind on them.

Personally, if Firth's examples are correct about the Randomness
of the techs dropping, I can admit my fur will be gnarly after
10s of hours of seeking for techs and no clue how much longer
it will take me to find what I am looking for.

Chances to find specific Drop Tech = 1/52million.* (estimated)
*Same odds as mega Millions
Results = ZERO Happy Hunters.


Andaras

[Riaken]

I spent a week in Old Rach killing automatons for the Blighted Claw form and Blighted Scalecraft Charge form. What a great feeling when I finally got it to drop. Spent 3 weeks in Dralk killing fire/flame pygmies/ogres to get the Stun IV tech and managed to lvl 2 classes from 60-80. Loved that extra bonus to my search.

Spending that amount of time to get heal increase V or expert invisible chain helm.... would not produce the same feeling of excitement, but frustration. Yes you can ask in MP, but now that they are a rarer drop people will hold onto them.

You make the new bit's n pieces stuff drop off almost each kill(t6 ones), but forms and techs rare? And to kick us when we are down you make the forms/techs drop of the higher lvl mobs of their corresponding tier.

You talk about spurring the economy? I sold a couple of the new Metal weapons for 10s last night. 10s you'd think I'd have every tom,**** and harry sending me tells. Why so cheap? cause I have so dang many of them and have no room in all my vaults along with every other veteran. T6 crystals drop off maggots in Doom every kill and in multiples and now I have a plot guild house full of them. Master Cooking forms, I'm gonna make so much cash when I sell them cause they too drop like crazy. They gonna be non-attuned I'm guessing. Hoard? My draggies gonna be a Gold Rage spamming no regretting fool. I have all my hot keys with goldrage icon on them so I don't miss the clicky.

What are you gonna do about that? Make bits and t6 xstals attuned?
Increase the hoard consumption of dragon abilities?

These changes don't bother me cause I have all the techs and forms scribed and tend to sell what I farm to the pb. Put them on the connie you say? 90% of them go back to my vault so I don't bother anymore. Store them you say? "Sorry folks plots full, moose out front should have told you so".

Is there a connie that holds forms/techs for a long period of time and doesnt count against our max consignments? If not there should be.

I feel this game is a car going down an icy road, and one little obsticle the car over compensates and goes one way and then over compensates in the other direction over and over and over.


Please don't delete this post, it is on topic with the thread.

[Vortura]

Those damned RNGs!!! They're the bane of our existence! We want an end to this suffering!

What we need is a loot window that asks us what we want! and what we want is instant gratification!

On the other hand, as Diput suggested, have you tried asking someone else to make it for you?

[Holth]

But that is not the way we want this game to proceed

By "we" I am understanding this to mean Virtrium.

Amon, I thought this game and it's developers had gotten beyond the "we" of Virtrium and the "them" of the playerbase and had come to look at Istaria's "we" as the owners and players as one unit. You constantly reitterate "this is your (the player base) game.

I thought the "talk to the devs" thread in this forum was so that the dev team could gather player responses/ideas to specific paths the game was looking at taking. I and many others are now feeling that no matter what we say or how we respond to dev questions, Virtrium is going to develope Istaria the way they want to.

Since long before the loot revamp went live I have been seeing thread after thread from players saying this was a mistake. The game is not more fun, not better, not more understandable. Folks are frustrated and folks are tired.

Tired of speaking up and having their voices dismissed. Tired of saying please listen to us - the folks that play everyday.

Tired of paying money every month for entertainment that's not fun. If I pay 10.00 for a movie ticket and hate the movie, do I pay 10.00 for another ticket to see the same movie in the hopes it gets better the next time? I think that's the definitin of insanity. So do I pay my subscription fees every month, year after year, in the hopes that the game will eventually become what the players want? Because that is what many subscriblers do. They pay each month, have not played in years, but continue to hope that some day Istaria will finally arise like a phoenix from the ashes.

Tired of a dev team that thinks you can force an economy into a game with such a small player base. This is a fantasy game. Why does there have to be an economy? Gene Roddenbery created a fantasy world that had no economy. The whole drive/purpose of the Star Trek world was to explore, to seek out new worlds and new civilizations. And Trekkies all over the world are very passionate about that world. They flocked to the online game and flocked away because it tried to force an economy into a world that should have none. STO is not the great game it could be because it's not listening to it's fans.

Tired of the mindless grind. Grind to finish crafting levels, grind to finish adventure levels, now grind to get formulas and techs that only drop from mobs. This makes the new player experience even harder than it already was.

There is one question that I think needs to be answered here. If techs drop only from mobs, how does a new player even know what spell techs exist, which ones will go on the spells they use and do they finally have all the ones they need? There are dozens of spell techs to choose from. If there is no npc that lists them all, how do they know??? If a player is wearing scalemail to start and never happens to loot a platemail formula, how do they even know it exists??? What are their options for defensive techs for a set of scales???

There is a dizzying array of things to learn in this game. Frustration comes easily. It takes alot of patience and determination to plumb the depths and complexities of Istaria and to stick with it long enough to really love it. So now we ask new players to flounder even more? To have to rely on the kindness and generosity of the community even more?

The purpose of an online game is to entertain, to bring people together to socialize, and to give each individual that plays a sense of accomplishment.

The OP is looking for a specific tech of a specific tier so she can make her own spells. What if she hunts for months on end and never finds that tech? What if I make all her spells for her? Where is her sense of accomplishment? And the worst part is, a month ago she could have walked up to an npc and purchased that tech.

And this all comes down to "If the loot revamp had not happened" :

All these threads would not be here.

Players would not be upset.

Devs would not be spending their time trying to explain away a bad decision on their part as " But that is not the way we want this game to proceed "

Someone in charge at Virtrium has made some bad decisions. That person needs to rethink the status of this game or that person needs to not be in charge anymore.

Thaalia of Order

[Diput]

There is one question that I think needs to be answered here. If techs drop only from mobs, how does a new player even know what spell techs exist, which ones will go on the spells they use and do they finally have all the ones they need? There are dozens of spell techs to choose from. If there is no npc that lists them all, how do they know??? If a player is wearing scalemail to start and never happens to loot a platemail formula, how do they even know it exists??? What are their options for defensive techs for a set of scales???

The answer is, why does a new player need to know every tech that exists? Why can't they use they best that they have available or the best that they can find for purchase, and then have the excitement of finding new ones as they hunt and adventure and being able to compare them to what they have and make decisions as to whether they are better or not. IMO that's one heck of a lot more fun than creating a new character, twinking it up with the best of everything and then power leveling up to the next set of twinked out gear! As a thirty-something barbarian who is still wearing bits of flax that I haven't managed to find upgrades for yet on the consigners I still have no trouble hunting at level, so I' don't think the 'new player experience' argument holds water.

Anyway, not really intending to argue here, just pointing out that there are differing opinions amongst the players. As I understand it this is just the beginning of the loot revamp. I'm not happy with all of the changes (as I have mentioned in the other loot revamp thread) but it is a start and I await to see where it goes from here.

[Chasing]

Someone in charge at Virtrium has made some bad decisions. That person needs to rethink the status of this game or that person needs to not be in charge anymore.

Thaalia of Order

Thank you Thaalia.

Those 2 sentences are the crux of what keeps happening.

*Waits to see how long it takes for this post to be deleted*

[LOVWYRM]

Ladies and Gentlemen-
continence pls
nobody wins if we discuss like that.

Am I wrong: Did not we have to hunt for tech and comps since the very beginnings? And we all survived it.

I see the prob somewhere else: I said it before and I say it again:
New players need a supportive guild, people who stopp their daily routines to help noobs- with informations, some crafting- or even with a quest.
And with filled consis.
We all had that- and claim we act like that.
But I can see its not the way it was before.

So lets collect ideas, make ideas reality and help the folks that MIGHT suffer from the loot revamp. We vets CAN do that.

And this was only a patch- who knows what good things (or little changes) the next patch might bring.

Just for the records: I sign what is said about economy here!

[LungTien Temeraire]

I agree with Lovwyrm. if we keep being rude in a thread, I think the thread should be closed. If some have an issue with a person from Virtrium, it would be better to try to contact this person directly.