Loot Revamp and The Plan

[Frith-Rae]

Sorry Firth-Rae but I understood what you were saying with the RNG in reference to the junk loot, but not in this context.

Doesn't every single MMO function around a random chance/value system?

Oh, I wasn't saying that was a bad thing. I was making the point (continued from what I quoted) that those who think the Formulatron is "giving it away" for nothing, I was making the argument that its still an RNG system. It doesn't just let you pick the formula for the token cost.

I wasn't saying RNG was bad. I was more mentioning it as "this isn't giving things away for no effort" .

Cuz I don't think regular RNG is bad as long as its not everything, everywhere, every time . I DO think double RNG is just too much. And that's across all games, not just here .

Btw, I do like the previous suggestion of the idea of trading same-tier, multiple, unwanted, tech form drops for the one you want. I think that is an awesome other-idea as well actually! If the formula you want is 20 other formula from the same tier (or 30 or well I wouldn't go more than 50 myself heh), that would both increase hunting and lower the "ugg" of getting handfuls of the formula you want. And it would take the "cash" factor out of it (if people want to take that part out...).

[Knossos]

I tried emailing this suggestion but keep getting delivery failures:

My suggestions for the priceless jewelry would be to change the health on the bracelet and earring to 160, reduce the +30 speed on necklace and ring to +5 speed, add a second tech slot for the ring and possibly the necklace as well. Findings below which led to my conclusions:

Character has a t5 mithril health jewelry set equipped
Health Necklace (+100 Health) 3 sockets, crystals 150 health, 65 power, 33 nature
Health Earrings (+50 health each) Armor V, Power V, Strength V adding 20 Armor, 25 Power, 25 Strength each (power and strength are only stat choices available for t5 and lower earrings)
Health Bracelets (+75 Health each) Armor V, Focus V, Dexterity V adding 20 Armor, 25 Focus, 25 Dexterity each (focus and dexterity are only stat choices available for t5 and lower bracelets)
Health Rings (+50 Health each) Armor V, Spirit V, Nature V adding 20 Armor, 25 Spirit, 25 Nature each

Typical set for t5 multiclassed adventurer, totals:
450 Health + 150 crystal, 120 Armor, 115 Power, 50 Focus, 50 Strength, 50 Dexterity, 50 Spirit, 83 Nature, 0 Speed, 0 Ethereal Armor

Rings and Necklace are only Jewelry which can take the Adventure skills like Spirit, Bow, Nature, etc. and the crystals that can also boost them.

Characters stats of all the affected skills with the above t5 set equipped (no buffs):
1681 Armor
368 Ethereal Armor
2890 Health
1305 Power
1130 Strength
1182 Focus
1190 Dexterity
72 Speed
1501 Nature
1271 Spirit

********************************
T6 Jewelry set:
Priceless Necklace (60 Power, 60 Focus, 60 Ethereal Armor, 30 Speed), 1 socket crystal +150 health
Priceless Earrings (60 Armor, 60 Health, 60 Dexterity, 60 Strength) Power V tech 25 Power each
Priceless Bracelets (60 Armor, 60 Health, 60 Dexterity, 60 Strength) Focus V tech 25 Focus each
Priceless Rings (60 Power, 60 Focus, 60 Ethereal Armor, 30 Speed), Nature V tech 25 Nature each

Typical t6 set totals:
240 Health + 150 crystal), 240 Armor, 230 Power, 230 Focus, 240 Strength, 240 Dexterity, 0 Spirit, 50 Nature, 90 speed, 180 Ethereal Armor

Only 240 health when the t5 set adds 450? This is the main issue.

Characters stats of all the affected skills with the above t6 set equipped (no buffs):
1801 Armor
548 Ethereal Armor
2680 Health
1420 Power
1320 Strength
1362 Focus
1380 Dexterity
162 Speed
1487 Nature
1239 Spirit

Differences (t6 set values minus t5 set values. stats affect the skills somewhat)
+120 Armor
+180 Ethereal Armor
-210 Health
+115 Power
+190 Strength
+180 Focus
+190 Dexterity
+90 Speed
-14 Nature
-32 Spirit

Since health is already on ears and bracelets, and the idea is to add about 180 vs t5 levels, change the health value on earring and bracelet to +160. this will add +400 more health to the current values, or +190 net change when going from t5 to t6.

Reduce the +30 Speed to say +5 on ring and necklace. Still a nice boost but not the crazy speed doubling it currently is.

Currently all the new pieces only have a single tech slot. for the rings at least, increase the number of tech slots to 2. In the example set, I would tech on Nature V plus Spirit V, mirroring the t5 set in that respect. This will mitigate the skill drop in spirit and change it from -32 to +18 skill.

Nature skill is still a drop (the t5 set had a +33 crystal in the necklace) compared to the t5. Adding a second tech slot on the necklace will mitigate that. +33 Nature crystal in a second socket, would be a net increase of +19 in comparison to the t5 set.

The ring and necklace changes result in fairly small skill increases, but eliminates the drops which shouldn't be there.

Guaran

While Guaran's analysis is technically interesting it IMHO would be at this stage a large risk to nerf the speed buffs of the new Adamantium necklace and rings. I have made some 20 sets and am not the only crafter of these on Order Shard. The players have tasted the speed and would be to say the least dismayed should this speed buff be nerfed. Unless I missed something Guaran's analysis is based on adventure rather than craft - It is craft where the speed buff is of serious value (harvesting resources).

I for one hope that the devs consider such a change very carefully before making a decision. My view is partially based on the way my adventure gear is set up for hot swapping jewelry sets as needs for resistances/wards change depending on which mobs I am dealing with.

Knossos

[Gengel]

* sighs * Oh, please keep the SPEED on the new T6 jewelry. As a Spellcaster and Crafter, it is the only new content that is of interest to this Dryad. One would think that anything that encouraged MORE construction/crafting would be a good thing.

~<Gengel>~

[Holth]

I agree completely with Knossos and Gengel about the speed on the jewelry. It makes crafting a bit less painful and using the travertine disks more attractive.

Thaalia of Order

[Guaran]

It's more than double the base speed. offroad speed was 72. +90 sounds acceptable to you? Better to lower it now before too many ppl get used to it. It's too fast and outruns the rendering engine, let alone spawns of mobs and resources.

[Holth]

Sorry Guaran, this jewelry has already been tested on Blight and gone to live. What makes you think the devs will change any of the techs? Not to disparage all your work, but no one is complaining about any of the jewelry.

Thaalia of Order

[Vortura]

Installing more Nadia-trons is not the answer.
Anyway, if we must have them, to counterbalance the horrid things I hope the costs of using the Nadia-tron will not discourage those players willing to hunt and sell their loot. You can go back to the time when T5 comps from Nadia cost around 30s to see what the effect was on those who tried to compete with her.

Ideally I'd like to see techs handed out as crafting quest rewards.
ie Trainer gets you to find the necessary comps for a specific tech, you return with the comps and the trainer gives you the knowledge (the tech) for you to make a teched item. Finish the quest by making the teched item and get some XP. The trainer could even charge you for the privilege of their time and knowledge (money sink).

Same goes for forms, Get the form Quest, go find x resources, talk to the Trainer (and pay them) to "see" how it's made, get the form, make the item, get XP for making the item and handing it in.

I'm thinking along similar lines to an early Dragon crafting quest where you learnt how to socket a scale.

It would mean a bucket-load of quests to be added (Devs should have a way, or would need to find a way to "cookie-cutter" these), but it makes more sense than feeding a poker-machine or having to loot your non-blighted form from a WA fighter. You would know which techs you're missing because you'd have unfinished Tech/form quests from the trainers. Also it could be made simpler by having one quest to make a set of forms become available to the player.

Blighted forms should be a WA drop only unless you're really going for the gold-sink angle, like with that form currently selling for 4 gold.

[Litarath]

I have noticed in my hunts that the oddities seem to drop much more than either the trophies or the components...

That sort of thing makes hunting more tedious as when I go hunting for components, I"m not looking for oddities to sell, perhaps a rescaling on that loot pool would be in order to make component hunting more efficient.

For example, while hunting for 30 minutes or so, I got 29 elemental residue, 6 elemental slivers, and 6 elemental globules, as opposed to 1 mithril fragment (for armor) and 5 mithril boulder fragments. This, to me isn't an efficient use of one's time and resources.

My vote would be to scale back on the oddities drops and slightly increase both the trophy and component drops.

[Sigi]

Ideally I'd like to see techs handed out as crafting quest rewards.
ie Trainer gets you to find the necessary comps for a specific tech, you return with the comps and the trainer gives you the knowledge (the tech) for you to make a teched item. Finish the quest by making the teched item and get some XP. The trainer could even charge you for the privilege of their time and knowledge (money sink).

Same goes for forms, Get the form Quest, go find x resources, talk to the Trainer (and pay them) to "see" how it's made, get the form, make the item, get XP for making the item and handing it in.



Blighted forms should be a WA drop only unless you're really going for the gold-sink angle, like with that form currently selling for 4 gold.

I think that's a great idea!
They should drop too but to be able to do a quest for them is very appealing

[Shian]

The problem with that is, creatures don't drop coin anymore and these items are the sole source of income for hunters. Turning all those in how much coin do you get? I'm guessing less than what you usually got on a hunt in your 30 mins, so decreasing these loot drops is probably not a good idea.

Yes, it's frustrating to go out for one thing and come back with something you don't want.

I'd say just increase the comp drop.

[Litarath]

Point noted, Shian, although I can't say how much coin I got from them, as I never sold them... was more frustrated that I wasn't getting the components I needed and tossed them out :P

Yeah... my fault, true... but, I suppose increasing the component drop would be more beneficial in the end... heh... put it on par with the oddities and I'd be one happy component hunter!

[Shinkuu]

The problem with that is, creatures don't drop coin anymore and these items are the sole source of income for hunters. Turning all those in how much coin do you get? I'm guessing less than what you usually got on a hunt in your 30 mins, so decreasing these loot drops is probably not a good idea.

Yes, it's frustrating to go out for one thing and come back with something you don't want.

I'd say just increase the comp drop.

I have been hunting quite a bit since the change and I make anywhere between 150% my normal amount of Coin to 200% thanks to the Junk Loot. I would have to say it is far more profitable than what we had before. The coin drop was very tiny and even hunting Aegis for blighted gear to sell was a mess. It took up the whole inventory, weighed you down, and gave you chump change for your efforts.

[NaturalMage]

Any idea when these changes might hit Blight? I am looking forward to playing around with the new Formulatrons/Techatrons. And I would like to throw in my two cents that I think these are great changes!

[Riaken]

Sorry Guaran, this jewelry has already been tested on Blight and gone to live. What makes you think the devs will change any of the techs? Not to disparage all your work, but no one is complaining about any of the jewelry.

No one complained about the Rune flame tech, yet that got nerfed. I'd understand if Virtrium implemented this stuff as is on live servers, it's the implementing and readjusting that I hate. And remember it takes one peraon to cry about it, and it gets nerfed.

[Dragonboy]

While Guaran's analysis is technically interesting it IMHO would be at this stage a large risk to nerf the speed buffs of the new Adamantium necklace and rings. I have made some 20 sets and am not the only crafter of these on Order Shard. The players have tasted the speed and would be to say the least dismayed should this speed buff be nerfed. Unless I missed something Guaran's analysis is based on adventure rather than craft - It is craft where the speed buff is of serious value (harvesting resources).
Knossos

As far as I know Speed technique is about running speed which is absolutely ridiculous at +90, harvesting resources is a Alacrity thing.

Sorry Guaran, this jewelry has already been tested on Blight and gone to live. What makes you think the devs will change any of the techs? Not to disparage all your work, but no one is complaining about any of the jewelry.

Thaalia of Order

The fact that people on Blight keep their mouths shut or didn’t notice this terrible stats mistake is warrant enough for keeping the stats? I should definitely hope not. Walking and Flying speeds had been set to a certain amount for a reason for all these years.

The problem with that is, creatures don't drop coin anymore and these items are the sole source of income for hunters. Turning all those in how much coin do you get? I'm guessing less than what you usually got on a hunt in your 30 mins, so decreasing these loot drops is probably not a good idea.

Yes, it's frustrating to go out for one thing and come back with something you don't want.

I'd say just increase the comp drop.

Not to be a terrible spoil sport, but while doing some massive tech component hunting right after the loot revamp I got more coin from those Junk Loot items then I did from the coin bags before the revamp. While some specific mobs might have to be fine tuned considering 42 junk loot items apposed to 6 tech components is a bit high. The current system in Spiritious Swamp works just fine at the moment.

No one complained about the Rune flame tech, yet that got nerfed. I'd understand if Virtrium implemented this stuff as is on live servers, it's the implementing and readjusting that I hate. And remember it takes one peraon to cry about it, and it gets nerfed.

Still feel sad about this change… considering some Dragon players currently have claws with biped quest only high end Ice tech, the rare DCOM and the dragon tech making them do nice damage from Gold Rage and additional damage for the Ice and DCOM… and then I wonder why this is not nerfed?!? Sure it is easier to nerf T2 stuff because less people will complain, come to think of it they probably wouldn’t dare nerf Ice Tech or the DCOM for risk of people crying nerf.

[Chasing]

The fact that people on Blight keep their mouths shut or didn’t notice this terrible stats mistake is warrant enough for keeping the stats? I should definitely hope not. Walking and Flying speeds had been set to a certain amount for a reason for all these years.

Still feel sad about this change… considering some Dragon players currently have claws with biped quest only high end Ice tech, the rare DCOM and the dragon tech making them do nice damage from Gold Rage and additional damage for the Ice and DCOM… and then I wonder why this is not nerfed?!? Sure it is easier to nerf T2 stuff because less people will complain, come to think of it they probably wouldn’t dare nerf Ice Tech or the DCOM for risk of people crying nerf.

Let's clarify a couple of things before this descends into a rant

1. Content is getting past blight for various reasons as I've already pointed out in another thread.

1. Testing

A lot of the issues being raised post live patch are things that have been missed during the 2-3 months the deltas have been sitting on blight.

Specifically

• Balance of drop rates of Crystals from certain mobs
• Balance of drop rates of Broken Items from certain mobs
• Junk Loot drop rate and coin generation
• Technique drop/purchase balance
• Low spawn rates of certain mobs impacting the time to loot tech comps
• Balance of drop rates of Blighted Items
• Formulas being restricted to certain mobs
• Tech Comp drop rates (common and rare)
• Trophy drop rates

Keyword here is balance. The concept isnt wrong, it just may not be in the right place yet.

To work this out takes time. Time to work out which places need tweaking, which don't, and also to make and patch and test the changes.

The other side to this is, there just was not sufficent testing done on Blight to work out where things may be wrong.

So why wasn't the content fully tested?

• Virtrium has to predominately rely on player based testing on Blight
• The bulk of the playerbase does not actively test content on Blight (for various reasons)
• A deadline got reached and the content had to be pushed out in the state it was in.
• Too many changes in one go maybe?
• Player based testing may not reveal all the changes (would you be inclined to report a bug, if that bug worked in your favour?)

Personally I think the +30 speed is a typo when the jewelery was setup.

2. The Frozen weapon tech kit was available to dragons and non tinkerer characters due to a bug originally.

3. The Frozen weapon tech kit was changed to act the same way as the Rune of Flame, but after player feedback, it was changed back to the way it was.

4. DCOM - If the DCOM's were unintended then they should have been removed from all characters as soon as they were discovered.

5. The sheer amount of content changes vs the lack of testers means that things are going to be missed.

To balance this then I think if major bugs get onto live then they should be fixed ASAP (IE despawn the chest that was giving everyone the Frozen Weapon Tech at the time). There is a facility to apply hotfixes and/or a WM to make changes ingame so I don't know why this isnt used more often.

Waiting for a delta to be applied just makes problems worse in the long run (cry Nerf because something that was unintended in the first place has got into game and is being fixed 2 or more months later)

[Knossos]

As far as I know Speed technique is about running speed which is absolutely ridiculous at +90, harvesting resources is a Alacrity thing.

Harvesting is more than alacrity, it is moving between nodes until the disk and inventory is full, and then the trip to a portal or a suitable processing center and from there eventually to the construction site for application of construction pieces. The construction per hour is measurably improved with the +90 speed and the rendering of terrain is not a significant factor in this improvement.

On Order shard only a few crafters have rebuilt a number of community crafting centers as made necessary by autoreclaim of these plots and neither is this painstaking work finished nor is there any indication that it will be anytime soon. I believe that these plots near resources with player built shops public silos and a vault are an essential ingredient in player retention and recovery of structures on the landscape to make the world look more "lived-in".

Knossos

[Guaran]

Installing more Nadia-trons is not the answer...

Ideally I'd like to see techs handed out as crafting quest rewards.
ie Trainer gets you to find the necessary comps for a specific tech, you return with the comps and the trainer gives you the knowledge (the tech) for you to make a teched item. Finish the quest by making the teched item and get some XP. The trainer could even charge you for the privilege of their time and knowledge (money sink)...

Quests to obtain techs sounds like a great idea.

Probably need to be a new set of npcs... say wood related crafting techs would be an npc in Feledan (Bow, Logging, etc). The quests could be cut-pastes of each other, go gather me 2x the comps needed to make said tech, and I will give you the knowledge you seek.. or something like that.

Still be a fair amount of work, but the idea is sound.

The only thing that keeps the formula-trons from being Vielo-like is that it's random. But my initial reaction was similiar to yours.. sounds like we are bringing Nadia and friends back in a different form. And really, forms and techs can be found with some work. Can't find such and such form, ask for it in marketplace once or twice a night along with your offer. Give it a week and someone will find it and sell. To those who posted they been looking for one for a long time, it appears you are not trying hard enough or exhausting all avenues.

… considering some Dragon players currently have claws with biped quest only high end Ice tech...

Good point. I think the enchanted key should be changed back to where it will open the frozen chest again. When Doom was added, after a few of us had completed the tinker questline and could make adamantium keys, we started finding the Complex Enchanted Key Pattern in doom chests. Frozen Tower chest is named "Enchanted Ancient Chest". The enchanted key originally dealt 641 Damage. The Chest in the tower had 640 hp. It seemed clear that the intent of the rare enchanted key pattern (complex) found in doom chests (and believe me, it is rare) was meant to allow adventurers to obtain the pattern to then obtain the frozen weapon tech. What else was there to hunt doom for? new hoard, t6 crystals, and new dyes was about it without the complex ench pattern. Well, and the Volcano questline. but having a small chance to get the pattern meant you could also get the weapon tech, and that seemed a fitting reward to me.

When this was changed so that Enchanted keys stopped opening the frozen chest I wonder why. It seemed so obvious thats what they were for. Why limit a weapon tech to a single craft school? Having the tinker school be the enabler of obtaining the weapon tech was a fine idea tho, made Tinker a more useful school.

I think the Enchanted key should be changed to open this chest again. This will provide selling incentive for keys (if indeed it was only the chests which drop the enchanted key pattern), hunting as well if the mobs can have a rare chance to drop the enchanted pattern. And by rare I mean rare, like maybe once a week you might find one. Adventurers could sell the pattern or keys, providing hunting incentive for Doom. I would say about 1g per key. Now people have something to hunt for, something to earn coin for. Something extra anyway. It would be a fun way to use existing game assets to keep people busy. This is a good thing.

[Knossos]

Personally I think the +30 speed is a typo when the jewelery was setup.

This line appears in Velea's post of October 21st 2010:

quote
Priceless Necklace, + 60 Power, + 60 Speed, + 60 Focus, Jewelry Socket
unquote

as can be viewed here:

http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...39&postcount=1

Thus it would seem that the first blush was +60 speed and then cut to +30.

Knossos

[Celestril]

I think there should be a method of obtaining forms and techs outside and in addition to hunting.

My first perference would be for the quest Vortura suggested.

Another idea would be that you can hand in forms/techs for a tokens and use multiple tokens (5-20 say) to buy the specific form you wish. It would be good to have a useful sink for forms other than vendoring them.

I'm not sure another form of random generating of forms or techs is a good idea! Looting is random enough.

Also, right now, and in the short term giving people a chance to 'cash' in their old techs for the new techs is great. However, I would love to see Nadia changed so that the *new* tech items can be cashed in for useful components, at a significant loss to us. IE her 'buy' price for them from us is ~1/4 of what her sell price is. Right now I'm collecting a bunch of tech comps I can not see me (or many others) ever using. I can't see a market for them. I'd love to trade them in - even at a serious loss - for something that is useful.