Another Look into Loot and Horizons

[Vesuvius]

After a long consideration of my veiws on Horizons and the poor quality adventuring aspect associated with it, I came to realize that even if Dragons were finally given the opprotunity to 'infinitely' progress as their biped counterparts can, the game itself would still be lacking. It would still be a grinding play experience, even if that grinding play experience was better than nothing to do at all. There really isnt anything to look forward to when you go out to hunt, there isnt anything exciting about it. Nothing but a predictable reward of experience with the occasional technique or formula, both which have little direct value to an adventurer.

Equipment, one of the most fun and exciting parts to being an adventurer is highly formulated and boring, especially for dragons. Any given set will typically have the exact same techs on every peice, with a few exceptions such as the occasional socket. (And yes, I understand that not all techs go on all peices of biped equipment. However, for what is allowed to go where, the same concept seems to hold true). There is no, 'Hey I found this and I might have to sacrifice some of this, but overall I like this new thing better'. Its simply 'Here are the optimal things available, Ill go to nadia, spend a few gold, and have the best available for my template'.

There is no variety. And variety is the spice of life.

Out of boredom, I went out to Elnath to level my cleric a few more levels so he could equip some new armor I had made for him and while I was there a few blighted items dropped, some which were actually quite decent. I thought to myself, 'You know, this stuff would really be alot of fun if it didnt decay with use. If I could actually save up a bunch of them and end up with a /unique/ set of scales...

In truth, seeing items that had value that I knew would eventually decay was more depressing than having nothing at all. It was nothing more than a hollow shadow of actual equipment.A taunting visage of what makes being an adventurer great.

Due to the lack of entertainment Horizons has been able to provide and while I do still have fun /in/ horizons, it has not been because /of/ horizons. It has been because of the friends I have made and the RP that we have shared. For too long have I been forced to 'make my own fun' for a product that I pay monthly for...

So, I started to look into WoW. And I found an interesting conceptregarding loot that exists there. A concept that couldbe applied to Horizons and would do it a world of good, without harming crafters.

Blizzard used the term 'Bind on Equip'. It was an interesting concept playing off of the age old MMOattribute toitems thatdoesnt exist in Horizons.

As EQ flagged it... 'NO DROP'

Once picked up, 'NO DROP' items could not be traded or sold, only destroyed, equiped,or stored indefinitely. It was an attribute thatstoppedpowerful items from flooding the market, as once they were replaced with a newer and better item, they became obsolete and many timesdeleted.

Blizzard took this concept one step further, allowing these 'Bind on Equip' items to be traded and sold so long as they had never been used. However, once equipped, theitems became'NO DROP', and hence unable to be traded or sold.

The resultallows items to permanently remain with an adventurer, yet only temporarily remain in the market flow. So while lower levels will never be saturated with 'used' equipment, the higherlevels are able to maintain their hard earned goods indefinitely.

So I beg the developers to consider the following suggestion:

Allow Blighted Loot to be cleansed for the gifted through crafters. The result would remove the decay factor and in turn make the item function just as blizzard's 'Bind on Equip'.

Considering the rareity of superior blighted items, adventurers will still want to purchase pure crafted suits of armor and weapons as they wait for better things to drop. Crafters will also benefit from the cleansing of blighted loot for adventurers. On the same note, Crafters will never be outmatched overtimeby Cleansed equipment as it will all be removed from the economy as soon as it is equipped.

While this is not the ultimate solution to loot and horizons. I feel it would be an excellent step in the right direction, giving adventurers exciting useable loot without pushing crafters out of the scene.

[imported_Ssilmath]

******** good idea Ves...I agree with you fully

[evilkarl]

except for the sweeping generalisations about techs its a good post and a good idea.

Non tradeable once equiped loot would be a great mechanism to have in game as would remoing of charges and purifying of blighted eq.

[Cadfael]

simply a very good idea !

And what about monk/disciple only items ? mmm ? ... okey [:$]

[Vahrokh]

Really good idea.

That could be coupled with another AGES old concept: breakable items.

Yes, weapons and armor that break with use -Hz has a very poor implementation, while other games simulate it very well, i.e. you ruin your stuff while fighting and being hit until it goes into a "red state".

If you persist using it, or even in case of a "critical roll", that piece of stuff breaks forever. But if you repair it, it returns new, and worth loving as "yours truly rare piece".


Of course both these ideas would remotely risk making the game fun, so they'll be immediately discarded. [;)]

[Draca Moraven]

Since the very beginning (back in beta) players kept demanding this (me too). But the developpers never even dropped a comment... [:'(]

[Sasantiz]

Both ideas sound good!

Specially because you could have less then fine equipment drop that way or even perhaps the very rare really good stuff (here i mean just a good or a bit better then the teched stuff you can wear for the named level)

Your idea Vahrokh is just the thingwe need, plus it would curb the grind rate a bit. 8 hour form/tech farming at satyr islands(you name one)= broken armor/scales and weapons.
Of course theres the ever returning but.. and here it comes .. but it would make the adventurers even more dependant on crafters, who have the veilo and pawnbrokers to keep them supplied and happy, so can the pawnies and vielo and give us equipment we can break instead.
With that said i like the ideas very much.

[IndyMan]

Real loot that is useable without crafter intervention is one thing keeping me from paying for this game.

[Frons Von Frik]

I want some good loot too~! I like the idea... just make it so the loot looks cool too...

[imported_Frith-Rae]

*so sick of crap loot nobody wants but the pawner she gets a fat 1 copper off of, even from level 85+ mob drops*

At least before I could fund myself as an adventurer off of drops, at least partially fund myself.

But after 10 HOURS of hunting wolves (yea because tech drops suck butt - I've still got two fangs to go..) I loot every single thing, so I get a wopping 400 copper from the pawner for all that time! WOO!

I like Vesu's idea

and get rid of the crap "resource" drops - they are worthless. WORTHLESS (Yea, esp. the water drops, really, those are worthless). This dumbbutt "logical loot" is crud - because its not logical (ok guroks with coin?) - and its worthless. I mean when pc after pc is running around not even bothering to loot anything because they know the loot is worthless so they don't even bother? Does this NOT MEAN SOMETHING?!

So yea, loot with a REAL purpose would be nice....either for selling for enough coin to be worth hunting the dang mobs, for equipping "forever" - whatever..just with a PURPOSE.

Otherthan "400 skins" "pawner" "400 copper" oh..joy...

[Vahrokh]

See, it's not the nifties, nor being finished and clean that will save this game.

It's the loot, the tangible transfiguration of reward. What ultimately everyone aims to.

Until the loot will have no meaning, playing Horizons will give no satisfaction.

The more "social" players will do with roleplay or whatever and go on.

The remaining 95% will get bored and leave for any other even crap game that gives satisfaction and the F. word. (no, not that word. FUN it is).

[Phillip]

there have been plenty of excellent ideas about loot for this game by players in the past many months, including theones here.

when it comes to loot however, the devs tend to a) ignore b) ignore and come up with stuff to excite theyes peopleand the rest of us going "WTF!"....then we all watch it turn to dust.

or c) continue fix/revise/expand on crafting.

round and round we go.

[Kulamata]

I agree that one of the core problems with Hz is the lack of a "thrill factor". IF loot were (rarely) available that made a REAL difference for a few levels, that would provide the occasional lift that the game lacks. Once the devs decide that allowing such into the game is possible, there are many, many possible implementations.

The WD crystals were such for a while, and the broken equipment came close. The dryad event items, like Boar's mask also qualified.And CS jewelry might.

But witha fewplayers demanding that all such items be removed, and with theconcern that AE (and Tulga too?) has had that the content would be burned through, the chances of any such scheme being implemented are very poor.Look at the stance on techniques, which don't actually make all that much difference. I don't think such items would have made the content significantly easier to burn through.However the effect on player morale has been more than significant, with the majority of those leaving citing "boring" as a key reason for leaving. I think it has been a misguided policy.

[HeavensFury]

I agree Kulamata this game is seriously lacking any kind of thrill factor. They need to add something to drops other than Blighted equipment and forms. There just isnt anything to look forward to when hunting other than the normal grind.

[kengar]

I had a seriously twisted idea this weekend while listening to someone wishing for loot. The two arguments against loot seem to be depreciation of the need for crafters and the farming that has resulted in every MMORPG I've played that had that kind of loot. At least those are my two issues with it. I'm not loot-phobic, but I certainly think these issues need to be dealt with in order to have interesting loot.

The answer to the first part is easy. Make the equipment visually distinctive, better than unteched crafted, but not quite as good as fully teched crafted (or as good, but extremely rare). The adventurers get something potentially unique that isn't pure fluff (good enough to use), and the crafters maintain the ability to produce the best stuff, or at least the best stuff reliably, if the dropped stuff is as good or better than the best stuff. I do want to emphasize that these drops would have to be very rare if it's as good as the best crafted items, unless they decay.

The answer I came up with to the second part is twisted, and I want feedback on it, as it may be too twisted. How can you prevent farming of creatures for desireable drops? By making sure that the best drops aren't on the creatures being farmed. Two ways to achieve this, depending on whether or not the "special" loot table needs to be consulted when the mob spawns, or can be deferred until the mob's death.

1. If you can check for special loot at death, then you track how long the mob lived for, and the longer it lived, the more likely it is to get something from the special loot table. Mobs being farmed don't live long enough to reach the minimum threshold.
2. If you can't check at death, or mob despawn makes mob lifetimes impractical to use, you keep a weighted count of the total population of that creature type, and how many of that creature type have been killed recently. The higher the turnover, the less chance of a mob pulling from the special loot table.

In either case, adventurers that want the already rare loot need to hunt that which is not hunted, encouraging them to move around more than they do now. I'm as guilty as most when it comes to sitting in the same spawn once I hit my groove.

Realistic? Not quite, but it can be reasoned that the WA wouldn't want to give good stuff to the cannon fodder that's dieing in droves.

Does this sound like a good idea? Any objections or issues I don't see? How do you think this would change current farming practices if expert forms/techs worked the same way? I'm very interested in feedback on this idea. If there's interest, we should probably move it to its own thread, maybe in the discussions forum. (EDIT: nm, already in dicussions, thought I was reading suggestions for some reason).

The biggest issue I see is people trying to make sure that noone touches a spawn to get the time up. I'm not sure that's a big issue, as it's not like a guild could block everyone from going to Elnath or the like (though they could try to crash anyone that goes there without their permission).

Oh, one other note: Under no circumstances should tech comps be handled this way. Doing so would just about guarantee that we could never have a tech comp market.

[dragon with bow]

Twisted? That was great! Maybe you shoud make a game. I bet you'd put HZ out of business if you did[;)].

[Alladania]

As of yesterday, there is definitely new loot. Check it out.

[imported_Twelvebagger]

Indeed there is loot now, as mentioned in the above post.

First and foremost, Kudos to the Dev's! The game is interesting again with the new drops.

However, reading the original post really sunk in and hit me. The reason I play this game is because of the people in it and not the game itself. This is a mediocre game with great people (most of them anyways), whereas other games tend to be good or great games with a bunch of dinks.

The original idea in this post is excellent.

After all, with all the 6,7, even 10 x 100 bipeds running around, you're certainly going to have to do something to keep them amused. Charms are nice but in about 2 weeks that spice will wear fast.

******** good post Vesuvius.

[Vlisson]

great ideas here

i hope they will implement some of this ideas

i dont like decay or non-tradeable-items

but it would help the game and the community!