Possible Loot Diversity Changes for U20 Patch

[DrOctothorpe]

Hi, everyone. I’d like to talk about some of what we've been working on to remedy the loot diversity issue in the near future. Our short-term goal is to return a healthy serving of older weapon affixes to the random loot pool. If we’re lucky (sometimes we’re not!), we’ll get these changes to Lamannia later this week and then include them in the patch.

In addition, we have a couple “stretch goals” for patch:

- One is lower hanging fruit: release some high level bane affixes, such as “Humanoid Bane.” The older narrower bane items would go back in if we didn't. They might still go back in if we did.
- More expensive: restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons. We’d like to do this, it’s just a question of time.
- Lastly, another large, and so less likely for a mere patch: extending those old affixes up so they cover modern epic level ranges.

We’d love your input on which of these three possibilities are of most value to you, and which you would (ideally) want to see first.

And as a closing note: changes that don’t make it into a patch are first on our list for (near) future loot improvements.

[danotmano1998]

extending those old affixes up so they cover modern epic level ranges.


Out of those 3 choices, THIS one would be my pick.
Thanks!

[Bogenbroom]

I am very much in favor of the newer bane model. I found the old model overly narrow save for a few type (outsider and construct.)

Additionally, I think you will find that the special enchantment tracks introduced with MotU were very popular. I mean things like the "of the sun" series of enchantments. I think you will find a lot of support for bringing those back and extending their series upward. They lent themselves nicely to tiered leveling. I think extending that model to other equipment would be welcome.

[darkly_dreaming]

- More expensive: restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons. We’d like to do this, it’s just a question of time.


This would be my choice as well. I miss the combo effects like slicing + bleed (Slicing Winds, Desert Sands? Sorry, can't remember!)

Thanks!

[patang01]

extending those old affixes up so they cover modern epic level ranges.

Maybe I'm not a bane guy, but I rather have a healthy range of affixes across the entire spectrum then x of whatever bane. Most of those banes are worthless anyone and I don't need to carry a bunch of situational items. That'd be as useless as a more generic ghostbane of a majority of things.

At least a holy of pure good can be used against many differen't critters as suppose to a holy of magic monster bane (or whatever).
Plus really - we don't need more damage. We have named for that. What we need is a great diversity of things like repair and heal amp or spell power on rings and helmets again (or other item slots).

I can't think of a lot of toons (and I have lots) that are currently running with random weapons anyways.

[axel15810]

The number 1 loot gen item I'm missing is convalescent items, I.E. healing amp.

There are so few options for slotting healing amp in todays game, and having convalescents drop was a huge boost for a wide variety of players. Nowadays the lucky or rich players who happen to have an old convalescent item have a solid advantage over those of us who did not save our convalescents before they stopped dropping.

Please bring back healing amp on loot gen items! Thanks!

[Systern]

I really want to see the long term goal come to fruition...


That said, as a stop-gap, I think y'all need to address the "new Undead". Plant zombies, vine horrors, Animated topiaries and Will o wisps are resistant to all of the conventional affixes that players find worthwhile.

Plantbane of Ghostbane please. ;)

[Thrudh]

I'd like to see a pass on old named items as soon as possible...

Items that have +5 resistance, or +5 natural armor, etc, need to be upgraded to match like-level random loot.

Items that have the old deception need to be upgraded to the new deception.

Longer term, I'd like to see old epic 20th level items get an upgrade path to make them into level 28 items. With epic TR being a big part of end-game, this would give people reasons to run the older epic quests... Many of us may even want two copies of certain epic items, one for level 28-30, and one as "twink" gear for level 20-28 when epic TRing.

[Scraap]

- Lastly, another large, and so less likely for a mere patch: extending those old affixes up so they cover modern epic level ranges.


Define extending, please. More dice, larger dice, higher DCs, extended vorpal ish (disruption and the like)?

edit- also: based on straight ML, or weighted-for-effort ML?

Lacking that kind of data, just prioritize it based on ease of implementation for now.

[darksol23]

- More expensive: restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons. We’d like to do this, it’s just a question of time.
- Lastly, another large, and so less likely for a mere patch: extending those old affixes up so they cover modern epic level ranges.



Convalescent.

Do or do not, there is no try.

[ReaperAlexEU]

Hi, everyone. I’d like to talk about some of what we've been working on to remedy the loot diversity issue in the near future. Our short-term goal is to return a healthy serving of older weapon affixes to the random loot pool. If we’re lucky (sometimes we’re not!), we’ll get these changes to Lamannia later this week and then include them in the patch.

In addition, we have a couple “stretch goals” for patch:

- One is lower hanging fruit: release some high level bane affixes, such as “Humanoid Bane.” The older narrower bane items would go back in if we didn't. They might still go back in if we did.
- More expensive: restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons. We’d like to do this, it’s just a question of time.
- Lastly, another large, and so less likely for a mere patch: extending those old affixes up so they cover modern epic level ranges.

We’d love your input on which of these three possibilities are of most value to you, and which you would (ideally) want to see first.

And as a closing note: changes that don’t make it into a patch are first on our list for (near) future loot improvements.

any change of swapping those 3 for fleshing the naming scheme out? great to hear the old weapon stuff is making a return but for a stretch goal i'd much rather see all the currently named "flaming" replaced with "flaming II" or "flaming VI" because at lvl20+ one is worth a lot more than the other and trawling the AH is a pain without it!

p.s. don't forget the rogues best friend "radiance" when you add the affixes back to weapons (the blind proc one not the spell power one) :)

[Derana]

my order with the highest value as first:
1. - restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons. We’d like to do this, it’s just a question of time.
2. - extending those old affixes up so they cover modern epic level ranges.
3. - release some high level bane affixes, such as “Humanoid Bane.” The older narrower bane items would go back in if we didn't. They might still go back in if we did.

[DagazUlf]

I personally could care less about the Bane weapons. Even with the larger number of creatures affected, as a player it's still too much headache to bother with.

Extending the old affixes up to the new levels would be the much more desirable goal, followed by old affixes on all equipment.

Thanks.

[Wizza]

Give us Assassinate DC on random loot please.

And make it more than a mere +2.

[Drwaz99]

3. One is lower hanging fruit: release some high level bane affixes, such as “Humanoid Bane.” The older narrower bane items would go back in if we didn't. They might still go back in if we did.
2. More expensive: restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons. We’d like to do this, it’s just a question of time.
1. Lastly, another large, and so less likely for a mere patch: extending those old affixes up so they cover modern epic level ranges.



I numbered in red the preferred order I would like to see them. I appreciate you asking! :)

[Coldin]

- One is lower hanging fruit: release some high level bane affixes, such as “Humanoid Bane.” The older narrower bane items would go back in if we didn't. They might still go back in if we did.
- More expensive: restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons. We’d like to do this, it’s just a question of time.
- Lastly, another large, and so less likely for a mere patch: extending those old affixes up so they cover modern epic level ranges.



I don't really care much about getting the banes back. I prefer my weapons to be a bit more versatile, so I tend to avoid weapons that only work against a subset of creatures. Perhaps if the banes were a bit more potent than just 4d6 damage.

Seeing the old affixes applied to the weapons would be pretty nice. There were some nice ones that I liked. Extending those out to epic levels would be very good.

[guardianx2009]

Order of priority:

#1


- More expensive: restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons. We’d like to do this, it’s just a question of time.

Restoring gear affixes helps and affects gameplay of all levels. Not to mention the highly desired convalescent affix.

#2


- Lastly, another large, and so less likely for a mere patch: extending those old affixes up so they cover modern epic level ranges.

This only affects epic level play and right now, all Epic level characters are all running around with shiny CITW weapons. I say fix the existing ghostbane'd loot before adding new ones.

#3


- One is lower hanging fruit: release some high level bane affixes, such as “Humanoid Bane.” The older narrower bane items would go back in if we didn't. They might still go back in if we did.

Low hanging fruit it is...

[ReaperAlexEU]

Give us Assassinate DC on random loot please.

And make it more than a mere +2.

wish granted, you can now get a +3 assassinate DC on a great crossbow. there is also a very rare chance of getting +4 assassinate DC on a regular light crossbow

hehe, i'd love to see more ways to get that bonus :)

[DrOctothorpe]

Define extending, please. More dice, larger dice, higher DCs, extended vorpal ish (disruption and the like)?

edit- also: based on straight ML, or weighted-for-effort ML?

Lacking that kind of data, just prioritize it based on ease of implementation for now.

Making some of those old affixes appear in higher level loot drops. Right now, those affixes would generate with DC's that were too low.

Quick version: more kinds of random loot at the top.

[Scraap]

Making some of those old affixes appear in higher level loot drops. Right now, those affixes would generate with DC's that were too low.

Quick version: more kinds of random loot at the top.

Right then. I'd definitely have to vote skip it til you can fold the whole system in and incorporate non-random loot as well. The last thing we need is another hit to loot we actively pursue.

[FranOhmsford]

Maybe I'm not a bane guy, but I rather have a healthy range of affixes across the entire spectrum then x of whatever bane. Most of those banes are worthless anyone and I don't need to carry a bunch of situational items. That'd be as useless as a more generic ghostbane of a majority of things.

At least a holy of pure good can be used against many differen't critters as suppose to a holy of magic monster bane (or whatever).
Plus really - we don't need more damage. We have named for that. What we need is a great diversity of things like repair and heal amp or spell power on rings and helmets again (or other item slots).

I can't think of a lot of toons (and I have lots) that are currently running with random weapons anyways.

Old Holy's Worthless against anything not of Evil Alignment incl many Magical Beasts which seem to be majorly True Neutral.

For me it's the lack of good prefixes that's always been the issue NOT affixes!

The New Holy may be different - Not sure?


One Affix that I would like to see make a return however is PURE GOOD!

P.S. If Ghostbane was all about making things easier for Newbies WHY does it not break Ghostly Skeleton's DR {Not the Base Dmg - Nothing gets thru!}?

[btolson]

In addition, we have a couple “stretch goals” for patch:

- One is lower hanging fruit: release some high level bane affixes, such as “Humanoid Bane.” The older narrower bane items would go back in if we didn't. They might still go back in if we did.
- More expensive: restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons. We’d like to do this, it’s just a question of time.
- Lastly, another large, and so less likely for a mere patch: extending those old affixes up so they cover modern epic level ranges.

We’d love your input on which of these three possibilities are of most value to you, and which you would (ideally) want to see first.

And as a closing note: changes that don’t make it into a patch are first on our list for (near) future loot improvements.

Wanting to see first, and of most value: restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons... (in particular, I value spellpower on clothing, Exceptional <stat> +1 on clothing, and Healing Amp)

On the subject of the banes, they may not be necessary if the old weapon affixes come back. At least, not necessary until a later cycle. Also, it appears some people think you are talking about re-implementing individual banes rather than the proposed multi-banes, so you may wish to more deeply clarify that point in the OP for anyone who has not read other threads (although it may not make much difference in their opinion).

[Impaqt]

Hi, everyone. I’d like to talk about some of what we've been working on to remedy the loot diversity issue in the near future. Our short-term goal is to return a healthy serving of older weapon affixes to the random loot pool. If we’re lucky (sometimes we’re not!), we’ll get these changes to Lamannia later this week and then include them in the patch.

In addition, we have a couple “stretch goals” for patch:

- One is lower hanging fruit: release some high level bane affixes, such as “Humanoid Bane.” The older narrower bane items would go back in if we didn't. They might still go back in if we did.
- More expensive: restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons. We’d like to do this, it’s just a question of time.
- Lastly, another large, and so less likely for a mere patch: extending those old affixes up so they cover modern epic level ranges.

We’d love your input on which of these three possibilities are of most value to you, and which you would (ideally) want to see first.

And as a closing note: changes that don’t make it into a patch are first on our list for (near) future loot improvements.


Nobody wants to... or is going to carry around 20 different "bane" weapons. Please dont bother with that.



- More expensive: restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons. We’d like to do this, it’s just a question of time.
- Lastly, another large, and so less likely for a mere patch: extending those old affixes up so they cover modern epic level ranges.

these both need to happen. sooner than later.

Chances for single affix items needs to be fixed as well. It sure seems the change to get a "clean" single affix, minimim level item is nearly non existent anymore. I dont think I've pulled a basic ML10 (ML8?) +1 Vorpal XX since this latest loot system incarnation. and I especially miss basic rogue gear items.

[DrOctothorpe]

I'd like to see a pass on old named items as soon as possible...

Argh. I realized I glanced at you post and saw what I was thinking, not what you were writing. So here's an actual response: I'm planning to post for a thread on named loot (on the general forums) in the near future. Stay tuned!

[FuzzyDuck81]

I'd like to see a pass on old named items as soon as possible...

Items that have +5 resistance, or +5 natural armor, etc, need to be upgraded to match like-level random loot.

Items that have the old deception need to be upgraded to the new deception.

Longer term, I'd like to see old epic 20th level items get an upgrade path to make them into level 28 items. With epic TR being a big part of end-game, this would give people reasons to run the older epic quests... Many of us may even want two copies of certain epic items, one for level 28-30, and one as "twink" gear for level 20-28 when epic TRing.

Agreed - IMO, in addition to a pass over some of the effects themselves, a good way to improve them could be:
- Make the ML20 crafted epics have a chance of dropping a fully-formed version in the appropriate quests, and increase droprate of the components. Expanding the desert scroll-trader system for them all & also making shard/seal versions too could also be a nice addition.
- Make them all (except actual raid loot, thats fair enough) BtoA on acquire & BtoC on equip.
- Make ML24 & ML28 upgraded versions of them (maybe ml26 alone as a compromise). They could be upgradeable through a special token that has a small chance to drop in epic quests (much like certain cannith crafting things can drop unbound thingies in chests), or can be purchased using astral shards or via turn-in of the new all-purpose commendations of valour (increasing droprates of comms & adjusting costs of various things can be figured out seperately).

In general lootgen stuff, i'd like to see some of the effects MOTU brought in make a comeback & maybe even make versions of them with different levels of effects - i don't actually mind the new flaming I-IV etc. system but please, PLEASE put the number part in the item name too so it's easier to find things.

[LordPiglet]

Can the Devils Assualt augments be restored?

We used to be able to get red augments with Metalline, Cold Iron + Good, Silver + Good, etc. We know you can do combo augments so why haven't these returned?

[EllisDee37]

The weapon affixes should be put on hold until convalescent bracers drop again. On a scale of 1 to 10 for priority, weapon affixes are like a 3 compared to convalescent's 10.

[blackdoguk]

I'd like to see more equipment variety scaled up to epic levels, we're all doing epic lives and some new loot can energise those levels.

[sirgog]

#1: Convalescent bracers.

No other random lootgen is as important to as many characters.

Once that is done, I'd suggest getting the 'fun' MOTU weapon affixes back into the game. No veteran player cares about a Dynamo Khopesh of Mauling, but for a newbie without raid loot, that is a very nice weapon.

[mikarddo]

Make heal amp drop again - could be bracers or elsewhere. Until that happens dont bother with anything else please.

[maddmatt70]

If you are going to have bane weapons have them encompass 20% if not 25% of all mobs at the very least. For example have 5 bane weapon types. 1. undead, constructs, aberrations. 2. outsiders. 3. humanoids. 4. plants, animals. 5. everything else.

[dunklezhan]

If you are going to have bane weapons have them encompass 20% if not 25% of all mobs at the very least. For example have 5 bane weapon types. 1. undead, constructs, aberrations. 2. outsiders. 3. humanoids. 4. plants, animals. 5. everything else.

Like this idea. Suggest moving aberrations to go with outsiders, and adding vermin to plants, animals (so it's like a 'nature bane'). I'm struggling to think what's left to actually go in 'everything else'. Isn't there just Dragons remaining?

[dunklezhan]

In response to OP though:


Hi, everyone. I’d like to talk about some of what we've been working on to remedy the loot diversity issue in the near future. Our short-term goal is to return a healthy serving of older weapon affixes to the random loot pool. If we’re lucky (sometimes we’re not!), we’ll get these changes to Lamannia later this week and then include them in the patch.



When you say older weapon suffixes, you do mean that they are to scale with the loot, yes?

In order of preference & with comment


2 if along the lines of Madmatt's post, otherwise 3 - One is lower hanging fruit: release some high level bane affixes, such as “Humanoid Bane.” The older narrower bane items would go back in if we didn't. They might still go back in if we did.
1 If they are to scale with loot level, otherwise 2 - More expensive: restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons. We’d like to do this, it’s just a question of time.
3 meh. I think there's enough good stuff up there tbh. - Lastly, another large, and so less likely for a mere patch: extending those old affixes up so they cover modern epic level ranges.




but really, rather than all this I'd rather see named loot get a pass, or cannith crafting brought into line. Bit much for a patch though, as you say.

[nomaddog]

1. Restoring old affixes for all equipment
2. extending affixes to cover modern epic level ranges
3. Release high level bane affixes

[Scraap]

Like this idea. Suggest moving aberrations to go with outsiders, and adding vermin to plants, animals (so it's like a 'nature bane'). I'm struggling to think what's left to actually go in 'everything else'. Isn't there just Dragons remaining?

They could probably roll dragons into reptilian bane, if it isn't already. (I'll be honest, that's not one I ever got around to checking.)

[Atremus]

- More expensive: restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons. We’d like to do this, it’s just a question of time.


This gets my vote.

Also please restore Healing Amp

Special Request: Add Repair Amp

[Thumbed_Servant]

Hi, everyone. I’d like to talk about some of what we've been working on to remedy the loot diversity issue in the near future. Our short-term goal is to return a healthy serving of older weapon affixes to the random loot pool. If we’re lucky (sometimes we’re not!), we’ll get these changes to Lamannia later this week and then include them in the patch.

In addition, we have a couple “stretch goals” for patch:

- One is lower hanging fruit: release some high level bane affixes, such as “Humanoid Bane.” The older narrower bane items would go back in if we didn't. They might still go back in if we did.
Yes please, put them back in! All of the old banes!

- More expensive: restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons. We’d like to do this, it’s just a question of time.
I must ask, and it's a criticism: WHY did you all, Turbine, remove the old without a fully ready complete system to replace ir? HOW could you imagine that initiating a replacement process and then stopping it unfinished would be a positive thing?

- Lastly, another large, and so less likely for a mere patch: extending those old affixes up so they cover modern epic level ranges.
If the goal is to scale the power of random generated items for the newer-higher levels, this would definitely be a good step in that direction

We’d love your input on which of these three possibilities are of most value to you, and which you would (ideally) want to see first.

And as a closing note: changes that don’t make it into a patch are first on our list for (near) future loot improvements.

See above BOLD answers within the quote

[Kambuk]

Fix Stat Tome & Augment drop rates.

I would also like to see more items with one more powerful effect drop.
It seems most items with multiple effects are similar in power.
i.e. Clever ring +6 of intimidate +13 Total bonus +21 Min Level 21
Either the Intimidate or the Clever need to be the maximum for ML 21 or it will never be used.

Kambuk

[gelgoog]

- One is lower hanging fruit: release some high level bane affixes, such as “Humanoid Bane.” The older narrower bane items would go back in if we didn't. They might still go back in if we did.

Until we can get more inventory space I for one cannot carry a cartload of bane weapons. I never use them because I prefer to use one weapon depending upon twf/thf (cannith greataxe of fire, Mountains fist, duegar waraxe of the weapon master). I do use everbright weapons when I deal with rust monsters and oozes. If I deal with the undead I pull out a disruption weapon. Otherwise I keep my weapon choices down to a minimum.

Adding metalline to the random weapon loot tables would make the random loot more desirable. Again I point to the cannith greataxe of fire since it’s a weapon with many qualities I enjoy on a weapon. I mainly play melee based classes (ftr/barb) and prefer passive skills/feats to activating skills/feats.




- More expensive: restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons. We’d like to do this, it’s just a question of time.

It would be nice to have my old equipment I’ve had forever(ogre power gloves +4str lvl 9, etc) updated, but really I have been selling it to vendors in favor or the better random loot available (5resist item at lvl 9, ogre str gloves +5 and +6 at lvl 9, etc.). Now striding should be a fix since it would add melee and range speed.

Also the named loot say from Tangleroot needs to be adjusted with the new loot mechanics. Duration and spellpower of clickies should be adjusted as well(Visors of the flesh render death ward clickie). I carry those visors, about 5 of them on all my alts and use them at epic levels. Maybe add that to the random loot tables?




- Lastly, another large, and so less likely for a mere patch: extending those old affixes up so they cover modern epic level ranges.

You have disruption, and improved disruption. Maybe add Greater disruption, greater paralization, and greater vorpal. Extending duration times, charges etc.

[Propane]

Hi, everyone. I’d like to talk about some of what we've been working on to remedy the loot diversity issue in the near future. Our short-term goal is to return a healthy serving of older weapon affixes to the random loot pool. If we’re lucky (sometimes we’re not!), we’ll get these changes to Lamannia later this week and then include them in the patch.

In addition, we have a couple “stretch goals” for patch:

- One is lower hanging fruit: release some high level bane affixes, such as “Humanoid Bane.” The older narrower bane items would go back in if we didn't. They might still go back in if we did.
- More expensive: restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons. We’d like to do this, it’s just a question of time.
- Lastly, another large, and so less likely for a mere patch: extending those old affixes up so they cover modern epic level ranges.

We’d love your input on which of these three possibilities are of most value to you, and which you would (ideally) want to see first.

And as a closing note: changes that don’t make it into a patch are first on our list for (near) future loot improvements.

After adding back some of "old stuff" back to the loot tables - don't bother with the minor updates (which many cause other issues down the road)....

Do these two at the same time - even if it takes to the end of the year....

- More expensive: restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons. We’d like to do this, it’s just a question of time.
- Lastly, another large, and so less likely for a mere patch: extending those old affixes up so they cover modern epic level ranges.

Forget about the Banes - don't have the room - don't want to bother with the golf bag of weapons....

How many weapon sets do people use? (for example)
Trash mobs / DPS
DR breakers
Undead
CC
Solo / survival
Ranged / melee (back up depending on primary DPS role)

I personally won't bother with banes - see ghostbane.

[Ungood]

Hi, everyone. I’d like to talk about some of what we've been working on to remedy the loot diversity issue in the near future. Our short-term goal is to return a healthy serving of older weapon affixes to the random loot pool. If we’re lucky (sometimes we’re not!), we’ll get these changes to Lamannia later this week and then include them in the patch.

In addition, we have a couple “stretch goals” for patch:

- One is lower hanging fruit: release some high level bane affixes, such as “Humanoid Bane.” The older narrower bane items would go back in if we didn't. They might still go back in if we did.
- More expensive: restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons. We’d like to do this, it’s just a question of time.
- Lastly, another large, and so less likely for a mere patch: extending those old affixes up so they cover modern epic level ranges.

We’d love your input on which of these three possibilities are of most value to you, and which you would (ideally) want to see first.

And as a closing note: changes that don’t make it into a patch are first on our list for (near) future loot improvements.

I am not sure what you mean by higher level loot, but, as I see it, Loot-gen does not really need to go into the "Epic" levels, and in fact, trying to move it into those ranges is what caused the largest problems, to scale up the loot-gen, was not a profitable move, as it did not really give the players anything to earnestly strive for, and in effect destroyed or devalued what they had worked for.

I would actually suggest that having loot-gen cap at say 20th level, and any chest 20+ would drop other things players might want, additional commendations for Eveningstar gear, perhaps even mix "challenge" (both evening star and Cannith) mats into chests, as well as a means to quicken the process for upgrading older epic items.

Doing that would open more doors, for example, it's better for a player to have a realistic possibility to get an epic Templar's Justice, then it is to try and revise the loot-gen system to replace or even overshadow the Templar's Justice, this making the weapon and the process that was put in to upgrade it, a waste of development. Beyond that, it really dismays the players who took the time to acquire it, it makes them question why they even bother, if you are just going to make into vendor trash with the next update. It removes the incentive to put in time or effort to attain these things, and that is a game killer right there.

I guess the question is,

If you upped the Evening Star Comm drop rate so that it was perhaps doubled.
Put in a Trade method to consolidate shards/seals/scrolls into one item, so that players could acquire one "item" in volume to use to upgrade their items into epic items.


Would you need Epic-Loot-gen at all?

Have all the gear post 20th be Named/Raid or Comm/Challenge gear, and let Loot-gen be heroic building block gear, I think would make for a better game for everyone involved.


The name changes are on our "hopefully soon" list. I'm concerned about trying to do it for patch, though: the gear in everyone's inventory would be affected, and that could lead to some panic and confusion. So my preference is to make name changes part of a larger set of changes, in a proper release.

I totally understand this, the problem is, when you "fix" the stuff, please don't break it... Thanks.

[ReaperAlexEU]

I am not sure what you mean by higher level loot, but, as I see it, Loot-gen does not really need to go into the "Epic" levels, and in fact, trying to move it into those ranges is what caused the largest problems, to scale up the loot-gen, was not a profitable move, as it did not really give the players anything to earnestly strive for, and in effect destroyed or devalued what they had worked for.

I would actually suggest that having loot-gen cap at say 20th level, and any chest 20+ would drop other things players might want, additional commendations for Eveningstar gear, perhaps even mix "challenge" (both evening star and Cannith) mats into chests, as well as a means to quicken the process for upgrading older epic items.

Doing that would open more doors, for example, it's better for a player to have a realistic possibility to get an epic Templar's Justice, then it is to try and revise the loot-gen system to replace or even overshadow the Templar's Justice, this making the weapon and the process that was put in to upgrade it, a waste of development. Beyond that, it really dismays the players who took the time to acquire it, it makes them question why they even bother, if you are just going to make into vendor trash with the next update. It removes the incentive to put in time or effort to attain these things, and that is a game killer right there.

I guess the question is,

If you upped the Evening Star Comm drop rate so that it was perhaps doubled.
Put in a Trade method to consolidate shards/seals/scrolls into one item, so that players could acquire one "item" in volume to use to upgrade their items into epic items.


Would you need Epic-Loot-gen at all?

Have all the gear post 20th be Named/Raid or Comm/Challenge gear, and let Loot-gen be heroic building block gear, I think would make for a better game for everyone involved.



I totally understand this, the problem is, when you "fix" the stuff, please don't break it... Thanks.

that doesn't appeal to me. i like the idea of loot-gen items being viable for end game, but named stuff being optimal. i enjoyed playing my old TWF char that had 2 burst weapons of pure good with rizia burst ontop when the cap was 20. they felt like good weapons while i was farming for something better.

i like the epic level scintillating khopesh i have on my paly and am a bit dissapointed such weapons stopped dropping. sure it's no lit II, but it is still fun to get that lighting strike proc. there are also much better weapons in the new raids. that scintillating pesh for me is where the balance should be, it's a fun loot-gen item that doesn't compete with the best stuff.

it's fun pulling a nice loot-gen weapon, i wouldn't want to kiss that goodbye the second i took lvl20 for a myriad of ingredients (even though i like the idea of making it easier to work towards some of those old items). it might seem a bit silly and counter productive, but personally i'd not want any solution to this to involve saying goodbye to loot-gen. i was much happier popping chests in the pre-u19 game than i have been since, and that was due to the weapon loot tables.

of course the system is all out of balance now, the dream visor is a very good example of that. but such named items should be given the power they need to compete with loot-gen, not have loot-gen removed! for that specific item maybe it is as simple as giving it a competing deadly bonus based on the versions level. maybe you could give the epics a bit of a boost, say aim them at the lvl28 items, maybe even lvl30 for the EE version?

as for items becoming obsolete, while you expect to outgrow some items i think it would be nice to be able to take some with you to cap via an upgrade system. such an upgrade system would be great for items players have invested a lot of time in farming for. easier to get stuff could just be fair cop in needed to grow out of it.

[Marupal]

- Lastly, another large, and so less likely for a mere patch: extending those old affixes up so they cover modern epic level ranges.
This one rates highest on the wish list. I'm assuming you're talking about things that drop away in usefulness in epics like wounding, maladroit, etc.



- More expensive: restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons. We’d like to do this, it’s just a question of time.
Runner up. Convalescent and the proc guards that were on armor are missed but if weapon affixes are already in the works for the patch, equipment affixes take 2nd place.


- One is lower hanging fruit: release some high level bane affixes, such as “Humanoid Bane.” The older narrower bane items would go back in if we didn't. They might still go back in if we did.
Sounds like a good deal, especially if you're leaving the original banes in, but Banes have dominated the loot runs lately. We need a little break from banes before they trump dev time spent on other things :)
Like somebody else mentioned, when you get around to it please add plant bane to random loot.

[Golddragon87]

- More expensive: restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons. We’d like to do this, it’s just a question of time.

I understand this is the long term goal. However it is also the root of all evil that needs to be quashed with extreme prejudice. Make it a priority please, preferably #1 on the list.

[DrNuegebauer]

The name changes are on our "hopefully soon" list. I'm concerned about trying to do it for patch, though: the gear in everyone's inventory would be affected, and that could lead to some panic and confusion. So my preference is to make name changes part of a larger set of changes, in a proper release.

I don't mean to sound rude, however, your rhetoric on this loot thing is disturbing.

A fairly nice loot system had started to evolve, and instead of working with it, some fool got rid of it all in favour of Ghostbane. Oh my.

If you have any plans, a starting point needs to be reintroducing the stuff that was taken away. If you don't know what it all was (my guess is that nobody wrote it down...), then ddowiki might be a place to start doing some research. You really really need to be bringing all that stuff back in, pronto. I understand it might be hard to code it into the ghostbane system, but unfortunately that's the lot you've been dealt.


We don't want "humanbane" to become the new "ghostbane". Please no. Just start working on getting the old stuff back in before making something new and stupid. Once you have the old stuff back in, THEN start musing about the future.

There was no need to kill loot. Unfortunately it happened. Fix it first (and extend level ranges to 28 or 30 or whatever), and then move forward.

AND, while working on random loot, please upgrade all existing named loot to once again be useful. It might not be your fault that it all got killed, but once again, if you're "sir lootsalot", then unfortunately it seems to be your lot in life to fix it.

[ReaperAlexEU]

reintroducing the stuff that was taken away

erm, re-read the OP, that is exactly what their cunning plan is!


Our short-term goal is to return a healthy serving of older weapon affixes to the random loot pool. If we’re lucky (sometimes we’re not!), we’ll get these changes to Lamannia later this week and then include them in the patch.

see, that is plan A, this thread is about what they can do once plan A is complete. they are saying if things go well then they might be able to get some other things done in the U20 patches.

[Deathdefy]

In addition, we have a couple “stretch goals” for patch:

- One is lower hanging fruit: release some high level bane affixes, such as “Humanoid Bane.” The older narrower bane items would go back in if we didn't. They might still go back in if we did.
- More expensive: restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons. We’d like to do this, it’s just a question of time.
- Lastly, another large, and so less likely for a mere patch: extending those old affixes up so they cover modern epic level ranges.

We’d love your input on which of these three possibilities are of most value to you, and which you would (ideally) want to see first.

And as a closing note: changes that don’t make it into a patch are first on our list for (near) future loot improvements.

I'd still love to know what on earth happened to the pretty darn good state that loot was in just after MoTU to turn it into Riposte-Ghostbane-fest.

Re: the actual question:
Bane schmane. Their removal wasn't the worst thing in the world. Can still craft decent beaters for the specific types and it wouldn't be the worst thing to let crafting keep that niche.

Yes on old affixes. If you literally only did Convalescent of Parrying on bracers that'd be a huge improvement for non-weapon equipment.

To be totally honest I don't really understand the third option; if it's making better versions of previous equipment affixes like "Superior Convalescence 40% HAmp" for the highest end lootgem - do eeet too! But don't rush to get it in this patch at the expense of just re-introducing the old affixes.

PPS. Given 1-20 is sort of whatever now anyway, any chance of removing the cap on possible prefixes and suffixes for heroics to include what in MoTU were epic specific items. e.g. finding a ML 14 +1 Repeater of Radiance would be exciting in my view.

[HatsuharuZ]

I just want to see DR breakers again.

And DR-breaking affixes on quarterstaves.... but I say that since I have a q-stave using rogue.

[BOgre]

Hi, everyone. I’d like to talk about some of what we've been working on to remedy the loot diversity issue in the near future. Our short-term goal is to return a healthy serving of older weapon affixes to the random loot pool. If we’re lucky (sometimes we’re not!), we’ll get these changes to Lamannia later this week and then include them in the patch.

In addition, we have a couple “stretch goals” for patch:

- One is lower hanging fruit: release some high level bane affixes, such as “Humanoid Bane.” The older narrower bane items would go back in if we didn't. They might still go back in if we did.
- More expensive: restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons. We’d like to do this, it’s just a question of time.
- Lastly, another large, and so less likely for a mere patch: extending those old affixes up so they cover modern epic level ranges.

We’d love your input on which of these three possibilities are of most value to you, and which you would (ideally) want to see first.

And as a closing note: changes that don’t make it into a patch are first on our list for (near) future loot improvements.


Unfortunately, this doesn't read like you've listened at all. The "intro" thread you posted is chock full of criticism of the system itself, less emphasis put on simply adding more affixes to the existing system. Your above list seems to imply that you're not interested in actually improving the random loot system, but are already decided on simply adding dumping more stuff into the already broken machine.

If that's your direction, then it doesn't really matter what we pick as "priorities". The system will still be just as broken.

[TekkenDevil]

Return Regeneration items that actually scale. At epic levels, your biggest issue is getting falcon punch critted to death by enemies, not dwindling down in HP slowly, so a 100HP/minute item at level 28 wouldn't really be imbalanced.

[Flavilandile]

- More expensive: restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons.

This one is the most important.
You can extend them later and you can work on the powerful bane later.
But first you need to fix what is broken : namely bringing back the system as it was before ShadowFail and the Ghostbane of the Loot.
That would also fix all those broken items that were created during the Ghostbane ShadowFailure.
( like no ML UWA items that became ML5 and are now burdening LVL 4 characters, or all the First Year of Risia Festival Loot )

[NytCrawlr]

Fix Stat Tome & Augment drop rates.

This too please, along with bringing back the old MotU loot, would be a good step in the right direction.

Or maybe add stat tomes to Sagas as well.

[Gwyxxx]

Hi, everyone. I’d like to talk about some of what we've been working on to remedy the loot diversity issue in the near future. Our short-term goal is to return a healthy serving of older weapon affixes to the random loot pool. If we’re lucky (sometimes we’re not!), we’ll get these changes to Lamannia later this week and then include them in the patch.

In addition, we have a couple “stretch goals” for patch:

- One is lower hanging fruit: release some high level bane affixes, such as “Humanoid Bane.” The older narrower bane items would go back in if we didn't. They might still go back in if we did.
- More expensive: restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons. We’d like to do this, it’s just a question of time.
- Lastly, another large, and so less likely for a mere patch: extending those old affixes up so they cover modern epic level ranges.

We’d love your input on which of these three possibilities are of most value to you, and which you would (ideally) want to see first.

And as a closing note: changes that don’t make it into a patch are first on our list for (near) future loot improvements.

2 for a patch, 3 later.

[QuantumFX]

In addition, we have a couple “stretch goals” for patch:

- One is lower hanging fruit: release some high level bane affixes, such as “Humanoid Bane.” The older narrower bane items would go back in if we didn't. They might still go back in if we did.
- More expensive: restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons. We’d like to do this, it’s just a question of time.
- Lastly, another large, and so less likely for a mere patch: extending those old affixes up so they cover modern epic level ranges.

I would like to see bane effects progress into the instakill effects.

Ex.
Humanoid Bane -> Vorpal
Ghostbane -> Disruption
Extraplanar Bane* ->
Whatever Bane -> Whatever Slayer

* Elementals + Outsiders


I would also like to see multiple function skill boost enchantments. I could go into a long rant about how skill gear is incredibly annoying to rogues and artificers.

Ex.
Stealthy -> Hide + Move Silently
Mechanic -> Pick 2: Repair, Disable Device, Open Lock, Repair Spell Power
Perception -> Pick 2: Spot, Listen; Search
Arcannum -> Pick 2: Spellcraft, Concentration, Perform, Random Spell Power boost
Healer -> Pick 2: Concentration, Heal, Positive Spell Power

[sephiroth1084]

We’d love your input on which of these three possibilities are of most value to you, and which you would (ideally) want to see first.

And as a closing note: changes that don’t make it into a patch are first on our list for (near) future loot improvements.
First:

- More expensive: restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons. We’d like to do this, it’s just a question of time.
Second:

- Lastly, another large, and so less likely for a mere patch: extending those old affixes up so they cover modern epic level ranges.

While, yes, everyone has been harping on Ghostbane, don't mistake that for being the main problem here--people also largely dislike that virtually every piece of armor that drops has Riposte on it, and that many of the old worthwhile combinations for a lot of loot have disappeared. Ghostbane is just the highest visibility of these issues, partly because it's everywhere, partly because it was a rather obvious dumbing-down change, and partly because most people have completely abandoned random armor at this point with easily farmed better options available for everyone (the armors from the Eveningstar traders and the Demonweb quests, plus the various dragonscales to shoot for). Accessories have also been a problem, but that was somewhat overshadowed by the ridiculousness that is Deadly (not many people are going to complain about gaining +4-10 damage added to all of their attacks), and +9-11 stat items.

Bring back all of the old affixes. Even without updating them immediately, many work just as well at level 28 as they did at 20.

After that, the next push should be to update those that don't scale well to be useful later in the game. Again, some I'd like to see are updates to Vampirism, Bodyfeeder, and Life Shielding that are actually useful on Epic Elite. I don't know if we can get those effects jacked up to be both useful on EE, and not overpowering on EN+ (Epic Hard), but I'd like to see them.

As one additional goal, please revert the naming scheme from blandness like Flaming VII to basically anything else. I liked (and I'm not alone in this) the MotU additions that bumped staples like Flaming up to Conflagration, etc... moving from 1d6 to 2d6 to 3d6. I have no idea why all of those effects had their cool names removed, and then why every weapon effect was changed to being d4s instead of d6s. +1d6 wasn't too powerful at level 1, so it's not like it afforded the team some greater flexibility in loot design for low levels, and the jumps from 1d6 to 2d6 to 3d6 weren't so big that the game really need to break that up into smaller increments. The only thing that needed doing was for the new 2d6 and 3d6 versions to also come with "Burst" appended to them with the same sort of regularity as Flaming Burst appeared alongside Flaming.

Finally (and this can wait a bit longer), the augment system needs some work. At the moment, I'll merely point to the red damage augments that scale 1d4/1d6/1d8/1d10, and say that they should probably be 1d4/1d6/2d6/3d6, and that we should really have aligned augments that work similarly in addition to the elemental ones.

[Gwyxxx]

The name changes are on our "hopefully soon" list. I'm concerned about trying to do it for patch, though: the gear in everyone's inventory would be affected, and that could lead to some panic and confusion. So my preference is to make name changes part of a larger set of changes, in a proper release.

Usually to do this change the better way is using a stone of change, so players can update their named only if they want.
(the biggest problem is the losing of augments)

[Thrudh]

I don't really care much about getting the banes back. I prefer my weapons to be a bit more versatile, so I tend to avoid weapons that only work against a subset of creatures. Perhaps if the banes were a bit more potent than just 4d6 damage.

I'd rather see more powerful specialized banes myself... Instead of a weaker generic bane, I'd rather see some 6d6 specialized banes.

[Thrudh]

AND, while working on random loot, please upgrade all existing named loot to once again be useful. It might not be your fault that it all got killed, but once again, if you're "sir lootsalot", then unfortunately it seems to be your lot in life to fix it.

Yes please... Making all named loot worth less (in some cases a LOT less) than like-level random loot was a very bad idea. Please make a pass over all named loot.

[Raliar]

Bane weapons always felt underpowered and highly situational which added to my overflowing backpack problem. It is hard to carry an addition 2-3 weapons for each bane type but if this was considered I would like them to be much more powerful. Maybe +8 enhance +8D6 bane damage or possibly a damage + slow proc against that typed bane, mix it up =p

The highest priority would be bring things back obscenity and other tri suffix items and increase their power! I would like it to go further than this though and possibly update these and add new abilities to weapons. Maybe incease the amount of wonderous enhancement +'s a weapon can potentially have and maybe more than two total prefixes and suffixes RARELY.

Just my input, thanks for taking your time to discuss this with everyone.

Also let the community know some of your boundries and restrictions, if you can't make certain things happen let us know. It definately sounds like you want to help out and improve the loot system!

[Dandonk]

Hi, everyone. I’d like to talk about some of what we've been working on to remedy the loot diversity issue in the near future. Our short-term goal is to return a healthy serving of older weapon affixes to the random loot pool. If we’re lucky (sometimes we’re not!), we’ll get these changes to Lamannia later this week and then include them in the patch.

In addition, we have a couple “stretch goals” for patch:

- One is lower hanging fruit: release some high level bane affixes, such as “Humanoid Bane.” The older narrower bane items would go back in if we didn't. They might still go back in if we did.
- More expensive: restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons. We’d like to do this, it’s just a question of time.
- Lastly, another large, and so less likely for a mere patch: extending those old affixes up so they cover modern epic level ranges.

We’d love your input on which of these three possibilities are of most value to you, and which you would (ideally) want to see first.

And as a closing note: changes that don’t make it into a patch are first on our list for (near) future loot improvements.

1) Please restore the old affixes first. Some are very important to many builds, and the names and effects have a "cool" factor sorely missing in loot atm.
2) Extend them in to higher levels.
3) Banes... yes, I like banes, and getting them back will be nice. But it's not as huge a problem for me as the first two.

[Ungood]

that doesn't appeal to me. i like the idea of loot-gen items being viable for end game, but named stuff being optimal. i enjoyed playing my old TWF char that had 2 burst weapons of pure good with rizia burst ontop when the cap was 20. they felt like good weapons while i was farming for something better.

i like the epic level scintillating khopesh i have on my paly and am a bit dissapointed such weapons stopped dropping. sure it's no lit II, but it is still fun to get that lighting strike proc. there are also much better weapons in the new raids. that scintillating pesh for me is where the balance should be, it's a fun loot-gen item that doesn't compete with the best stuff.

it's fun pulling a nice loot-gen weapon, i wouldn't want to kiss that goodbye the second i took lvl20 for a myriad of ingredients (even though i like the idea of making it easier to work towards some of those old items). it might seem a bit silly and counter productive, but personally i'd not want any solution to this to involve saying goodbye to loot-gen. i was much happier popping chests in the pre-u19 game than i have been since, and that was due to the weapon loot tables.

Humm see for me, it's the other way. I really would like to have an option to turn off loot-gen in favor of say Cannith Challenge mats, or Eveninstar Challenge mats dropping out of typical chests, that way, I could plan my gear, I could look forward to a level 16 Icy Robe, or level 20 Rock Boots, without needing to put down my EXP and other Loot (like +5 tomes, and the like) and have to grind challenges (Which I do not like to be honest)

As I see it, if they expanded the challenge gear to go to level 30, had an option for a universal mat to drop in typical chests (This would be a base mat that could be traded in for any of the other mats in the game) lets say, make it a UI option, and then, you could trade in for any mat you had the pack for.

I would love that, it would let me plan my gear before I got there, I could save up for say level 24 rock boots, or even level 28 cloak of flames, while not needing to do challenges if say, I did not like them, it would free up space in my inventory, it would save time for trips to the bank and any of that stuff.

Have Ebberon Epics drop a Universal Component, as opposed to Shards/Seals/Scrolls, then have it so you trade in enough of these for an Epic Upgrade. Trade in all the old stuff for Universal Components, and be done with it. Simple, fast, efficient, and puts the gear that was designed into the hands of the players who may still want it.

Sadly, loot gen has outclassed a lot of the old epic items, with ML15 items being able to have +8 stat boons, and 20+ level items going to +10, which old epics were +7, it's actually kind of depressing.

But I guess to each their own. Personally, if they could keep loot-gen in check, then it would find, but I would rather see Challenge/Trade-in type gear be brought in, with the tokens and such dropping from end game chests (Along with maybe other rare named items, and the like) so everyone has named gear quickly after entering the 20's, and then can keep it up as they level.

[ReaperAlexEU]

Humm see for me, it's the other way. I really would like to have an option to turn off loot-gen in favor of say Cannith Challenge mats, or Eveninstar Challenge mats dropping out of typical chests, that way, I could plan my gear, I could look forward to a level 16 Icy Robe, or level 20 Rock Boots, without needing to put down my EXP and other Loot (like +5 tomes, and the like) and have to grind challenges (Which I do not like to be honest)

As I see it, if they expanded the challenge gear to go to level 30, had an option for a universal mat to drop in typical chests (This would be a base mat that could be traded in for any of the other mats in the game) lets say, make it a UI option, and then, you could trade in for any mat you had the pack for.

I would love that, it would let me plan my gear before I got there, I could save up for say level 24 rock boots, or even level 28 cloak of flames, while not needing to do challenges if say, I did not like them, it would free up space in my inventory, it would save time for trips to the bank and any of that stuff.

Have Ebberon Epics drop a Universal Component, as opposed to Shards/Seals/Scrolls, then have it so you trade in enough of these for an Epic Upgrade. Trade in all the old stuff for Universal Components, and be done with it. Simple, fast, efficient, and puts the gear that was designed into the hands of the players who may still want it.

Sadly, loot gen has outclassed a lot of the old epic items, with ML15 items being able to have +8 stat boons, and 20+ level items going to +10, which old epics were +7, it's actually kind of depressing.

But I guess to each their own. Personally, if they could keep loot-gen in check, then it would find, but I would rather see Challenge/Trade-in type gear be brought in, with the tokens and such dropping from end game chests (Along with maybe other rare named items, and the like) so everyone has named gear quickly after entering the 20's, and then can keep it up as they level.

don't get me wrong, it is tempting and i'm not exactly enthused with the prospect of trying to get my hands on an epic midnight greetings for my rogue, so i would benefit from such a system. but while constant progress is good, it needs to be peppered with some excitement. obviously tomes would add to that but the whole thing makes me think back to when i was very first grinding the shroud. i liked having to clear enough space for all those chests worth of loot, having to sell up mid way and having the chance for a decent loot-gen appearing as i farmed (back when a vorp was a good solid drop).

so for me i'd not want to trade all loot-gen for mats, but have some sort of mix. i loved the loot pre-U19 and found my bank spaces rapidly being eaten up by new shinies i just had to keep. so first i'd like to get that back (as much as it makes me curse due to lack of space). then yes, something else to help get my mits on items from yesterdays end game would be nice

[voodoogroves]

You guys are saying basically very similar things.

It's nice when random loot is useful. It's ok when the combos are stupid bad, since you'll just sell it. It's ok that some random loot can combine in pretty awesome ways to make something really cool - though likely it'll be niche only ... like Scintilating of Debilitation, or Pandemonium of Mauling or Desert Sand of the Sun's Fury. Those are fun, you could festival them up but they don't replace an eAGA, Cleaver, etc.

Deadly 10, Accuracy 10, Resistance 10, key-stat-10, Seeker Lots, spell school Focus, Spell Power are all basically are better than most named loot with those abilities.


All loot is boring now - not enough variety.
Several key abilities (not all) drop frequently and with a big enough number to outclass related named loot. These are the things you try to "max", and they drop in large quantities with big numbers.



If the key ability is important, only the ability to acquire and slot the highest value matters. Adding lesser amounts (that don't stack) to an item don't increase the items desirability.

[niehues]

The name changes are on our "hopefully soon" list. I'm concerned about trying to do it for patch, though: the gear in everyone's inventory would be affected, and that could lead to some panic and confusion. So my preference is to make name changes part of a larger set of changes, in a proper release.

I'm pretty sure he was referring to Named items ( Sword of shadows for ex. ) and not prefix and affix names.. but carry on..

[RD2play]

Making some of those old affixes appear in higher level loot drops. Right now, those affixes would generate with DC's that were too low.

Quick version: more kinds of random loot at the top.

maybe the idea for DC scaling according to item enchantment? so effect =17DC + item ML + 5DC/ power iteration (paragon/epic/epic-paragon) = Total DC

example paralysing +3 weapon of sunder II, -> 5+3+2=10 = ML19 (paragon), >> DC = 17 + 19 + 5 = 41
max in this case would be DC = 17 + 30 + 15 = 62 DC @30LvL enough to make it viable in EE but not high enough to make it better that char focussed abilities that are based on DC (believe the max is around 70 atm)

[Kers]

Since Negative Energy Spell Power was lumped under the heal skill, Heal Amp items such as convalescent items or even a convalescent augment that is NOT RED and NOT BLUE, should be made. Pale Masters that splash multiple levels in other classes get the shaft on self healing as our spell power is just turned to cr@p because of fewer wizard levels. Making a convalescent augment would be the more ideal situation, as those that have "Super Specialized" gear sets "because" of the crappy loot system, can't afford to be swapping out essential Named Items for a random-gen piece of garbage.

[LordPiglet]

I don't personally use much random loot, but a return of Convalescence and some sort of Repair amp would be good.

Also, if you can fix lifestealing. Previously the weapon effect was wai, just the description of the power wasn't change. Lifestealing was originally a chance on a crit, then when it was changed so things like mass hold no longer put mobs into auto crit, lifestealing was changed to always occur on a crit.

[EllisDee37]

If you are going to have bane weapons have them encompass 20% if not 25% of all mobs at the very least. For example have 5 bane weapon types. 1. undead, constructs, aberrations. 2. outsiders. 3. humanoids. 4. plants, animals. 5. everything else.Thinking more about this, I'd like to see four different bane flavors to cover just about every mob in the game:

1) Tainted (similar to monk): Undead, Aberrations, Outsiders (not just evil outsiders)

2) Nature: Animals, Plants, Vermin, Reptiles

3) Humanoid: Dwarf, Elf, Dryad, Gnoll, Goblinoid, Halfling, Human, Orc

4) Giants, Dragons, Monstrous Humanoids, Magical Beasts

This would cover all mob types except constructs and ooze. Construct bane should just be smiting, and ooze bane should be ooze-only and include everbright.

[Silverleafeon]

Awhile back, a decision was made to not include things such as an increase of DCs to past life feats.
This was done to prevent a gap between the TRing gaming style and the nonTRing gaming style.

Recently, Feather of Son introduced a future fix that augments would stack for an increase in spell DCs.
At first glance, this seems like a quick easy fix.

However, this greatly favors those who the time and means to perfect their equipment choices.
The TRing lifestyle tends to work with more generalized simpler equipment set ups.

Why should the Developers punish those spending more time and effort in the game?
Why should the Developers be too lazy to simply upgrade the existing augments to match similar loot levels?

Although the stacking of item bonuses does favor the non TRing crowd, they too more likely want nonstacking item bonuses.

Instead of introducing MORE unwanted item stacking bonuses which goes against the dodge philosophy, can we reduced instead?

How about doubling all healing amp item bonuses, but make them non stacking?

Although, I have been reluctant, I could accept doing the same to energy absorption.
Could you add crafting recipes for all elements, instead of just electric and fire?



Repeating, I feel it is very unfair for you to exclude spells DCs and various other goodies from past life feats,
then in turn greatly favor those who can work out intricate item combinations because they don't reincarnate much.

Thank you for your time and effort to communicate with the gaming public.

[Seikojin]

#1: Convalescent bracers.

No other random lootgen is as important to as many characters.

Once that is done, I'd suggest getting the 'fun' MOTU weapon affixes back into the game. No veteran player cares about a Dynamo Khopesh of Mauling, but for a newbie without raid loot, that is a very nice weapon.

I think the first two options brought up are the best to push for.

[Kers]

We need more frickin space to put all this stuff in too. So if Dr. Loot can deliver Dr. Space, you will have gained legendary status amongst the community.

[Leclaire1]

The name changes are on our "hopefully soon" list. I'm concerned about trying to do it for patch, though: the gear in everyone's inventory would be affected, and that could lead to some panic and confusion. So my preference is to make name changes part of a larger set of changes, in a proper release.

I can understand fixing certain key things properly with out a rush, and I don't think most of us want an unfinished system rushed to press without the proper resources. That was basically what happened with Shadowfell, and we don't want it to happen again.

Nonetheless, the priority in importance (not necessarily in time) is not adding more stuff to random loot, or even fixing the fact that Ghostbane drops in every chest. In my view random loot is mostly vendor trash, and as such I don't even care if its all ghostbane as I'm just selling it any way. The priority in importance is rather fixing a very broken system in the following ways-

1) While I hate to use the word, we need a massive NERFING of random loot that has destroyed the more interesting named loot we'd rather wear, and spent a lot of time earning. Some examples-

a) Deadly needs to go away, or be dropped to much, much lower values. Competence bonuses to damage used to be small and hard to find. Dream Visor, Greater Bold Trinket, and Windhowlers, along with the horc ship buff, have been made irrelevant at ALL levels because of this stupid addition.
b) Seeker should be lower values. It drops on everything now in much greater quantities than named items of the equivalent level. I don't mind it existing on a few more items at high levels in particular, but the values should be much lower so that Cormyrian dragon armor, Nether Grasps, Smoke Goggles, Lenses of Opportunity, and The Blood Stone still have relevance.
c) Super high dodge, double-strike, and double-shot values that can't be found anywhere else
d) All the greater keen and greater vorpal effects which add damage die in addition to other stuff. The Hunter's Greatsword might be attractive to a toon without esos or the FoT sword if lootgen stuff didn't easily gain similar damage dice.

2) Some new named items for shadowfell and above content that have some of these values. Interesting combinations of things are especially good- I think the High Road items are a model in this regard. Lets have named items with deadly, doublestrike, heal amp, etc and not just lootgen. Let us also add some weapon types that are not commonly

3) A pass to upgrade certain core equipment to make it compete with other systemic changes. In particular some old raid and quest rewards still have nice effects, but are not feasible to use because they never got the damage dice increase that all lootgen items of a certain level got. Some examples-
a) Bereavement and Bravo's Shortsword from the Titan raid, Treason, Clouburst, and the other weapons from the Reaver's Fate, which have great effects but are not ideal for normal combat due to substandard damage dice.
b) Quest items like Fang of Siberys, a very interesting scimitar (and scimis are in bad need of love) which will no longer compete with other weapons due to having only a single weapon die. What a waste. There are numerous items in lvls 12-20 content like this which need some help.
c) Adding upgrade options for red and green dragonscale armors and such. These shouldn't suck compared to more easily earned stuff only a couple of levels higher.

In short, it makes sense that not all lootgen be ghostbane, and I don't mind the return of real prefixes from dnd (I'm a pnp player who loathers all the solar 3 prefixes and such), but these are luxuries. The essentials are broader system fixes such as the above.

[Leclaire1]

We need more frickin space to put all this stuff in too. So if Dr. Loot can deliver Dr. Space, you will have gained legendary status amongst the community.

This made me think actually. Another priority to add to the above would be a change in binding. In short, all the BTCoE stuff is nauseating, and causes me to waste good equipment all the time which I at other levels would pass to alts. I understand that the oE part allows it to be sold to other players, which increases players with good special equipment and increases Turbine's revenues as these sales are done largely on the shard house. I personally have no problem with this, you need to make money and I'm willing to pay for stuff every now and then. But please make more like the Pale Green Ioun Stone- BTAoE. This way we can still sell stuff when we are done with it or if we don't need it, but if we out-level it and want to pass it to an alt we can. Good loot shouldn't be wasted collecting dust, and that's sadly what's happening with too many things.

[Scraap]

On the deadly thing: What if instead of straight +X damage, they changed it to +1dX? That'd cut it in roughly half over a period of time, but you'd still get those big numbers moments. (well, relatively speaking.)

[LeoLionxxx]

Hey Doc, is it at all possible/feasible that in the future we may see level-scaling loot? As in named items that increase in power tiers according to your level (i.e. 4, 8, 12, etc.). This would be perfect fo event items because you have to upgrade them anyways. It also makes a lot of sense for the TR design of DDO, where you'll want to recycle the same golden loot each life.

[irnimnode]

how long will the server be down

[Raiderone]

What I would like see is changes to existing Named Items so that they can be upgraded to even higher abilities all the way up to lvl 30 future Cap... with updates in mind to increase there power and value.

For instance: LOB items after being upgraded to Tier3...can be further upgraded by Heroism 1, 2 and 3. Or make it Valor 1, 2 and 3 by using commendations of Valor.

[FynWarFyn]

1. Don't bring back the banes and even the new banes might not be that exciting. Don't make them into augments, either, unless it is craftable (for example, a bane blank augment on a weapon slot that count the numbers of monster type kills to get bane properties). Frankly I would like that to be a property not available on augment, a general bane property affecting a wider range of types of creatures so that the kill counts toward the bane power (maybe tie in the monster manual kills number from toon, not account, sales of manuals goes up, which may lead to slayer properties) and if a bane is not used often it decreases in power until it kills again, maybe like 1 lvl down a month of inactivity or something else, and banes are exclusive enchantments so can't use 2 weapons with bane and make it available only on the very unused weapons like light mace, light pick, xbow, great xbow....trying to kill several birds with one stone here... Lorewise, making a bane property is quite challenging, need powerful magic and lots of ingredients, usually from the creatures you want the bane to affect and a wider range of ingredient make a more powerful bane, plus the bane may need refreshing for it to work properly and strongly...

2. Bringing back old affixes is good, but too much game breaking thing are already out, you need to rebalance a lot of things.

3. And putting them on Named and Raid loots just to keep them updated is another game breaking option. Yeah I can imagine a raid with 6 barb with eSOS updated, again.

I have played D&D for a very long time. Dealing 50+ damages was incredible, now I see 500+ damages everywhere. Casting very powerful spells was awesome til you run out of spells, now I see very powerful spells all the time, chug an sp potion and keep casting very powerful spells again. Why? because HP and SP got scaled so enormously, it no longer look like a D&D game.

We don't actually need more loot or better loot. People just complain too much when they don't get their cakes and eat it too. Epic enemies should not have huge amount of HP and SP and Resists. They should just be harder to hit and affect by spells, like we get at higher lvls (I personally think that part or all of our character levels should be added to AC depending on class, it just seems strange that a lvl20 fighter wearing the same armor he got at lvl1 gets no bonus to AC, did he not learn anything in 20 lvl of combat fighting to survive better?). They shouldn't deal huge damages and neither should we. They just need to think better. If we can tank them, they can tank us too. If we go for the casters and healers first, they should too, they are the epic monsters who survived long enough to make it to epic and they act dumber than lvl 5 kobolds.

[memloch]

Here is my 2 cents. Create a way to upgrade the old epic items using the new Covs. Perhaps 2 or 3 tiers per item.

This would instantly place many great items into the high levels while giving people a reason to run all your epic content.

[Firewall]

- Lastly, another large, and so less likely for a mere patch: extending those old affixes up so they cover modern epic level ranges.


My choice

[QuantumFX]

P.S. If Ghostbane was all about making things easier for Newbies WHY does it not break Ghostly Skeleton's DR {Not the Base Dmg - Nothing gets thru!}?

Well, it doesn’t bypass DR/Slashing (Zombies) or DR/Bludgeon (Skeletons). So why should it bypass DR/Good (Ghostly Skeletons)?

[Clatterfist]

- One is lower hanging fruit: release some high level bane affixes, such as “Humanoid Bane.” The older narrower bane items would go back in if we didn't. They might still go back in if we did.

Not bad, but not amazing. Bane is one of the few affixes that has decent crafting options, and consolidated banes are mostly just a little quality of life thing, requiring fewer clubs in your golf bag if you want to go down that route of armaments.


- More expensive: restoring old affixes for all equipment, instead of just for weapons. We’d like to do this, it’s just a question of time./quote]

This is good, but if you're pressed for time / resources then you can get big returns quite easily just by restoring a couple of the more interesting and desirable affixes. Put Convalescent, Sheltering, and Parrying back in and you'll have done a good job on the strength of that alone.

[quote]Lastly, another large, and so less likely for a mere patch: extending those old affixes up so they cover modern epic level ranges.

It's one way to go, and there are some cases where it might be fairly awesome. Greater Deception or something? Good.
However, you might be better served by giving items with a very high enhancement level the chance to spawn with [more than two affixes/more augment slots/something new that takes up some of that enhancement value without being an affix] so that they can roll properties that don't have (and possibly don't need) a high enhancement value of their own. That'd be an easy way to restore a lot of diversity, and giving items a chance to have more or different combination of augment slots would also help increase flexibility when gearing a character up in the late game.

Thanks.

PS: Any word on Cannith Crafting? I know it might take more time than you have right now even if the will is there to bring it up to speed, but I'd like to know if you have the will all the same. Your predeccessors left it untouched for a really long time and you could distinguish yourself and do the game a big service if you updated it.

[brian14]

I really want to see the long term goal come to fruition...


That said, as a stop-gap, I think y'all need to address the "new Undead". Plant zombies, vine horrors, Animated topiaries and Will o wisps are resistant to all of the conventional affixes that players find worthwhile.
Will-o-wisps are chaotic evil aberrations, and are affected by Holy (or Axiomatic) of Aberration Bane.

[brian14]

Looks like I am in the minority here, but I always loved Greater Bane weapons, and would love to see them back.

[Thar]

feeding/draining. if it's not on crit, then it's not worth using since epic mobs will regenerate it before i roll another 20. even on crit it is debateable if this will be useful.

[Mosasi]

Definitely bring back the old affixes - I miss lacerating, divine light, mauling, mangling weapons. The current spread of affixes for weapons and armor are unoriginal and overly repetitive. The affixes that went live with motu were dynamic and there were enough of them that you could find unique items.

The new bane is okay I suppose for lower level, but it rather simplifies the need/desire to acquire a ghostly/ethereal item or a ghost touch weapon. All in all I'm not sure what to think about it, its nice, but maybe too nice? Easy on occasion is nice and all, but too easy is world of warcraft.

As for higher level affixes, gear should scale - plain and simple. If a level 5 can use a 1d6 X-elemental damage item, a lvl 28-30 should be using a magnitude higher in terms of damage. With that having been said, you already had this in place with the previous set of weapon affixes and then for no reason that has any weight, did away with them.

[SilkofDrasnia]

Argh. I realized I glanced at you post and saw what I was thinking, not what you were writing. So here's an actual response: I'm planning to post for a thread on named loot (on the general forums) in the near future. Stay tuned!

I hope that is a near near future.

[DrakeFury]

1. Don't bring back the banes and even the new banes might not be that exciting. Don't make them into augments, either, unless it is craftable (for example, a bane blank augment on a weapon slot that count the numbers of monster type kills to get bane properties). Frankly I would like that to be a property not available on augment, a general bane property affecting a wider range of types of creatures so that the kill counts toward the bane power (maybe tie in the monster manual kills number from toon, not account, sales of manuals goes up, which may lead to slayer properties) and if a bane is not used often it decreases in power until it kills again, maybe like 1 lvl down a month of inactivity or something else, and banes are exclusive enchantments so can't use 2 weapons with bane and make it available only on the very unused weapons like light mace, light pick, xbow, great xbow....trying to kill several birds with one stone here... Lorewise, making a bane property is quite challenging, need powerful magic and lots of ingredients, usually from the creatures you want the bane to affect and a wider range of ingredient make a more powerful bane, plus the bane may need refreshing for it to work properly and strongly...

2. Bringing back old affixes is good, but too much game breaking thing are already out, you need to rebalance a lot of things.

3. And putting them on Named and Raid loots just to keep them updated is another game breaking option. Yeah I can imagine a raid with 6 barb with eSOS updated, again.

I have played D&D for a very long time. Dealing 50+ damages was incredible, now I see 500+ damages everywhere. Casting very powerful spells was awesome til you run out of spells, now I see very powerful spells all the time, chug an sp potion and keep casting very powerful spells again. Why? because HP and SP got scaled so enormously, it no longer look like a D&D game.

We don't actually need more loot or better loot. People just complain too much when they don't get their cakes and eat it too. Epic enemies should not have huge amount of HP and SP and Resists. They should just be harder to hit and affect by spells, like we get at higher lvls (I personally think that part or all of our character levels should be added to AC depending on class, it just seems strange that a lvl20 fighter wearing the same armor he got at lvl1 gets no bonus to AC, did he not learn anything in 20 lvl of combat fighting to survive better?). They shouldn't deal huge damages and neither should we. They just need to think better. If we can tank them, they can tank us too. If we go for the casters and healers first, they should too, they are the epic monsters who survived long enough to make it to epic and they act dumber than lvl 5 kobolds.

Couldn't agree more, but i think this ship has sailed a long time ago and we won't get D&D feel past the lvl4. So, permadeath seems like only choice.
Trubine will most likely inflate the saves/HP/damage of mobs on higher levels, and generate more loot to increase the players damage like the way they are doing right now.

[RobbinB]

erm, re-read the OP, that is exactly what their cunning plan is!

see, that is plan A, this thread is about what they can do once plan A is complete. they are saying if things go well then they might be able to get some other things done in the U20 patches.

I don't see the 2 things as equal. To me "returning the old weapon affixes" means keeping the flawed new template (eg. roman numerals, bah) and just adding to it some of what used to be there. Many of us believe they should scrap the new system completely, resetting the clock to just before the new system, and slowly adding in the few new things that were welcome, like improved banishing/smiting/vorpal or combining old individual banes into multiple-coverage banes.

[Catteras]

Whatever you do, please make everything searchable in the auction house. I want to be able to search for deadly iv or whatever. I dont want to wade through pages of cr ap to find what i need.

[ReaperAlexEU]

I don't see the 2 things as equal. To me "returning the old weapon affixes" means keeping the flawed new template (eg. roman numerals, bah) and just adding to it some of what used to be there. Many of us believe they should scrap the new system completely, resetting the clock to just before the new system, and slowly adding in the few new things that were welcome, like improved banishing/smiting/vorpal or combining old individual banes into multiple-coverage banes.

which is fair enough, but that is not what DrN was talking about. DrN didn't ask for the devs to revert to the old system, but to reintroduce the old stuff to the new system. hence my point that they are already doing just that. now the first pass is up i notice the blinding radiance is still missing, so i hope they do indeed reintroduce more of the old stuff.

as for throwing it all away and reverting, that is another topic and to be honest i don't know where i stand on that. it didn't scale up to lvl28 so they had to rework it. the rework didn't get enough time and the naming scheme left a lot to be desired when searching in the AH. but other than that i think i'll be quite happy to get the old affixes built into the new system. would i be upset if they reverted and found another way to expand to lvl28 and beyond? nope, i loved loot as it was pre U19.

[elyssaria]

The number 1 loot gen item I'm missing is convalescent items, I.E. healing amp.

There are so few options for slotting healing amp in todays game, and having convalescents drop was a huge boost for a wide variety of players. Nowadays the lucky or rich players who happen to have an old convalescent item have a solid advantage over those of us who did not save our convalescents before they stopped dropping.

Please bring back healing amp on loot gen items! Thanks!

Not only heal amp that is needed, negative energy and repair amp would be welcome too... not only fleshies that are in need of healing.

/E

[PsychoBlonde]

For me, the "all items" one is probably the best. I don't use random lootgen weapons or armor much, but I use random lootgen everything else a LOT, even on capped characters.

[PsychoBlonde]

Whatever you do, please make everything searchable in the auction house. I want to be able to search for deadly iv or whatever. I dont want to wade through pages of cr ap to find what i need.

If you learn the ML basics for what levels you can get certain items on, you will probably only need to look at a page worth of items, tops. I have yet to run across anything that was the least bit problematic to search if I pared down the levels I was looking at from 1-28 to, say, 15-20 or 12-16. Plus I've found that I get some pretty stellar deals by finding something that's +5 instead of +6 but has a REALLY NICE secondary affix on it. Not that it wouldn't be nice to have everything searchable, just that you can save yourself some aggravation in the short term.

I do really, really wish they'd add extra line borders around the item icons to indicate whether it has augment slots and what they are. If masterful craftsmanship gets a border, augments ought to be able to get some as well. You can always do a dashed intermittent border with all the applicable colors if it's not possible to add multiple layers of borders. Either that or have the words "colorless" or "green" appear after the item description. SOMETHING.

[Nédime]

As this thread seems to have turned to a Christmas wish list

Dear Santa,

- Bring back healing/repair/negative amp
- Bring back MotU's enchantments like Pandemonium, lacerating, Radiant prism ...
- I'd like to have some HL DB item (for those of my toons that don't have/equip Cloak of night) / DW clickies other than the visor (1/rest).
- readjust old packs ML or keep same level but add shinies (threnal, tangleroot, sorrowdusk)

I don't want to say the new system is a big mess, because - even if the ghostbane of deception thing is boring - there are some great, great things in it : seeker and deadly have my preference for the moment.

[dlsidhe]

Late to the party, but my biggest concern is actually 2 - I play a lot of caster/caster hybrids, and no spell lore on armor or jewelry makes me a sad panda. Evocation focus Bracers of Kinetic Lore? Devotion Breatsplate of Healing Lore?

[Singular]

So...Feather told us that spell focus augments would stack with the enchantment bonus given by other items. Feather further said that this change would make it into U20 Patch 1.

Is it?

[irnimnode]

so is Lamannia closed or just down at the moment

[TromboneFireTurtle]

Closed until further noticed