+2 Loot bonus weekend coming - but does it work at max level?

[mikarddo]

From the Chronicle.
DDO Bonus Days bring you a +2 Loot Boost weekend! Starts on Thursday and runs through April 3rd!

But, it very much still seems as if the chests are capped at 33 nomatter what so the bonus may do nothing at the highest level.

I very much understand and appreciate that all developer time has gone into the DC move and the subsequent problems so I wont even ask for a fix for the chest level issue for now - only point out that giving a +2 loot bonus that may or may not work is a questionable idea.

[Cordovan]

The +2 Loot Boost improves loot for many players, although you are correct that we still have a bug to fix that impacts the benefit from people playing legendary content at higher difficulties, particularly if they are attempting to stack several sources of Loot Boost. Ultimately, we have the bonus in place for the weekend because it will provide a benefit to many players.

[mikarddo]

The +2 Loot Boost improves loot for many players, although you are correct that we still have a bug to fix that impacts the benefit from people playing legendary content at higher difficulties, particularly if they are attempting to stack several sources of Loot Boost. Ultimately, we have the bonus in place for the weekend because it will provide a benefit to many players.

Thank you for confirming the bug in question Cordovan.

As for the bonus being useful for many people I am less sure.
If you are level 12 getting ML 14-15 loot instead of ML 12-13 loot does not seem to be an improvement. As long as you are getting below ML 30 loot I could and often would just as well want the loot without the bonus as I would want the loot 2 levels higher. Now, if you are getting ML 30-32 chests without the bonus it is indeed an improvement as you instead get ML 32-33 chests. Finale, if you are getting ML 33 chests already the bonus does nothing.

Thus, as far as I can tell the bonus is only of clear value to a rather small subset of players getting ML 30-32 chests without it and only possibly and questionably of value to those below that chest level.

Maybe you would care to elaborate why you think the bonus is good to many? I may be overlooking something but I am just not seeing it.

[J-2]

It didnt stop them from offering great store deals (twice even) while some people couldn't use the store.
Why not offer treasure boosts when the game is unplayable from lag.
Have you considered levying penalties against players that run lords of dust for letting the novice die?

You people have really become out of touch. You've totally lost it.

[mna]

As for the bonus being useful for many people I am less sure.
If you are level 12 getting ML 14-15 loot instead of ML 12-13 loot does not seem to be an improvement. As long as you are getting below ML 30 loot I could and often would just as well want the loot without the bonus as I would want the loot 2 levels higher. Now, if you are getting ML 30-32 chests without the bonus it is indeed an improvement as you instead get ML 32-33 chests. Finale, if you are getting ML 33 chests already the bonus does nothing.

The benefit is more significant to the low-resource non-vip and/or new players, as well as favor farmers who tend to be overlevel for quests anyway.

Besides, while not at cap, statistically you're pretty much getting the same random loot anyway, and with this boost you're getting it earlier. (No idea what this does to named loot actually.)

[moomooprincess]

It didnt stop them from offering great store deals (twice even) while some people couldn't use the store.
Why not offer treasure boosts when the game is unplayable from lag.
Have you considered levying penalties against players that run lords of dust for letting the novice die?

You people have really become out of touch. You've totally lost it.

This is what makes me cry

https://lintvwwlp.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/ap-cali-earthquake-broken-wine.jpg?w=650

[maddong]

I believe you can still get to level 36 loot tables thru end rewards on LE with the +2 boost.

And treasure hunter's elixirs may be unintentionally affecting end rewards so you might be able to get level 36 loot tables with frequent masterworks+.

[jakeelala]

The +2 Loot Boost improves loot for many players, although you are correct that we still have a bug to fix that impacts the benefit from people playing legendary content at higher difficulties, particularly if they are attempting to stack several sources of Loot Boost. Ultimately, we have the bonus in place for the weekend because it will provide a benefit to many players.

I have an informal way of measuring the population of Khyber at a macro-level. It's based on looking at the number of postings on the ASAH at any given time. Less people, less listings. There's a few days lag obviously, since auctions can be as long as 3 days.

You can look at the total number of items on the ASAH to get a general population sense. I haven't been watching that one closely for a long time, as I've pretty much been at cap 90% of the last 3 years.

Instead, everytime I log on the first thing I do is search the ASAH for level 30 to level 30 items to browse whats been looted and put up for sale. Generally I log in every 20-24 hours (after work for a couple hours).

Since the data center move, the number of end game items available for bidding has been steadily and regularly declining. Pre data center move, it was rare for level 30 items to encompass less than 18 pages. Level 28-30 was consistently (and I mean never ever below) 21-24 pages. As of about a week after the data center move, 28-30ML items were down to 18 pages. Level 30 only was down to 14 by week end. The next week 28-30ML items dropped precipitously to about 15 pages. Level 30 only was ~12.

As of today, 21 days since the data center move and the Lagpocalypse started, level 30 items are down to 7 pages of the ASAH, and 28-30ML items are down to 7. I don't think I can draw conclusions about total server population from these observations, but I do think I can draw some conclusions about end gaming.

It has completely evaporated on Khyber. I don't mean like it's slow. I mean like it's basically GONE. From an average of 2-4 Legendary raid LFMs per hour before the data center move, there are now basically, on average over a day, zero on 0 per hour on Khyber. In reality it's probably a decimal, like .136 per hour. Even if this is only indicative of the times I play, my playtime is consistent, making it at least sort of relevant. Moreover, the 3 week implosion of ASAH listings is further evidence of this. If people at end game aren't running Legendary or high level EE content, they aren't pulling level 28-30 items to put on the ASAH. This dovetails nicely.

There's no question that server population was at a high immediately and for some time after Shroud came out, and for a short time from the Anniversary (though population wise this must have been a major fail as people quickly dropped from logging in within 4-5 days of the event launching). New loot gen has been a HUGE part of this. Even if you don't want named stuff anymore, uncapped end reward lists from LH/LE raids is the only way you're pulling +16/+15 stat items (or +7 Insight). Or at least, the chance are much better. Especially with the erroneously capped chests in quests we are currently stuck with.

So why did I mention all of this in this thread?

You need to immediately fix chest loot caps, at a higher priority than the lag.

Hear me out. There was ONE thing that kept people playing this game at end game pre-data center move: Legendary Shroud mats (for those who didn't exploit all they ever needed), and end game chest with loot boosts for chances at really good random gen loot.

It's become impossible to run raids on LE with the lag so that has stopped. LH is hard enough with the lag that few even try it for most raids. Most of the people who would do this just have stopped logging in. Even on LN, it's just not fun to be lagged out for minutes at a time, constantly.

However, people would still short man raids, and run quests, if they could be pulling from uncapped chests. Knowing that I can't open a chest over level 33 right now, especially since I've consumed loot boosts, it utterly dejecting. I don't want to play or log in. I can't hardly form a raid, and the one source of loot worth braving LH or LE for is unobtainable, due to capped chests. And then, on top of all of this frustraition...

You do a +2 loot bonus? Are you kidding me?

IF you do nothing but uncap chests, while you work on the lag, you will stem some of the bleeding of end game characters. Even with the skeleton crew working on this game now, you could probably fix chests with a patch in 3 days. If you value having paying, playing customers, do this now, while you continue to work on the lag.

[Thar]

Thank you for confirming the bug in question Cordovan.

As for the bonus being useful for many people I am less sure.
If you are level 12 getting ML 14-15 loot instead of ML 12-13 loot does not seem to be an improvement. As long as you are getting below ML 30 loot I could and often would just as well want the loot without the bonus as I would want the loot 2 levels higher. Now, if you are getting ML 30-32 chests without the bonus it is indeed an improvement as you instead get ML 32-33 chests. Finale, if you are getting ML 33 chests already the bonus does nothing.

Thus, as far as I can tell the bonus is only of clear value to a rather small subset of players getting ML 30-32 chests without it and only possibly and questionably of value to those below that chest level.

Maybe you would care to elaborate why you think the bonus is good to many? I may be overlooking something but I am just not seeing it.

higher level loot = higher plat selling price. or if your lucky something good to keep to look forward too.

[Whitering]

I guess I don't understand the loot system at all anyway. Initially I had assumed that if I had a +1 boost (like from guild), that if I ran a quest on Hard, where the named reward was tiered, I could get the Elite version.

Now, that's obviously not the case, so it's just for rng loot, fine I guess, a few more essences on deconstruction, nothing to get excited about.

[Holymunchkin]

this thread arouses schadenfreude

[jakeelala]

The ASAH level 30 item page count is now down to 5 pages, 24 hours later. 28-30 is 8 pages.

I estimate server population to be down by 2/3rds

[jakeelala]

Also to the person who has been trying to sell the +12/+5 Wisdom with +10 deadly goggles for 1000 Astral Shards for the last 3 weeks:
Give up. They aren't worth more than about 250.

[jakeelala]

PS: sub(s) canceled.

Turbine has handled this fiasco so incredibly poorly even a 10 year stalwart like me just can't in good conscience keep paying for a broken product.

For shame. Cordovan you deserve a lot of the blame, your communication throughout this entire ordeal has really been just utterly disappointing. The rest of the blame goes to your Ops people for not testing this stuff before hand.