Scaling Raid Loot

[totmacher]

With the new system being implemented, it will be better to get larger, balanced raids together to get stuff for guildies. A larger group will mean a larger pool of loot (assuming average luck) for guildies or groupies who need stuff, which means a larger pool to swap from. People who already have everything (the Dragon raid loot for example) will be able to help out guildies/groupies with their pulls.

However, this also removes the challenging component of getting a smaller group together to maximize loot gain for the individual. In the old or current system, 4-6 man groups for Dragon or Demon Queen were incredibly feasible and doable for more hardcore players.

So how to scale raid loot for both the hardcore and casual players? The devs have decided to side with the casual players at this point, but is a broader solution possible?

I think there is and lies in a balanced system of getting an equal share for work done from a raid difficulty. This proposal involves a system of reward based around tokens and rewarding players in an Invaders!-like fashion. Let's define the factors of difficulty that are up to the raid group: the difficulty of the raid and the number of people in the raid. Let's also assume with the devs new percentage that they want a person to get a piece of raid loot 1 in 6 raids (for an average difficulty raid).

Before we start putting numbers to things, let's think about what raid items are exactly. Raid loot items are top-end items that most people want. Are all raid items equal? I think they are not (you may disagree, if you do, disregard this part). For instance, I would definitely say a Sword of Shadows from the Dragon Raid is worth more than the Silver Necklace of Prophecy. So how do we make those items worth more and thus harder to get than others? By increasing their token value. We can do this at a flat rate or based off modifiers. Example: Does the Barbarian want the Sword of Shadows? Oh yeah he does. So let's scale the token value by 25%. So compared to other non-class specific items, he would have to spend 125% of the tokens to get them. This can be very variable but probably should not go above and below 25% of the normal token value. The average should probably lie somewhere around 10% +/-.

Also before we start putting numbers of tokens to things, how exactly more difficult is the Dragon Raid on Hard and Elite than on Normal? I'm going to say about 10% and 25% for now but these will be different based on your personal outlook and I don't expect many to agree. So let's assume that you get 110% of the tokens you would get out of Normal on Hard and 125% on Elite.

Ok, so at this point, we have some numbers. We want 1 in 6 people to get something from a raid on an average difficulty. We want class-specific items to cost a little more for raiders, in the 10-25% more range. We want difficulty to scale the treasure as well, by about 10, 25% for Hard, Elite. The last thing that we want is for smaller or larger groups to get the same amount of tokens. This will make it so the loot isn't about who randomly gets an item but rather that every member gets an equal share of "loot" for participation.

Now we have to do some number crunching. The usual raid size is either 6, 9 or 12 people I've found (yes, I know 4 raiders can do some raids but I'm gonna ignore that for...). This leads to a common factor: the number 3. This is our non-atomic number of choice and should be changed if the token loot system wants to be either finer-grained or simpler on either end of the scale. If someone is going to get tokens from a raid, it should split the total tokens equally amongst the raiders and disregard any roundoff tokens or assign them randomly. So we want these 6, 9 and 12 groups to get tokens that slot into a 1 in 6 chance for individuals.

So let's say we give 12 tokens to the total pool in a normal Dragon Raid. This makes the division in a 12 man raid, 2 tokens each (gonna have to do 6 raids to get their tokens for an item), for 24 tokens total. With 24 tokens, a 9 man gets 2 tokens each for 3 people and 3 tokens each for 6 people. A 6 Man raid gets 4 tokens each for every person. How exactly would this translate into an item?

Let's breakdown some choice pieces of Dragon Loot. We want the average to be about 12 tokens each:

# Azure Necklace of Prophecy - Necklace, Superior Magnetism III, Lightning Resistance (9 Tokens +3 for Casters)
# Belt of the Mroranon - Belt, +6 Strength, Moderate Fortification (15 Tokens +3 for Fighter, Barb, Pally)
# Hammer of Life - +4 Maul, +2 Natural Armor, +10 Heal, +10 Repair , Restoration 1/day (12 Tokens)
# Helm of the Mroranon - Helm, +6 Wisdom, +7 Intimidate (15 Tokens +3 for Cleric, Pally)
# Kundarak Warding Shield - +5 Heavy Steel Shield, +2 Resistance (12 Tokens)
# Sword of Shadow - +5 Greatsword (18-20/x3 crit), Adamantine (15 Tokens, +6 Tokens for Melee)
and a +2 Tome (Your Choice). (Probably worth about 24 tokens for any class/race. This would still keep tomes fairly hard to get but make the ones you want attainable on a long timeline.)

At an average of 2 tokens a raid, this means people will receive their item of choice in about 6-10 raids.

Ok, now what about the difficulty in the Hard or Elite department? This is harder factor to add into the equation because it would make the number of tokens you get 2D (with the X, Y axis being difficulty and number of raiders) and thus more difficult to balance properly. Altogether though, my recommendation from personal experience would be to give a Hard raid 24 +3 tokens = 27 and an Elite raid 24 +6 Tokens = 30. This would give 112% and 125% more tokens than their Normal counterpart.

Also, as an optional rule, you could destroy items you weren't going to use anymore for 1/4th or 1/3rd their token value. This would make old raid items not so useless. Assuming a clean slate, this would be a good option but with the current banked raid items this may not be such a great idea.

Altogether I think this system lends to a more balanced raiding philosophy in which everyone gets a fair share for the work they do. The current raiding paradigm is too slanted towards the random loot dropping system, which is good for random chests in quests but unfair for raids which take 1-2hours to key for.

Totmacher of Mabar

[deepshadow]

Agreed - here's my post that's a little shorter but more or less the same:

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=116162

[Plynx]

It's nice to see so many creative people designing systems. Everyone has an idea, I know, but I wanted to say I like what you laid out above and the effort you put into it, along with the specific examples. I think that what you propose would lead to many happier players overall.

[totmacher]

thanks, I really think this is the best system for ddo overall and encourages more fairness instead of randomisation