Loot idea for Vons: Epic Dragon Weapon

[Venar]

Ok, Vault of the Night is suppose to be a lvl 10 raid.
But, often, the raid is skiped. By the time you can find a VoN 5 group, you are already lvl 14+...
And the need to run it is very low, because you know there is very little desired loot, and most will be out-dated by lvl 13+ (like the PoP 10, for exemple).

So here is my idea to spice up the lvl 10 raid.
The idea is to give some reward for the effort, and help the casual gamer with decent weapons.


In Velah's chest: Each player get a 33% chance to get a bound Dragon Stashed Weapon. (so about 4 weapon per 12 men raid)
50% on hard, 66% on elite. A Dragon Stashed Weapon is a +3 blank weapon of any type (randomly selected from the complete weapon list). These weapons are bound, but can be pass to other players via the chest.


As an end-reward: Among the end-reward list, players have a 75% chance of seeing an Epic Rune. These runes are bound, and each can be imbued on the weapon using the crafting altar to give one of the following: Vorpal, Banishing, Disrupting, Smiting, Paralysing, Sup Potency 5 + Spell Pen 5, Cursespewing, Holy Burst, Wounding, Weighted 10%. Runes are identified before crafting.
(note: you cant imbue impossible effect, like a vorpal club, for exemple. The altar would reject the recepy).

So, the power gamer might wana run this until he gets a +3 vorpal handaxe, or a +3 banishing rapier. Not an easy thing, since you need to actually pull a weapon (33% chance), have that weapon be a rapier, and then pull the rune (75%), and have the rune be of the right type. GRIND

But, for the casual guy who does not have the best weapon, maybe someone in the raid will just pass him a Dragon Stashed Greatclub. And maybe he will pull that Paralysing rune, and maybe, for that guy, his +3 Para Greatclub will be the best thing in the world.

Just an idea. Cause my last 4 alts just skipped von 6.

[esoitl]

Seems like adding another crafting system for most weapons that are already in game doesn't seem that constructive. I mean it sounds nice and all but that's a lot of work in coding and t obe honest the population of most of these weapons is already very high, even if they aren't the best combinations.

I doubt many power gamers would run this any more frequently so the change might be all for naught.
I think the problem is that the flagging mechanism is just not very attractive and it's set at a bad level range. By the time you run through VoN 1-6 you're looking at somewhere near 44k XP with a level appropriate group with first time bonus. That's a significant chunk towards you're next level. Add another three days of gaming and you're likely a level higher. Run 1-6 again and add another 3 days and you're likely past level for the dragon and on to Gianthold where the leveling becomes very fast again.

I think that only adds to the problem that didn't exist in the past when you couldn't out level the quest. I think many will agree that Giant Hold is a pretty good source of most of the weapons in question here. nce you're past it leveling is rather quick and you're starting to up your percentage of pulling these items so the incentive of running through the chain every three days is less and less.

[Angelus_dead]

Ok, Vault of the Night is suppose to be a lvl 10 raid.
But, often, the raid is skiped. By the time you can find a VoN 5 group, you are already lvl 14+...

Why do you want to create additional reasons for level 15-20 characters to run a level 10 raid?

[Angelus_dead]

Just an idea. Cause my last 4 alts just skipped von 6.

Did you "skip" any other raids? (I'm guessing you probably also avoided Titan and Laliat)

Do you consider it a problem that you skipped those raids too, or is VON special?

For the raids that you didn't skip, do you remember if you had level 16s in the party? Why do you think that was?

[Venar]

I dont think you guys get the idea.
The idea is to get something out of the raid.
Right now, when you run the raid, you are about 99% guaranteed to get junk. The Loot list is just not good even for a lvl 10 character.

With this, well, at least a player has a chance to get away with a +3 Smiting Kukri.
Now, it is not the ubberest of the ubber, but it beats the Kundarak bracers with charges of comet falls...

And, if a player pulls a rapier, but no rune, maybe he'll want to run it again. Or if a player gets a vorpal rune, maybe he'll do the effort to run it again in hope for an off-hand light slasher.

Is a vorpal available in gianhold quests? Yes, off course. But +3 is not that common.


It is obvious that undercap raids need their loot table revisited. It's fine for items to be rare for raids that will be run over and over. But raids that are drive-by level, and that will be run at most a few times, loot needs to be more common.
There is no point in trying to get some named raid loot if by the time you get it you are high enough to get Green-Steel items.

[Venar]

Why do you want to create additional reasons for level 15-20 characters to run a level 10 raid?

I dont.
I want to create additional reasons for level 9-12 to run it.
Hence the +3 "big-five" weapon chances.
A +3 smiter or disruptor is very nice at those levels. I know i'd be happy to get a nice +3 disruptor just before hitting the desert and the wiz-king. Or a nice +3 vorpal for Gianthold stuff.
Yes, many of us have 3 mules full of such things, and we sell our paralysers to vendors.
But for some, specially the casual, i think it would be nice to get usefull souvenir from Velah.

[Thailand_Dan]

Cool idea, but I think the coding issues might be a problem. I've only completed the raid 3 times, and I've played for a year, with 2 capped toons. However, I am a bit tired of collectibles to turn in. Yet another one of these I think is unnecessary. At the moment, off the top of my head, we have the following collectibles:

- Taps
- Shield Pieces
- Tome Pages
- Abbot Signil Pieces
- Shroud Ingredients
- Invader Tokens
- Gems to flag for RR raid
- Dragon Essenses to open new area
- Dragon Runes
- Desert Quest flagging stuff (atleast you can turn these in immediately)
- Black, White, and Blue Scales
- Giant, Dragon, and Elf reclics
- Trash collectibles (ie viles of pure water, etc.)

In addition to all this stuff, we have Khyber dragonshard fragments, and the yellow fragments which you can combine, but that leaves you with 4 different types (regular, flawed, imperfect, and completed) taking up space.

Is anyone else running out of bank space to store this stuff? I know we have bags now, making it much easier to store some of this stuff, but the bags are starting to overfill. Another, collect X amount of Y and turn in idea I think is unnecessary.

[maddmatt70]

The idea in ddo is to make more raids not to run raids that have been around for 3 years and most players are sick and tired of at this point. I don't run dragon, demon queen, reaver, and I shudder but I have forced myself to run 13 more titans after which I will never run one again... The shroud is getting tiresome, but I want to make some money I guess so more shrouds it is for a bit. The abbot could be interesting if they make it different. The hound and vod are getting tiresome too, but not as tiresome as the old raids so still running where it is necessary..

[esoitl]

I dont think you guys get the idea.
The idea is to get something out of the raid.
Right now, when you run the raid, you are about 99% guaranteed to get junk. The Loot list is just not good even for a lvl 10 character.

With this, well, at least a player has a chance to get away with a +3 Smiting Kukri.
Now, it is not the ubberest of the ubber, but it beats the Kundarak bracers with charges of comet falls...

And, if a player pulls a rapier, but no rune, maybe he'll want to run it again. Or if a player gets a vorpal rune, maybe he'll do the effort to run it again in hope for an off-hand light slasher.

Is a vorpal available in gianhold quests? Yes, off course. But +3 is not that common.


It is obvious that undercap raids need their loot table revisited. It's fine for items to be rare for raids that will be run over and over. But raids that are drive-by level, and that will be run at most a few times, loot needs to be more common.
There is no point in trying to get some named raid loot if by the time you get it you are high enough to get Green-Steel items.

The problem is you'll be 'grinding' this raid to actually get something useful. By the time you run through 1-6 twice you've already hit a level in most cases plus will have had a 3 day timer which you likely would be questing through. You're still not really helping out the lower players as the grind puts them into the range where they are already on to new things. Besides that there is something wrong with pulling what should be a min lvl16(+3 might be lvl 14?) item out of a lvl 10 quest.

I've done plenty of 1-6 runs full through in an hour with a lvl 16 group. Essentially, you'll be giving away +3 power fives to those capped characters who may or may not already have them, the thing is they'd be custom made and make most groups even more over powered. Not every character should be running around with the most uber power fives and a good guild will probably be pumping out a few every three days for an hours work.... unbalancing.

I understand your goal to get the raid run more but this is just an unbalancing solution. Some of the loot in the raid is nice but it was developed when that was the best stuff around and some pieces no longer have the same appeal. I'd like the FoM boots and I'll still smash through it a few times in hopes of pulling them but besides putting over powered loot in the raid there is no way to make it attractive anymore.

Even the Shroud will one day become obsolete in a way.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Most people I know try to run the vons at least once at leavel because the XP is rather good (part 3 and 5 in particular)

What really should be changed in the vons is to make running 1-4 permaflag you, like reaver. You'd see it run more then. As others have said, you generally don't have more than 1 chance to run it at level (sometimes twice, norm at lower level, hard/elite when you are 11-14). Odds are it would get repeated another time or two at level if you didn't have to rerun 1-4.

[Angelus_dead]

I dont.
I want to create additional reasons for level 9-12 to run it.
Hence the +3 "big-five" weapon chances.

You are dreaming if you don't think that +3 vorpals, smiters, and disruptors are an upgrade for a whole lot of level 16 characters.

Even if the player already has several weapons of each category, getting them from VON frees his other weapons to be transferred to other characters.

Or a nice +3 vorpal for Gianthold stuff.

Gianthold?

There are only 2 mobs in Gianthold who have enough hp so that vorpal is better than DPS, and who aren't either red-named or deathblocked. They are a marilith and a vampire.

[Rickpa]

For me, I think a 33% chance of getting the raid loot that you're supposed to get from VON 6 would be great.

[Dexxaan]

As long as the Blank is random and not known till you pull it from the chest AND the Effect-Shard also. Cool

That way it's consistent with DT Lottery Armor.

On a more serious note, we need more upper level content, Dragon is fine for what it is..... as is.