Time for a global rebalance of named items

[Angelus_dead]

I suggest that one of the DDO designers be assigned to the large project of going through the entire list of all named items and adjusting them to make sense within the current status of the game. (Naturally, other people would need to assist from time to time). There have been a lot of changes since the game first came out, and a lot of items are in bad shape for a variety of reasons.

Why do it as a single huge task instead of a bit at a time?
1. Because the value of items is in comparison to competing items, so there is a lot of coupling between different areas.
2. To avoid change whiplash for the players. Each time a change comes out, players will want to adjust their gear loadouts and figure out what items to use now. They won't like being put through that more than is necessary to get the fixes in.

Common reasons an item might be bad:
1. It was flawed from the start.
2. The game design has evolved since then (either specific obsoleting items, or just overall power creep). For example, the improvement to temporary spell boosts has devalued all items with permanent spell boosts.
3. The level cap has gone up, so it no longer makes sense to be so hard to obtain.

Ex-endgame items are a particular thing to watch out for: back when some top-level items were released, it made sense for them to take a long time to acquire because capped characters had nothing else to do with their time. But once the level cap moves on and new better items are introduced, it no longer makes sense to put in the time for the old stuff. In those cases it's worth considering increasing the drop rate for ex-endgame items, such as scales from Gianthold Tor or shield fragments in Orchard. When an item needs to be "improved", that doesn't necessarily mean the item itself must become more powerful. You could instead work from the other direction and make it easier to obtain, such as by increasing drop rate, adjusting minimum level or binding, or even making the corresponding dungeon area faster or easier.

Note that to minimize player dissatisfaction, the emphasis on adjusting items should be to improve bad ones rather than weaken those that might be too good. It just feels worse to look at something in your inventory and see something that's lost specific features it once had.

Not every item needs to be attractive to every character or even any character, but presently too many of the named items have no role in gameplay except as a distracting waste of space. Soon I will reply with some more detail on the issues.

[Angelus_dead]

Below I will point out some prominent problematic items from many parts of the game. I'd be happy to go into more detail if someone's interested.


Korthos
Notice how long players tend to wear those level 1 item sets? This indicates a missed opportunity to have set bonuses on items from level 2-16 content. Some Korthos items overshadowed older named loot that was 4+ levels higher.

Harbor
Irestone has Sword of Pain and a few other weapons with +1 elemental damage. Just compare them to a +2 Screaming handwrap in Cerulean Hills (a nearby quest that is actually lower level).

Sharn Syndicate
The named weapons from here overshadow weapons from older quest chains in the same level range (plus are easier to get, because you only have to repeat the final dungeon and not a whole series). They also beat the Sentinels weapons...

Three Barrel Cove
There's zero named loot here, and that's kinda a problem. In fact, it's a giant problem in terms of customer satisfaction. No, Smouldering Cudgel does not count as loot.

Sentinels
Aside from the well-publicized disappointment about the epic monk bracers, all three weapons in this pack are too weak in regular versions. The bastard sword is simply poor, while the kukri and rapier have a mental-stats gimmick whose implementation turned out to be unbalancable. (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=243571).

Necropolis I-III
Each of these three packs has four initial quest and then one final dungeon where all the named items come from, meaning that players who want this loot are encouraged to use an opener character to get into the end dungeon and skip repeating the others. Instead, something like the Shavarath pattern could be used: the named items drop not only in the final quest but also the flagging ones. Also, the flagging quests would get run more if repeating them didn't risk obstructing you from advancing to the final.

Sorrowdusk
A quest chain goes up to level 9 but drops weapons of level 2-4 quality. +1 slicing kukri, +1 frost sickle, or +2 keen rapier? It has named halfplate, but that's from back when you'd reach level 10 without getting a single +5 fullplate as an end reward. A +1 leather with acid 10? That may as well be +5. And a constitution+2 ring, hmmm!

Threnal
Oh a special item to unlock a special quest to fight waves of demons and beholders, then Hello, +5 longsword! (Below I will post a specific suggestion to replace the Threnalian Warblade with fun crafting)

Vault of Night
Problems with epic Sword of Shadows were well discussed back when it was first leaked. It's too late to nerf it now, so instead it can be used as a guide for the top end of what epic weapons are balanced against.

Twilight Forge
Just like when it was released, the majority of the raid items are disappointments. Nullcloth is especially bad; it should be something that, if the spell failure was removed, casters would want to equip. Also, spell crits had just recently been introduced when that raid was built, and the loot designers evidently overestimated the value of Lore items.

Menechetarun
The problems with epic loot have been exhaustively detailed elsewhere, so I won't go into it uch, except to reiterate that this area includes named staffs, daggers, shortsword, and kukri, yet there are no epic weapons that are compatible with either finesse or Ki which compare favorably to greensteel. On another topic, Bloodstone farming isn't much fun, so it would help if another source that item was added to some quest or raid.
There's also the whole thing about Antique Bronze Tokens, which I suppose has been somewhat fixed by now, although it was a major embarrassment for years.

Gianthold
Most armors from turning in dragonscales are obviously far from worth the time spent gathering them. Of the other named items in that dungeon, I count 14 of 22 of being nearly useless at-level, with the longbow and caster staves standing out as particularly bad (and wastes of custom artwork).
There's also a UI presentation problem nearby: the NPCs to exchange relics/scales for armor use the icons of questgivers, but their function is different from what "quest" means to players. They're more like collectors.

Necropolis IV
The collector rewards for shield fragments and tome pages are key examples of ex-endgame items. It's senseless for the shields to be so much harder to obtain than the superior one from Mindsunderer. There's also the problem where many of those items were ill-conceived to start. Wearing a shield is already usually unattractive, but at least you get AC out of it. All but one of those shields subvert that benefit by having an enhancement bonus of less than +5.
As for the weapons, originally two were good, two were decent (but major wastes of pages that could've been spent on Skiver), and the rest junk. It was particularly sad that custom artwork was wasted on useless weapons (although at least it was recycled for greensteel later)

Reaver's Refuge
Of course everyone knows the problems with rune grinding, so I'll mention a lesser thing: how attractive is it to spend three body slots for +50% glaciation when a common belt from Shavarath has been buffed to +75% freeze?

Inspiration Quarter
The Terror sword and Death's Touch sickle are minimum level 18 to equip, but less damaging to level 18 monsters than the +5 falchion available at level 6-8. Sure, Terror is overpowered against level 14 monsters, but that's not when we get the item.

Dreaming Dark
1. Xaoschian Eardweller. Hey, let's make a new item which is THE BEST by far for spellcaster DPS, and make players repeat a short simple quest around 100 times to get it. To make it even better, we can bypass our regular loot mechanic so that they farm for it solo.
2. Which is the biggest and best dungeon in Dreaming Dark? Which is the dungeon you run the least times while acquiring Dreaming Dark loot? Why the powerful negative relationship between the size/quality/challenge of the dungeon and its loot reward?

Shavarath
It is well known that many of the Tower of Despair ring sets are pretty unattractive, especially the non-melee ones. (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?p=2669407)

[Phidius]

...
Note that to minimize player dissatisfaction, the emphasis on adjusting items should be to improve bad ones rather than weaken those that might be too good. It just feels worse to look at something in your inventory and see something that's lost specific features it once had.
...

Quoted for emphasis... I'm just pessimistic enough to think that the folks at Turbine who might read this thread will latch on to the idea of updating named items by nerfing the things that are actually worth an item slot.

It's easier to nerf the one or two things that everyone is using than to boost the stuff that never sees the light of day... simply because there are far MORE worthless pieces of cr@p than there are tasty items. IMHO.

[Angelus_dead]

Some miscellaneous comments and suggestions on loot rebalancing.

Set Bonuses
When looking for ways to improve mid-level items, set bonuses are an easy technique to keep in mind. Have a piece of Delera or Sorrowdusk loot that's not quite worth using? Toss Anger's Wrath or Nimble Grasp onto it.

Don't make the mistake of thinking a set bonus can only apply to a specific list of items. They can function more generally as abilities that activate when you have multiple corresponding items equipped. There is a ton of flexibility to give many kinds of bonuses. And all of a set doesn't have to come from the same place.

Penalties on Items
The first wave of named loot in DDO often had minor penalties on it, like -1 to an ability score or -2 will saves. But that kind of variety has only rarely appeared since then. It is a useful tool to allow named items to be boosted up to a valuable level of power, while still not becoming superior to similar items which are harder to acquire.

Making clickies useful
Most items which actively cast a spell are non-useful. Here are some ideas that could help make them more valuable:

1. Remember that offensive clickies are less valuable than buff/curative ones, and spells with a save or damage are weaker than irresistable flat debuffs. For example, a Heal clicky would be great, but a Disintegrate clicky is almost worthless. So it is inaccurate to treat every effect that's "X uses of a level Y spell" as the same value.

2. Higher caster level, especially as it applies to buff duration. For example, there's no item with Protection From Evil for more than 1 minute at a time.

2b. You don't necessarily need to stay consistent with the caster level for all aspects of the spell. It could be good to make an item with 2 minutes of Fire Resist 30 or Greater Heroism 60 seconds x3 uses.

3. Higher DC, as if the creator had an intelligence/wisdom bonus. (In fact, the current clicky DC is less than the minimum allowed by the D&D item creation rules)

4. Emulate the effects of Potency, Maximize, and Empower on offensive clickies.

5. For certain items, allow the wielder to substitute his own ability score modifiers for purposes of spell DC, which is how magic staves work in the D&D rules. Optionally such items could exact a price in spellpoints too.

6. Some could have less cooldown than the standard 6 seconds.

7. Regenerating uses. Some clickies could recover charges over time, but only when below some certain limit.

8. Unlimited use. For an especially weak clicky effect, such as Remove Exhaustion on Endless Toil bracers, it may as well have infinite uses. The cooldown and casting time may be enough of a penalty to pay for the spell effect.

9. Some spells would be so attractive as clickies that the devs should be very careful about adding them, and attach huge limitations if they do, especially things like Ram's Might, Zeal, and Holy Sword (!)


Threnal Warblade suggestion
Make it a tiny bit like Shroud crafting. The ingredients come from end chests around Threnal and are bind on acquire. The six ingredients are used in pairs, one to determine slot and one to pick from three allowed effects. The base item on completing the Threnal warrior initiation challenge is a greatsword, longsword, or dagger with +4 Seeker2 Silver Cold Iron and Minor Arcane Lore.

Slot 1 effects are a +4 enhancement bonus to strength, dexterity, or constitution

Slot 2 effects:
a. Shocking Burst, Superior Magnetism VI
b. Acid Burst, Superior Corrosion VI
c. Slicing, Everbright, Superior Reconstruction VI, Greater Devotion V

Slot 3 effects:
a. Lesser Giant Bane, Enchantment Focus
b. Lesser Abberation Bane, Transmutation Focus
c. Lesser Outsider Bane, Evocation Focus

In addition, some named items from Threnal (like Theurgic Staff and Jeweled Hammer) could include one or two slots for Threnal ingredients, to give those weapons a reason to be used.

[die]

+1 for the effort put into this thread/signed

[Angelus_dead]

Power Creep of Item Availability
Another serious problem in designing named loot is the variability in generic loot a character can be expected to have at each level. If a player already has a high-level character (or has a friend who does), then he'll have +5 weapons and armor as soon as he reaches level 8 (or even earlier if they work at it). But the first character of a new player will usually be level 9-10 before looting a +4 weapon.

As a simplification we could say that first characters (mains) tend to get items four levels later than secondary characters (alts) do. And of course, it's difficult to design named items that are attractive to both those groups. That's the cause of problems like the weapons in a new level 4 quest (Come Out and Slay) being better than those from an old level 7 quest (Trollish Scourge): a +1 frost sickle doesn't look as "cool" as it once did.

There are some tough choices to make about how much you want to support each extreme. Players get their first impressions with the first character, but if they stick around then the majority of their low-level gameplay will be on other characters. One could decide to put most named items in between those positions: worse than twinked gear, but better than what you could have found randomly by that point.

[Thrudh]

I only wish I could give you +1 rep on all three posts...

The devs really do need to go back through and revamp all the named loot (and the random loot tables)...

I really don't think it would be that hard to come up with reasonable items with a week's worth of brainstorming (maybe ask us to help). Also I'm hoping that each item is not hard-coded and references a database for it's properties... If hard-coded, implementing this change could be difficult (maybe)... if referencing a database, implementing the change would be simple.

P.S. Be nice if they could go back and revamp the base exp for all quests too...

[redoubt]

Some very good thoughts AD.

[QuantumFX]

Something else you might want to address is a couple pieces of ML:9 named loot that is still considered must have gear for AC tanks at level 20. (Either through changing how Dodge bonuses from items works or adding the +2/+3 versions to other named loot out there.)

[Robshell]

/signed and /signed

this needs attention

[Therilith]

I just hope they don't overdo it.
I prefer generally weak items (with some exceptions) to excessive power creep.

[Khellendros13]

I am amazed Turbine hasn't employed you yet.

Great ideas, one can only hope...

[Borror0]

I am amazed Turbine hasn't employed you yet.

There are a few people in the playerbase that Turbine would gain from hiring. Angelus_dead (as a system designer) and Memnir (as a CM) being the two obvious ones.

[NegRepped]

My morning newspaper.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Good points all, I hope they listen to you AD

[dunklezhan]

If I may, I have a suggestion for improving clickies - I was going to put it in a seperate thread, but it might offer a way to deliver some of AD's comments too:

What about eldritch rituals which could be applied to clickies to do things like:

Substitute owner's casting DC
Use owner's currently active metamagic(s)
Add extra charges/day

This would have the following benefits:

1. wouldn't need the devs to do a review of every clickie in the game, so they can focus on the big ticket items from AD's post
2. mean the clickies would have to be bound to character, so preventing the items from proliferating through someone's alts and potentially overpowering where a high level clickie (e.g. a disintegrate) has been boosted then given to a L5...
3. Provide more eldritch rituals for crafting, which I think is generally agreed to be much needed, simply by adding new recipes potentially using existing collectibles. Once again saving the Dev's time by worrying about introducing anything too game breaky - they just need to get the numbers right in terms of how many of this or that collectible is required
4. promote item diversity


Not trying to hijack. Just a suggestion I thought might be helpful.

[Dunklerlindwurm]

Very good post. I can only agree on everything you wrote.

I just dont believe that very much will change in the older named loot other than Epic-Upgrades

[Danmor]

/signed

Very nice ideas. The named stuff from mid-levels is either too good or much too bad.

[woundead85]

/bump
In need of more attention.
Thanks, AD!

[Cyr]

/signed

The emphasis on not nerfing anything and instead increasing the power level of truly useless items and ill thought out mechanics is logical and consistent.