Greatest Flaw in Randomized Raid/Challenge Loot: Psychology

[Voldomar]

Taking this into consideration, we're changing the one raid item that has any randomized properties (the Spell Power type on the caster staff) and are changing it to Force Spell Power.

old= 2 random spellpower vs new= force spellpower ?

If I get this right ( and I hope not ), than the cure is worse than the disease. Feels like some sort of "punishment" for the negative feedback.


My dream raid items have a set of fixed properties + 1 or 2 open slots, with a list of properties/upgrades we can choose from. It's already been done with epic crafting and house C challenge crafting. Expand upon that, please.

[Krell]

old= 2 random spellpower vs new= force spellpower ?

If I get this right ( and I hope not ), than the cure is worse than the disease. Feels like some sort of "punishment" for the negative feedback.


My dream raid items have a set of fixed properties + 1 or 2 open slots, with a list of properties/upgrades we can choose from. It's already been done with epic crafting and house C challenge crafting. Expand upon that, please.

Agreed. I'll take random over force. I think if you pull character data for damage enhancements chosen, you'll find force ranks pretty low in popularity compared to cold, electric, and acid.

[walkingwolfmike]

There's actually 45 versions... just a minor correction... I get your point, but you might start losing credibility if you're getting your math wrong...

Troll. Go and recruit some more girl gamers.

[Fistalis]

Agreed. I'll take random over force. I think if you pull character data for damage enhancements chosen, you'll find force ranks pretty low in popularity compared to cold, electric, and acid.

Probably partially due to the fact that Force has been ignored for so long on named items. While all the elements have had continual additions to equip that adds spell power to them. The cannith Challenges Alone give the option for every element But force. Heck you can even get epic Sonic there.. but force is ignored.

If it has kinetic lore on it as well it might be up to par with all the cannith pack items that elemental users got.

I say good, finally Force specced mages get a decent named item.

[shadereaper33]

Probably partially due to the fact that Force has been ignored for so long on named items. While all the elements have had continual additions to equip that adds spell power to them. The cannith Challenges Alone give the option for every element But force. Heck you can even get epic Sonic there.. but force is ignored.

If it has kinetic lore on it as well it might be up to par with all the cannith pack items that elemental users got.

I say good, finally Force specced mages get a decent named item.

now if only force specced wizards/sorcs could get a decent spell to cast while using said named item.

[Asmodeus451]

now if only force specced wizards/sorcs could get a decent spell to cast while using said named item.

meteor swarm and disintegrate come to mind

[danotmano1998]

So long as the randomness is gone so we can see IF we want to bother getting it, I have zero complaints.

Grinding for something that MIGHT be what you want this time, or next, or next.. Yeah, that sucks. That's called random loot. Raid loot should not be random loot.

[Vengeance777]

Simple fix for this would have been to take the two random slots on the staff and have the item drop with those stats blank. Then you slot those blank stats at the Purple Dragon Knight patron with the stats of your choice. Maybe even require an item to drop in the raid that is used for this purpose like the Toven's Hammer parts.

Replacing the random stats with Force seems more like a punishment to paying customers for daring to suggest ways to improve the raid and raid loot they paid for.

[Keybreaker]

There must be a sense of progress, whether that progress is real or imagined, fast or slow. However, randomized Raid and Challenge loot makes the grind indefinite without any sense of progress.

What about the Eveningstar Challenge Loot? Are they even worth farming since you are almost guaranteed BTC vendor trash?

With Cannith Challenges, it could be a grind, but you are closer to the item you wanted with every challenge completion.

[Archangel666]

What about the Eveningstar Challenge Loot? Are they even worth farming since you are almost guaranteed BTC vendor trash?

With Cannith Challenges, it could be a grind, but you are closer to the item you wanted with every challenge completion.

That is what the OP was talking about.

[Scraap]

Simple fix for this would have been to take the two random slots on the staff and have the item drop with those stats blank. Then you slot those blank stats at the Purple Dragon Knight patron with the stats of your choice. Mayb

We are already collecting commendations. Using combinations of those for user selection would keep the items in-house as far as packs go later, without having to add yet more collectables.

[Keybreaker]

That is what the OP was talking about.

I am the OP. Maybe I'm not being clear enough. The randomness of BOTH the raid AND challenge items should be reconsidered. Looks like there's been some (questionable) movement on the former, but not the latter.

[Lord_Darquain]

The greatest flaw with random effect named loot to me is that if I liked Diablo loot styles, I would play Diablo.

I like ddo because I like building and planning character gearsets and then farming them out.

Having random abilities we don't even get a list of means I can't plan my gearsets. Having them drop with no known rules means I can't famr until I get a specific version, I have to just keep looking because something I'd want more might be out there somewhere.

MoTU quests are very nice quests, the best in the game, but I doubt I'll rerun them much or rush to buy post-U14 adventure packs as DDO is no longer supporting the gameplay style I love.


Oh, and screw spending/wasting PP at the AH now http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/06/27

[Elaril]

Hey everyone,

Thanks for the feedback! We've been looking this over, and I have to say, I agree. It wouldn't be very fun to see a raid item in your name but with a Spell Power type you didn't want, when you know it could have had one you would have liked better.

Taking this into consideration, we're changing the one raid item that has any randomized properties (the Spell Power type on the caster staff) and are changing it to Force Spell Power.

LoL. Now what's it really going to have on it? All of the elements and force? Why wouldnt you just do that?

[DeafeningWhisper]

Hey everyone,

Thanks for the feedback! We've been looking this over, and I have to say, I agree. It wouldn't be very fun to see a raid item in your name but with a Spell Power type you didn't want, when you know it could have had one you would have liked better.

Taking this into consideration, we're changing the one raid item that has any randomized properties (the Spell Power type on the caster staff) and are changing it to Force Spell Power.

LOL, so it went from a possibly good pull to a certainly bad one? Genius!

[Tesla5000]

I love the Cannith challenges. There is great stuff in there for most of my characters not to mention the crafting mats and token etc you can earn along with nice xp. I was very excited to see what the new challenges had in store for us. Then I saw the random loot and thought I would try it anyway. So I spent a bunch of hours grinding out enough to get a staff for my sorc. I kind of suck at them so only got 30 or 40 mats per run so it took a while. There I was excitedly hitting trade and out pops a staff with two healing amp properties. Just what a WF sorcerer dreams about. My healer would have liked the staff well enough but of course these items are bound to character.

Needless to say, I will never run another Evening Star challenge and will make sure my wife doesn't buy them for her account. What a horrible loot system.

At least with DT you can usually get what you want on the first slot easily enough at the trader and farming the second rune isn't too bad since you can trade out as you go, you don't have to start from scratch and you can squish and upgrade the middle tier junk you can't use. With the new challenge ****, you just drag it off your toon and throw it away.

[Archangel666]

I am the OP. Maybe I'm not being clear enough. The randomness of BOTH the raid AND challenge items should be reconsidered. Looks like there's been some (questionable) movement on the former, but not the latter.

My bad. When I read it I interpreted it as saying something along the lines of making the new challenges more like canith ones so that you have an actual sense of progression. Grinding out ings to get a random item? Yeah, I'll pass thanks. As a matter of fact, I did pass on it. I bought the cheapest pack and that only included destinies and the quests, not the challenges. Had the challenges not been random I most likely would have spent a bit more and gotten the next pack up. So erm Trubine? You kinda messed up there and lost money.

[EllisDee37]

Grinding out ings to get a random item? Yeah, I'll pass thanks. As a matter of fact, I did pass on it. I bought the cheapest pack and that only included destinies and the quests, not the challenges. Had the challenges not been random I most likely would have spent a bit more and gotten the next pack up. So erm Trubine? You kinda messed up there and lost money.

I own every adventure pack including the cannith challenges, plus like you I got the $30 xpack bundle. Before the xpack I was so happy that I owned all content; that in itself was a satisfaction when buying the the last two packs. (threnal and restless)

I see no reason at all to buy the eveningstar challenge pack when it goes on a 75% off sale in the store next summer. I bought friggin' threnal and restless isles, but at least they have some redeeming value. (Crafting heavy fort and a teleport clickie, respectively.) The new challenges offer no epic tokens and random lootgen? Yeah, give them to me for free (which they're doing with daily tokens) and I still won't run them. Ever.

[DeafeningWhisper]

I own every adventure pack including the cannith challenges, plus like you I got the $30 xpack bundle. Before the xpack I was so happy that I owned all content; that in itself was a satisfaction when buying the the last two packs. (threnal and restless)

I see no reason at all to buy the eveningstar challenge pack when it goes on a 75% off sale in the store next summer. I bought friggin' threnal and restless isles, but at least they have some redeeming value. (Crafting heavy fort and a teleport clickie, respectively.) The new challenges offer no epic tokens and random lootgen? Yeah, give them to me for free (which they're doing with daily tokens) and I still won't run them. Ever.

Easy to five star 100k+ 1st run, with 22k never diminishing exp in less then 15 mins and chance of +3 tomes in chests. If it wasn't for the random loot I would recommend them to everyone.

[Siro]

As I recommended over in the MotU (public) discussion, changing the random challenge item into a quest reward type list of the item type would be a quick easy fix while a more well thought out system is developed/implemented.

Personally, I think this would be a good opportunity to do something like dragon-touched in that one could turn in challenge collectibles for a random list of tokens that represent one of three (or whatever) sets of properties or the base item and then combine them. Not guaranteed to get exactly what you want, but a decent chance of choosing useful properties for rewards. But then I liked dragon-touched in that it was semi-random, but you could still build and use something useful if you didn't have the properties exactly right and could upgrade/fix it later.