Loot table querrys, U14 before & after

[Captain_Wizbang]

Since I like mythbusting,

As of Menace of the Underdark:

Chest level is equal to the quest's Normal CR, -1 on Casual, +1 on Hard, +2 on Elite, +any current global or personal loot boosts.

Treasure tables go up to chest level 31.

Above 25, lower level things on the tables begin to be cut out.

I've seen incontrovertible evidence on the live game servers that treasure tables above 25 are being properly referenced when they should be.

Some of the questions I have, can't get answered because of disclosing the actual formula to us is perfectly fine. It's always been that way, and should be. So I'll keep the few questions Feather should be able to answer short.

Artifacts, did the drop rate change w/ U14, and did that rate carry over to FR side, Also are there plans for some new artifacts to be introduced?

Named items pre U14, will the older items be getting upgrades to be in-line with post U14 standards?

Are there changes coming to "Options/ rewards based on player class" setting?

Any chance of certain ddo-store specialty items appearing in chests? (*Box of Chocolate* eg)

Any chance we will see items with attributes based on Faerun/ Eberron settings specifically?

Any chance of a short lived Jewel of Fortune that can be cast on a party?

Breakables loot, did the new formula carry over to these?

Any proposed changes to assigning chest items to other players? (renown comes to mind for an example.)

Any chance Orange & Red Named bosses can start dropping Treasure bags w/ CR appropriate loot? (4 Lts in shroud eg)

Those are the initial questions I have.

As I have stated before. When MotU went live, the changes to the loot tables, and loot are one of the best and most polished upgrades we've seen in a long time. It's a very complex and delicate system, and you absolutely nailed it. (Judges gave you 9.5, and you are in medal contention)

My biggest question is # 1 though, upgrading older named items to me is huge.

[Feather_of_Sun]

Some of the questions I have, can't get answered because of disclosing the actual formula to us is perfectly fine. It's always been that way, and should be. So I'll keep the few questions Feather should be able to answer short.

Artifacts, did the drop rate change w/ U14, and did that rate carry over to FR side, Also are there plans for some new artifacts to be introduced?

Are you referring to items like the Sunblade, Dwarven Thrower, and Ioun Stones? Generally, they have specific level ranges they drop in, unless put in specifically as named treasure (Garamol and Dreaming Dark respectively for those ones). There aren't any new ones in Forgotten Realms content yet, but that doesn't mean there won't ever be.

Named items pre U14, will the older items be getting upgrades to be in-line with post U14 standards?

We'd love to make some adjustments. In U14, I did make changes to a number of things I thought really needed them, such as the Shields of Legend from Necropolis 4, the dragonscale armors in Gianthold, and the rare items in Tempest Spine.

Unfortunately, the thing preventing this from happening on a wider scale is the investment of manpower and time it'd require. I and the rest of the design team are booked pretty solid for the foreseeable future, unless Eladrin sees fit to change the priority of what we're working on.

Currently, I am working on the treasure in Update 16 and 17.

Are there changes coming to "Options/ rewards based on player class" setting?

I'd have to go with a negative on this one. People have a lot of misconceptions about this game option.
Here's what it DOES do:

On quest end reward lists that are entirely random, and have no chance of any named or special items appearing (including crafting ingredients such as from Necropolis or Vale), if the Class-Based End Rewards option is checked on, it will restrict the base type of the items that appear to specific types based on your class.

It has no function on any reward lists that can include any named items or special ingredients, and it does not restrict the effects that can appear on an item- only what types of items you'll see.

Since there's so much misunderstanding about how it works as it is, we'd rather not cause further problems by changing it.

Any chance of certain ddo-store specialty items appearing in chests? (*Box of Chocolate* eg)

I'll check with our store people.

Any chance we will see items with attributes based on Faerun/ Eberron settings specifically?

Yes.

Any chance of a short lived Jewel of Fortune that can be cast on a party?

I'll suggest it to our Store people.

Breakables loot, did the new formula carry over to these?

Breakables can only drop the same types of things they used to (Common: Money. Uncommon: Potions, etc. Rare: Items.)
We may overhaul them further in the future, but for now they're mostly the same as before the expansion.

Any proposed changes to assigning chest items to other players? (renown comes to mind for an example.)

We're open to the possibility of future UI changes to make it harder to assign something to the wrong player by mistake, if that's what you're referring to. That's the only kind of complaint with it that I'm aware of.

Any chance Orange & Red Named bosses can start dropping Treasure bags w/ CR appropriate loot? (4 Lts in shroud eg)

Unlikely. Our content team instead places chests in dungeons where they feel they are appropriate.
If we were instead to have bosses just give you loot, we'd have to take -out- the chests you normally get after them. Seems like a lot of changes, for no real reason.

[Captain_Wizbang]

Thanks for response Feather.

Outstanding work by all of you on this subject.

[Captain_Wizbang]

This old hippie absolutely refuses to throw away his preconceived notion of the loot population as per the DM Guide 1978

[legendlore]

We'd love to make some adjustments. In U14, I did make changes to a number of things I thought really needed them, such as the Shields of Legend from Necropolis 4, the dragonscale armors in Gianthold, and the rare items in Tempest Spine.

Unfortunately, the thing preventing this from happening on a wider scale is the investment of manpower and time it'd require. I and the rest of the design team are booked pretty solid for the foreseeable future, unless Eladrin sees fit to change the priority of what we're working on.

Currently, I am working on the treasure in Update 16 and 17.

Any chance of more things like the new 3 barrel cove items? They where the best (not best like in best dps etc, best like in fun) items in all of u14 according to me. They just sparked the imagination for so many possible builds with their alternative stats for to-hit/damage it would be nice to see more like it spread among the levels to support builds fighting with alternative stats.

[legendlore]

Also when on the subject of loot tables. Any chance of adding larger scroll bundles to the loot lists? Something like every loot level above the scrolls original loot level you get a d6 extra ones.

I currently have 11 mass heal scrolls that I hold on tighter to than pots for a rainy raid (this was on my bard). Pots you get about every 3rd/4th quest end reward, but those scrolls are just so incredibly rare you never want to use them.

[Nick_RC]

Feather while you are here I believe there is something wrong with the highest loot tables when a bonus us added to them.

You may have been on vacation but +2 loot weekend we just had created some problems. I started a thread on it here.

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=386305

It seemed like we would only get higher than 22 lvl items after we hit ransack. Something's fishy.

N

[Dolphious]

We'd love to make some adjustments. In U14, I did make changes to a number of things I thought really needed them, such as the Shields of Legend from Necropolis 4, the dragonscale armors in Gianthold, and the rare items in Tempest Spine.

Unfortunately, the thing preventing this from happening on a wider scale is the investment of manpower and time it'd require. I and the rest of the design team are booked pretty solid for the foreseeable future, unless Eladrin sees fit to change the priority of what we're working on.

Currently, I am working on the treasure in Update 16 and 17.

That completely makes sense, and I understand time restrictions and such. But I do want to note that based on my interactions in games the various upgrades have been VERY popular. There are tor scale run LFMs up all the time, people trading and farming shield pieces, etc. So if you can find time to do some more upgrades/revisions I think that's time well spend that the player base appreciates.

Either way keep up the good work

[CeltEireson]

Not exactly an encouragement to Feather of Sun to contribute to the forums - basically throwing two insults his way. As for the review - like all items in an update they'll be on Lammania prior to live so everyone will get their chance to comment I'm sure.

Edit: Ah posts removed I see.

[Wizzly_Bear]

Not exactly an encouragement to "dev" to contribute to the forums - basically throwing two insults his way. As for the review - like all items in an update they'll be on Lammania prior to live so everyone will get their chance to comment I'm sure.

Edit: Ah posts removed I see.

nm

[7-day_Trial_Monkey]

I would like to know how high the random loot tables go.

Level 24 quest + 2 elite + 1 loot gem + 2 loot weekend bonus + 1 dragonmark mojo

Do we have level 30 loot tables? It sure would be nice to know.

[Captain_Wizbang]

I would like to know how high the random loot tables go.

Level 24 quest + 2 elite + 1 loot gem + 2 loot weekend bonus + 1 dragonmark mojo

Do we have level 30 loot tables? It sure would be nice to know.

Lvl 31

[LordPiglet]

We'd love to make some adjustments. In U14, I did make changes to a number of things I thought really needed them, such as the Shields of Legend from Necropolis 4, the dragonscale armors in Gianthold, and the rare items in Tempest Spine.

Unfortunately, the thing preventing this from happening on a wider scale is the investment of manpower and time it'd require. I and the rest of the design team are booked pretty solid for the foreseeable future, unless Eladrin sees fit to change the priority of what we're working on.

.

Snipped a bunch. While I can understand that you guys need to move forward and old loot is old loot. However, it would be real nice if at least the devotion could be corrected on epic named items. I don't know about your system, but I would imagine updating the epic helms to all having the same devotion level and removing the 2 seperate devotions on the shining crest of st markus shouldn't take very long (well and I'm sure there'd be some testing et al.).

[MrkGrismer]

Any proposed changes to assigning chest items to other players? (renown comes to mind for an example.)

IIRC renown in chests used to be re-assignable when it first started, but then all these 'disposable' guilds started popping up where a bunch of people in the disposable guild would quest with one person from their real guild, and assign all the renown to that person. All the rewards, none of the decay... plus a very small guild bonus

[bbqzor]

Currently, I am working on the treasure in Update 16 and 17.

Please, if at all possible in any way, allow us the chance to provide feedback on these before they go live.

DDO has a history of "near misses" with itemization, and right now the game is at critical mass on that point. U14 essentially out-dated the vast majority of old loot and content, but did not introduce a very wide range of new loot to take its place. As a result, in most cases, grinding randomly dropped items from cr25+ chests seems the only source of top loot.

This makes the game comparable to something like diablo2, not ddo, and has seriously hurt end game populations (on Sarlona at least). We need sources of widely usable, named (ie set drop locations so farmable) loot. Simply spamming ransacks and checking the AH isn't reproduce-able and thus isn't something people can rely on, and really hurt the game. Random gen items may be valuable, but it is impossible to plan a build out and kit it up with them, across multiple characters/people/guilds/etc... in short its functionally as if they're not there from a practical standpoint. This is why having named loot in set locations is so important.

It is absolutely critical the next few rounds of loot are not near-misses, but are instead dead on and cover most, if not all, of the areas desired by players. Without this, the end game will continue to burn out, resulting the game declining. And right now, its declining way faster than U14 increased it (again, at least where I play)... it simply cannot sustain itself with the current environment. We need an influx of content with consistent and desirable methods to work on character advancement, with avenues of advancement available to everyone. And as XP is already well beyond what can easily be done on people for awhile, that job falls to the realm of itemization. It simply must be done well the next few releases. The alternative is to not log in.

We're open to the possibility of future UI changes to make it harder to assign something to the wrong player by mistake, if that's what you're referring to. That's the only kind of complaint with it that I'm aware of.

Here is the top one for me, in sequence:
-Persons A, B, C, and D open a chest.
-Person A gets an item Person B wants; Persons C and D see nothing of interest.
-Person A opens the drop down to pass their item to Person B.
-Person C begins recalling while the menu is open, and recalls.
-Person D goes afk awhile.
-The Drop Down menu for passing loot remains unchanged, and continues to look identical on Person A's screen.
-Person A selects Person B in the menu, and clicks to transfer the item.
-The Game Engine has realized person C recalled, and repopulated the drop down menu on its end, but there was never a change to the players visible UI.
-The name Person A clicked on was no longer person B, because the game repopulated the list but did not update the UI since the menu was already opened and it doesn't update "on the fly".
-Person A may have clicked on Person B, but the game thinks its actually Person C.
-As Person C already recalled, the item is stuck at rot in the chest forever.

The fix to this is most likely to add a confirmation box ("You wish to pass [item] to [person]? Y/N). Having the list update on the fly still leaves room for an accidental misclick (someone recalls out right as their clicking and the names shuffle under the cursor). Alternatively you could have the menu automatically close anytime it changes, forcing us to open a new updated one, but that may be frustrating to players as the windows just close out underneath them.

This has happened so many times, its now somewhat common to see people asking for everyone to either stay in raid until loot is passed, or for people to wait until after everyone recalls before passing. I've also seen people verbally call out passing so that (hopefully) others stop recalling a moment. All are hindrances which are really just poor workarounds to the menu being incorrect. And hopefully this breakdown leads to it being fixed soon (I've seen so much loot rot in pugs as people try to move fast and get to the next event, its a crime).

[Captain_Wizbang]

used to be re-assignable when it first started.

I remember that.

Too bad that got abused.

[Ranncore]

We'd love to make some adjustments. In U14, I did make changes to a number of things I thought really needed them, such as the Shields of Legend from Necropolis 4, the dragonscale armors in Gianthold, and the rare items in Tempest Spine.

Unfortunately, the thing preventing this from happening on a wider scale is the investment of manpower and time it'd require. I and the rest of the design team are booked pretty solid for the foreseeable future, unless Eladrin sees fit to change the priority of what we're working on.

Currently, I am working on the treasure in Update 16 and 17.

Are you working on anything a Cleric might use? There wasn't a single named item in MotU with devotion on it. There wasn't a single named shield. All the heavy armor was clearly made for fighters, and even the armor in the clerics of amauntor set is better for FvS than it is for clerics. My cleric is hunting what is clearly designed for wizards in Motu. And since nearly all of the pre-u14 loot is now... very terrible, that doesn't leave my cleric with much to quest for. Shopping for epic gear on the AH isn't much fun.

[Wizzly_Bear]

I would like to know how high the random loot tables go.

Level 24 quest + 2 elite + 1 loot gem + 2 loot weekend bonus + 1 dragonmark mojo

Do we have level 30 loot tables? It sure would be nice to know.

31.

But we have level 30 challenges. +2 loot gem, +1 DM, +3 loot bonus = 36, if we fail to get the +35% xp bonus. +2 more if it counts as elite.

[Epitome]

Feather,

Is there any plans in the works to randomly offer different metal types to the new epic materials? I.e., the chance for a mithral planeforged tower shield or such being generated? There is little use to clear these items for crafting as it is now without some of these more desirable metallic properties.

[Brennie]

Named items pre U14, will the older items be getting upgrades to be in-line with post U14 standards?

We'd love to make some adjustments. In U14, I did make changes to a number of things I thought really needed them, such as the Shields of Legend from Necropolis 4, the dragonscale armors in Gianthold, and the rare items in Tempest Spine.

Unfortunately, the thing preventing this from happening on a wider scale is the investment of manpower and time it'd require. I and the rest of the design team are booked pretty solid for the foreseeable future, unless Eladrin sees fit to change the priority of what we're working on.

Currently, I am working on the treasure in Update 16 and 17.

I'd like to add a slightly more specific query in this vein - Feather, is there any possibility you or your team can review and adjust some of the items that did not translate particularly well due to the u14 changes to Armor and Spellpower?

Notable examples of this are:

• Any instances of of Superior Spelltype 4 (For Paladins and Rangers) or Superior Spelltype 6 (For Bards and Artificers) on high level or Eberronian epic items - these were just fine for their intended purposes before the spellpower change, but the direct translation leaves them extraordinarily lacking!

• Potency being supremely weaker than individual spelltype bonuses. While this makes sense and is probably fine for randomrolled items, some named items have lost tremendous value since they are so much less useful than a single-type randomrolled caster stick of equal level. Good examples of this are the Epic Ornamented Dagger, ToD Necklaces, and the very unfortunate Lucid Dreams (Quick fix to make this one Impulse 80-90 or something would probably be great)

• Some screwy direct translations that simply didn't work well, notable epic Challenge items which have spellpower 90 for a specific element twice (Once for Superior element 9 and once for Epic element 6)

• Some items that require a lot of time investment to acquire being severely outclassed by equal(ish) randomroll items, or items that are tremendously easy to acquire. Notably Alchemical Caster-oriented weapons, which cap out at 90 spellpower. Since it takes Shroud-worthy grinding (i.e Several weeks minimum) to even make alchemical weapons, they should probably have a longer lifespan than 2 levels or so.

• Spellpower Clickies on items have devalued to the point of uselessness. Some named items, notably ToD belts, are much, much less desirably than they were before u14. The clickies themselves don't have to change, but these items themselves might need something else to keep them going, like adding a static single-type spellpower (Say, spellpower 80-90 for Savant belts, or some such)

• Some named armors and shields have less than desirable base attributes compared to randomrolled armors/shields since the revamp of u14. Shade has done some extensive documenting of this.

• Mostly unrelated to named items, but lack of non-metal medium armors on the loot tables from level 4+ seems like an egregious oversight when introduced at the same time as Druids. Druids seem to be stuck wearing either hide/darkleaf armor with level 1 base stats, or work very hard to get dragonscale... and that's about it for medium armor choices. Some form of hide armor or darkleaf should probably be added to the randomroll loot tables, so that druids have at least some medium armor options, as well as decent mid-to-high level base armor to craft on should they desire to do so,

@OP - Ferd, good questions.

@Feather - Good answers. As always, its good to see the Turbine staff involved in the community!