An introduction: you can call me Doctor Loot

[red_cardinal]

What were you doing in the dev team before loot?
Problem with random loot is that in u19 random loot got a lot better than most of the ee gh named loot and we went from +8 to stat, to +11, in 1 update.
I have 10 str, 9 seeker bracers on my jugg(lvl 28), dex 10, speed 8 boots, will probably get random loot gloves too because they are much better than named items we currently have, thinking of getting 10 or 9 con with false life 45 or 50.

Yes, nerf random loot. Ddo uses dice but it's not a cursed casino. Shame you cannot come up with greater lightning strike and similar effects on named loot. Random items should be barely auxiliary and not OP like now.

Also, reward effort, don't strive on luck when getting loot.

[BOgre]

- Aside from the diversity issue, what are the biggest problems with random loot, today?
- What weapon and equipment types do you feel are underserved in named and in random loot?
- I’d love to hear about some of the non-named loot your character’s are currently wearing.

Hi, Welcome.

Biggest Prob w/Random Loot:

The biggest problem with random loot is that it is pointless. 99.9% of it is vendor trash. Of the remaining 0.1% maybe half has enough synergy to Auction, and then only if it also has an Augment Slot or two. The remaining 0.05% maybe has the synergy, the Slot, and suits our class/build. So, for the most part, random loot is more of a hassle than it's worth. D&D purists will likely disagree, but I'd be perfectly happy to see Random Loot go away completely. Replace the entire Chest Loot mechanic with Plat, Crafting Mats (i.e. Pack-specific crafting like Shroud Mats, or Incredible Potential, or Dragontouched, or Dampened, etc...), Cannith Crafting Essences, Favor, Augments, and finally ONE (semi)Random Item. The (semi)Random item should NEVER be non-synergous. When desiging the semi-random loot generator, it should be with an eye to creating an interesting item every time. That is, no matter what drops, I should at least be TEMPTED to take it, over the other rewards. Interesting and level appropriate affixes, Aug Slots, enhancement +'s, Metal Types (don't forget Crystal), stacking bonuses, etc.
Basically, if the loot is vendor trash, you've wasted your time coding it.

Underserved items in Named/Random Loot:

"Flexible" affixes. I am soooo bored with looking at the lists of loot at Pawn Brokers and seeing ALL the same affixes. Start widening the Flexibility of affixes on things. More choices = More Interesting = Good.
As for underserved Named Loot, go look at DDOWiki's lists of named gear. You'll see plenty of areas that could use a significant boost in named items. Boots, Belts, Necklaces, and Bracers (for MY characters at least), seem to be problem areas, for me.

Not on your list of questions,

but I also have a problem with Rarity. I understand that drop rates are what they are... I guess... but some players do seem to have TERRIBLE luck with the loot gods. I have had exactly TWO tomes drop in my name. I've bought a couple, traded for a couple, and got a couple recently from Mabar (Thanks a bunch for that btw). Same goes for Augments. I would LOVE it if the game would somehow check to see how many chests I've opened since my last Tome/Augment dropped, and then raise my personal drop chance after certain milestones. For example, if say my chance to get a Tome from an appropriate level chest is 1%, and I haven't seen one drop in 100 chests, then raise my personal drop chance to, say, %2. Then if I still haven't seen one drop in another 50 chests, raise it to 5%. (Numbers are all hypothetical). This way, players who are actually having lower than average drop rates on certain things actually start having a better chance to pull those things over a reasonable time.

Now, I know I'm talking about more than just crafting some new copy/paste elements for the current loot gen machine... But the loot system doesn't need a simple fix. It needs an overhaul. DDO's current loot system is not only boring, it's a system with major disasters waiting to happen, like the Ghostbane fiasco. Bring the thing into the 21st century, for real, and design something that will actually last past the next update.

[Thalone]

Aside from the diversity issue, what are the biggest problems with random loot, today?

• Hardly any of it is worth using. When rolling up a new character or doing a TR, most everything I use is Cannith-crafted or named from previous lives. The main exception would be the Deadly/Accuracy items.

What weapon and equipment types do you feel are underserved in named and in random loot?

• The DPS character I play most is a heavy pick user, still using Deathnips at cap.
• Removing Metalline from the loot tables really hurts new players. They can't get cheap all-purpose DR breakers.

I’d love to hear about some of the non-named loot your characters are currently wearing.

• Cannith-crafted with augment slots for energy resistances on classes that don't get the spell, or when I expect to get dispelled.
• Primary stat items, fortification, false life, wizardry, deadly, accuracy.
• Caster sticks (damage/crit chance/DC).
• Old heal amp bracers or doublestrike rings where I can fit them in.
• I have a "Vertigo" weapon (which actually adds to Stunning DC!) on my tactics fighter, since it offers a better DC bonus than accessories.
• Search/Disable +15 items since they can't be Cannith-crafted. Rarely, Intim/Diplo/Bluff items to hit noncombat benchmarks.
• Speed boots on characters without a Quiver of Alacrity.
• BtA chain-reward clickies (Shield, Invis), which seem to be using the old loot tables.

Off-topic to your questions, but to reiterate some of the points other posters have made, and to make some new ones:

• The loot seems to be going madly off in all directions. MoTU introduced a lot of enchantments which were suddenly removed a year later. Auction-searchable titles were introduced, then removed. (Incidentally, from a usability perspective, it's terrible that we can't search for the slotted attribute. Even a visual cue like a hole in the item icon, perhaps with a superscript number indicating the number of slots, would be better than making everyone mouseover every single item. Searchable description text, rather than just item titles, would be even better.) The recent life-stealing nerf (and apparently life-stealing has gone back and forth a couple of times already) has affected three of my characters, which I purposely built (or rebuilt via LRing) as neg-levellers, since their primary role was not top-tier DPS and I wanted to contribute meaningfully to killing stuff. (Upgrade) tomes and bound status... With the advent of skill tomes, I'm probably going to end up deleting most of these, since I'll never find or splurge the prerequisite tomes to use them. There was great fanfare on the forums when +4 tomes and upgrade tomes were announced, but without warning the treasure level was raised for these. You can certainly argue they were too easy to get or cutting into the store profits, but changing it without announcing it is low. Some people spend a lot of time, and perhaps even TP for loot boosts, farming for tomes or that max enchantment level item.
• There are way too many crafting ingredients. I have no idea why Cannith lesser essences are even in the game. It doubles the needed carrying slots for no reason. You could just adjust every recipe to use to add a greater essence for every 5 lesser essences in the recipe and everyone would be happy. Why have Boots of Anchoring ingredients? The NPC should just give you boots after you've flagged. Random drops in the Manufactory/Madness chains: anyone who's going to craft stuff is going to have far more random-drop ingredients than they'll need by the time they've collected enough real ingredients to craft their items. Outdated epic scroll/seal/shard system. I can understand why you'd want small/medium/large ingredients for green steel tiers, but is it necessary to require charged and uncharged power cells for all three levels?
• Too much divergence between random gen and Cannith crafting. It's valid to argue that Cannith should be a subset of random gen, to keep people grinding those chests or to preserve that "wow" feeling when they loot the perfect item. But it should be a large subset, viable for both heroic and epic.

[SisAmethyst]

Some thoughts I have:

1.) Is it possible to control what prefixes/suffixes drop by pack? In addition to the diversity of what is dropping, there is no diversity of where it drops. Having a few unique to a pack prefixes/suffixes could help liven things up.

Maybe not put certain suffix/prefix exclusive in one pack, but set the probability. For example have the probability to get a Ghostbane weapon in the Necro quests at 75%, while in other areas only 25%. On the other hand the quests in Gianthold might have a higher chance for Giant Bane weapons and VoN for Dragon Bane, etc.

Additionally they should look in the code that is supposed to give class specific loot, as it seems that my Fighters get all the scrolls and caster stuff, while the wizards get the Greate-axes and Heavy-armors!

PS: DrLoot, if you see it necessary to change or screw up something, don't approach it with a 180° turn around, which seem to be sadly a quite common tactic (e.g completly shutting off things like Phlebotomizing). Instead adapt gradually...

[SisAmethyst]

...
The second issue is more annoying because it actually seems buggy, rather than just a hidden WAI feature, like the first. Collars. Crafting handwraps into collars is awesome. Not being able to put them on your Pet is not. I have a collar that has chaos damage on it, which requires me to be chaotic to use it. I am. However, the game believes that my wolf is not. I cannot apply it to him, even though he should fulfill the prerequisites for it. This is incredibly annoying.

Attention, pet's don't automatically share the alignment of it's master. You can define the alignment of the pet via the enhancements, like for the artificer dog you can take 'hunter of boxes' which make it chaotic aligned.

[PermaBanned]

Happy Friday, everyone. I’d like to introduce myself as a bit of a new dev face on the forums. First, it’s about time I quit lurking, and second, I’m putting on an additional hat on the DDO team. What hat is that? In a word: loot. I’m here to listen to you and to keep my eyes on the big picture. Yes, that includes avoiding Ghostbane-situations.

Hello & welcome! While I'm glad loot is getting some due attention, your new hat sparks some questions for me.

•First, is this related to Feather_of_Sun's candid comments in this thread? I do hope no ill befell Feather because of that. To be honest, if we're going to have productive discussions we'll need to have that level of clarity rather than the non-committal "speaks much - says little" and "side-stepping of issues" we typically receive.

•Second, in that thread Feather said certain things were going to happen like Spell DC Augments stacking with gear, returning Burst effects and named effects to the loot tables. Does a new face in charge of loot mean those are off the table?

•Third, it seems whenever we get a new loot developer, we get a new loot system. Are you planning this, or are you sticking with what we have and working it into something palatable to the player base?

Now on to your questions:

- Aside from the diversity issue, what are the biggest problems with random loot, today?

•Random loot should never trump named loot of approximately the same level.

•Random loot should not receive rare properties of named loot, leading to a nerf of said property. To use Nightmares as an example: it existed on 2 items and was great if you could get them. Then it was added into the random table and determined to be too powerful to exist that commonly.

•Random loot with DCs need to scale with item min level. If an item has a min level of 26, it needs to be more effective than item with a min level of 8 or 16. A Paralyzing item is phenomenal for level 10ish quests, decent in the Vale and occasionally effective in Amrath. If the same prefix drops at epic levels, it's DC is unchanged and so almost useless. Perhaps instead of basing an item's DC on "standard" vs "Improved" or "Greater" it should be a function of Minimum Level, or that "+ value" in the upper right hand corner?

•Missing affixes/properties. Convalescence, Blindness Immunity, (effective) Secret Door detection, ASF reduction just to name a few. Dear to my heart in particular: Turn Undead Gear! Why is it that with a level cap of 28 (soon to be 30!) the best in game Turn effecting property is obtainable at level 7, and still used (with absolutely no modifications/improvements) for loot from the highest level raid in the game?!

- What weapon and equipment types do you feel are underserved in named and in random loot?

•Quarterstaves need the chance of having a metal type.

•More named Docents please.

•Collars. Sure they can use any (converted) handwraps, but why no love for Fido? Some named Collars would be cool.

•Beyond that it's hard to say. It seems different items (weapons/armor/gear) get love at different times/levels. Unless you're wanting a specific dissection of (X) item @ (Y) level range, it would seem that there's a plethora of options for every slot (with the noted exceptions above, and quivers which should remain extremely rare IMO).

- I’d love to hear about some of the non-named loot your character’s are currently wearing.

•Convalescence of (various) Parrying. Arguably one of the best random drops since Arti's devalued DR breakers.

•Stat items, HP & SP, Spell DC boosters... By a wide margin, the highest value items are random gen now - this IMHO is a sad state of affairs, but you've painted yourselves into a corner here. You can't produce competitive named items without jacking up the power creep even further. How will you make a Named Item to compete with Int 11 of Wizardy X, or Con 11 of False Life 50?

•Skill swaps. Search, spot, haggle, diplomacy etc. I carry random stuff for these to use on an as needed basis.

Beyond that, not much to be honest. I've spent years in the game collecting Named goodies for my two main toons. They mostly TR, and so mostly reuse the same stuff in various combinations 'pending the build of that particular life.

(In the future, I’m planning some similar question sessions about named loot and named loot systems, BTW.)

Some food for thought...
•When loot properties are changed, they need to be retroactive and comprehensive - existing Named items need to be updated.

•Greater Hearoism as a stand alone property does absolutely nothing to make higher level Named armor anything but vendor trash - it's obtainable as a low level clicky for Pete's sake!

•"Good enough" isn't. We now know (which we had all assumed anyway) that this currently shabby & unfinished excuse for a loot system was implemented because management decided other things were of higher priority. The decision it's self was great! Enhancements were in need of extra work, so the loot was put on hold - no problem there - but it's implementation should also have been put on hold until work was resumed and completed. There is no "return on investment" issue here, nothing of that was for sale, none of it was attached to pack sales. If anything, implementing it was a poor financial decision as it led to a major erosion of consumer confidence & satisfaction.

[Cyr]

Happy Friday, everyone. I’d like to introduce myself as a bit of a new dev face on the forums. First, it’s about time I quit lurking, and second, I’m putting on an additional hat on the DDO team. What hat is that? In a word: loot. I’m here to listen to you and to keep my eyes on the big picture. Yes, that includes avoiding Ghostbane-situations.

So in the name of listening rather than blathering on and on, I’d like to ask you all a few questions as a sort of pulse-check on the state of loot. Go on and fill up the thread – I’ll check back in after the weekend (and a bit today, as schedule permits), with head-nods, follow-up questions, and answers where necessary.

- Aside from the diversity issue, what are the biggest problems with random loot, today?
- What weapon and equipment types do you feel are underserved in named and in random loot?
- I’d love to hear about some of the non-named loot your character’s are currently wearing.

(In the future, I’m planning some similar question sessions about named loot and named loot systems, BTW.)

Simple answer to first question...Reinventing the wheel and then destroying the old wheel while you have a shabby blueprint of the new wheel is not okay.

More complex answer...

* Old work was ignored and defacto destroyed by new loot work
* Random loot does not always have to mean more random modifiers thrown together, it should mean you open a chest and anything from its level and below you can find in it including store items and named loot
* Random loot design has ignored other loot mechanics recently including cannith crafting (which should be updated every update to match new available modifiers) and named loot
* Random loot design never needs to be REDESIGNED, it just needs to be expanded
* Stat tomes went away for all intensive purposes which were one of the main drivers for opening chests
* Difficulty in storage/lots of junk
* One prefix/suffix to rule them all design with everything else being vendor trash. If a prefix/suffix is always junk then it should not have such a high enhancement modifier on it and/or be combined into something better as a new prefix/uffix...read ALL armor mods
* The name should say it all, and it does not now...very hard to see what loot you actually pulled without z-examine
* RNG modifiers thrown together is going to be mostly junk with rare okay moments. Do not hinge random chest loot upon this mechanic.

On another loot note...

Recent suggestion had an interesting thread about a one weapon to rule them all idea where you collected all the named weapons of one type (ie longbows) and got the UBER BOW. I would suggest expanding upon this idea with named loot and random loot in a UI collection type idea where you can use your 'uber' item partially finished likely with selectable/reselectable UI of powers based upon what you have collected....something like you could take a BASE of one of the items you have in the UI list and then get some more stuff form the other things in your collection (ie you wear your 'imbued epic frozen tunic'. Basically a reason to keep collecting loot even if itself is kind of junk...I would say the 'base' items you could expand on would have to be collected more then once (and once in the UI collection they are not removable for trade/individual use). In that way, the base items would see use directly as well.

[Saravis]

- What weapon and equipment types do you feel are underserved in named and in random loot?

In epic levels there's a lack of longswords, battleaxes, dwarven axes, scimitars, kamas, and throwing weapons.
There's a horrible lack of Spell Orbs.


Additionally, with the recent changes to Lore on items, Arcane Lore, now Spell Lore, was nerfed. By extension, a few of the top Caster Items (Twilight and Flawless Blue Dragon Armor) was nerfed. Its understandable that specific Lores should be superior to Spell Lore, but going from a difference of +3% to a difference of +10% is too much and should be reevaluated.


Finally, I realize this is probably not your dept, but it somewhat has to do with it. There needs to be more Favored Weapons for Divines.
There are far too few, some races not even having their own. So if that could be looked at or run by whoever can, that would be appreciated.

[Oxarhamar]

Some food for thought...
•When loot properties are changed, they need to be retroactive and comprehensive - existing Named items need to be updated. .

to expand on this almost anytime an item gets a buff we need to require the item (Orchard collectable turn ins for example)

on the other hand when an item gets a nerf our existing items get nerfed (ML changes on our existing +2 weapon of Monstrous Humanoid Bane or Plant Bane (ML 1) Acquired by collecting Rosy Swamp pearls in Red Fens)

the exceptions have been things like upgradeable Raid gear from Reavers Fate the old items could be turned in and upgraded to the new (this is more a expectable approach)

[ycheese123]

- Aside from the diversity issue, what are the biggest problems with random loot, today?
- What weapon and equipment types do you feel are underserved in named and in random loot?
- I’d love to hear about some of the non-named loot your character’s are currently wearing.

-Aside from diversity and missing effects... see Perma's comments.
One good thing that was done was getting rid of 'btc on equip' random loot.

-Heavy Picks!, Kukri, Khopesh.

-Some random loot that I wear or swap to:
Greater Convalescent Bracers of Superior Parrying
Health +10 Boots of False Life +45
Fortified Gloves (120%) of Dodge 10%
Deadly Ring (IX) of Resistance +10
Doublestrike 6% Ring of Sustenance (Heal) 15%
Fortified Gloves (120%) of Seeking IX

[Alistina]

Happy Friday, everyone. I’d like to introduce myself as a bit of a new dev face on the forums. First, it’s about time I quit lurking, and second, I’m putting on an additional hat on the DDO team. What hat is that? In a word: loot. I’m here to listen to you and to keep my eyes on the big picture. Yes, that includes avoiding Ghostbane-situations.

Welcome Dr Hope you have your 20 DR/Forum Trolls Hat on

- Aside from the diversity issue, what are the biggest problems with random loot, today?

Like others have said, post U19 random loot has overpowered named/raid loot. As it is the low/mid level named/raid loot is meh. With all the deadly and seekers dropping left right centre, there is no fun in getting a named item at those levels.
Eveningstar challenge items are just plain useless and not worth the ingredient grind.

- What weapon and equipment types do you feel are underserved in named and in random loot?

As far as named loot is concerned, low and mid level loot needs an overhaul. One set that jumps right to my mind is Carnival end loot, there is not a single item on that chain end reward list that is decent enough to be used (I still do like the shortsword and returning dagger)..since you have increased the xp for it how about making the loot useful. This is just one example, I rarely use any named items before hitting GH loot levels except for Red Fence and kora sets. A kick to the abashai set wouldn't hurt as well.

Dragon touched armor is insanely tedious to craft (craft a desirable one I mean) and not worth it at all. Needs to be made better. A plain and simple (retroactive) increase to the AC if nothing else at least.

Weapon types, I don't think I have seen anyone use non repeater crossbows (in spite or the obvious attempt made to promote them in U19 trees) or shortbows, picks and morning stars. They are all just thrash, even if you get one with an otherwise good prefix/suffix and don't get used or sold on AH.

A revamp of the cannith crafting system is long overdue. That said, if and when you do decide to work on it, don't change everything like its been done recently with everything taken up by devs recently. Just add the new prefix/suffix and higher level shards, epic crafting would be good to. But don't take away the banes from it.

- I’d love to hear about some of the non-named loot your character’s are currently wearing.

I don't use any random loot on my toons (except just maybe for the new deadly/dodge items). I mostly craft items to get exactly what I want where till hitting 11-12ish, then I switch to GS and GH loot and other named stuff as my level progresses. Similar items as what others have mentioned at end game levels.

PS. We want epic GS please
GH and motu loot (minus challenge craftables) is awesome. Look at it for what is loved in the game when creating loot.

Welcome again and good luck

[oradafu]

Some food for thought...
•When loot properties are changed, they need to be retroactive and comprehensive - existing Named items need to be updated.

I'm going to disagree slightly with this.

When loot properties are buffed, existing Name items with the same type of property should be buffed. Especially raid or expansion gear.

Now nerfing named items is a different beast all by itself. Too often nerfs happen, intentionally or accidentally, that does nothing to improve the player's enjoyment of the game.

For example, I disagree with slamming the nerf hammer down on named items because of bad decision by the Devs. The two most obvious examples of this is the nerfing the Dreamspitter via Life Stealing multiple times because the Life Stealing shard that was never introduced then adding it too high crit named MOTU items and the nerfing of the Terror for putting Nightmare on high crit generic loot. If the mistake is on the Dev end, there's no reason to destroy old loot.

Speaking of the Dreamspitter, the Reaver's Fate weapons are worse than Paragon weapons. When Paragon weapons were added to the game the generic loot automatically got the damage boost, yet RAID items didn't?! It's shoddy work and/or decisions like this that helped kill the vibrant raid scene that existed in the game pre-MOTU.

[PermaBanned]

Some food for thought...
•When loot properties are changed, they need to be retroactive and comprehensive - existing Named items need to be updated.

It seems I should expand on and clarify what I meant ^here.^

Specifically, I was thinking of things like the Deception & Deathblock properties, where newly generated items have one function, and older ones have another (usually weaker) one. The same is true for many other properties on older or "pre-existing" items as well. I was also thinking of things like Dragontouched Armor. When changes were made to Exceptional Skill boosts, Spell Penetration and more; the descriptions of Green Steel were altered to match, but Dragontouched was not - leading to doubt, speculation and ultimately "taking your chances" when crafting to see if it worked right.

Also, as Tanngiostr and Oradafu pointed out: Nerfs never seem to fail to apply retroactively, while buffs or upgrades seem to require getting a new item. This is unfair and, to be perfectly honest, just plain rude. As the noted examples:

•Tharak Wraps were one of two weapons with the Nightmares* property, and were a difficult to acquire raid item. When the property was added to random loot, it was nerfed beyond belief.

•When the Orchard turn-in items were buffed, we all had to acquire more Tome Pages & Shield Fragments to enjoy the upgrades - though that was debatably ok because there was also a change in minimum level involved.


*As an another addendum to my earlier post, Nightmares with it's double save mechanic would be a prime example of an item with a DC property that needs to scale with an item's minimum level. This would also be true for the Nightmare Guard on things like the Mabar Cloak of Night.

It would also be an excellent gesture on y'alls part to go through and auto update all the Striding items to Speed items, and do the same for other similarly replaced/outdated affixes.

[karl_k0ch]

1. One of the biggest problems is/was the power creep. Compared to items from epic Gianthold, post U19 random loot looks better (I'm looking at you, +11 Stat and +10 Deadly items). This isn't a bad thing per say, but it's sad when there are no niches and no unique effects which make named loot interesting. I'm not saying that named loot needs to be better, but it should provide unique, relevant and interesting effects. Named items which have been overshadowed by U19 random loot are, for example, Twilight, Epic Dream Visor, Bronze/Copper/Silver Ingot Arcanum.

2. Weapons: Dwarven Axes, Greatswords. Equipment: I can't think of underserved item types. For most of my characters, there are a lot of competing interesting items in the same slot.

3. Random Loot currently equipped on some of my level 20+ characters (only listing attributes, not item slots): +9 Str/Con/Int item, False Life +40/45 item, Deadly +7 to +9, Resistance +7 to +9.

[Clatterfist]

Aside from the diversity issue, what are the biggest problems with random loot, today?

The inability to either make or find epic level items that fit with my heroic level gear scheme as the bonuses keep getting stronger and stronger makes it very hard to gear up properly. By the time I'm level 20, each piece of gear is serving up to four specific needs and I can't simply yank something out to stick in a +6 or higher bonus even if I would very much like to upgrade that stat, because that would leave crucial holes in my character's equipment profile. In order to be able to replace anything (aside from a couple of slots that are generally less strictly assigned, like weapon and trinket), I basically have to be able to replace multiple items at once and hope that the affix juggle breaks down into something resembling a working whole despite the fact that I've got a very limited supply of items to draw upon to do the job. This wouldn't be a problem if Cannith Crafting were updated to let me put the new mods where I needed them to go, and it's also less of a problem where named items have plenty of augment slots because that increases their flexibility in replacing bonuses that I would otherwise lose by swapping them in. In almost no cases are random items useful at all, because it's rare enough for them to spawn with the right combination of mods, and they need the right combination of augment slots on top of that. The one exception is for the mandatory deadly item, which has been demanding its own slot since the affix was introduced.

What weapon and equipment types do you feel are underserved in named and in random loot?

Thematically appropriate caster weapons, most particularly magic staffs. Thaumaturgy staves were a good idea but can still generally be exceeded by using two clubs, and the highly random nature of the mod means that you're unlikely to get a thaumaturgy staff that's better than dual wield for your character at any given level, let alone consistently across all levels. If we could craft thaumaturgy staffs or a suitable replacement then this would a big step in the right direction... staffs that have charges and cast spells or otherwise do useful classical D&D things would be even better. I hate playing a caster and walking around with clubs and the like in hand, but I do it because it works. I'd much rather wield a staff, and look good doing it.

I’d love to hear about some of the non-named loot your character’s are currently wearing.

OK, these are the non-named items currently worn by level 23 pure barbarian, which is his 7th life:

• Deadly VII Helm of Resistance +6 w/ Yellow Slot filled with Striding 30% gem. It came with Masterful Craftsmanship, and is part of my attempt to free up other slots by moving resistance away from the gloves slot.
• Belt of Greater False Life w/ Colourless Slot filled with +5 Constitution and Yellow Slot filled with Acid Resistance 25. Cannith Crafted w/ Masterful Craftsmanship. This is my default level 16 belt, which I won't be able to upgrade like-for-like until I'm slightly higher level and can earn level 20 augments from Gianthold. That's still an unattractive proposition because a direct crafted upgrade would still only be Greater False Life, +6 Constitution, 30 Acid Resistance. The hope would be to replace it in a shuffle that opens up stuff like +8 Constitution.
• Mobile Ring of Spell Resistance (20). This is a crafted item, largely an experiment on my part to see if Spell Resistance items stacked with the Occult Slayer capstone (they don't). Mobile seemed like the best available prefix at the time, and the real purpose of the item is to give its Colourless slot with Charisma +5 and its Yellow slot with 25 Electrical Resistance. Once again, these are outdated augments that I can't earn replacement for at level, and the direct replacements aren't that good compared to what's theoretically possible when/if I ever find enough appropriate epic gear to do a comprehensive shuffle.
• Gloves of Resistance +5 w/ Yellow Slot filled with Cold Resistance 25 and Colourless Slot filled with Strength +5. More handmade level 16 gear: I've successfully made the resistance and strength bonuses redundant via my helm and my planar focus trinket respectively, so I can nearly replace this one and hopefully start to make some progress, but I'll need to sort out cold resistance first. That should be doable with yellow slots and some gianthold grinding.
• Featherfalling Boots of Springing +13 w/ Yellow Slot with 25 Fire Resistance and Colourless Slot with Wisdom +5. No surprises here, I'm sure.
• +5 Life Shield Spiritcraft Scalemail w/ Blue Slot filled with Natural Armour +5. I have epic normal Leaves of the Forest which I could use to replace this, but it'll only really be worth it as part of a gear shuffle that includes putting the basic natural armour elsewhere. I've also done a few Deal and the Demon runs in hope of acquiring a Terrorweb Chitin Breastplate, and I might also craft a planeforged breastplate. It's really just inertia from uncertainty about the rest of my gear that's staying my hand.

[Nascoe]

Some thoughts I have:

1.) Is it possible to control what prefixes/suffixes drop by pack? In addition to the diversity of what is dropping, there is no diversity of where it drops. Having a few unique to a pack prefixes/suffixes could help liven things up.

2.) IMO the biggest problems with random loot isn't the loot, it is the action house and cannith crafting. It is hard to search for certain features in the auction house and cannith crafting has been left so so far behind. Superior radiant lore is another drop that was rare in the past... I haven't looked recently.

3.) Convalescence / superior parrying bracers are an example of random loot that I wear.

Point 1. is a very good one. It would be more fun if you got halfway predictable what kind of effects drop from certain packs (based on what favor they give or on what the pack focusses on) - in the catacombs you would get devotion, sacret, undead focussed, necrotic and that kind of things for example. in the Red Fens you would get things focussed on mon. Humanoids, vermin, and plant things for example.

[JOTMON]

Happy Friday, everyone. I’d like to introduce myself as a bit of a new dev face on the forums. First, it’s about time I quit lurking, and second, I’m putting on an additional hat on the DDO team. What hat is that? In a word: loot. I’m here to listen to you and to keep my eyes on the big picture. Yes, that includes avoiding Ghostbane-situations.

So in the name of listening rather than blathering on and on, I’d like to ask you all a few questions as a sort of pulse-check on the state of loot. Go on and fill up the thread – I’ll check back in after the weekend (and a bit today, as schedule permits), with head-nods, follow-up questions, and answers where necessary.

- Aside from the diversity issue, what are the biggest problems with random loot, today?
- What weapon and equipment types do you feel are underserved in named and in random loot?
- I’d love to hear about some of the non-named loot your character’s are currently wearing.

(In the future, I’m planning some similar question sessions about named loot and named loot systems, BTW.)

As we progress in the game we are building toons to have more with less.
We are looking for items that will eliminate/reduce weaknesses and enhance strengths.
Pieces that are good enough we will build other items around, so the puzzle play comes into effect as we figure out how to mix this with that.
We need growth items that are specifically powerful as well as items that are versatile.

1. Start with Shroud namely the best versatile system ever put into place... every gear slot and almost every weapon can be built with an extensive amount of versatility and usefulness,
Most people running shroud have minimum 2 fully crafted pieces and many have more. I generally have 6-8 pieces that remain useful through endgame.
Shroud is one of the few quests I will never skip over and will run many many times on every toon.

This brings up a some issues..
-nothing since shroud has had the versatility that shroud offered.
-augments are a good start, but missing too many things that greensteel offers and likely will never come close.
-at some point you really need to address the things like HP and SP item from shroud should be augmentable and we will need items with 3 or more useful augment slots
-weapons.. very few useful named weapons stray from a small pool of choices. the ability to create useful powerful weapons for any weapon choice is just not there in any meaningful way.
-the ingredient system.. unbound!. except for key items the entire system is unbound, there is a recognizable progression and items are achievable in a reasonable amount of time..not like the BS that we go through trying to get shards/seals for things like spell storing ring, Torc, eSOS..with almost non-existant drop rates or requiring thousands of BTC ingredients from a bunch of different challenges that no one wants to run when they are only useful for specific items usable by specific players.


2. Deadly of Invulnerability was the biggest random surprise... we go from Dream Visor which was looking lie the best in game damage booster item with stacking +5hit/+5damage as an epic elite decently difficult item to get to a barrage of random +1 to+10 with lower min levels.
I have a +9/+9 random drop one that blows the dream visor away and it is a lower min level. .. this made no sense in the level progression.

3. As we level/head to endgame... we not only want better stuff but we also want the occasional interesting clickie, options for self healing, damage mitigation, utility items that don't require UMD...
~level useful of course ~not like Wheloons mostly fail epic items like the shadow walk clickie when any umd scroller can carry stacks of scrolls at level 15. or the GH outfits that offer nothing to entice anyone away from anything else at the same level except for those that don't have the level 9 clickie and want to earn a couple extra plat selling scraps to the vendor.

I would love to see an epic worthy version of Greensteel crafting. this would be a legacy to leave behind..
but don't fail and do something weak like the LoB system that was a complete flop with insignificantly few craftiog options and too many BTC/BTA poor drop items.
The system needs to have a growth and be usable across a decent level range.


You have your work cut out for you...

[dunklezhan]

Late to the party, as ever, but here goes in case anyone is still reading thus far

- Aside from the diversity issue, what are the biggest problems with random loot, today?
- What weapon and equipment types do you feel are underserved in named and in random loot?
- I’d love to hear about some of the non-named loot your character’s are currently wearing.

1.Aside from the diversity issue, what are the biggest problems with random loot, today?

Number one burning issue for me is that the crafting system isn't keeping up with it. A lot of folk put a lot of time into that system and we're still getting our ingredient bags stuffed with dozens of different types of essences despite the fact they're becoming increasingly useless. It is exceedingly demoralising to see it abandoned like this. I don't care if there are plans afoot to bring it into line at the moment, that's fine and dandy. I DO care about future gaps emerging: please, when introducing/modifying prefixes/suffixes/special effects to lootgen, don't forget to consider the necessary changes to match in cannith crafting. It can result in higher MLs if need be to maintain the usefulness of real random lootgen when those golden combinations come up, but don't leave Cannith Crafting behind again please.

It would also be nice if there was just a *little* more influence on what you pull from chests & end rewards based on your class. Not too much, got to keep the economy moving. But a little more.

Beyond that, because there are so many new (and wonderful, actually) suffixes and prefixes, the current random loot doesn't actually generate useful combinations often enough. An awful lot of my gear is still old-style as a result: while a new acidII weapon may be better than an old straight out acid weapon, if my old one also has 'bleeding' on it and the new one has doublestrike or some x% chance or on crit effect for the suffix... then I'll tend to stick with the old loot. In my combat weapons I look for straight out damage dealing, not special effects, and many of the new suffixes are the latter. Also most of the new lootgen weapons I loot seem very "%chance" or "on vorpal" dependent. I don't build character's that way, I can't *rely* on randomness and I steer clear even of crit builds as a result. I tend to carry a great many different weapons because I hate seeing 'immune' on my screen and yet none of my characters have even 25% replaced their old weapons with new ones.

It's quite telling I think that for my AA ranger who dual wield's scimmies for melee, that she is still using 90% old style weapons, if not 95%. If I had to pick any one thing I would say I wanted to see far fewer 'x% of the time' and 'on vorpal' effects in favour of either on crit (which at least players can invest in to improve. I won't because I don't build crit builds, but they are better than %chance when that %chance is 5% or less) or just in favour of straight out, predictable damage dealing.


Oh, and named loot doesn't seem to have the [W] scaling that lootgen gets (from class abilities, enhancements, feats etc). I consider that a BIG problem at the moment when it comes to named loot. I suspect because it's named loot and 'breaks the rules' it's imposing it's broken will on the wielder's ablities. The master enchanters making that stuff need a good spanking please.


2. What weapon and equipment types do you feel are underserved in named and in random loot?

I *feel* Longbows and scimitars, because my Ranger has an amazingly limited choice in the AH and rarely do I pull a usable one on any character to send to her. Yet I pull uncounted handwraps, shields, maces, armour of all kinds, a veritable plethora of xbows and repeaters, bastard swords up the wazoo (no tidy lasses, but they wouldn't fit up my wazoo so it's probably for the best), but an almost total lack of longbows or scimmies. My other characters are regularly mailing each other weapons they've pulled, for comparison in case it represents an improvement, but that never happens to the Ranger (who does get lots of cloaks, rings and necklaces sent her way).

Looking in the AH (argo), the price and low number of scimmies and bows compared to other weapons, as well as the fact that even some of these still have old lootgen effects, and the rest seem to be about 50% 'special effect' or '%chance' would appear to corroborate what I'm saying here - they are all VERY expensive for often not actually that good a combination of effects compared to the ML10 holy of pure good longbow I've got. I suspect that's because it's the best of a bad bunch and the actual good stuff probably isn't making it onto the AH because it's so scarce people are holding onto it! By contrast my monk, rogue, arti and S&B fighter are all completely spoiled for choice (though more tower shields wouldn't go amiss )

In named loot: handwraps and bows. My rogue is sitting on *pairs* of various named and identical lootgen shortswords (mostly old lootgen if I'm honest, because you got more useful combos more often) from L12 up even now she's at L20 . My ranger, by contrast has one named bow (sinew), and it's more or less useless compared to my cannith crafted holy of pure good (mostly because of the non-[W] scaling I mentioned above: sinew is still 1d8 while my random loot gen of the same or lower ML is [1.5]1d8. Its not a huge difference but it's there. Its not just bows either with this issue it's the same on handwraps and presumably everything else.


3. I’d love to hear about some of the non-named loot your character’s are currently wearing.

I still wear quite a lot of pre-new-suffixes/prefixes loot, because the name of the game with random loot is slot consolidation. I will turn down named loot over random loot if it means I'm going to have to go on the 'upgrade everything else to plug the new gap' cycle. The new loot gives you more flexibility and that should be great for slot consolidation, but so far about the only things I have really taken pains to replace are my ghost touch (as you would expect, upgrading every ghost touch weapon I had to ghostbane was not a problem over recent months, but I would much rather have been able to use my carefully acquired sets flametouched crafting blanks to do it), attack bonus (now 'deadly') and Striding (now 'speed').


Those latter two effects are easily, easily, the best of the new lot by the way, given the number of slots they can drop on never mind the hugely buffed effects compared to their predecessors. That either means those effects are too good (I hear the sounds of torches being lit and pitchforks being removed from barns), or it means the rest of the effects are a bit 'meh', or that other effects don't drop on a wide enough selection of slots, or that other effects less obviously of benefit when combined with another effect that turns out to be 'meh', or some combination of all of that.

Doublestrike, Dodge, and fortification are probably the things next I look for, but only if I can do it without losing my +stat or +save items. I would really, really, like to see deathblock either on some more items/slots, or dropping more frequently - I can't wear named armour on some characters even though as armour it's a clear improvement, because I can only find deathblock on armour or one or two other slots on named items. I know it's a powerful ability but it's absolutely essential gear above a certain level, and if something is essential then it should be relatively easy to fit in your gear workup without having to sacrifice too much.

[SimCat]

Welcome to the team!

1. Aside from the diversity issue, what are the biggest problems with random loot, today?

Besides the diversity? IMHO the top tier items should be raid items, not random gear. Higher level named loot needs a boost (Wheelon and
Stormhorns) so it makes running those quests more desirable.

2. What weapon and equipment types do you feel are underserved in named and in random loot?

I think that there are a lot of weapons that just don't see play, because they don't have the best damage profiles or don't have support
like daggers, most non-repeating crossbows, etc. However, with iconics and the new enhancements that's starting to change. Many
weapons don't have a lot of choices anymore for end-game gear. Spell-power boosting named items need a boost. I would really love to
see more spell-power boosting items that are in other gear slots other than weapons. I'd love to see more random and named trinkets. I'd
like to see more weapon types so we have more variety (like scythes for example....slashing, pierce damage with x4 crit profile).
The old epic items (all the shard, seal, scroll stuff) a) need a power boost....seriously and b) get rid of shards, seals, and scrolls all
together and have the items looted whole just like in the rest of epic content with slightly different levels of power based on the epic
difficulty you run.

3. I’d love to hear about some of the non-named loot your character’s are currently wearing.

10+ stat items and something with Deadly. Spell-power non-named items (like Impulse, Magnetism, etc) are far better than anything
named atm.

[Nascoe]

1. More Augments - I get tons of loot with augment slots and find very few augments to put in them (and turn-in rates at collectors are rather high in many cases). I don't think I've ever found a blue augment in a chest. So more augments of every color falling in random loot chests would be appreciated. Augment slots should be searchable too.

2. Roman Numerals - I don't think they're bad per se, but they should be in addition to a descriptive word, not instead of one. And that word should be in the title (with or without the roman numeral) so they're searchable. The good thing about them is they do make it easier to see the power of an item at a glance (well a hover/tool-tip glance anyway). The bad thing, as others have pointed out, is they're not searchable. So if each level had its own unique name (e.g., Burning, Fiery, Inferno, etc.) and then you kept the roman numerals internally in the description (this is a Flaming IV weapon), that would be perfect.

3. Named Loot Bonus - any effect that's on named loot should have a bonus multiplier, similar to the multipliers added to high level weapon damage (x1.5, x2, etc.), but not just on damage, on almost every effect. That would help to immediately re-balance named loot against the random gen loot and keep it from being eclipsed.

I agree that we need more augments. I find a decent amount of items with augment slots, and tend to keep them more than others. I have some that I want to add that one perk I am missing on several characters, but I just cannot find an augment to fill it with. The augments are a great idea, but I would really love to have better things to fill the slots with. Best would be something you can slot and then upgrade to better augments after growing in lvl, because it makes you feel more attached to your items that way (which is great for roleplay, having that slightly damaged but lovely balanced greatsword you got from garrison felmar, or something).

So more, and more varied augments. And it would be nice to have more variety of looks of armors (well and something to actually make someone wear a scalemail and to a lesser extent breastplate) - the leathers look almost all the same.