An introduction: you can call me Doctor Loot

[DrOctothorpe]

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 characters are currently wearing.

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

[shibe]

It is unfortunate that the Nightmare got nerfed. Maybe lessen the nerf and we will have a winner again.

Oh and welcome....

[rest]

Everything that's happened to loot recently should never have happened. DON'T DO THAT and I am certain that you'll be well loved.

Take a page out of Gensai's (RIP) book and actually listen. Don't let the loot YOU would love to use (OMG THAT'S SO RANDOMMMM XXXXXD ) cloud your judgement in such a way that it prevents you from seeing what the playerbase wants and uses.

When creating new loot prefixes and suffixes, don't completely remove the previous effects that people enjoyed. Convalescent, omniscience, meteoric, tempestuous jump immediately to mind as some of my absolute favorites. I'll never ever ever use a riposte or parrying weapon. Ever.

Stop with the roman numeral junk. In the long long ago, actual numbers were added (AND ROMAN NUMERALS REMOVED i.e. potency VI) to indicate at a glance how powerful an item was (see also disable +11 vs disable +15). This had the ultra happy side benefit of making stuff easily searchable on the AH. Now we have Flaming. How powerful? I don't know, let me hover over it and see. Actually I decided I don't even care how flamey this weapon is. I'll take something else that isn't just plain stupid.

[HungarianRhapsody]

Take a page out of Gensai's (RIP) book and actually listen. Don't let the loot YOU would love to use (OMG THAT'S SO RANDOMMMM XXXXXD ) cloud your judgement in such a way that it prevents you from seeing what the playerbase wants and uses.

Also, this.

[older loot philosophies good. latest philosophies bad.]

I know that's not the most polite way to phrase it, but it's the best summary that I can offer that would actually be helpful in seeing how I and many other forumites view the loot issue.

[rest]

A few notable pieces of non-named loot that I wear are: Devotion 114 helm of omniscience, dexterity 10 ring of dodge 10%, greater convalescent bracers of superior parrying (i refuse to call them parrying VIIIVXWIIMLX or whatever stupid roman numeral junk got added) and meteoric bastard sword of something or other.


Hey look at that. 75% of those are no longer able to be found in chests. Imagine that.

[Silverleafeon]

Another problem is getting the DCs in various schools item bonuses.

Making it better would be items that contain multiple high level DC bonuses along with slots.

Feather probably make the effect worse by making augments stack with items bonuses,
instead of doing the proper thing and improving the augments themselves.
Why did he put that into the future updates without more thought/discussion?


The more I think about it, the less stacking items and item augments we have the more space we will have.

The main exception is energy absorption which one can overstack to help non evasion toon survive situations.
Be carefuly altering that stacking, as it will affect the balance of capstones and many other things.

[HGM-Chi]

Stop with the roman numeral junk.

greater convalescent bracers of superior parrying (i refuse to call them parrying VIIIVXWIIMLX or whatever stupid roman numeral junk got added).

I find it funny they've gone to this system after having decided the player base couldn't possibly understand how 2d6 or 3d8 works.

[Teh_Troll]

Everything that's happened to loot recently should never have happened. DON'T DO THAT and I am certain that you'll be well loved.

yes, everything post MoTU was fail.

I cannot stress this enough . . . out-dating stuff every update just needs to stop. All armors out-dated by GH stuff, Random Gen out-dating all named stuff after one update, needs to stop NOW.

Nobody I run with cares about obtaining any specific items at this point because we all know you're gonna make it garbage next update.

DDO wasn't like this until after MoTU. People still ran Titan and Reaver at level 20 because there was still stuff worth pursuing.

Relevant loot keeps content relevant. This needs to be tatoo'd on the inside of your eyelids.

[Eth]

Relevant loot keeps content relevant. This needs to be tatoo'd on the inside of your eyelids.

This, a million times.

The nice thing before MotU was that there were so many raids you could run that were relevant (ToD, Shroud, DQ, VoN6, Abbot, Chronoscope, LoB, Master Artificer, or even the odd Reaver, HoX or VoD for +3Tomes).

Today? The only thing I see regularly is VoN6 and that is for XP, not for loot reasons mainly.
Then there's a Shroud sometimes and maybe a FoT.

Bad loot design: Master artificer (I mean really run it once or twice, get your item and be done...or don't run it at all and buy the item you want from the AH).

Good loot design: Abbot (Unique things, that can't be found anywhere else - still relevant stuff today), Shroud


Until we get a new endgame thoon(tm), please consider making the old raids attractive again.
Some of them are actually difficult and worthy considering to be "endgame" (EE LoB).
There's just no reason to run them (again EE LoB - seriously, the loot system in this raid is so broken it's not even funny. There's really NO REASON to run EE LoB at all other than for fun).

For the very least add SOMETHING to ALL raids to make them worth running.
You know even if you had your rings from ToD it was still worth running it, because there was always the low odd chance to get a +4 tome.
At the moment the loot tables just seem to be broken. I haven't seen any +4 Tomes since U19.

Consider adding (relevant) tomes to all raids again, aswell as unique augments.
Just something relevant enough, to make people run these raids again.

[Noctus]

yes, everything post MoTU was fail.

I cannot stress this enough . . . out-dating stuff every update just needs to stop. All armors out-dated by GH stuff, Random Gen out-dating all named stuff after one update, needs to stop NOW.

Nobody I run with cares about obtaining any specific items at this point because we all know you're gonna make it garbage next update.

DDO wasn't like this until after MoTU. People still ran Titan and Reaver at level 20 because there was still stuff worth pursuing.

Relevant loot keeps content relevant. This needs to be tatoo'd on the inside of your eyelids.

I have to agree. The much, much too fast obsolescence of items, combined with the randomlootification of named item abilities. For example Seeker or Melee Alacrity (nowadays known as Speed) was only found on a few named items, making it an intersting effect and these items (as well asthe content dropping them) worthy of striving for to acquire them. Or Nightmare on weapons.

Now you can get it everywhere.

[Memnir]

Welcome to the forums, Doc.

Just a passing thought before anything else... please don't be put off or offended if people seem to be blunt/rude/agro in terms of loot. It's a sensitive subject, and one that tends to raise passions and fan flames. It's not a personal attack, it's just venting from an enthusiastic player-base who have some frustrations. We like to talk to Devs - just sometimes our passions and frustrations get the better of us. Please try to see beyond what might seem to just anger to the root cause of that anger when this happens.

Again, thanks for dropping in. I hope it's a regular, and mutually beneficial, experience. On to the questions at hand...

- Aside from the diversity issue, what are the biggest problems with random loot, today?
Items are now a huge pain to quickly identify on a rewards list. Okay, this sword is Flaming - but you don't know how powerful the fire damage is w/o examining the item. And it's this way for every effect on every item, making reward selection a major pain. It did not used to be this way - and it really should go back to how it was. The new way is an aggravating mess.

- What weapon and equipment types do you feel are underserved in named and in random loot?
I think that Seeker and Speed dropping like water nowadays has drastically undercut some formerly very valuable items. While I use both - I feel like I'm cheating, somehow. I don't think that newly implemented random loot should ever undercut named items or rare effects. It has diluted a lot of what makes that hard to get loot desireable and kills the urge to continue to farm for it.

- I’d love to hear about some of the non-named loot your character’s are currently wearing.
On what sort of character? Not being snarky, but it makes a huge difference on knowing how to answer. If you really would like to make further Polls for us to take - perhaps think about focusing in on Melee, Arcane, Divine, Bard, etc.

Some general effects I use on most alts are: Retributive armors, HP boosting items, Healing Amp, Deathblock, Striding. After that, it gets more divisive depending on the class I play.


Other random note: people really liked a lot of the loot prefixes and suffixes that vanished recently. Lacerating, Sun's Wrath, etc. They were only around for a short time, and nobody knows why they were removed, but I talk to people regularly who miss them. Please think about putting them back - it would please many. In fact, if you could champion repealing most of the changes to loot since MotU, people would sing your praises!


Thanks again!

[Munkenmo]

As the new loot dev, could you please put some pressure on the appropriate people to fix some enhancements that break the named short sword Celestia.

See this thread for an example of specific details.

[HungarianRhapsody]

1) I'd very much like to see Cannith crafting get new recipes. It's decent for leveling gear, but when you consider just how much you need to

2) I'd like to see the old scroll/seal/shard Epic items get some love. It takes a VERY long time to get those items and they're just mid-game "passing through" loot now. I do think that having a significant investment in getting end game items is fine, but for items that you're just going to wear for a few levels, I think it's reasonable to just have the item itself drop directly OR add a seal exchange and shard exchange just like the Scroll exchange that we have now.

3) I think that random loot is mostly fine. Most of it is vendor trash and there is an occasional shining example of a great item. I'd like to see raid loot surpass that lootgen gear in most circumstances. That's a particular concern for caster weapons since there is nothing exciting in CitW for Clerics/FvS that have spells as their primary focus and Twilight isn't very exciting for Wizards/Sorcerers/Artificers compared to a variety of the lootgen caster sticks that are available.

4) Interesting items are more appealing to me than items that just have raw power from better numbers. Madstone boots, Torc, etc. are all more interesting and more fun than just a +12 [blah] item even if that is better than a +10 [blah] item.

[SilkofDrasnia]

1) I'd very much like to see Cannith crafting get new recipes. It's decent for leveling gear, but when you consider just how much you need to

2) I'd like to see the old scroll/seal/shard Epic items get some love. It takes a VERY long time to get those items and they're just mid-game "passing through" loot now. I do think that having a significant investment in getting end game items is fine, but for items that you're just going to wear for a few levels, I think it's reasonable to just have the item itself drop directly OR add a seal exchange and shard exchange just like the Scroll exchange that we have now.

3) I think that random loot is mostly fine. Most of it is vendor trash and there is an occasional shining example of a great item. I'd like to see raid loot surpass that lootgen gear in most circumstances. That's a particular concern for caster weapons since there is nothing exciting in CitW for Clerics/FvS that have spells as their primary focus and Twilight isn't very exciting for Wizards/Sorcerers/Artificers compared to a variety of the lootgen caster sticks that are available.

4) Interesting items are more appealing to me than items that just have raw power from better numbers. Madstone boots, Torc, etc. are all more interesting and more fun than just a +12 [blah] item even if that is better than a +10 [blah] item.

Aye pretty much agree with this here especially point 2.

I would add I think named loot should be better overall than random junk and named raid items should be better than regular named items. Also old loot needs to be revamped random lvl 15~21 loot with +8 stats being better than hard farmed old raid loot (level 20 epic version) is just plain sad and wrong.

Oh and for the love of god if old loot is to remain like it is raise the chances on the seal/scroll/shard rates cuase right now if you only play a few characters you will hit 28 before ever ever seeing an old raid item become epic.

[NytCrawlr]

1) I'd very much like to see Cannith crafting get new recipes.

This, but I know there is a plan to have something come down the pipe, at some point...

2) I'd like to see the old scroll/seal/shard Epic items get some love. It takes a VERY long time to get those items and they're just mid-game "passing through" loot now. I do think that having a significant investment in getting end game items is fine, but for items that you're just going to wear for a few levels, I think it's reasonable to just have the item itself drop directly OR add a seal exchange and shard exchange just like the Scroll exchange that we have now.

All of this, they are going to become the new twink items for some ER characters, and I think it is old enough loot that we need to have some turns ins, or maybe just start having shard/seal/scrolls show up in end rewards (a chance), and then the whole list on third runs (still a decent grind if there are multiple items in a quest that you want). This would especially help with the Sands items.

More to follow.

[Spoonwelder]

1) I'd very much like to see Cannith crafting get new recipes. It's decent for leveling gear, but when you consider just how much you need to

2) I'd like to see the old scroll/seal/shard Epic items get some love. It takes a VERY long time to get those items and they're just mid-game "passing through" loot now. I do think that having a significant investment in getting end game items is fine, but for items that you're just going to wear for a few levels, I think it's reasonable to just have the item itself drop directly OR add a seal exchange and shard exchange just like the Scroll exchange that we have now.

This I have a large bag and a half of epic seal/scroll/shard and at this point can make 3 items (two are necklaces of prophecy which are basically junk). An exchange for seals/shards would be awesome. Still keeps the grind up and makes it so you can actually make an item you can use.

[Myrddinman]

Welcome Doctor! Love the name Thanks for stopping by and engaging.

Since this thread is in it's infancy, and before it gets blasted with responses (which I am certain it will), let me say that I would love to see some of the following...

- More named quivers...heck, random quivers would be awesome too!
- More named Shurikens
- Moar Ghostbanez (sorry, couldn't resist)


I will leave the finer details and discussion of the state of random loot to the experts...

[Silverleafeon]

I like the deadly bonuses, it helps martial / ranged compete with casters.

[Teh_Troll]

I like the deadly bonuses, it helps martial / ranged compete with casters.

LOLz

[legendkilleroll]

Welcome Doc

My biggest issue with random loot is after U19was released, random was so easy to aquire and alot better than named items that people had worked for, the CHA10/RES10 type things were just so common, Id like more rare prefix/suffixes

I dont think any type is undeserved, just be nice if the named items were worth using, alot of the U19 items were not worth the effort, then the Gsword and docent in U20 continued that trend, even if an item only fits certain build or types its better than not fitting anyone

I think alot of non named gear is being used, stat +10 items, deadly, resistance, weapons idk, for melee i wouldnt use a non named at epic and my caster druid only hit epic recently but im sure a non named spellpower weapon will be got at somepoint