An introduction: you can call me Doctor Loot

[Haykone]

Please create some new high level named khopeshes for end-game play.
Or remove them completely so that we don't have a false illusion that khopeshes are any good.

[SilkofDrasnia]

Just wanted to add my voice to the BTC thing.

Was great when you occasionally got a really good random loot item because it was unbound you could use it, sell it etc. Named items however should be better than random loot in general and thus why it is BTA and raid items of course BTC because it should generally be BiS either for slot consolidation/power etc like it used to be.

This idea that random loot gen (as it is now) is misunderstood and we don't understand what is good for us etc like stated by IronClan sounds good and reasonable in theory and on paper but it is just not working in this game.

It has pretty much nerfed hard (hard can vary in this case) to acquire named items, for example Terror should have never been nerfed because some clever fellow decided its best effect should be widely available on lootgen weapons and so they nerfed the effect thereby nerfing this weapon and we see this happening again with Nightmare from citw, this just should not happen at all.

Secondly like others have said gearing is becoming ridiculous, we are having to do the gear swap dance every 3 levels or so now to remain optimal now which is very very annoying and becoming a serious storage problem.

Was great when you had gears set for like 1~7 then 7~12 then 12~18 or 20. IF this was addressed we could then do 18,20~23,25 and finally 23,25~28 or 30.

As to the notion that gear must be flexible and thus why the rise of lootgen welp I say that was why augments where made isn't it. I would go so far to say use that for variety and gives us back guild slots and revamp the guild augments a little cause some of it was pretty meh.

Good things about raid loot was that it took more than 2 days to acquire said loot but you knew it would be good for a long time once you got it, as it is now your can't even be sure you will get the item before it is nerfed in some fashion. Seriously every time you devs play with loot systems or add new things you need to sit down and look at how it will affect raid loot and think hard about it and either implement the new stuff so it doesn't result in a proxy nerf to raid loot and or upgrade the raid loot so it isn't surpassed by same ml or less random junk etc.

I mean:


Skirmisher's Ring (Level 15) - Constitution +8, Yellow Augment Slot now compare this to:



and try to convince me this is okay lol


On a personal note:

Yeah please a really nice endgame khopseh please to upgrade from drowpesh and perhaps look into making a decent Holy Avenger for pallys they needs some serious loving, see sephiroth1084 post about it.

[Vellrad]

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

The biggest problem with random loot, is the fact that it is random.

You can't just farm something until ransack, you need to open countless amount of chests and pray something useful will drop this time.

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

I had a character specialised in TWFing dwarf axes.
It was fun with Epic Templar's Justice in U13, and GS before, but after motu, there was no single good named dwarven axe worth equipping in epics. It ended up with, I had enhancements, feats and ED made for dwarven axes using, but I had much higher DPS with 2 celestias.
[quest]
- I’d love to hear about some of the non-named loot your character’s are currently wearing.
[/QUOTE]
None, when bellow level cap. If it can't be farmed, it don't exists.
At lvl cap I have +10 charisma cloak of resistance 9, deadly 8 or 9 or 10 necklace of concentration +19, with colorless slot filled with true blood, and +10 strenght belt of something worthless +9 (I think some AC bonus). I'm looking for deadly of healing necklace, and strenght 10 of dodge belt, but as they're practically lottery system, I need to settle with my junk (while necklace is not bad, AC bonus on belt is worthles level increaser only).

[droid327]

Dr. Loot? Can I add you on my network as my preferred provider?

- 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.

My problem with lootgen is its completely monotonic. The new system gives you a suite of mods that you must have (Deadly, Speed, False Life, +Stats, Spellpower and Crit, etc.) and you just check them off your list, and improve the values as you level up.

And then you have all the useless mods, especially on armor. I don't even look at lootgen armor before I vendor/disjunct it now, because theres no possible way its of any value for anything but scrap. There should be more variety in types of permutations on gear (not just prefix/suffix/augment slot/masterful). There should be rare affixes from named items that can appear on lootgen (things like Ghostly or Blurry or Manslayer, procs-on-attack, Boon of Undeath, etc.), so its possible (though rare) to get a "home run" piece of loot, the "perfect" items you go for in other loothunt games like Diablo.

Equipment is just equipment, its all interchangeable except inasmuch as certain mods don't appear in certain slots. There's no lootgen trinkets, that's about the only shortcoming (or orbs). As for weapons, in terms of RANDOM loot, they're also all the same of course. In terms of NAMED, then as an arti I notice the dearth of named repeaters the most - but non-caster Q-staves, D.axes, bastard swords, and scimitars also make the list. Khopeshes too, but that's less important because I doubt you'd put out anything that'd make me not use the Cannith khopesh anyway.

My Heroic characters right now all slot Deadly and Speed, which of course are only lootgen, and False Life, which is essentially only lootgen.

===

lootgen is a good place to start, but really its major problem is that diversity issue.

Now, when you come back asking us about what needs to be done for Cannith Crafting, I could write you a PhD thesis on how the game is failing that system right now....

[dragonofsteel2]

Ok loot should be a carrot dangling in front of the player. It should take in account risk vs reward. If you can just run Eh on loot weekend and get the best loot there something wrong. Name items should be more powerful in general then random items, but random items good enough to fill in voids left by name items. This way both are useful. Crafting system should be upgraded. More augements should be dropping name and rares.

Raids name items should be the most value in the game, because in theory they should be harder then all quest. Raids also tend to require more teamwork. Maybe make random drops in raids have higher +1 level enchantment bonus to the item, without raising the level. Like the masterwork gear. Some hate the items becoming better and better to fast, but if they do not increase fast enough there no point earning them. My old items will do just fine and with all the power we gain from ED we already flying through the quest.

Loot should not feel like you have to run something 1000 times to get something really nice or rare. The carrot should always feel like you have a good chance of attaining it. Some really rare items are fine, but should have items just little worse them dropping more. The lore of some real nice rare items is fine, but I want to feel progress in my looting. Not it just another boring loot day again and again. This is why like the raiding system loot, you feel like if run x raid 10 times I got a good chance getting a nice item. Not omg I got to roll 10,000 on a d10,000.

[2pleasegimmie]

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.)

Too much nerfing (holy, level pass, nightmare, stacking, etc).

Items need more customization opportunities.

Items need fun skins and effects (think the leafblower from EQ, but with butterflies or something; leopard print pants, etc)

Crafting needs updated, expanded, and to include augments.

Tomes need to drop level-appropriately. Same for bags and other things.

Reduce cost of older challenge and raid items, and permit ways to convert items within a system (think Master Artificer and Lord of Blades)

Banking and inventory need to be able to order items by name and level - as does the AH.

Hello, welcome.

[TDarkchylde]

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

The power creep of random loot is much too high. I spent years grinding out raid loot. While I expected it to eventually no longer be best in slot due to level cap rise, I didn't expect poor quality named loot at higher levels, nor especially random gen to even eclipse that. Many of those problems have already been brought up here, such as:

• Deadly should not even exist - nuke the items from orbit or turn them into paste with the nerfbat
• Lores for specific spell damage are way too high and generalized spell lore is worthless
• No variety on armors (at least bring spell points and fortification back to them)
• Formerly highly prized effects appearing on lootgen such as Nightmares, the result of which causes the nerfing of the effect on the named item in the process

Post MotU was the pinnacle of random loot - the rarer affixes made it worth it to dig in every chest, but only in highly specific cases did it displace named loot.

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

Weapons:
- Scimitars
- Falchions
- Quarterstaves without caster affixes
- All other weapon types with caster affixes
- Kukris
- Khopeshes
- Great Crossbows
- Collars for Arti and Druid pets - the only place random gen ones EVER appear is in the end reward, absolutely never in chests

Armors:
- Not so much underserved, but removed for no reason - BRING BACK HIDE ARMOR. It would be the best armor for low-level and PRR-favoring Druids if only it existed anymore. We're forced to use leathers or nothing until we can get named medium armors not made of metal such as Dragonscale.
- Docents

Accessories:
- Trinkets - Throw us a bone, give us incentive to not have the VotM perma-equipped if we don't have a Litany or haven't crunched it with a Mantle - don't make them common, just make them exist at lower levels.
- Rings

Other:
- Runearms
- Items with clicky effects
- Caster mods on non-weapon items, period
- Skill mods

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

My lower levels are either wearing +6 stat or +6 to Natural Armor or Protection (they are AC builds, for what good that does them right now) and Speed VI items. Some use Deadly. (I still want to see it wiped off the face of Eberron AND Faerun.)

My multi-TR is only wearing lootgen CON +6 and False Life +30 at this point, lower levels are a place where named raid loot still eclipses a lot of lootgen.

Pretty much all my dedicated casters are using Thaumaturgy staves.

[J2345678]

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

Random items should not outclass named and raid items.
Named and raid items should have free bonus effects not found on random generated items.
Add a lot more UNIQUE effects for named items.
Finding (+X item of +Y) with higher numbers is not rewarding.

Ability and Skill Items
Putting 2 effects at reduced strength on an item makes it trash.
If an item has +Ability or +Skills favor that effect and max it out before adding more.

Auction
Make the effect names and augment slots searchable on the auction.
Example: Red Frost VII Great Sword of Bloodletter V

Augments
Reduce the enhancement value penalty for colored augments to the same value as current colorless.
Let people choose an augment at the collectors if you're going to require the rare (useful in crafting / rituals) collectables.
You could keep the random option too, but stop asking for rare collectables, no one will trade 'Lightning-Split Soarwood' or 'Fragrant Drowshood' for a random **** augment.

Cannith Crafting
Add more effects.
Banishing, Disruption, Paralyzing, Smiting, ect.

Clickys
Bring them back.
Random: Detect Secret Doors, Divine Power, Expeditious Retreat, Heroism, Invisibility, Jump, Remove Fear, (Lesser) Restoration, Shield, Stoneskin.
Named: Deathward, Displacement, Fireshield, Freedom of Movement, Greater Heroism, Greater Restoration, Heal, Raise Dead, True Seeing.

Cursespewing and Improved Cursespewing
Raise the duration to 30 seconds.
It's on vorpal, give Two Handed Fighting some use from it.

Deathblock II+
Is bad. The only part that matters is "immunity to all death effects".
Higher Deathblock #s just make the other effects and the item weaker.
Remove the negative energy reduction and change it back to just 'Deathblock'.

Ghostbane
Is bad because it is a suffix so competes with Disruption which cannot be beat.
Any item that has Ghostbane and COULD have had Disruption is trash.
Ghost Touch was a prefix and better than Ghostbane because of it.
Make Ghostbane a prefix.

Greater Banes
Bring them back.
Consolidate the races similar to 'Greater Bane of the Unnatural' on the U20 Hunter's Slayer Great Sword.

Guild Augments
Bring them back.
Add a way for guild members to craft guild slots onto items.
Maybe with Cannith Crafting.

Healing Amp
Similar to Dodge, higher numbers / non-stacking.
On augments too.

Keen and Impact II+
Are bad. They don't stack with the Improved Critical feat which any character planning to hit things will have.
AND they make the other effects on the weapon weaker.
Remove the II+ versions and keep the base effect for low level items before you get the Improved Critical feat.
OR make the +W minimum +1W, and increment at +1 not +0.5, at no ML increase.

Proc Rates
No single digit proc rates. 2% is pathetic. Less than 10% is garbage.
Any effect with a "chance" of happening should be MINIMUM 10%, preferably 50-75%.
2% = 98% chance of nothing = I would never consider using one of these unless it was a 'bonus' (as in no ML increase, no slot used, extra) effect on something already useful.
Some will say Green Steel Lightning Strike, blah, blah. If it proced more often for less damage and equaled the same DPS it would be more fun and I might care to use it.

Rare Effects
Bring them back.
Convalescent, Fortifying, Lacerating, Mauling, Poison, Primal, Radiance, Radiant Prisms, Riptide, Searing, the Icy Depths, the Sun, the Sun's Fury, Virulent Poison, Wintry.

Tomes
Ability and Skill Tomes need to be seperate loot chances.
There are too many skills that are worthless to specific classes to dilute ability tome chances.

Weapon Burst Prefixs
Bring them back.
Should be similar to the new on crit damage effects on weapons.
Elemental versions of: Bloodletter, Heartseeker, Ribcracker.

Weapon DC Effects
If a weapon has an effect with a DC, make it on vorpal with no save.
Increase the effect duration if necessary.

Weapon Effects
If the effect is not crowd control, de-buffing, DPS, or tactics don't add it to a weapon.
No one wants an 'Underwater Action' sword.

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

Bastard Sword
Kukri
Maul
Throwing Weapons
Mithral Armor and Shields

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

Non-Weapon:
A few +6 ability items with no other effects, because I found them so didn't need to craft it.
+15 skill items, because you can't craft them.
Deadly Accuracy items because they're better than epic named loot and you can't craft them.
Seeker because you can't craft it.

Weapons:
Banishing, Disruption, Paralyzing, Smiting, Bloodletter, Heartseeker, Ribcracker because you can't craft them.
Thaumaturgy and +Spell Power items, because you can't craft them.

[luvirini]

Ability Tomes:

When the skill tomes were introduced the ability tomes drops were "broken"

Before: Used to be that about 1/400? chest openings gave an ability tome with 3/4 being normal ability tomes and 1/4 upgrade tomes of the next bigger value.

It used to be that
level 23-26 would drop +3 tomes(75%) and +3 to +4 upgrade tomes(25%)
level 27-30 would drop +4 tomes(75%) and +4 to +5 upgrade tomes(25%)
level 31+ would drop +5 tomes.

Cannot remember the exact level ranges for the cutoff between +1/+1 to +2 update and the +2/+2 to +3 update. But they worked the same.

This made tome availability for +1 tomes very good, +2 tomes good, +3 tomes fair, +4 tomes low, +5 tomes really nonexistent. Most tomes were straight tomes not update so they were usable. So the progression was that each higher type of tome was harder and harder to get.

Update 19 broke the tome updates in several ways:

Most of the normal ability tomes were replaced with skill tomes, so a guess is that today the total tome drop rate is about the same as before, but most tomes that drop are skill tomes making ability tome drops much lower. Also it seems that most ability tomes that drop are upgrade tomes making them much harder to use.

My guess of the current drop table is something like:d100: 1-70:skill tome 71-75: straight ability tome, 76-100: Upgrade ability tome.

Also at the same time the level ranges needed to get tomes raised considerably making straight +4: about impossible.

The high number of upgrade tomes has meant that noone sells their pure tomes that they need to use the upgrade tomes, this has resulted in a strange tome availability probability: +1 tomes very bad, +2 tomes bad, +3 tomes very bad, +4 tomes really nonexistant, +5 tomes ugh? (not that those are mostly upgrade tomes and normal tomes do not drop, so you need to be lucky and find the +1 tome that is not upgrade)

Fix suggestion:
Reinstate the drop probabilities and level ranges for ability tomes from before u19. Set skill tomes as a separate probability, whatever you feel like they should be.

[MeliCat]

Don't worry guys... the end reward loot issue is fixed. Basically you do almost all EE to cap to 28... and you get ~1200 comms... so yeah, forget your end rewards as you'll be taking nothing but comms anyway to get to ETR anyway... you better start saving now even if you have no immediate intentions to ETR

[sephiroth1084]

One last thing (meant to put this in my first post here, but it slipped my mind):

Items with effects that have a DC are problematic, because the DCs don't scale at all, and end up way behind the curve, and completely off the d20. Now, Paralyzing used to be rather effective up through level 18, because saves weren't scaling so sharply, but a DC 17 Will save (or even the 25 on Improved Paralyzing) is worthless in high-level content, except as essentially a 5% proc with a short duration (everyone rolls a '1'). For weapons or effects that trigger on every hit, this isn't terrible, although it's also not very good, either, but for items with only a chance to trigger, adding a DC onto them gets even worse.

If Paralyzing only triggered on critical, for example, you'd have (on a rapier with the best standard crit profile) a .6 chance of the effect triggering, then a .05 chance of it landing, or a 3% chance of it having the desired effect. Unless the effect in question is tremendous, such a low chance of triggering successfully makes the thing worthless.

I bring this up, because Feather recently posted that he wants to add some new effects to the loot tables, including things like Meteoric, which would have a low % chance for triggering a CC effect, that then would also have a save. Even with his proposed scaling save DC of 20+item level (the best would have a DC of 48) would be completely worthless in tough content (where CC is most needed), since casters and characters using tactical abilities are needing to get their DCs into the high-60s to mid-70s to see a reasonable rate of success on things for which they control the activation (ie., not a random, small chance of occurring). Therefore, items with these kinds of effects, either need to have a lowish % chance to trigger, with no DC, or a very high chance to trigger (every hit) with hopefully a high enough DC that you're not just hoping your enemies roll a natural 1 to see a result. This is one of the reasons that Lightning Strike was more popular one greensteel than either Trap the Soul or Slay Living: Lightning Strike was always effective, whereas the two insta-kill effects had about the same chance to trigger, but often did nothing (plus, LS looks pretty **** cool), even though an insta-kill effect should be more popular than even a pretty big damage burst.

[viktorserak]

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

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

Shortened and nembered what I will react to:

1. Random loot vastly overshadows named loot. From last three updates, there were only THREE items I would want:

- That Stormhorn Orb that gives +5 focus.
- That Stormhorn ring that gives great bonus to PRR.
- That green and something Ioun Stone that works as a better Voice of teh Master from update 18 (pre-Shadowfell).
Main porblem that I see is - for some reason, you are afraid to create named loot that is worth something, but you havent placed any ceiling on random loot. So I will eventually get superpowered random loot, but I will never ever get decent named loot (this goes for last 3 updates, counting Shadowfell as update).

I would like to reverse that situation - I want to be geared in all hardly farmed, deserved named loot again. And for the love of Christ - yes, eSoS was insanely powerfull back when capp was level 20. And yes, even when capp was level 25, it was "kill-all" weapon. But now, the level is 28, can we please finally get stronger weapon then dreaden min level 20 eSoS?. I mean... eSoS is what? 4 years old? Dethrone it already!

2. Light and heavy picks, Dwarven Axes (not by number, but by usefullnes, I mean Prison Break is prime example of named item that no one will ever use as it is so weak compared to named items, it would make me cry), Kukris, Warhammers, Kamas, Greatclubs, Light Hammers, Light and heavy Maces, Darts, throwing Axes, Throwing hammers, Throwing daggers.

3. deadly X of Accuracy X, xxx of desired stat +11. Its generic stuff, that is sadly, that good.

4. That would be great. Seriously, rigght now, I feel like the loot system is on its greatest low since I started playing the game. The fun is simply gone for me, regarding the loot.

[era42]

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

The blandness and the balance of fitting the right items. Named items have multiple stats, lootgen has 2, so it gets harder to balance the items you can wear to get the necessary goodies: ,resistance, deadly, 4-6*stats, dodge, vitality, false life, archmagi, deadly, accuracy, seeker, sneak attack, healing amp (!), fortification, striding/speed, FF, exceptionals for many.

Previously you could get a nice named item covering 2-3 of those, with possibly a slot too. Now you have lootgen that you have to store endlessly (because finding stuff in AH is impossible with the poor naming of the items).

You are gearing up a toon and you have a few slots open and you need deadly, resistance and some others. You log on your bank toon to see the items:
* Deadly ring of Accuracy
* Deadly ring of Accuracy
* Deadly ring of Accuracy
* Deadly goggles of Accuracy
* Deadly goggles of Accuracy
* Deadly goggles of Accuracy
* Deadly goggles of Accuracy
* Deadly goggles of Accuracy

Which one do you wear for this toon?

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

Retribution. Every single armor has retribution. And it's impossible to tell the difference, even if we cared. When the incoming damage is in the hundreds, and monster hitpoints are in thousands or tens of thousands, the few damage from guards means less than drinking a cure light potion for a warforged.

Damage type resistances in items. Nobody uses them. Pure shop trash.

Ghostbane weapons. Everybody wants ghostly anyway for the incorporeal, so disruption as postfix is way superior. Ghostbane [weapon] of Disruption would be awesome, Prefix [weapon] of Ghostbane not so much.

Any bracers. You wear convalescent bracers instead, so lootgen bracers are trash.

Any gloves. You wear PDK gauntlets (healing amp 30), so lootgen gloves are trash.

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

Convalescent Bracers of Parrying. I was lucky enough to get 3 of these, they're all in use.
Deadly items of Spellpoints / Deadly items of Accuracy - pretty much every melee has these
Fortified/dex/str/con/int/wis/cha items of seeking/dodge/falselife/spellsight/repair/heal

+15 Search/Disable/Open Locks items.
The pure +15:s are rarity, due to the lack of signle-stat items. I've seen 15-level rogues with just a +7 search items due to not finding better ones in AH/loot. Sure, you can craft +13, but new toons, not going to happen. This is extra brutal due to the upgrade in trap difficulties.

The amount of lootgen items a toon wears is dependant on how much effort I bother to go with gearing. The more effort I go through, the more lootgen the toon will wear. Finding the right combo of items to wear is painfully annoying, so many of my secondary/tertiary epic toons just wear the random nameds they get from chain rewards and/or named BtA items, finding just the right combo of items is too annoying.

[Ladislav]

Welcome to the forums and good luck!


I suspect some of this will be controversial, but here goes.


Firstly, whilst I definitely agree that there is a shortage of prefixes and suffixes in the new system, I think it was most definitely needed. Additionally, whilst I think more attributes are needed, I don't want to see it go back to as many as it used to be, as we had reached a point where there were just too many.


Please don't bring back Bane as an attribute. It is the main suffix that causes the "I need to carry 20 weapons to keep my dps up" issue, and I find the idea of carrying so many weapons somewhat absurd, not to mention a pain to hotkey as it isn't always easy to discern which is which on the bar without hovering over with the mouse, not something that is desirable when in combat.


Clickies - rather than having these appear on wearables, how about introducing gems with a number of uses of a specific spell that can be used from inventory. Use random drops of limited uses and rare named items with unlimited uses. Again, this would help reduce the amount of switching gear in combat (because it makes so much sense to change clothes during combat).

You could even put the consumable version into the cannith crafting system to help boost that a bit.


On that note, extend the crafting system and make the levelling difficulty a bit less extreme. I'd actually be in favour of the system forcing more specialisation as well, as it would help boost the economy if people had to trade for shards more often.


I saw a suggestion elsewhere in the thread about bringing back and consolidating things like healing amp. Sounds a good idea to me.


Balance out some of the named loot across the levels, especially shroud crafting, which is absurdly overpowered compared to anything else you can get at level.


As has been said elsewhere, making loot more searchable on the auction house would be good, including both making it possible to search for specific tiers of prefixes and making it possible to search for slotted items.


Well, that's my 2p for now, hope it helps.

[InsanityIsYourFriend]

so as to not put everyone else's words into a new format (which if I voiced my opinion on the question at hand would likely do) I will say something else!

I think that some effects should be tweaked a little bit (on named and random gen)

Vampirism: Instead of ONLY granting positive per hit change it to be like the golem's heart, where it heals all the types (so that a vampire that uses a vampiric weapon will actually heal)

Healing amp (while it would definitely need to be renamed): A vampire wears a healing amp item and gets nothing, a bladeforged with their reconstruct ability needs more than a single item and one enhancement to up their Ramp

the last thing that I could say: epic level random gen weapons should have an absurdly low chance for different weapon dice like named items (improved threat/multiplier/damage dice) i know i know, you all disagree with me but put your pitchforks and torches aside for a single moment, there is no way that the devs will be able to create named weapons of every variety (i can name a few that have less than FIVE named varieties in the game) and while the devs create ways for someone to focus on the item type, they give us none of the item type (im talking about picks, im talking about great crossbows, im talking about shuriken, im talking about hand axes, im talking about the normally unloved items that with the right enhancements could shine)

Rocksplitter varieties
Deathnip
Nightforge Gouge
Sparkstriker

Oladren's Crossbow

Shadow Star
Snowstar

Axe of the Unseen Blow

while subpar generally the unloved weapons have worked their way into some people's hands, and should deserve better!

[Lonnbeimnech]

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

heal amp gear no longer drops
parry/reposit can only be found on weapons
what happened to tomes?

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

this is heavily related to the base damage and crit profile of weapons. Basically khopesh is the best one handed weapon, so people want better khopeshes since thats the weapon that they use. Greataxe is the best two handed weapon so people want those, except if they have the esos.

Now if it is better to make better versions of the best weapons because that is what the players want; or if it is better to make really good/viable/usable versions of every other type of weapon so that players have a reason to use a kama, for example... opinions will vary.

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

at low levels
acid/shock ___ of lacerating
pretty much everything else is named

at mid levels
striding boots
+6 stat items, unless I have crafted versions
search and disable items, if I have trap skills

situation use of ____ of disruption/_____of smiting weapons, where the blank is holy or shock or acid or whatever.
the rest named items

at high levels
+10 stat items
deadly of resistance
the rest named

[Tagros_Beta]

Welcome Dr. Loot

I Agree with a lot of what people have already posted. I don't do Raids but the general idea that Raid loot > Named loot > Random Loot should be followed. That's not saying that you shouldn't be able to get really good random loot, just that on the whole the non-random should improve on the random (even if it only has a greater number of effects). I have several random items I have used over TRs +1 Bodyfeeder Khopesh of Greater Evil Outsider Bane with added festival icy burst being one of my favourites.

I dislike the whole Flaming of Stunning type of bonus naming, where both prefix and suffix are just differentiated by their Roman Numeral, but as others have said - if we have to go down this route then at least have the numbers in the title of the weapon so we can search through them more easily on the AH or even just in your backpack/bank slots

Bring back the Pandemonium/Steam/Crusader/Rebel type attributes - they were things I actively looked for

Improve Cannith Crafting
- If its on random loot, I should be able to craft it - no if's, no but's.
- I should be able to create augment crystals and the like - or rather I should be able to take one, rip it apart and add the effects I want. So if I find a blue augment that has an effect I'm not interested in, I should be able to disjunct it and add fortification 100%/125%/150% to it (with appropriate MLs). Crafting augments like this should be restricted to existing colour/effect combos (so I can't put fortification on colourless augments), but I should be able to remake them

Add random Runearms (and allow them to be crafted)

Make the skill tomes and upgrade tomes be able to be handed in for purified Ebberron fragments (or whatever they're called - my memory's not what it used to be!)


If you have an item with Ooze Bane/Guard - it should BY DEFAULT be immune to the effects of the things

Bone Breaking should do purple damage to skeletons - it just boggles my mind that it doesn't...

I like the idea in Feather_of_Suns recent posts of combining Bane effects - so Humanoid Bane replaces Human/Elf/Dwarf/Orc/Gnoll/etc Bane

There should probably be named augment crystals

I never liked Guild augments, the current augment slot idea is much better.

[Derana]

- 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. & 3. Random loot is too powerful and too easy to get. I wear 10 Dex & 10% Dodge Bracers on my main, bought from the auction house for 50k plat. Rest is actually named stuff. However, she's a survivability built healer, so i dont need to cover many different ways of playing. My Evoker, on the other hand, wears almost only Random loot and/or the granted end reward items from Stormhorns/Wheloon. These granted end reward items are better than rare named loot and you can get them with running epic casual cuz the end reward remains the same, ALWAYS. Other than that I usually wear 10/10 items. Wise 10, resistance 10, stuff like that.

If you want people to play the quests and therefore spend time in your game (exp is always an issue too!!!!), the named loot must be great and it should not be purchaseable from the (astral shard) auction house. Items must be worth it to play the quest. in fact, they makes the quest worth it. Random loot, right now, gives people the chance to get randomly generated stat combinations that have the same stats (or even better stats!) than the currently named items. Here one of the problems i faced: I had an EE Stolen Necklace with 10 Charisma, 9 Resistance, Yellow Slot. Its ML 27. However, the randomly generated items can give me 10 (or 11 if its a +21 item) Charisma, 10 Resistance AND can go on different inventory slots such as rings, necklace, helm, etc. Random items therefore offer the same stats on different slots, and that makes them better. I wont bother to farm the stolen necklace if i can buy the same stats or even better on the auction house for a few plat.

Another thing is this Bound to Character on Equip (btcoe) thing. I dont like it. It makes things too easy to achieve. If i can buy everything off the auction house to gear up my character, I dont have to play your game anymore, no matter if i finance my purchases with plat or astral shards. A solution would be to make only Epic Normal items btcoe. Epic hard = Bound to Account, Epic elite = Bound to Character. The casual 10h/week gamer should not be the basis to loot decisions, drop rates and how easy items are to achieve. The casual gamer does not play your game enough unless you want people to not play your game more than 1h per day.

What is also very annoying nowadays, is the variety of stats on named items. For me, a named item means it is a specific item with specific stats. However, with Menace of the Underdark, the variety of stats started like on Spidersilk Robes and Planar Focus' (it wasnt that bad back then though). Update 18 with Epic Gianthold continued this procedure with the Gianthold Tor Helmets but also, this is not that bad. However, U19 expansion massively extended this variety to a point, where the named item became a random loot item with a special name. Again, check the stolen necklace: ML27 gives always: Charisma +10 and a Yellow Augment Slot
AND THEN: One of the following:
Accuracy IX
Natural Armor +9
Resistance +9
Wizardry IX
Bluff +19
Haggle +19
Intimidate +19
Listen +19
Search +19
Spellcraft +19
Spot +19Spot +19

I guess its clear that this kinda rare dropping Stolen necklace is a Masterful Craftmanship Random Item that goes only on a necklace slot. This is horrible, its not named loot, but random loot hidden behind a name.

2. Please make old loot and Epic quests worth it again. If you dont wanna update the items itself because they are usually ML20, make it upgradeable with commendations of heroism. An idea would be to level upgrade it, as in ML20 item + 5 Commendations of Heroism and 7 Tokens of the Twelve -> ML22 and +2 to stats, item effects whatever. This ML22 item +7 Comms and 10 Tokens -> ML25 etc. Stats should be 1 or 2 better than the random loot level stat would be. For this to work, all Raids should drop 1 or 2 Commendations of Heroism, based on Difficulty.
Id love to use my old Abishai Set (that I dropped because the max stat on it is +7 because its ML20), Id love to farm old quests because the item is so good that I M U S T have it. Imagine a ML28 Epic Sword of Shadow or Antique Greataxe or any kind of Weapon, upgraded with commendations and Tokens, with increased dps and maybe some other stat. People would go for this, buy raid timers and actually play the game instead of waiting in front of the Astral Shard Auction house for an Epic Elite Bound to Character on Equip item to be posted.

My few cents.
Loulani.

p.s. On a very egoistic move, although it seems that Healers are a dying class in ddo and no1 really wanna play them anymore because every class is somewhat self healing nowadays, I'd love to have a really good one-handed (because healers use a shield) Healer weapon with devotion, radiance (sometimes i use divine punishment to dot the mobs), healing lore, heal skill +15 or higher, some spell point reducing thing like improved maximize/empower healing. There is no weapon like that in the game, the Gauntlets of Immportality from Fall of Truth grant this with +120 Devotion but its outdated already since there is +144 Devotion (on random loot, of course), in the game. So for the future, I'd love to see such an item that makes me have sleepless nights over the question if i can convince myself on giving up the planar focus buff for this new shiny weapon because right now, i am using a melee weapon (Balizarde) whose only benefit is the +2 Good luck AND the planar focus buff.


Thanks in advance for listening to us.

oh and what i forgot.... PLEASE, bring back the old random loot affixes like Invisibility and actually, clickies in general. Whats better to find on random loot than Invisibility clickies that make u invisible for 3 (ml 9-20) to 15min (15 min on a ml 28 item, maybe?!). Also, Please bring back the Guild augment system. I have no clue why it was taken out. It was awesome to find guild augments on random loot. Rings were worth so much because of the large augment slot... I miss that.

[sirgog]

Random items that have ever existed that are presently best-in-slot for some builds:

- +5 DC one-handers
- Convalescent bracers (ALL THREE tiers are relevant to at least some builds)
- +11 stat items (+10 a decent substitute)
- Resistance 11 items (10 a decent substitute)
- Cannith-crafted 33% elemental absorb items with two slots
- 'of Obscenity' weapons (less so post U20 changes but they are still situationally excellent)
(very situational) - Devastation/Debilitation suffixes
- Utility clickies. Invisibility most of all.
(very situational) - Improved Shattermantle


Things that are cool and need to come back (despite not being overly powerful)

- Phlebotomizing (that name is sooo awesome)
- Greater Incineration
- Lightning Strike/Dynamo/Scintillating
- Tempestuous/Meteoric
- Mangling (this can actually be competitive DPS when matched with Meteoric or Tempestuous)
- AoE damage on vorpal procs


Things that have never existed I would like to see:

- Low proc chance, extreme damage procs. E.G. 0.25% proc, 5000 lightning damage. (Powerwise, this is marginally stronger than Lightning Strike and a smidgen weaker than Shocking V)
- Will add more later when I have time.

[Claver]

Roman Numeral notation. Please get rid of this. It may save text space, but it makes the loot bland and dull and is really quite confusing for determination of what exactly it does.

QFT

I despise the Roman Numeral system. It sucks the magic out of magic items.

Something that is anti fun should not be a foundation of a game