An introduction: you can call me Doctor Loot

[AlmGhandi]

My stuff:

1) The random loot should not overtake the raid loot... especially the things you have to farm shards/seals/scrolls for!!

2) Make the raid/epic-crafting loot worth it.

3) Random lootgen should not be the loot that I am choosing to wear on my 14th life, because the raid loot is not good.

4) Cannith Crafting should enable us to keep more or less up with the random lootgen....... if we have bothered to get our crafting levels up there.

5) Epic Shroud. Epic Green Steel.

That is all.

P.S. do not nerf two handed swords just as soon as I get around to getting them.

[SisAmethyst]

I will add to the chorus. Genesai was one of the best loot designers ever. Take at a look at his rework of the carnival epic items. He had a thread on the forums dedicated to it. It was inspired and it is that level of thought and effort we need in named loot.

My advice -don't worry about over-powered random loot. It's actually not that big a deal -taking it away will only mean that new toons are SOL.

I agree that Genesai did some good work and whoever was responsible for the combo effects like Oceanic, Riptide, Night's Grasp, Pandemonium, Tempestuous, Desert Sand, Forecful, etc. which I really, really miss! I also agree that it is a bit late to throw all the new random loot away, however maybe reduce some drop rates and bump named loot accordingly.

[nibel]

On the loot discussion, I would like to ask.

How hard would be to code raid items to be Bound to Account on Acquire, and Bound to Character on Equip at the same time?

This could greatly improve raid party making, because there are some raid where, lets say, my tank have no items he desire, but my wizard does. However, the party needs a tank. But since the loot is BtC, I need to run it on my wizard. If the items were BtAoA, I would jump into an alt that the party needs, and if I get the item, I throw it to my wizard. After getting it, it is bound to my wiz anyway.

BtA items can't be sold in the Auction House (plat or shard), so I still need to run the raid and earn the item myself.

[SisAmethyst]

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.

That is a very good point! Tactical and effect DC don't scale with the level of the player wielding them.

[SisAmethyst]

On the loot discussion, I would like to ask.

How hard would be to code raid items to be Bound to Account on Acquire, and Bound to Character on Equip at the same time?

This could greatly improve raid party making, because there are some raid where, lets say, my tank have no items he desire, but my wizard does. However, the party needs a tank. But since the loot is BtC, I need to run it on my wizard. If the items were BtAoA, I would jump into an alt that the party needs, and if I get the item, I throw it to my wizard. After getting it, it is bound to my wiz anyway.

BtA items can't be sold in the Auction House (plat or shard), so I still need to run the raid and earn the item myself.

If my mind serves me right I already have seen items like that in the past. After all I am pretty sure that I have items that have two such lines in the description but don't have an example at hand yet. So yes, this would for example increase the incentive for Clerics to run Raids like CitW that just don't have any items for them, because they could pass them over to their alt.

[susiedupfer]

1) We need clickies back. We need them back badly. Invisibility, Jump, Blur, etc at levels coinciding with the use of the spell, please. PLEASE add FoM and TS clickies. Those two things drain SP bars faster than everything else.

2) Random loot should never, ever, be better than the named loot from a raid or crafted in some difficult(but achievable) manner. We should have to work for the best stuff. You take away the need to strive for something, and you take away the need to run the content.

3) We need some sort of GS type crafting at epic levels. Something that is a tiered system, e.g.: you get the "base" mats from these quests, then you get tiered mats from a raid, then you can individualize the item to suit your needs. With so many different builds(viva la difference!), many people have item problems that a crafting system could solve nicely. The MotU pack, and now EGH, is ideally suited for this type of crafting system TBH. I know the devs tried to do this with Alchemical crafting, but the problem with that was that the very next update made most of that gear obsolete. We know we are going to max at level 30 for a while. Please give us something to help bridge that gap as we farm those ETRs. If you could make some of those choices clickies, so much the better!

4) Paralyzing, Banishing, Disruption, Smiting all need to make a return. And at their old levels. Not just epics.

5) BTA/BTCoE would be awesome on named items. Would help fill raids/EE's.

[Ungood]

I wanted to take a moment to discuss RNG

The main reason why players do not like RNG is because in most cases it works against them, they want a specific item, with specific stats, when you add in RNG to that mix, it becomes a double game of getting more junk you don't need or want.

To use a real world example: That is like playing a game a carnival where after you go thorough all this effort to finally win, they hand you the stuffed animal, but it's the wrong color.

[Rakuda13]

- 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.)

- Aside from the diversity issue, what are the biggest problems with random loot, today?
The old loot had names and not numbers.Troll Shamen or Troll 2,what sounds more DnD.
There is no trapping gear other than named loot now.
Smiting isnt found under lvl 23 anymore. Smiting could be found on random loot at lower levels before and is useless after lvl 19.
ALL of the old loot should come back and you can add your new loot to it,that is what should have happened.
- What weapon and equipment types do you feel are underserved in named and in random loot?
There are only a few named Dwarven axes,sort of small for a whole feat spot.So its ghostbane or nothing for dwarven axes.
No new rune arm.The ones from Epic GH are just rehashed old ones.
- I’d love to hear about some of the non-named loot your character’s are currently wearing.
Basically I am running old loot gen,I have to swap it from one toon to another because the new loot is basically not helpful unless im a Melee guy. I have two lvl6 toons,both same class only one is using pre update 19 gear,the new on is post update 19 gear. Post update gear toon basiclly cant run with any TRS.He can only solo so no LFMs for him.Thats how bad it is at low lvls.

Good luck with your new job,and welcome to hell

[Saekee]

Most of the suggestions seem to be about the numerical balance behind the loot. In this sense I think the posters here have been very accurate. I suggest here though more imaginative and intuitive changes:


1) Keep item effects as imaginary in their disguise as possible. So a description like 'Phlebotomizing', though indicating a specific numerical relationship, is better than something too numerical like 'Acid III.' Gamers are somewhat autistic in their numbers-obsession and like to be fooled that they are not so. (As an aside, in RL I never use the metric system; it is too bland--give me feet, yards, etc. with their bizarre numbers instead of a perfect decimal.)

2) Set items. I love set items, like the Red Fens sets. Why not create special set stacking in random loot? So that it is not overpowered, make it so that one of the set items must be a named/raid item. Not sure what this would be, so this requires imagination. For example, a deception weapon might get some strange boost from a cloak of shadows. I would do this mostly in the area of tactics.

3) Relate skills to item bonuses, either as a bonus or a limit.
It is intuitive that Dodge and tumble should be somehow linked; how can someone have a dodge of 25% and only 1 point in tumble?
How might Spot influence Vorpal? Or intimidate and Deadly? Heal and healing amplification? Diplomacy/bluff and Deception? (This currently works vice-versa--deception suffixes boosting Bluff.) As things sit now, there is almost little to no relationship, making some skills nearly useless or, as just mentioned like with tumble/dodge, non-intuitive builds possible. My proposal would boost Rogues and INT builds heavily.

[psteen1]

I never see epic random items that are just a prefix, or just a suffix. I would like to see that again-- if all I want is +xx to a skill, then I want the best skill bonus I can get for that slot, rather than diluting it down with something I don't want.

Right now I have an open boots slot and open google slot that I just can't find any random item that fits it. I have resistance, charisma, intelligence, etc, all in other slots.

[Hendrik]

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.)

- Wow! factor. When we had prefix/suffix of Meteoric/of the Sun and things like that, there was a big wow! factor and excitement in opening a chest. Instead of just hitting 'loot all' you actually wanted to take a minute and see what you and others looted. We need that wow! factor back.

- Shurikens, Daggers, previously mentioned Quivers, Scimitars. Ideally, for me, every weapon type should have a named version or two for various level ranges.

- I mostly wear all named loot from 20+ at this time.

[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.

[Archetype]

Hi. Welcome.

I am really tired of feeling like my characters are decked out in tacky Walmart Jewelry Counter BLINGwear.


At levels 20+ (or earlier), we should NOT care about RANDOMgenLOOT at all. There should be enough NAMED loot (preferably with set bonuses) or Cannith Crafted items with unique properties to keep us questing to fill our builds with EPIC-worthy goodness. Having multiple sets to choose from that synchronize across the slots to make multiple gear-builds viable (e.g. INT stat bonuses on gloves or belts on randomgen and named items) would really help as well. Nothing worse than spending an inordinate amount of time re-gearing at certain levels because one new "must have" item for that level throws off ALL the other slots.

[RD2play]

Remove ML increase for empty augmentslots, I mean come on ! the augment gives you a ml right. I can live with the aug slot adding to ML when filled (according to augment colour not slot colour)

Make named EPIC ELITE loot bound, normal and hard may remain tradable. its just BS that you can get best gear without actually running the quest at difficulty! whats epic about that ?
acquire your hard (trade/farm) gear to get to run the elites and get the best gear.

Lower the ML of BTA lootgen by 2 compared to unbound lootgen. this should stack with masterful craftsmanship.

Bring back material types for armour ! and scale them with the "production" types,
i.e. adamant full plate = 3DR/ada, adamant; battle full plate = 4DR/ada, up to 7DR/ada for planeforged. (8dr/ada for 6th tier AML 28 ?)
Mithral = one lower weight class and increasing reduction to armour check pen 3, up to 7 for top tier (to min 0).
cold and flame iron 1 to saves vs X, up to 5 save vs X for top tier
Maybe add crystal with stacking ASF and counts as non-metal


Order of power: Raid(+5) > elite named(+4) > named(+3) > "rare" random(+2(wouderous)) > "uncommon"random/cannith(+1(masterfull)) > "common" random loot(quest lvl)
this means raid loot has to stay vialbe for at least 10 levels compared to random loot

common = prefix-item-suffix, doulbe prefix item, double suffix item.
uncommon = prefix-item-suffix + MC, double_prefix-item-suffix, prefix-item-double_suffix, double prefix/suffix + MC
rare = prefix-item-suffix + WC, double_prefix-item-double_suffix, prefix-item-double_suffix + MC,....

you get the point!

double suffix i.e. agility: +X to tumble balance, tinkering: +X to OL & disable, ...
double prefix i.e. riptide: frost + tidal

Return the minor/lesser/improved/major/superior in the names. use +X only for enhancement and skills

Give augmented items and indication in the name that it has one, like "augmented-prefix-item-suffix"

item: {cursed}{augmented}{prefix}{item}{suffix}{(augment )}
weapon: {cursed}{augmented}{enhancement}{prefix}{material} {weapon}{suffix}{(augment)}
Armor: {cursed}{augmented}{enhancement}{prefix}{material} {production}{armor}{suffix}{(augment)}

few examples

"Augmented +7 Major Holy Cold iron Greatsword of Greater Eviloutsider Bane (red)" empty
"Augmented +7 Major Holy Cold iron Greatsword of Greater Eviloutsider Bane (vampire slayer)" slotted with vampire slayer augment

"Cursed Augmented +4 Bracing Adamant Mountain Breastplate of Improved Axeblock (Blue)"

"ring of thinkering +7"


Abillity to recharge wands, with scrolls/other wands to the max of 50 charges. (stone of change?)

[RD2play]

My stuff:
5) Epic Shroud. Epic Green Steel.

I posted on this some time ago

they should indeed follow up on the story after ToD.

Horoth must be pretty angry after being humiliated in his own house !

in short: "14th eclipse" lvl26, stop Horoth from gaining the power of the eclipse(14th), ?Arretrikos tells you about Horohts plans you have to reënter the shroud and stop him! btu is Arretrikos to be trusted ??
-> Epic GS -> T4 ML 22 adds 4th shard + augslot(red) +6 enhancement and atunable to heroism (+7 (red->purple)/+8 and 2nd slot(red)
Epic "Return the Status Quo" LvL 30: after being betrayed by Arreatrikos, help Horoth reclaim his place as ruler of shavarath: reënter the tower of despair and defeat Areatrikos.
-> epic ToD rings, will work with destinies instead of pre

[Wyvernsting]

Hello, and welcome. I hope (sincerely hope) that your time here will be fantastic and that it's a positive one. I know us players can get snarky, rude and downright mean at times .

The main issues I've seen with the loot are the unforgiving nature of the randomness, the outdatedness of the rewards for the old chain quests (non-raid) and often times the fact that loot doesn't help the player at all.

OK, time to elaborate. I was playing this game years ago, back when the level cap was ten and the Kundark Vault raid was the first dragon (it was right after doing that raid that I quit the game for years and have only been back a couple of months due to broken mechanics and an unresponsive Dev team). Back then, I remember that the mummified bat was a cool little trinket to have (and I smiled when my main got it again - still need to find the Accomplice cloak, but I digress).

So, the other day I was soloing, pitting my skill, luck and whatever against dungeon after dungeon when I saw in the Trade channel someone selling a "Dagger of ***". Apparently, this dagger dropped randomly and had a decent plus. However, it was a dagger of true law and chaos (I forget the actual suffix name). In effect only Lawful Chaotic characters could equip it without suffering negative levels. This gave me an insight of how distorted the random loot generator is and also let me relax about the... **** I was getting out of chests.

So, that's the biggest issue, the second issue I've seen is that the chests in dungeons don't seem to notice anymore what class is looting it. Back in the day, I remember they implemented a check where the chest would see the classes of the player dipping their fingers into it and would have something for them. I've gone to chest after chest since being back and have pulled out the most random stuff, things that I have absolutely no use for. I'm not just talking about things that are underlevel for me, or if I had a slightly different build would be decent, I'm talking about pulling things on my human rouge that are docets, wizardry items, runearms, etc. Now, this is all well and good, but after three or more chests and not one thing I can actually use, gets a little annoying (not to mention expensive when I have to go buy my upgrades off the AH or Pawnbrokers). I would like to see at least one chest per dungeon be tailored to the classes gong through them. Hell, still might be **** items for all I care, but at least there's going to be one chest in this whole thing where I know I might pull out something new and improved.

And the last, bit I really noticed on my Drow Mage last night. I did the old school Marketplace quest chain of the Sharn Syndicate, soloing it. After hours of plugging my way through, especially one part where trying to save the family and those damm traps killing me time and time and time and time.... anyway, again. I get through it and get offered the "chipped" or "knicked" end quest rewards. In that table was a +! Heavy Flaming Mace as well. Now, when I finish a quest and see none of the rewards are really worth anything, I do what any enterprising adventurer does, see which is worth the most for when I sell it. I was shocked to see all the named quest reward items were worth 200 plat and the +! flaming was worth over 800 plat. It reminded me just how old that quest chain was and hoe little attention the old quests seem to get. That loot table didn't keep up with the times. Hell, the gear of a first level hireling is better than what was being offered as a "reward" on some of these quests.

Meh, anyway, that's been my observations thus far on these quests. I find it funny to still see places that weren't frequented a lot when I played the first time, still not frequented a lot (*ahem* Tanglefoot Gorge anyone?). I also see that the questing is a bit difficult now where people who've done it hundreds of times run through at break neck speeds, and players that like to take their time (like me), break everything they can just because they can, explore the entire map, etc, are either left behind or scrambling to keep up. But, that's another thread entirely.

[RD2play]

Hello, and welcome. I hope (sincerely hope) that your time here will be fantastic and that it's a positive one. I know us players can get snarky, rude and downright mean at times .

So, the other day I was soloing, pitting my skill, luck and whatever against dungeon after dungeon when I saw in the Trade channel someone selling a "Dagger of ***". Apparently, this dagger dropped randomly and had a decent plus. However, it was a dagger of true law and chaos (I forget the actual suffix name). In effect only Lawful Chaotic characters could equip it without suffering negative levels. This gave me an insight of how distorted the random loot generator is and also let me relax about the... **** I was getting out of chests.

So, that's the biggest issue, the second issue I've seen is that the chests in dungeons don't seem to notice anymore what class is looting it. Back in the day, ....

1. they prefix you are talking about was a special one, one of the composed affixes , those got lost somehow ...

2. there is a toggle in the options panel to allow for loot to drop based on class (dunno if this actually still works).

[Ivan_Milic]

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.)

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.

[red_cardinal]

You put to much effort into randomness. Far better it would be to boost named loot. Here particulary I mean Sands and Fens epic items. Alchemical crafting is great, but loot for epic versions could be better. Avoid using random things in generating named loot. Generate level 24 and 28 versions of challenge loot. Loot from latest expansion pack is silly and shows you didn't put much effort in making it->shame. In general I like to work for effective items, not roll for them after grinding materials.

[karatemack]

1. Better cleric gear (some high level turning gear? eternal faith is currently "best" and avail at low level)
2. EPIC Shroud with updated recipes
3. REMOVE old scroll/seal/shard and replace with EN/EH/EE
4. REMOVE all random effects from named loot and replace with augment slot so people can customize how they want without relying on a random drop
5. Expand augments (more types/effects)
6. MORE set bonuses (makes multiple pieces of gear viable depending on build/play style)
7. Random loot should NEVER be better than named of the same level (or within a couple levels)
8. Expand Cannith Crafting
9. Do to healing amp what you did to dodge (double bonuses and change the stacking)
10. EPIC Reavers for epic dragontouched