Let's talk about Named Loot

[DrOctothorpe]

Friends, forumites, adventurers, lend me your ears. I come not to tell about Named Loot, but to ask about it. Really, we want your feedback on named items in DDO. This is the promised follow-up to my introductory post, where I asked you all to share your thoughts on random items.

Let me give a quick report on the prior thread: you guys gave us a lot of great feedback, and a couple major themes came out, all of which we are actively digesting. One of those themes was concern about old named items (especially raid items) being out-powered by new, high level random items. We heard ya, and we're looking at solutions and scheduling now. So there's no need to talk about that today.

Today, we want to focus more squarely on named loot itself. Please share your thoughts on these topics. The tapes are rolling! And thanks!

- What's your favorite named loot upgrade system, and why?
- Name a desired named item that felt like the right difficulty to acquire. Name one that felt too hard.*
- What weapon types / class equipment do you feel are due or overdue for some named loot love?



*Random number disclaimer: sadly, bad luck is bad luck. Random is a fickle goddess, and if she has singled you out personally for Loot Denial, you have our sympathy, but there's only so much we can do. Though we heard ceremonial rain-dances can help.

[GoldyGopher]

Friends, forumites, adventurers, lend me your ears. I come not to tell about Named Loot, but to ask about it. Really, we want your feedback on named items in DDO. This is the promised follow-up to my introductory post, where I asked you all to share your thoughts on random items.

Let me give a quick report on the prior thread: you guys gave us a lot of great feedback, and a couple major themes came out, all of which we are actively digesting. One of those themes was concern about old named items (especially raid items) being out-powered by new, high level random items. We heard ya, and we're looking at solutions and scheduling now. So there's no need to talk about that today.

Today, we want to focus more squarely on named loot itself. Please share your thoughts on these topics. The tapes are rolling! And thanks!

- What's your favorite named loot upgrade system, and why?
- Name a desired named item that felt like the right difficulty to acquire. Name one that felt too hard.*
- What weapon types / class equipment do you feel are due or overdue for some named loot love?



*Random number disclaimer: sadly, bad luck is bad luck. Random is a fickle goddess, and if she has singled you out personally for Loot Denial, you have our sympathy, but there's only so much we can do. Though we heard ceremonial rain-dances can help.

Okay, I'll bite...

- What's your favorite named loot upgrade system, and why?
Crafting is good.
I think in general the Shroud Crafting has been the most universally like system in the game. I even remember when a former Executive Producer explained to me that the system was so great that all future Raid Loot systems starting with "Reaver's Reach" were going to follow this pattern. Even today many players best equipment comes from Shroud Crafting (not necessarily the high end player base, but more along the lines of casual players who may not have a level 28 character running around.)

Upgrading your item from Normal to Hard to Elite, isn't bad
I don't mind the system of named loot upgrading in which an Epic item can be converted to Epic Hard and even more to Epic Elite.
My only concern with such a system is that there isn't enough customization available or that upgrade path is keeping up with Random Loot. I dislike that many of our older systems have not been updated to keep up with our newer systems, for example we can upgrade Flawless Black, Blue, and White Dragonscale armor, but no such system is available for either Flawless Red (Cormyrian or Epic) or Epic Green Dragonscale Armors.

What works is almost important at what doesn't
I dislike the fact that so many Named Items "pigeon hole" characters. This is kind of hard to explain, but item A is only good for class I not anything else.
I dislike the fact their are so few set bonuses.
I dislike loot lotteries (Reaver's Reach I am talking about you and you too Epic Seals and Shards).

Any example of a system that I would like

• All raid drop base items that are BTC. Items have a base function and many/most are part of a set. (Sets don't all have to be from a single raid) Multiple items from the same set have a minor bonus.
• Base Items are upgradable.
• I than collect ingredients (BTA) dropped from every raid and can customize what I am using by crafting augments. So an ingredient dropped in Titan could be used to upgrade and item dropped in Vault of Night.

The key is while the Item is BTC, it is upgradable using a BTA system (Cough commendations) and I can augment it using a crafting system from all raids.
So my Sorcerer gets a "Wizard Orb" dropped in Caught in the Web, it has a base function (Epic +60 Potency) that I can upgrade to Epic Hard (+80 Potency) and Epic Elite (+100 Potency) using BTC Commendations. The Orb has three slots in which I can craft augments to drop into them (+60 Acid/Cold/Elec/Fire/Sonic - Spell Pen ....) Like Item augments except I have to craft them from BTA ingredients.
Example of a Set Bonus - Armor of the Defender / Shield of the Defender / Helm of the Defender / Boots of the Defender / Ring of the Defender ... if three items are worn +5 AC and +5 PRR, if four +10 AC and +10 PRR, if all five items +15 AC and +15 PRR. The Ring of the Defender could be either of the TOD Rings... Just brainstorming aloud here.

- Name a desired named item that felt like the right difficulty to acquire. Name one that felt too hard.
Easy / Just Right
Items from Inspired Quarter and Flawless Black / Blue / White Dragonscales always felt to easy to me.
Red Dragonscales - taking about 40 to 50 runs to get a full set felt about right.
Too Hard
Current heroic to epic upgradable items (Base Item is Heroic, combined with Scroll, Seal and Shard) are all too hard to acquire. I have a friend who spent two years waiting to upgrade his Sword of Shadow because the Shard never dropped on a raid run any of his characters were on. It's a **** shoot, made worse by the fact that the two items were BTA mean even if they did drop no one would ever put them up for roll.

-What weapon types / class equipment do you feel are due or overdue for some named loot love?
I feel like I am in a Geico Commercial here, live under a rock? I hope that doesn't sound too harsh....
Every class and items needs love when it comes to named items, short one Sword little is overly useful in todays endgame. However I would single out Artificers, Bards, Clerics, Favored Souls, Paladins, Rangers, Sorcerers, and Wizards as needing more love than Barbarians and Fighters, but not by much and anything that is not a eSoS needing love.

[Dandonk]

- What's your favorite named loot upgrade system, and why?

I like the idea of Green Steel. It's highly customizable, you can get all sorts of fun and diverse effects that may be just right for your niche build, and well, there's just something in there for everyone.

The tiered system is good, making you feel you progress through real power levels - and not just add another + .5W damage, but a real effect.

The problem in it is the large number of ings and recipes you need to keep track of (though it's better with the barter system update).

- Name a desired named item that felt like the right difficulty to acquire. Name one that felt too hard.*

The Dragonscale Helms were not too bad to acquire. The drop rate was high-ish enough that you could get one within a decent time frame, but if you needed something specific it would take longer, of course.

Too long? Esos, by far. Had far in excess of hundred completions before I got all the pieces (curses upon that shard!), and more or less everyone I've talked to in-game relates their own tale of eso

- What weapon types / class equipment do you feel are due or overdue for some named loot love?

Weapon types: Dwarven axes, shuriken and khopeshes.

Some decent divine loot would be nice, too.

[Drwaz99]

Friends, forumites, adventurers, lend me your ears. I come not to tell about Named Loot, but to ask about it. Really, we want your feedback on named items in DDO. This is the promised follow-up to my introductory post, where I asked you all to share your thoughts on random items.

Let me give a quick report on the prior thread: you guys gave us a lot of great feedback, and a couple major themes came out, all of which we are actively digesting. One of those themes was concern about old named items (especially raid items) being out-powered by new, high level random items. We heard ya, and we're looking at solutions and scheduling now. So there's no need to talk about that today.

Today, we want to focus more squarely on named loot itself. Please share your thoughts on these topics. The tapes are rolling! And thanks!

- What's your favorite named loot upgrade system, and why?
- Name a desired named item that felt like the right difficulty to acquire. Name one that felt too hard.*
- What weapon types / class equipment do you feel are due or overdue for some named loot love?



*Random number disclaimer: sadly, bad luck is bad luck. Random is a fickle goddess, and if she has singled you out personally for Loot Denial, you have our sympathy, but there's only so much we can do. Though we heard ceremonial rain-dances can help.

- What's your favorite named loot upgrade system, and why?

Heroic Comms tied to favor was my favorite. It gave PUGS incentive to run EE content, the favor wasn't set BONE CRUSHINGLY HIGH. Only problem is the minute chance of comms dropping in CITW (a huge mistake that persists to this day, and if FOT didn't give a guaranteed amount would make this my least favorite system.)

- Name a desired named item that felt like the right difficulty to acquire. Name one that felt too hard.*

Personally the VON series was just about right in difficulty in acquiring (but I know some have had a PITA time with SOS's and such), anything in the Sands was a **** shoot just because for the sheer amount of items reducing the chance to sub-minuscule. Shards from the old epic crafting are still so rare that it's stupid.

- What weapon types / class equipment do you feel are due or overdue for some named loot love?

Throwing. GOOD Docents. Rapier's, Scimmy's, a good Maul. Throw in some really good augments.

[brucelee82]

1)Favorite Named loot system would be Green Steel. There are many good effects and you can tailor them to your needs. Many of them are still good at level cap. Also the low ML is great for Heroic TR. Also knowing each run of the raid got me a little closer to the item I wanted was nice.
2)I feel that Fall of Truth items had the correct difficulty to acquire/upgrade. To difficult would be the seal/shard/scroll/base item epic system. Other than that would be the reavers fate armor when it was unknown what you would get for an effect.
3) Needs love I would say are DC and melee Clerics or Favored Souls. Also Khopesh users have not seen much love.

Side note- For new loot I don't want to see higher stats such as Strength 12 items. One thin I really liked about DDO is raid loot with special or unique effects. Such as Torc and the Lion Headed Belt Buckle from the Demon Queen. Or the docent from the Titan raid.

[Ravand]

- What's your favorite named loot upgrade system, and why?
I like the Lordsmarch Plaza Chain/Sora Kell, the lvl 5 House D upgrades (Mark of Goat, Dragon, etc.), and IQ suppressed-unsuppressed crafting systems. I like them because with a little work (repeating quests and quest chains to farm ingredients) I was able to upgrade the equipment into nice items for the level. Although the loot and mark rolls were random, the amount of work felt right to get the items I needed. After finishing my post, I now want to add the GH flawless dragonscale armors to this list too, for the same reasons.

In the middle is the Commendations of Heroism system. Although I cannot raid too often, it is nice to be able to run FoT on EH and get a guaranteed 1-2 CoH. I hate running CitW (other than foo the named loot) because there is no guarantee of comms though, and the difference in how long the raid takes is grossly disproportionate. Again, this system is nice because you know it will take "x" number of runs to upgrade "y" loot.

At the opposite end is the seal/scroll/shard/item system. Totally random, drops are too rare, so the expectancy theory of motivation (if I run this quest x number of times I am 99% likely to get what I am looking for) is non-existent.

- Name a desired named item that felt like the right difficulty to acquire. Name one that felt too hard.*
Right difficulty? Dragon helms. You can get a nice one with some effort, but to get the perfect one for your build takes time. As for one that is too difficult? I am sure I will be one of many who says ESOS.

- What weapon types / class equipment do you feel are due or overdue for some named loot love?
I have no informed opinion here.

[SirValentine]

One of those themes was concern about old named items (especially raid items) being out-powered by new, high level random items. We heard ya, and we're looking at solutions and scheduling now. So there's no need to talk about that today.

Sorry, going to mention it anyway. My issue isn't just, say, ML 20 old-style Epic and/or raid items out-powered by ML 27-28 random or easy-to-acquire items. It's ML 20 old-style Epic items out-powered by ML 20-23 random or easy-to-acquire items. Or in some cases, ML 15 easy-to-acquire items.

- What's your favorite named loot upgrade system, and why?

I rather like the upgrade approach with FoT & CitW items. I would like to see all only ML 20 Epic RAID items (not non-raid old Epic items), have some sort of similar upgrade path to make them end-game relevant again. (In addition to a straight-up buff so that they are best-in-slot at level 20.)

- Name a desired named item that felt like the right difficulty to acquire. Name one that felt too hard.*

Right difficulty: raid items in general, I think. A small chance every run, plus a good chance at 20 completions. Back when many raids actually got run regularly, trying to get a specific raid item was a reasonable goal.

Too hard: Shards (and, to a lesser extent, seals) for Sands Epic items. Also shards for raid items in general, before the new mechanic of having shards in 20th lists.

- What weapon types / class equipment do you feel are due or overdue for some named loot love?

Loot for divines, and caster divines in particular. Melee or ranged divines can use the same sort of melee (or ranged) gear as any others. But most gear aimed at casters is over-focused on Wiz/Sorc. Cleric/Druid/FvS casters miss out, and, to a lesser extent, so do Bard & Arti. Example, "Arcane Augmentation", only works on Wiz/Sorc spells, instead of all spells (not even all Arcane spells). Example 2, some of caster-type items come with Int or Cha, or both, but not with Wisdom. Example 3, some caster-type items come with spellpower options for Force or Elemental, but no, say, Light.

Also, not so much overdue as not fully explored yet, I hope you gradually expand the selection of Orbs and of named augments.

[mrtweakin]

- What's your favorite named loot upgrade system, and why?

Green steel. In it's prime it provided lots of useful and unique (keyword) effects. It required some, but not a ridiculous, amount of grind in content that had reply value. ToD ring sets and upgrades deserve an honorable mention. I don't think it is strictly the implementation though, because LoB/MA crafting, while similar, never felt on par with green steel (imo).

- Name a desired named item that felt like the right difficulty to acquire. Name one that felt too hard.*

Good amount of difficulty to acquire: Green steel
Bad amount of difficulty to acquire: Old school Epic items that required raid drops (DQ, VoN). That was never fun.

- What weapon types / class equipment do you feel are due or overdue for some named loot love?

Dwarven axes, Shurikens, Repeaters, Caster sticks (we have great random gen options, but named options fell off the chart with the level cap increase and new random gen options), Heavy/Medium/light armor, shields. Though the last two need more help then just new items.

[DagazUlf]

All of this:

1.

The tiered system is good, making you feel you progress through real power levels - and not just add another + .5W damage, but a real effect.

The problem in it is the large number of ings and recipes you need to keep track of (though it's better with the barter system update).

2.

The Dragonscale Helms were not too bad to acquire. The drop rate was high-ish enough that you could get one within a decent time frame, but if you needed something specific it would take longer, of course.

Too long? Esos, by far. Had far in excess of hundred completions before I got all the pieces (curses upon that shard!), and more or less everyone I've talked to in-game relates their own tale of eso

(note: esos means Epic Sword of Shadows)

3.

Weapon types: Dwarven axes, shuriken and khopeshes. Some decent divine loot would be nice, too.

[redspecter23]

My favorite upgrade system is Shroud Greensteel. It's not perfect as I don't think anyone really considers tier 1 useful at all and tier 2 is niche at best, but the feeling when you finally make your first dual shard item is fantastic. In theory, a system like this could have more tiers added on with new ingredients later. Or just put the word "epic" in front of all the ingredients and drop them in new content and have a whole new system.

An item that I feel is the right difficulty to acquire is the Seal of Dun Robar. It has a lowish drop rate (about 4% if I remember correctly) but it can be traded for and has a few different permutations that mostly all have some use.

As far as unbound items, I think Planar Gird is one that feels just about right. This item is useful from level 9 potentally right until level 28 and isn't overpowered. It provides a unique bonus without being overpowering and that's a nice balance to achieve.

Things that are bta or btc should be slightly higher drop rates and I think overall this is the case, though bta has been mostly abandoned lately.

Things that are too hard to acquire are most of the random named items from Shadowfell. The lowish drop rate (4%) was held over from MotU but a bunch of just trashy random abilities were added. Players not only had to hit that 4% jackpot, but had to also find a random element that wasn't horrible. The random element should have been a tiny bonus on an item that was already good to start with, not a major focus on an item that is very average to start with. A dishonorable mention goes to the Epic Sword of Shadows. It's hard to acquire, but it's the sort of weapon that defines a character. If you don't have this, there are certain builds that just won't be as good without it. It's just that far ahead of other options. Players shouldn't feel the need to put a character on hold for potentially years to get an item before they can feel complete.

I don't personally feel that any particular type of named item needs more attention though I don't object to those that want a bit more even distribution of weapons.


On a final note
.
.
.

Magistrate's Scepter... just no. No more standard trash loot with names. This really was a joke, right? A joke that was a colossal waste of time when players were clamoring that the named loot in that pack needed an upgrade and polish, this is what was delivered. The designer of that should be ashamed.

[Braegan]

What's your favorite named loot upgrade system, and why?

Greensteel Crafting. It allowed for wide variety of desirable effects in the location or weapon type the player preferred. In addition it provided a tradeable commodity (ingredients) as well as not needing to do all the work on the character you needed but did maintain a reason for you to run a particular character through the raid. In other words you could get ingredients on any character but did have to run the character you wanted to craft on at least enough to get the needed shards of power.

Name a desired named item that felt like the right difficulty to acquire. Name one that felt too hard.

Greensteel feels a bit on the easy side. Seal/Shard/Scroll epics were mostly in the right difficulty, pack dependent. Sands s/s/s epics felt too hard mostly due to the large number of items providing less of a chance of obtaining what you were looking for.

What weapon types / class equipment do you feel are due or overdue for some named loot love?

Hmm. Might have to think about this one some more.

[RaidMR]

Ok I'll add my two cents:

What's your favorite named loot upgrade system, and why?
I don't know if I have a favorite loot upgrade system, but so far I think I like simple. Using Heroic commendations for example to upgrade a toon's weapon is nice and the balance of getting comms and the rewards for spending those commendations is not bad (YMMV depending on what you're going for).

Name a desired named item that felt like the right difficulty to acquire.
This might not be the most popular answer, but Green Steel items seem pretty good.

• They provide lots of choice in terms of effects.
• GS Item or weapons still can be effective in epic content
• Gathering Materials is a little slow (and only one quest to do it) but now with the end game pushed out more people are willing to share or trade small/med/large pulls
• Crafting is complicated but the new crafting system helps a lot.
• The fact that they have a low minimum level still make them viable for TR's.

Name one that felt too hard.*
First I must preface this with the fact that I fully understand random loot is still going to be random, however I say what feels too hard is the current seal/scroll/shard collecting for epic items.

(The Problem ...uh as I see it)
The probability of getting a shard, seal or scroll during a run is pretty low, the probability that it will be one you want or can use is even lower. It's come to the point now where I do the occasional run just on a whim to see if lady luck will smile and grant me one of the many pieces I'm looking for. Some of what I'm looking for I'm not sure will be 'better' than the EQ I now have on my level 25+ toons now.

(The solution?)
Even though I have some anecdotal evidence that the drop rates seem to be different in certain quests, I wouldn't necessarily bump drop rates. What I'd like to see is a universal three for one turn in so that if you collect 3 shards that you don't want or need you can turn it into a single shard you do need. Also I would look at having the base items show up a little more in the epic quest end rewards. Maybe, just maybe after that is sorted you can consider giving some epic items a bump like heroic comms do (but that would kind of be on a item by item basis).

[Loromir]

Friends, forumites, adventurers, lend me your ears. I come not to tell about Named Loot, but to ask about it. Really, we want your feedback on named items in DDO. This is the promised follow-up to my introductory post, where I asked you all to share your thoughts on random items.

Let me give a quick report on the prior thread: you guys gave us a lot of great feedback, and a couple major themes came out, all of which we are actively digesting. One of those themes was concern about old named items (especially raid items) being out-powered by new, high level random items. We heard ya, and we're looking at solutions and scheduling now. So there's no need to talk about that today.

Today, we want to focus more squarely on named loot itself. Please share your thoughts on these topics. The tapes are rolling! And thanks!

- What's your favorite named loot upgrade system, and why?
- Name a desired named item that felt like the right difficulty to acquire. Name one that felt too hard.*
- What weapon types / class equipment do you feel are due or overdue for some named loot love?



*Random number disclaimer: sadly, bad luck is bad luck. Random is a fickle goddess, and if she has singled you out personally for Loot Denial, you have our sympathy, but there's only so much we can do. Though we heard ceremonial rain-dances can help.

The old epic items (Scroll, Shard, Seal to upgrade Items) are underpowered based on the difficulty it takes to get all peices (With a couple of exceptions). All of the Sands Items in particular are underpowered when compared to the work involved to upgrade them. I've never/ever seen an epic ring of spell storing. I would suggest either droping the complete epic items in the quests or dramatically increasing the drop rate of the Seals and Shards.

I think the CITW items are at about the right power level but some of the FOT items are abit underwhelming.

I would like to see a couple of named Khopeshes added to the mix as well as named Mauls.. I think we have enough named greatswords.

I would love to see an epic Carnifex (Which means we need epic delera's chain, but that is another discussion).

[Teh_Troll]

- What's your favorite named loot upgrade system, and why?

Anyone who answers anything other than Green Steel needs to have their kneecaps smashed with a herring. It is by far the best system in the game. Customizable is GREAT. Let me put the HP/SP item when I want it, not have to arbitrariliy move 10 items around because a new shiny only exists as a tiara. Seriously, a Troll wearing a tiars? Oh the Humanity . . .

And weapons . . . lots of great weapon choices in the weapon that I WANT.

A close second is the Colored slot system we now have. Customization is wonderful.

Honorable Mention to Cannith Challenge loot, but since I hate challenges with a passion I won't run them anyway.

- Name a desired named item that felt like the right difficulty to acquire. Name one that felt too hard.*

Just right: Fens epics. TOD rings, Alchemicals back when Epic LOB was epic and not a joke (EE drops Tier 1 spirits? Are you high?). Green steel, non-Titan Raid loot.

Too ridiculous: Desert epics, VON Epics, especially the ESOS. Named loot in TOR. it's friggin ridiculous that at about 500 EE TOR runs (no, I'm not kidding) I'm still looking for helms (random SUCKS!!!). Titan gear but that's moot because it's all outdated junk.

- What weapon types / class equipment do you feel are due or overdue for some named loot love?

Casters need some caster-sticks that consolidate stuff. Element of lore of necro DC or something. This is where the random revolution really sucks . . . I can't think of a named Caster stick that isn't ****.

*Random number disclaimer: sadly, bad luck is bad luck. Random is a fickle goddess, and if she has singled you out personally for Loot Denial, you have our sympathy, but there's only so much we can do. Though we heard ceremonial rain-dances can help.

Random loot wouldn't be so terrible if you'd adjust the halfling sacrifice modifier.

[alancarp]

...
- Name a desired named item that felt like the right difficulty to acquire. Name one that felt too hard.* ...
*Random number disclaimer: sadly, bad luck is bad luck. Random is a fickle goddess, and if she has singled you out personally for Loot Denial, you have our sympathy, but there's only so much we can do. Though we heard ceremonial rain-dances can help.

I don't have time to answer everything, but I can quickly give these thoughts:

1. I really hate the Shard/Scroll/Seal system as implemented. BTA for each component would help, but the difficulty of getting all three pieces together on the same toon that can actually use the item in question is really annoying. At this point in the game, though, even when you manage to do this, the items are typically underpowered (given that they were level 20 items at the time that level 20 was the max) to justify use. Exceptions I can cite for myself: the Epic Antique Great Axe is still very useful through many Epic levels. Epic Noxious Fang is likewise useful since Returning weapons don't get a lot better after level 20. Masks of Comedy/Tragedy: not so much.

2. The disclaimer about 'randomness' aside, the lack of ANY named item showing up to support Epic crafting (again, I'm thinking Shards/Seals/Scrolls) in their prescribed chests hampers the process significantly. I don't mind rolling the dice and not getting what I'm looking for. What I mind is that I often don't see anything at all. For example, there might be about a 15% chance of any Seal showing up in the Epic chest for The Snitch. Once you get a Seal, then there might be a 5% chance that it's the one you want. Then (as I say) you need to hope you are using the right toon.

In general? We have too many different named loot crafting 'systems' in the game (Alchem, Green Steel, Heroic Comms, Conflux, Adamantine Ore, Shard/Seal/Scroll ... that's off the top of my head). We have things that say there is possibly a way to unlock powers for some bracelet that I have never seen. I don't know that ONE solution fits all, but maybe at least fewer solutions?

Hope that's somewhat coherent. Oh, and I agree with teh_Troll.... how could I not?

[sirgog]

Friends, forumites, adventurers, lend me your ears. I come not to tell about Named Loot, but to ask about it. Really, we want your feedback on named items in DDO. This is the promised follow-up to my introductory post, where I asked you all to share your thoughts on random items.

Let me give a quick report on the prior thread: you guys gave us a lot of great feedback, and a couple major themes came out, all of which we are actively digesting. One of those themes was concern about old named items (especially raid items) being out-powered by new, high level random items. We heard ya, and we're looking at solutions and scheduling now. So there's no need to talk about that today.

Today, we want to focus more squarely on named loot itself. Please share your thoughts on these topics. The tapes are rolling! And thanks!

- What's your favorite named loot upgrade system, and why?
- Name a desired named item that felt like the right difficulty to acquire. Name one that felt too hard.*
- What weapon types / class equipment do you feel are due or overdue for some named loot love?



*Random number disclaimer: sadly, bad luck is bad luck. Random is a fickle goddess, and if she has singled you out personally for Loot Denial, you have our sympathy, but there's only so much we can do. Though we heard ceremonial rain-dances can help.

Question 1:


Best system: The Shroud system (assuming you want at most two items, it becomes ridiculously grindy after that). If you aren't considering Shroud items 'named', then Fall of Truth raid loot is done well - the base item at 95% power is quite accessible, but unlocking the remaining 5% of the item's power takes a good number of runs or running the raid at a higher difficulty.

Why (Shroud): Minimal RNG (other than the '15 runs in a row with no LDS), constant progress toward your goal, immense customization.




Question 2:

Can we please make a distinction between challenge and grind here. The Epic Sword of Shadow is one of the 'easiest' items to get as it drops in content that is trivial on EN and still easy on EH, yet the low drop rates make people run that easy content over and over until any sense of fun has been sucked out. Likewise if you put a super-powerful item in Waterworks with a 0.2% drop rate, this would be awful for the game, and EN VON6 and 1 are not much harder than that at level 20-28.

- Right difficulty, levelling item: Boots of the Innocent. Seems to drop more on elite than normal, drops rarely enough to have some trade value but not so rarely that you never see it.
- Right difficulty, endgame item: Any single-version Gianthold item (e.g. EE Arcing Sky)

- Too rare: EE Helm of the Black Dragon, +3 Str version (because builds all want the same versions, these are super-rare)
- Also too rare: Desert and VON epic item components (Seal of the Marilith Chain, Shard of the Kundarak Delving Boots)

- Too difficult: There are no examples of this in game.


Question 3:

The Lord of Blades raid loot needs love the most.

[Grailhawk]

What's your favorite named loot upgrade system, and why?

Green Steal. It had the right balance every shroud you did you got 1 step closer. An important part of this was that 90% of the ingredients needed to create an item were unbound. This meant that if you didn't get a stone but needed one and your friend had one you could trade the arrow you got for his stone.

Name a desired named item that felt like the right difficulty to acquire. Name one that felt too hard.

Green Steal items had the right difficulty. Old Shard/Seal/Scroll items had the wrong difficulty to much random chance involved you had to pray that the loot gods favored you 4 times in a row of that system. Named items having a low chance to drop is fine needing 4 chance to get your one item, no thanks.

What weapon types / class equipment do you feel are due or overdue for some named loot love?

Be very nice to have a selection of one handed axes with good crit profiles a few with 19-20/x3 base would be very nice. More 2 handed axes with the same 19-20/x3 base crit profile would be nice too.

[Livmo]

Today, we want to focus more squarely on named loot itself. Please share your thoughts on these topics. The tapes are rolling! And thanks!

- What's your favorite named loot upgrade system, and why?
- Name a desired named item that felt like the right difficulty to acquire. Name one that felt too hard.*
- What weapon types / class equipment do you feel are due or overdue for some named loot love?



*Random number disclaimer: sadly, bad luck is bad luck. Random is a fickle goddess, and if she has singled you out personally for Loot Denial, you have our sympathy, but there's only so much we can do. Though we heard ceremonial rain-dances can help.

Howdy Dr.,

• My favorite loot system is when an named item drops its based on the difficulty setting, Epic, Epic Hard, Epic Elite. Same for heroic. Results are guranteed if you get one and you don't have to spend forever trying to get shards/seals//scrolls that never drop.
• The Pale Green Ioun Stone is the only one that comes to mind at the moment from Shadow of a Doubt and running on elite difficulty that seems to be the right amount. These are the hardest for me to get and I don't have any, because the shards don't drop for me; Chimera's Fang, Darkstorm Helm, Templars Retribution, Doublecrossbow, Silver Slinger. In fact I've tried for a year now and have run the quests many times, and I still don't have any epic item that requires a shard, seal, and scroll. I'm not even sure they exist other than screenshot in DDO Wiki.
• Rune Arms. As an arty I feel I lost spell power in the Enhancement pass. It would be great if the higher level rune arms offered a red/orange/purple slot so spell power can be buffed with a red augment. Right now the rune arm augment slot combos are colorless and yellow, or colorless and green, or green and yellow. Colorless can go in a any slot. It would be great if the augment slots are red/orange/purple and yellow, and red/orange/purple and green. I list orange and purple slots in the options, because you can slot a red augment into them to boost spell power. Also, how about an Epic Chimera's Breath rune arm with augment slots?

Rune Arms, http://ddowiki.com/page/Rune_arm
Augment slots, http://ddowiki.com/page/Augment_Slot

Thanks for the opportunity to share my suggestions and experiences.

Best,

Livmo

[rosedarkthorn]

- What's your favorite named loot upgrade system, and why?
- Name a desired named item that felt like the right difficulty to acquire. Name one that felt too hard.*
- What weapon types / class equipment do you feel are due or overdue for some named loot love?

- If I had to choose an upgrade system, it would either be the House Cannith challenge item system, the Greensteel system, or the Comms of Heroism system. I'm not a big fan of grinding. I don't find it fun to do one specific set of quests over a hundred times to get or finish an item I want. I prefer simplicity. With the House Cannith challenges, I didn't mind doing them over and over because most of them last between 10 and 15 minutes, depending on which one you're doing. There were some I hated doing because they didn't feel rewarding enough compared to others. For example, Time Is Money compared to Disruptor. In Time Is Money, I could get 300 ingredients easy. In Disruptor, I was lucky to get 100 if I won at all. It felt really unrewarding. However, the items felt worth the time it took, even if I opted to trade in ingredients to get other ones I needed from challenges I didn't want to do, which took twice if not three times as long sometimes. Despite Greensteel's long grind time, I like how customizable the items are. It's much more preferable to randomly generated effects because you can control what you put on it. The only problem is I don't like the Vale chain at all and I hated Shroud for a long time. Now, I'm just desensitized to it. The Comms of Heroism upgrade system was alright because it didn't require a ridiculous amount of Comms and you could expect to get the item finished within a reasonable amount of time, as long as you had the favor. Plus, if you're farming Comms whiles farming favor, you'll probably have enough Comms by the time you get enough favor, so that works itself out. The only problem with that, was how long CITW items took to get, but the raid boxes kind of fixed that for the most part.

- The Elemental Longbow was my most treasured weapon up until I got Pinion and I felt that it had the right difficulty for the most part, even though I do believe some challenges are grossly unbalanced ingredient wise like I mentioned above. Upgrading Pinion wasn't overly terrible either once I started farming Fall of Truth, so both of those felt okay. The ones I felt are too hard are the items that require shard/seal/scroll drops in the older epic quests. I lost count of how many times I've repeated Spinner of Shadows to get the shard to upgrade the Bow of the Silver Flame. For a month or two, I used to run The Tide Turns once every day to get the shard for Midnight Greetings. I never did complete the Belt of Mrononan or the Goggles of Delving from Plane of Night and I started looking for those two years ago. I gave up.

- Shard/seal/scroll items need to have a solution to the grind. The grind is too much. Some of these items have even been outdated by items released in the expansions and are no longer worth farming. Plus farming one quest over a hundred times is just not fun. At all. As for weapon types specifically, I would like to see more named scimitars, falchions, greataxes, greatswords, bastard swords especially, maces, hammers and mauls. Morninglord clerics are even supposed to be able to get bonuses to hammers and mauls as well, so I think they should be added to their weapon proficiency feat list. Why do they have bonuses if they can't use the weapons? More diverse divine equipment would be great too, considering that most of the stuff that exists is mostly just focused on healing. Bards also need more equipment choices. I believe there are only one or two named weapons that are geared toward them.

[Aloka]

- What's your favorite named loot upgrade system, and why?
- Name a desired named item that felt like the right difficulty to acquire. Name one that felt too hard.*
- What weapon types / class equipment do you feel are due or overdue for some named loot love?

1) Cannith Challenge equipment, hands down. It's less dependent on random luck and you know you're making progress towards upgrading your items. Not the best items in the game, but very reasonable for the effort (at least they were at lvl 20).
2) FOT and CiTW items seem about right. Old epic eq created by getting the seal, shard, scroll are waay to hard for their value.
3) Not technically a class or weapon type, but I'd like to see Cannith Challenge eq upgraded to include lvl 24/28.