We need a tiered loot system

[Cetus]

Throughout the days of gianthold, high road, and the more recent stormhorns and wheloon adventure packs, the developers introduced a tiered loot system where the loot would gradually improve with the difficulty of the quest.

With this system, more casual easy going players were capable of tackling end-game content at a more comfortable level, while extracting the respective level of endgame loot.

At the same time, high-caliber players mostly avoided the lower difficulty options because there existed a carrot, an incentive, an impetus to consistently tackle endgame content at its most challenging level.

Additionally, the more casual easy going folk had complete opportunity to team up with their higher caliber friends in order to equip themselves with some of the higher level versions of endgame loot.

This system maintained the longevity of content throughout the entire endgame population. The likes of gianthold and high road were visited ad nauseum in order to acquire the different levels of treasure. Today, the epic elite versions of gianthold items are still relevant albeit the newer content that has been released since.

Today, the developers neglect to recognize the importance of such a system in maintaining the longevity of endgame content. Abandoning the tiered loot system left the most recent content barely lucrative. All of the loot has been extracted through repeated normal zerg runs. The haunted halls, temple of deathwyrm, and fire on thunder peak would have kept high calibre players busy for months trying to tackle these challenges in order to acquire the treasures.

Now, the developers are yet again making the same mistake. Epic orchard does not have a tiered loot system. All of the highest level loot is up for grabs the moment we decide to steam roll the content. Longevity is a fantasy, and I bet this is the reason why we perceive the game as "too easy" - the developers stopped manufacturing any impetus to do anything above normal.

Return the tiered loot system, please. Everybody wins.

[Mryal]

This wont work with the easy button changes in lamania.Easy enough to solo EE as first lifer
But i agree,tiered is better for sure.Gives a reason to run harder content. And better economy,assuming unbound loot

[Braegan]

Honestly, imo the best was how FoT was handled. You could run EE for chance at special named augment, get loot fully upgraded or you could run it at a lower difficulty and spend coms to upgrade your loot. Really gave everyone something to strive for.

[apep1412]

I don't expect them to go back to the tiered loot system as it was for those packs. I would expect to see more Mythic items as a tiered loot system.

It would be nice if the loot in Epic Necro 4 worked similar to the raid items from Fall of Truth - dropping at different upgrade tiers per difficulty, but that seems impossible as each has a choice of augment color when upgrading

[Monkey_Archer]

Honestly, imo the best was how FoT was handled. You could run EE for chance at special named augment, get loot fully upgraded or you could run it at a lower difficulty and spend coms to upgrade your loot. Really gave everyone something to strive for.

I agree with this. If Normal/Hard players getting to obtain the best loot without needing to run Elite is such a major concern, the way FOT handles this is much better then single tier BTA stuff.

[slarden]

Honestly, imo the best was how FoT was handled. You could run EE for chance at special named augment, get loot fully upgraded or you could run it at a lower difficulty and spend coms to upgrade your loot. Really gave everyone something to strive for.

I agree if they go with tiered loot upgradable loot is the way to go. That is effectively what they did in Haunted Halls except you didn't get your loot fully upgraded on EE, it just takes less runs. They can use COVs instead of Coms for the upgrade mechanism.

However, there are many complaints that people are getting loot too easily so it seems the new "mythic" concept might actually be a better answer. The devs said it drops on all difficulties, but the odds are much better on higher difficulties.

This means players can get decent gear reasonably quickly and getting all the best possible gear would be a longer grind. That is kind of what we had before U14 with greensteel, TOD rings and some epic gear being easy to get and other things like sands wilderness items being an absolute grind to epic.

[Cetus]

I think the the FOT system was successful as well. Running on EE provided incentive in that you'd bypass a tremendous amount of grind for upgrade mats by just getting the upgraded version right away.

Either of these systems are more desirable than what we're currently getting.

[slarden]

I think the the FOT system was successful as well. Running on EE provided incentive in that you'd bypass a tremendous amount of grind for upgrade mats by just getting the upgraded version right away.

Either of these systems are more desirable than what we're currently getting.

I think this would be a much better approach because people aren't shut out from loot based on difficulty, but the incentive to run EE is significant. Any sort of exclusive loot will be problematic.

They could even add a perk like making an item that drops on EE fully upgraded but not bound. Any items acquired on EN or EH that are upgraded becomes bound to character and can't be sold. This would make those EE drops worth a bit more.

I kind of like the mythic approach though because one of the common complaints is that people got their items the first week and then have nothing to do. This wouldn't be the case with mythics which will be a true grind if you need the items, but would be the case with tiered loot since it shortens the acquisition cycle.

Of course the devs can't win either way. Everyone will want the fully upgrade loot, but then some of the same folks will complain there is nothing to do one week after the raid comes out.

[Alternative]

I'm going to run EE even without tiered loot if the drop rates on epic/mythic items are the highest. Don't really care if the loot is tiered or not but I'd really prefer the non-raid loot to be unbound.

Like now I run short EE halls with miior solo and sell eidolon necklaces for shards to stock up for eOrchard rerolls, with bound loot it's less money for turbine I'd think.

[Eth]

I want the seal/scroll/shard system back. Never gonna happen, I know...

[Munkenmo]

I want the seal/scroll/shard system back. Never gonna happen, I know...

I hope it returns with level 30 content. In the meantime for leveling loot, I'd love to see an upgrade system get added to epic hard / epic elite loot tables.

EN = items with no slot
EH = as above + ingredients to add a colorless slot (ingredient can be called EH socket)
EE = as above + ingredients to color slot or add secondary colored slot (ingredient can be called EE socket)

eg. In the case of Esos:
Base epic item + EH socket = Esos with colorles slot. (aka Esos tier 1)
Base epic item + EE socket also = Esos with colorless slot. (aka Esos tier 1)

Esos tier 1 can not be upgraded further with EH sockets.

Esos tier 1 + EE socket = Esos with red and colorless sockets. (aka Esos tier 2)

Sockets will be generic, but per quest pack, So I wouldn't be able to use a VON socket with a Sentinels epic item item.

I'd also prefer that upgraded items do not get an increase in minimum level.

[Lonnbeimnech]

I want the seal/scroll/shard system back. Never gonna happen, I know...

They should have a merger of the 2 systems.

So people would have to get elite seal, elite shard, elite scroll, and elite base item. This would give you an Elite tier one item that could then be upgraded to tier 3 by gouging your eyes out and posting it on the ddo instagram page...

[dunklezhan]

This community is so confusing. I'm sure when they DID do the different tiers of loot there was a massive outcry that it either somehow disincentivised folks or otherwise was bad for the game. I don't know which it is, and I never understood why (of course, I rarely understand loot arguments in this game, I get by fine with majority-lootgen). But there was definite 'we do not like this thing' from the community, which is WHY the Devs moved away from it. Maybe it was because it encouraged people who were not ready to run on Elite, and then complain it was too hard?

All I know is that I really really liked knowing that on harder difficulties my loot, if it dropped, would definitely be better, and I know that I hated the shard/seal/scroll system and that I also hate grindy crafting mechanics especially for raid loot just to make the loot I got from a successful completion usable.

But that's me. Generally, if I want something, it's not good for the game or fun (at least I assume that's why I'm in such a minority generally), so be careful what you wish for...

[Munkenmo]

This community is so confusing. I'm sure when they DID do the different tiers of loot there was a massive outcry that it either somehow disincentivised folks or otherwise was bad for the game. I don't know which it is, and I never understood why (of course, I rarely understand loot arguments in this game, I get by fine with majority-lootgen). But there was definite 'we do not like this thing' from the community, which is WHY the Devs moved away from it. Maybe it was because it encouraged people who were not ready to run on Elite, and then complain it was too hard?

All I know is that I really really liked knowing that on harder difficulties my loot, if it dropped, would definitely be better, and I know that I hated the shard/seal/scroll system and that I also hate grindy crafting mechanics especially for raid loot just to make the loot I got from a successful completion usable.

But that's me. Generally, if I want something, it's not good for the game or fun (at least I assume that's why I'm in such a minority generally), so be careful what you wish for...

I hated that en/eh/ee had no upgrade path and that ee items had higher min levels than the lower counterparts. The system had potential, but ultimately like so many things here was flawed and then abandoned.

[Zoda]

I want the seal/scroll/shard system back. Never gonna happen, I know...

That. Placing those things on the epic altar feels so good man... I made 2 epic Chaosblades a few months ago just for the heck of it (citw loot ruined my past plans I hehe).

I had such high hopes for the Tome of Legend/Shield Fragment/Tapestry turn ins for epic Orchard... Would have been similar.

[Seljuck]

/not signed

This loot system was big mistake. Differences between each item tier was marginal in most cases. seriously, hours or days of farming just to get same item with one more augment slot? I have no words for this. Beside loot tiered system split serwer population even more to so called 'pro' and 'casual' players.

From the other hand Fot system is much better. Everyone gets mostly same item that can be upgr. If u find item on higher diff u have it already upgraded.

If u want more 'carrots' to run EE let's restore scroll, seal and shard system. Make it all unbound, put scrolls to all epic diff, and attach scrolls to different quest to avoid problematic drop rates from desert. Scale drop rates to difficulty. Let seals drop in eh at say 25% drop rate and at ee to 50%. Shards should drops in ee only at drop rate of 25%. Blank weapons should drop in each difficulty but let them be btc.

In that system you will have reason to run ee. Drop rates would be high enough to avoid rage . Everyone would be happy.

[Portalcat]

Don't really care if the loot is tiered or not but I'd really prefer the non-raid loot to be unbound.

This is by far the most important part - we need to be able to sell/trade our loot. Otherwise, there's no endgame left to play for toons that already have the gear they need. BtA made the lifespan of E3BC very short.




There does generally need to be a special incentive to run EE over EH/EN. You need a critical mass of people choosing to play EE in order for groups to be readily put together, and without a good reason to play EE, it's not a surprise that we end up seeing things like endless EN Deathwyrm and EH HH LFMs.

EE quests tend to take about twice as long as EH quests in my rough, anecdotal experience. They also have a meaningful chance for failure, at least among harder quests, and often require grouping if you're not running a particular soloable build (and grouping is a great thing to encourage!). 1.5x to 2x the droprate of the same loot, if we're even getting that in 3BC and HH, is not a great enough incentive to be worth the trouble for most folks.


Tiered loot is one option, and it's an option that's satisfied the power gamers in the past. If truly tiered loot is off the table, then either exclusive items or items that clearly stated to be so rare on EN/EH that they may as well not exist outside of EE, is another good option (mythic items could fill this role if the droprates are chosen properly). I could live with mythic items that dropped 5x+ more often on EE than EH - and in fact, having a lottery feel to EH is probably better than tiers which flat-out make it impossible to pull the best stuff.

People often cite FoT as getting things right for raid loot. Lest we forget, FoT also had a very useful and at the time incredibly valuable augment that was exclusive to EE.







Whatever happens though, let us trade/sell the loot.

[moo_cow]

I want the seal/scroll/shard system back. Never gonna happen, I know...

YES PLZ. Serious question to the devs .... how do you build an endgame when every time you release content it becomes worn out before the next update? From what I can tell the devs have tried to make the drop rates incredibly low, as anyone can tell with phlogs and the thunderholme raid loot. Getting an epic items from scroll seals shards was tough work. And it should be! It is for endgame gear, the best gear in the game. Trying to pull 1 item after 40 runs is a PITA, but getting your second last piece of an item sure does feel good. I would even be okay with tiered loot again for the ee difficulty but shards/seals/scrolls would be so much better.

[Wizza]

I don't expect them to go back to the tiered loot system as it was for those packs. I would expect to see more Mythic items as a tiered loot system.

It would be nice if the loot in Epic Necro 4 worked similar to the raid items from Fall of Truth - dropping at different upgrade tiers per difficulty, but that seems impossible as each has a choice of augment color when upgrading

Mythic items are a great chance to go back to tiered-ish loot system. They should work like FoT:

EN: You may get an Epic Helm of Minos + 100% chance of 1 Mythic Commendation
EH: You may get an Epic Helm of Minos + 100% chance of 1d2 Mythic Commendation
EE: You may get a Mythic Helm of Minos + 100% chance of 1d2+1 Mythic Commendation

Uprade path from Epic to Mythic: You need the Epic item + 20 Mythic Commendation.

Which traslates into 20 Normal raid, 14 Hard Raid, 8 EE Raid (in case you are unlucky and couldn't pull the Mythic helm in one of your EE runs).

This traslates into actually higher drop rates of getting a Mythic as the difficulty goes up. Obviously put reasonable drop rates to the Helms.

/not signed

This loot system was big mistake. Differences between each item tier was marginal in most cases. seriously, hours or days of farming just to get same item with one more augment slot? I have no words for this. Beside loot tiered system split serwer population even more to so called 'pro' and 'casual' players.

So much incoherence. If the difference between each item tier was marginal then why you, casual player, care at all? YOU DON'T. WE DO, because we are ELITIST, ENDGAMERS, WHATEVERYOUWANTTOCALLUSGAMERS. Every point of DPS missing counts for us. Every point of PRR counts. Every augment slot, every enhancement, every single thing counts for you.


Another thing I miss from Tiered loot: selling them. Trading is dead in this game at the moment. Nothing to trade for, nothing to search for. Give us back our saleable items.

[Silverleafeon]

One of the big problems with the tri-tiered loot system is simple extra coding time.

For example, would you like to receive three tiers of loot but no raid for update 23?
Or perhaps no Barb + Pally fixes?

It takes a lot more time to do the tri-tier.


Although a super rare augment sounds interesting, we know what happened there.
At least mythic items cannot be put into a bag?