Items we wished were different:

[Ayseifn]

Hey, everyone. Still out of the office for the holidays, but saw a few interesting ideas in this thread and thought I'd take a little time to chime in.

Overall: Item design in DDO is a relatively complicated task. When creating any item (and especially weapons or armor), there are a lot of different settings, effects, and properties that can be adjusted to make the item unique, and there are hundreds (possibly thousands) of named/unique items introduced over the last decade or so that the new item will inevitably be compared to. With each named item being hand-designed and hand-created, each one is (in one way or another) unique.

If you take the "Comparing Apples and Oranges" metaphor, it often feels a lot like "Comparing Apples, Oranges, 542 Other Kinds of Fruit and Possibly a few Vegetables". If it falls on the low side, it's regarded as "useless junk". If it falls on the high side, we're "invalidating the loot we worked so hard to get". Rarely are new items perceived to be right in the middle.

Not every named item is going to be spectacular for everyone, or even viable for everyone. Some may be a lot better for new players (who may not have farmed that one thing from that one old pack) than for vets. In the end, we always try to make new loot interesting, and useful to at least some builds at some levels, and a little different than what's out there for that item type at at that level.

The items I like most are the ones with unique abilities like say Transform Kinetic Energy, it comes on one necklace that can be upgraded and on a rune arm. Items like this have a niche and since they're the only items offering that buff they can't easily be invalidated nor made useless by new loot. The only way to invalidate them is from system change, in the case of Torcs the incoming damage became too much so people put theirs away, as for new loot invalidating them the only way that works is if you put that effect on a better, easier to get items.

Loot invalidation happened with FoM, FoM got nerfed so many things it used to protect against before it now doesn't(it needed it though) and now it's also on plenty of items. Those old FoM boots from VoN used to be awesome but now you can get that effect pretty easily on better items or eternal potions.

So, I wish unique abilities on items stayed unique.

[kmoustakas]

edit (wrong topic lol)

[janave]

The items I like most are the ones with unique abilities like say Transform Kinetic Energy, it comes on one necklace that can be upgraded and on a rune arm. Items like this have a niche and since they're the only items offering that buff they can't easily be invalidated nor made useless by new loot. The only way to invalidate them is from system change, in the case of Torcs the incoming damage became too much so people put theirs away, as for new loot invalidating them the only way that works is if you put that effect on a better, easier to get items.

Loot invalidation happened with FoM, FoM got nerfed so many things it used to protect against before it now doesn't(it needed it though) and now it's also on plenty of items. Those old FoM boots from VoN used to be awesome but now you can get that effect pretty easily on better items or eternal potions.

So, I wish unique abilities on items stayed unique.

Yep, this^.

Also, thats why flat system changes like spellpower is plain bad. Its totally inconsistent now, epic items with sub 60 spell power...and the before mentioned 3 set gear giving out lesser spell power to a single rune for DT armors.

Epic Red Armor, one of the all time grindiest armor to build....spell power 84,... you should be changing these items 1by1 even it it takes away someones coffee break . Real shame on the item nerfs, even if its just by proxy and not effective.

Similarly raid items giving spell lores should be a lot higher than what is at-level on randgen.

[Scrabbler]

So yes, as the level cap got higher, the loot generally got stronger; it would be odd if it didn't. We do try to spread out some of the types of loot we put in Raids

It's totally fine that newer items are better than older items, especially when the level cap goes up. But there's one major thing the developers skipped doing: fix the difficulty to acquire/upgrade ex-endgame items!


When the level cap moves on and yesterday's best items are no longer so elite, it's crucial that the amount of time / effort needed to get them be reduced to be appropriate for the lower relative value. It can make sense for a player to spend 10-20 (or more) raid runs to get the very best sword, but that investment makes no sense when there's already a better sword out there you could be working towards instead.

[SilkofDrasnia]

Yep, this^.

Also, thats why flat system changes like spellpower is plain bad. Its totally inconsistent now, epic items with sub 60 spell power...and the before mentioned 3 set gear giving out lesser spell power to a single rune for DT armors.

Epic Red Armor, one of the all time grindiest armor to build....spell power 84,... you should be changing these items 1by1 even it it takes away someones coffee break . Real shame on the item nerfs, even if its just by proxy and not effective.

Similarly raid items giving spell lores should be a lot higher than what is at-level on randgen.

Indeed but notice how steelstars first post in this thread didn't quote:

I wish the epic sands items weren't garbage with only a few exceptions.

They can't be bothered to fix things if it is from older packs is my guess.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

even if they did bother to update old 20s epic items, it would be kind of unnecessary because there are so many of them as well as so many new items, and only so many gear slots.

in the low 20s (like, before 25) my helm is a 20 epic item. and my boots. and my gloves. and my bracers. and my cloak. and my weapon. my necklace splits time between heroic jorgs, veriks, and epic guile. my armor splits time between old red scale, epic mari chain, heroic black dscale and epic red scale. my trink would be an old epic too if it werent for the arbitrary fail of epic gem of many facets. and i wear 2 cannith challenge items which are almost in the same boat as lvl 20 s/s/s epic items.

so out of like 15 total item slots, my quiver, a ring, goggles, trink, and offhand dont use any old epics items at all. the rest do kinda often. not to mention swap items.

so what would be the point of upgrading all the garbage, since i would have nowhere to put it anyway?

[HatsuharuZ]

even if they did bother to update old 20s epic items, it would be kind of unnecessary because there are so many of them as well as so many new items, and only so many gear slots.

in the low 20s (like, before 25) my helm is a 20 epic item. and my boots. and my gloves. and my bracers. and my cloak. and my weapon. my necklace splits time between heroic jorgs, veriks, and epic guile. my armor splits time between old red scale, epic mari chain, heroic black dscale and epic red scale. my trink would be an old epic too if it werent for the arbitrary fail of epic gem of many facets. and i wear 2 cannith challenge items which are almost in the same boat as lvl 20 s/s/s epic items.

so out of like 15 total item slots, my quiver, a ring, goggles, trink, and offhand dont use any old epics items at all. the rest do kinda often. not to mention swap items.

so what would be the point of upgrading all the garbage, since i would have nowhere to put it anyway?

I don't think that there IS a point to upgrading most of this stuff. Instead, I think they should just reduce the amount of time it takes to aquire most of these items. I.E. I think they should just make it so that the completed items drop in chests.

[JOTMON]

It's totally fine that newer items are better than older items, especially when the level cap goes up. But there's one major thing the developers skipped doing: fix the difficulty to acquire/upgrade ex-endgame items!


When the level cap moves on and yesterday's best items are no longer so elite, it's crucial that the amount of time / effort needed to get them be reduced to be appropriate for the lower relative value. It can make sense for a player to spend 10-20 (or more) raid runs to get the very best sword, but that investment makes no sense when there's already a better sword out there you could be working towards instead.

Generally I would expect to get everything I want out of a quest/raid after (at most) 50 runs.
unfortunately some items were next to impossible to find.. like Torc.. 80 runs on my cleric and he never got it got disgruntled., gave up and moved on.

I could see something like changing the end reward list for a full list of named items to drop on every 20th run.
..and even add a generic BTA token on the 20th end reward list that could substitute for any shard/seal/scroll that you haven't acquired during the grinding process.
Most content has more than 1 thing I want from them... so grinding a few alts to 20 to get stuff.. I can work with that..

That was the draw for 20 shrouds.. the cleansing stone that allowed you to wear more than 1 GS item without killing yourself.
Of course back then the 20th end reward list also gave an assortment of BTC+2 Tomes that used to be quite rare in the game at the time... now pretty much worthless.

Many of these items are still worth getting, useful for TR's and such, so I don't see any value in giving away older named items just because new stuff is better.

If people don't feel they want to be bothered grinding out old stuff they can choose to skip it all together, the old items are not mandatory to have, you can get by without them.


Upgrading old stuff to current endgame.. tough topic.. on one hand what is the point of grinding new stuff if you can just upgrade your old stuff..
Personally I can see doing things where new content gives the ability to upgrade, or newer versions of old content allow you to upgrade..
Like Heroic items upgrade to Epic with token or such from epic content....
This could be done again by adding Mythic level versions of older epic level content.. a level 30+ version of all the existing raids with options to upgrade old content and still keep the older content viable.

I had suggested that they bring out a new Mythic series of raids that were upgraded difficulties of the older existing Raids.
With the "Mythic level Difficulty" as a flagging mechanism to lead to a endgame Mythic raid.
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...ythic+Raid+Vol
This would allow older items to be updateable to current near endgame usefulness and revitalize all the existing raid content with current level/endgame difficulty.

[dunklezhan]

It's totally fine that newer items are better than older items, especially when the level cap goes up. But there's one major thing the developers skipped doing: fix the difficulty to acquire/upgrade ex-endgame items!


When the level cap moves on and yesterday's best items are no longer so elite, it's crucial that the amount of time / effort needed to get them be reduced to be appropriate for the lower relative value. It can make sense for a player to spend 10-20 (or more) raid runs to get the very best sword, but that investment makes no sense when there's already a better sword out there you could be working towards instead.

I still really think a system by which outdated raid loot can get an upgrade to 'end game' status by running other raid content for mats or comms, or tokens or whatever (but ideally is something already in game that can just be added to loot and barter tables...) is a good way to tackle this kind of thing without going back to increase drop rates on it. Keep it hard to acquire in the first place and keep it hard to then upgrade to an end game version of it, but make that endgame version desirable so people then have a reason to continue to run old raids for the loot. In this way it would be similar to the old epic system but I'd much rather see slow steady progression toward a large total of a single ingredient than infintessimally small drop rates to get all of several items (i.e. scroll/seal/shard is a demoralising mechanic. I have no problem with it taking as long as it did to get those items, I would just get a better feeling of progression with a more steady system).

And then of course go back and make an epic/end game version of a bunch of raids not currently covered

[Rys]

The power of this item is in its versatility. Would it be overpowered if it had no minimum level? No, probably not. However, it was not our intent to create an item that you would want to equip every life from level 1 all the way to level 28, which would be the case for some if it had no ML. It also keeps design space for other augment-slotted trinkets open in the future.

Instead of making an item 'you would want to equip every life from level 1 all the way to level 28' (which is untrue btw), you have made an item not worth equipping at all. All named epic items have augment slots, most of them two. So there is very little need to wear blank three augment slots trinket when there are way more better choices. Heroic Litany, Epic Litany, Planar Focus of any type, Ioun Stones and some others.

This could have been very interesting, cool and fun item without ML. But nope.

[BD_]

How about those few epic items that are actually worse than their heroic counterparts...

Zephyr vs Epic Zephyr comes to mind - pretty sure some other sands weapons are like that too.

[FAQ]

I really dislike the "punish the players for having a better version"-type mechanics.

Specifically:

- minimum level going up on Alchemical weapons when you upgrade them
- minimum level going up on Thunderforged weapons when you upgrade them
- minimum level higher on Elite versus Hard versus Normal versions of multi-version items
- there's probably a few others, too

Why do you want us to NOT upgrade our stuff? Why do you want us to prefer lower-difficulty versions of loot? Why do you want us to have to keep multiple versions of the same thing around to get full use out of it?

Note that there's plenty of other upgrade mechanics in the game that don't suffer from this problem: Greensteel. ToD rings. CitW weapon upgrades. Red Fens or Sentinels item upgrades.

There's also multi-version items with the same ML: see your (I feel) successful "Epic" versus "Mythic" versions of the same item, at the same ML.

Pick a minimum level appropriate to the power level of the item, and leave it alone when you upgrade! For multi-version items, if anything, the better versions could be better simply by being LOWER minimum level with the same stats. Or at the least, they should have the same ML but just be ever-so-slightly better. Ever-so-slighly better but can't-use-it-because-of-minimum-level isn't as attractive.

I wholeheartedly with this. And I firmly believe this is what killed alchemical crafting while greensteel is still very much alive and kicking.

[Scrabbler]

I really dislike the "punish the players for having a better version"-type mechanics.
Specifically:
- minimum level going up

That's an important problem, but one the devs might not fully understand because it doesn't happen in other games of this type.

In most MMORPG things, players simply aren't in situations where they reasonably expect to someday be a LOWER level than they already are. If you're level 30, then changing your sword from ML 12 to ML 18 is irrelevant and unnoticable. But of course, DDO's reincarnation mechanics throw that out the window. Also, other games often have simple and well-controlled item budget rules, where it is trivial to temporarily treat an item like it was lower level (often happening automatically when you join a lower-level instance)


The DDO devs should try to find a way to solve this in a brute force way, such as by adding a crafting device where anyone with an upgraded/higher-tier version of an item can receive a bound Starter copy of that item's lower-ML form. For example, if I have an Epic Skullsmasher (ML 23) but reincarnate to start levels over, I should be able to use that device to use a lesser Skullsmasher item once I reach level 12. (Additional restrictions may apply)

[kmoustakas]

The power of this item is in its versatility. Would it be overpowered if it had no minimum level? No, probably not. However, it was not our intent to create an item that you would want to equip every life from level 1 all the way to level 28, which would be the case for some if it had no ML. It also keeps design space for other augment-slotted trinkets open in the future.

Allow me to respectfully disagree. Beyond the cuteness* factor and the fact the item is unbound, it has no power at all. Augments in and of themselves are not powerful enough to warrant a whole slot even for three of them and a level 12-16 guard proc. At minimum level 24, this has no value. Even if new augments come out that are much more powerful, wouldn't you slot them on something already useful on it's own to 'augment' its power? At lower levels where you can't find other trinkets to use, this would have been a true hit.

*It IS a very cute item and wonderful design, that's why I am so sad. It's too cute to be so underpowered.

[SilkofDrasnia]

even if they did bother to update old 20s epic items, it would be kind of unnecessary because there are so many of them as well as so many new items, and only so many gear slots.

in the low 20s (like, before 25) my helm is a 20 epic item. and my boots. and my gloves. and my bracers. and my cloak. and my weapon. my necklace splits time between heroic jorgs, veriks, and epic guile. my armor splits time between old red scale, epic mari chain, heroic black dscale and epic red scale. my trink would be an old epic too if it werent for the arbitrary fail of epic gem of many facets. and i wear 2 cannith challenge items which are almost in the same boat as lvl 20 s/s/s epic items.

so out of like 15 total item slots, my quiver, a ring, goggles, trink, and offhand dont use any old epics items at all. the rest do kinda often. not to mention swap items.

so what would be the point of upgrading all the garbage, since i would have nowhere to put it anyway?

The point is these items wouldn't be garbage if they updated them. Right now random junk or lower level quest rewards from new packs like shadowfell conspiracy is better and easier to get which is ludicrous. It is really lame that lvl 20 raid item have +6 stats when you can get normal items with stats +6 at ml 5 and and +8 at 15ish...lol

Why would new people buy these older packs or buy more space etc etc?

[Wizza]

The power of this item is in its versatility. Would it be overpowered if it had no minimum level? No, probably not. However, it was not our intent to create an item that you would want to equip every life from level 1 all the way to level 28, which would be the case for some if it had no ML. It also keeps design space for other augment-slotted trinkets open in the future.

It's cute how you think that item has any "power". Funny.

I hope you keep your design space for other augment-slotted trinkets to yourself if they are going to be similar to that one.

[Inoukchuk]

It's cute how you think that item has any "power". Funny.

I hope you keep your design space for other augment-slotted trinkets to yourself if they are going to be similar to that one.

Let's please be respectful to the nice folks that actually interact with us to try to make a better game.

[BDog77]

I wish heroic challenge weapons (both cannith and eveningstar) got the proper paragon 1.5[W] damage.

I believe the Eveningstar ones are fixed either for U24 Patch 1 or U25; we'll take a look at the Cannith ones in the near future.

Actually, I just noticed recently that NO named items from level 10-19 have the proper paragon damage. Were named items intended to be left out of the paragon system, or was this just an oversight?

[kmoustakas]

It's cute how you think that item has any "power". Funny.

I hope you keep your design space for other augment-slotted trinkets to yourself if they are going to be similar to that one.

I can smell your rage man, but yeah, let's be nice here. Rage during communication doesn't help. We only need rage when there is no communication. Now if this was a barbarian thread...

(just kidding hehe)

[Gremmlynn]

I agree with most of what is being said in this thread. I do laugh at old epics now. I have the mats to build many of them. The mats stay in my bag for the day they can be made relevant again.

I know it would be hard to upgrade all old epic items at once, especially the plethora of sands items. Just a few each update would be great.

Old epic items should be the best items around at level 20, which most are far from now. They should be outclassed at 24, but still useful.

Kind of pointless IMO to put in the work to upgrade yesteryear's end game ultra grind items. In their time they were worth grinding, due to that being the game's end game. Anymore, not so much as one will generally out level the usefulness, many times, before completing one.