Randomized Loot

[Kakow]

Certainly open to the option. List as many as you can think of and we can look into it.

Up front: thank you for trying to make the game better. I appreciate your efforts and your work and realize that no matter what you do, you will please many and enrage many. The enraged will likely be much more vocal.

This quote from you on the initial page of this thread struck me as indicative of a problem I have with your company's culture. It is a running (sad/cynical) joke that whenever some new loot developer gets assigned, all notes from the prior employee are not only shelved, but thrown in the garbage. That it is apparent you had no inkling of any prior compound magic effects only reinforces this cynicism and almost overwhelming expectation of just yet another wave of the debacle that was Ghostbane.

I truly hope I'm absolutely proven wrong this time. Call me a hopeless optimist. But if I were you, I'd go show this thread to your boss and ask them what the playerbase is talking about when they bring up the same concerns/questions/observations again and again in this thread. We're on your side NoWorries, we really are. If you make the call to do 'something' we'll agree or disagree with it, but I sincerely hope that you make your decisions fully informed by those who were around when FoS began his work changing the loot tables.

It REALLY should not be on the player base to "list as many as (we) think we can" to tell you what the old notes were from the last loot developer. It really should not.

[Knobull]

OK, so nobody actually cares about random loot. I see. Carry on with whatever this discussion is really about then.

[UurlockYgmeov]

The extra effect chance is a side thing similar to the chance for an augment slot.

Getting the extra lucky slight increase in power is a different aspect. The plan is to have the icon border colors change when it hit the lucky table on at least one effect. That is not currently happening on this Lama preview.

sweet!

and the way I see loot boost working is the same as existing - except not affecting the ml. so adjusts the power, but not the ml.

also should increase chance to 'roll lucky' for 3rd effect and slots.

[maddong]

So are we not answering questions about loot caps and loot boosts?

[PsychoBlonde]

So are we not answering questions about loot caps and loot boosts?

This thread is for feedback. That means, log onto Lama and try stuff out. People were asking questions because Lama wasn't up yet. It is now.

[RD2play]

The extra effect chance is a side thing similar to the chance for an augment slot.

Getting the extra lucky slight increase in power is a different aspect. The plan is to have the icon border colors change when it hit the lucky table on at least one effect. That is not currently happening on this Lama preview.

So masterful(hero+epic) and wondrous(epic) craftsmanship could be lucky effects, that do not directly increase an items power but lowers the ML instead (indirectly increasing its power).

[Kambuk]

Ran Grim and Barett on EE with +1 loot ship buff so chest should be lvl 33?
1st chest got goggles ML27 +9 Charisma +9 Accuracy
(Lvl 30 Character)
That does not seem anything like what should be dropping now?
Ran it again to 1st chest, this time got a a cloak ML27 +9 Charisma +9 Accuracy
And again ML27 Gloves Armored +11 Dodge 9%
Then ran it on hard and got a ML 30 Longbow (+12 Cursespewing of Feeding)

Kambuk

[Seikojin]

Up front: thank you for trying to make the game better. I appreciate your efforts and your work and realize that no matter what you do, you will please many and enrage many. The enraged will likely be much more vocal.

This quote from you on the initial page of this thread struck me as indicative of a problem I have with your company's culture. It is a running (sad/cynical) joke that whenever some new loot developer gets assigned, all notes from the prior employee are not only shelved, but thrown in the garbage. That it is apparent you had no inkling of any prior compound magic effects only reinforces this cynicism and almost overwhelming expectation of just yet another wave of the debacle that was Ghostbane.

I truly hope I'm absolutely proven wrong this time. Call me a hopeless optimist. But if I were you, I'd go show this thread to your boss and ask them what the playerbase is talking about when they bring up the same concerns/questions/observations again and again in this thread. We're on your side NoWorries, we really are. If you make the call to do 'something' we'll agree or disagree with it, but I sincerely hope that you make your decisions fully informed by those who were around when FoS began his work changing the loot tables.

It REALLY should not be on the player base to "list as many as (we) think we can" to tell you what the old notes were from the last loot developer. It really should not.

Just an FYI: the opening post is made a lot like what we see in the council. This way the devs can compare the broader response to our focus response, and where there are matches, those ideas get more priority.

Now with that said, many of the opinions I have seen in here mirror the ones I think of: We love the customized, special slots that some effect groups give. Like a single affix that has two or three effects built in. It is like taking the power of greensteel and putting it in lootgen.

The re-arrangement of bonus scales, etc, I am eager for. The decoupling of min level to the power of the item level is key to allowing control of power creep and expandability on items in lootgen. So that is awesome.

I would hope there would be a reroll recipe in the alter of change, so you can take something that is outdated and reroll it with the item + dragonshards + some random component (to prevent recipe collisions). You could get worse, you could get better. You never know. But the idea would be to funnel out the code in old grandfathered loot, and keep the newer, cleaner code in play. This could also be used to refresh named items after they had changes. Again, reducing bad code from the environment.


Outside of that, I am amped to see these changes make it into live.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

+7 insightful strength? That's a huge leap from what's currently available, and basically invalidates all named items that are specifically decent because of their stats. With level 30 you'd expect some jump, but from +4 to +7 for main stats? Seems very power-creepy to me (and this isn't something I'm that worried about usually...).

agree with this 100%. main stats should never increase by more than 1 per bonus type in any hotfix, patch, update, or expansion. its obviously too late for these comments considering what is on lamma.

the stuff i am going to be throwing away is going to be hilarious... mythic emerald gaze? meh **** that thing, i wear pedestrian +4 insightful at lvl 12...

it might be interesting if i have a reason not to ignore vendor trash spawners for once though.

[Taimasan]

Does this include handwraps?

[Tevasama]

(deleted as question was answered further in thread)

[maddong]

This thread is for feedback. That means, log onto Lama and try stuff out. People were asking questions because Lama wasn't up yet. It is now.

Don't we need to know how it works to give feedback?
Previously it was all secret and people were trying in vain to get +4 tomes when in Update 19 they were moved to static drops so chest level didn't matter.
Previously people were running on loot +2 weekends when it didn't matter because the chest capped at level 30 anyway....

[Silverleafeon]

Found a 15% doublestrike longbow with 1% doubleshot, its on the plat au for laughes.....

[PsychoBlonde]

Don't we need to know how it works to give feedback?
Previously it was all secret and people were trying in vain to get +4 tomes when in Update 19 they were moved to static drops so chest level didn't matter.
Previously people were running on loot +2 weekends when it didn't matter because the chest capped at level 30 anyway....

Exactly why you should try it out. Particularly since it's likely to be wonkus at the moment and you can complain at the devs about this.

[IronClan]

Overall I like this direction, the loot will be more Diablo like and less D&D like (IMO the D&D ML system leads to really bad results like someone elses example of having a lame +3 skill on a +6 STR item that makes the item unusable because of a steep increase in ML it causes and it's not even a desirable skill effect, no one cares about +3 skill, that affix is just ruining the +6 STR item it's on, this has always been a problem with D&D rolled loot. The simple fact that a "clean" item is a thing in D&D (and DDO) is a little clue as to the failure of the D&D ML system. It leads to too many bad pieces of loot. Diablo like systems are much more modern and lead to much more potentially desirable loot. An ML10 item can have a 3 good affixes instead of automatically having 1 good and 1 terrible affixes. I know this is not D&D but I think it's for the betterment of loot.

I like the idea of a two or three ML spread, please do that Noworries. Set the Adjusted quest level as the max ML of the loot and allow 2 ML's lower to possibly drop with commensurate slightly lower affix max potentials.

Maybe when all is said and done, there will be some future update which goes through all the old named stuff and buffs them properly

I too would like to see this and the Dev that does it should look at Feather of Sun's Augment pass (U17 was it?) which was left half finished, He stopped at ML13 items leaving ML14 to ML20 items in DDO to not have Augment slots, and all Epic items to often have LOWER +W and outdated affixes than their non EPic counterparts. (for example Heroic Whirlwind versus Epic Whirlwind, heroic is actually BETTER than Epic)

Finish feathers Augment pass please.

This makes loot boosts just about completely pointless.

Well at cap you will be able to get ML30 items with higher ML affixes assuming 31 level quest 33 on Elite, +2 loot boost +1 SHip buff +1 loot bonus weekend, then ML37 affixes on an ML30 item would theoretically be possible. They're clearly not going to generate an item that is never going to be equip-able.

I agree though, I would like the max ML of the loot to be determined by adjusted quest level, and the affixes rolled weighted by any loot boosts.

So a level 10 quest on Elite can drop ML12 max, and any loot boost just makes the affixes on the item a little more potent (potentially if you get good random rolls)

Should be careful to not make this a LOT more potent. But getting a ML12 weapon that has affixes that would be appropriate sized to be on an ML15 item (+2 loot gem and +1 ship buff) should not be too OP.

[IronClan]

Know this is likely to be somewhat controversial but would it be possible to include +1 to crit range and/or multiplier as one of the random loot option. A very very rare one

I too would like to see this happen, it would make Random weapons instantly intriguing to mouse over. A very rare thing that would occasionally make for a random weapon you want to actually use.

So, basically:

Random lootgen weapons and armor are better (which is good, because they were arse before)
Equipment is somewhat better at heroic levels
Epic equipment is about the same except for lucky pulls (I saw one that someone linked, it had a big wizardry and insightful int and something else like accuracy on it, very nice)

I gottah say I am so psyched reading this, I'm ready for random loot to be worth looking at again, I can't wait until this hits, this will add so much replay value to the game no question about it.

DDO's problems are all tied up into meta gaming static unchanging content and permanently "best in slot" items. Farming is because of Static items, Grind is because of static items, Static is why we don't just play the damned game, have fun and hope something cool drops in some random chest.

[phalaeo]

NoWorries you are not in the Dev Tracker, it seems

There's a separate Lama Dev Tracker.

[Gene8808]

Alright, I've run half a dozen quests ranging from 2nd to 16th level just to see what some of the new lower level loot looks like. Here are my thoughts on the new loot gen system:
1. I think resistance gear is still way too common when it comes to drops. They're just disappointing to get, especially early on when a potion of resist energy is far more generally useful. I could see equipping element-proof gear if it was substantially better than what I can get from spells or item augments. A high level element-proof item giving 50 or 60 resistance would probably be something I'd actually think about using on certain encounters.

2. I think older named loot is going to be made less appealing by this changed system. While this doesn't particularly bother me (I have no problem with a really good rare drop being more powerful than a sure-thing named item), a possible fix is to bump the effective level of the affixes on named loot. Since affixes seem to scale with item level now, maybe treat named loot as several levels higher than it actually is when determining affix bonuses? Like I said, though, I'm okay with rare drops being better than named items because named items are surefire ways to get specific sets of affixes which might be desirable to a certain character or build. Also, when speaking of named item's, I'm specifically referring to non-raid loot -- I think raid loot should be better than the rarest random loot you can find, even if only due to unique properties.

3. Affixes that have effects that allow saves still have DCs that are too low to be anything beyond mildly useful at best. A DC 15 save on a property like slowburst is basically useless past even the lowest levels. This is even worse, I think, on items where the effect only occurs on critical hits. Perhaps a baseline DC that is increased by item level would be more useful and give items some desireability past the early game? Something like, say, 10 + double the item's total enhancement bonus? Even with a scaling DC like this (capping in the ballpark of 50 with +20 equivalent items) it still wouldn't be super useful in EE content, but it seems that the numbers that the devs expect for EE is way beyond what an item effect should have anyways. I certainly wouldn't mind having some items with cool save-to-negate effects that actually work on occasion.

4. I'm somewhat wishy-washy on the bonus damage vs. race weapon enhancements. On one hand they're nice to see again, on the other, I can imagine some will see next to no use. Maybe they need to be made more general? Instead of 'bonus damage vs. orcs' it could just be 'bonus damage vs. humanoids'?

5. There are some nice 'new' affixes to be found. Stuff like poison ward, thorn guard, and so on are refreshing additions to the old standby affixes we've had since the last changes to the random loot system. It's nice to see some stuff from named items appearing on random loot.

6. Damage boost affixes (stuff that adds xd6 fire/acid/whatever) look to scale very nicely now. 3d6 elemental damage on a +5 weapon is pretty darn solid for ~15th level. I do notice that law/chaos/good/evil damage does not add an alignment restriction to the weapon it's on. Don't know if this is intentional or not, but figured I'd mention it just in case.

Overall: I think loot is going to be in a far, far better place than it was before the overhaul. I actually took the time to thumb through loot when running content, even stuff that was ~20 levels lower than my character, just to see what new properties could be found. I did find a few special materials (cold iron) on items beyond darkwood on shields and a few darkwood bows; I'm hopeful that this is a sign of special materials becoming a bit more attainable.

That said, I'd like to see some properties receive buffs to make them relevant. Properties allowing saves to resist, in particular, are still pretty much useless and will relegate an item to the junk pile regardless of almost any other properties being present.

There are also still some affixes I'd like to see in general play again, things like bodyfeeding, piercing, wounding, and the like. Here's hoping they make a comeback outside of Cannith Crafting!

[FranOhmsford]

the stuff i am going to be throwing away is going to be hilarious... mythic emerald gaze? meh **** that thing, i wear pedestrian +4 insightful at lvl 12...

it might be interesting if i have a reason not to ignore vendor trash spawners for once though.

So instead of RNG being trash we don't even bother taking out of the chest NAMED will be trash we don't even bother taking out of the chest?

I love the idea of say having a +6 Dex, +15 Open Lock item at Lvl 11 or a +6 Int, +15 Disable, Search or Spellcraft item at same min Lvl.
BUT
This is going to absolutely KILL Named Loot!

This update had better be followed by a Named Loot update that covers every named item in the game and grandfathers items we've already earned/made!

Named items should be better than RNG at the same Level.
People shouldn't be looking at RNG at Cap.
RNG is for covering the gaps as we level.
RNG is for giving newbies the chance to cover gaps that vets have the likes of Greensteel for.

How much of the gear I've gathered over the past 5 years am I going to have to throw away when this update goes live because it's now complete trash?




One of the biggest issues with the Iconic Starter Gear is that it's pretty good Lvl 15 Gear BUT the stats on it are situated so that swapping out one single item necessitates changing everything!
Same for the likes of E-Star sets, Chrono sets, Red Fens sets, New Amrath sets. If you're not going to be wearing the set then the standard items sometimes {especially Chrono and Red Fens} really aren't worth bothering with.

[cru121]

what I'd like to see is a chance for minor bonus effects, for stuff like Mobility, Blindness Ward, Persuasion, etc. These could be either completely random or coupled with a related main attribute, for example:
* charismatic item - chance for persuasion, bonus turning, extra song
* resistance item - chance for blindness ward
* dex/speed item - chance for mobility
* constitution item - chance for exceptional con skills
* resistance to element - change for absorption %

On weapons, I could see some unattractive situational affixes being the bonus effect, for example:
* ability damaging weapons (weakening, maladroit, etc.)
* perhaps cursespewing / destruction
* roaring, stench, slowburst
* finesse
* wild frenzy
* grants user proficiency to use
* grants user weapon focus with item

Other minor effects:
* Unbalancing
* Web Immunity

(I was basically going through Unique_item_enchantments , looking at obscure effects.)