Time to revamp S/S/S loot

[Robbenklopper]

I totally agree with your idea of improvement grace. Of course they are still nice in the 20s, but less competitive with even actual randomgear, which should not be for such heavy farming investment that they are epic and rare. My suggestion was to implement some mechanism that let us upgrade the epic Version to a legendary version ML28 for higher content. Or the like. This could make it much more interesting to run the good old quests and raids and get us more grouping.

[glmfw1]

The argument that Cannith Crafted gear is good enough for {insert level range} misses out on the fact that not everyone likes crafting and grinding out the ingredients can be a pain. Cannith Crafting also limits abilities to certain item slots that named items can work around. Using a mixture gives more variety, opening up different build choices.
By updating old named items to current standards, it gives people the incentive to run the old quests more, and it means that there is value in running the quests to help others out (you might get something you can use, even if your reason for running was just to help your guildmate get the favour).
I'm in favour of the devs, over time, updating all of the older named loot - they have already done it for Red Fens sets and Sharn Syndicate.
I like the concept of S/S/S to upgrade an existing item to Epic form (ML 20) - Seal and Shard drop rates in chests always seemed a bit low to me, given that they are BtA, but that could just be my luck in drops. I'd like to see a similar method to update the same items to Legendary (ML 28 or 29) - maybe just with a Scroll equivalent (dropped by kills) and a Seal equivalent (dropped in chests) rather than all 3, given you have already needed to get S/S/S to make it Epic.

wtg Grace for all the hard work in coming up with specific suggestions. I wonder how easily the Devs could implement this by using the code for the relevant modern Cannith-Crafting-scaled-by-ML abilities.

[cru121]

Revamping S/S/S loot

1) Abandon the S/S/S system. Completed items drop in quests. (Eligible for reaper/mythic)
2) Make non-raid gear BtA.
3) Have (at least) 4 enchantments + augment slot (+ set bonus, if any).
4) Equal or better than Cannith Crafting at level
5) Ideally featuring useful enchantments not available via CC, such as
- Enhanced Corrosion
- Insightful Potency
- Insightful Deadly (in better slots)
- etc.
6) Clickies, if staying, bump to caster level 20.

[AbyssalMage]

6) Clickies, if staying, bump to caster level 20.

It's the only reason to farm older content
Who ever the developer was (I forgot who it was at the time) that decided that "clickies" should be removed upset me a lot. Activating magical items just feels like D&D. Instead of having a persistent magical effect that you slot and forget.

[Ulfo]

Revamping S/S/S loot

1) Abandon the S/S/S system. Completed items drop in quests. (Eligible for reaper/mythic)

Sic!!!

2) Make non-raid gear BtA.

All gear must be unbound. Mebbe then we can see how ingame economic and market revive.
And bound option must consider as benefit, not as shortcoming. Wanna your precious not take permanent damage? Go to DDO shop ( must remove all option bound gear ingame methods before, of course ) and buy some bound agent! 8)

3) Have (at least) 4 enchantments + augment slot (+ set bonus, if any).

Bolded.

4) Equal or better than Cannith Crafting at level

No. Why bother lvlup CC then at all?

5) Ideally featuring useful enchantments not available via CC, such as
- Enhanced Corrosion
- Insightful Potency
- Insightful Deadly (in better slots)
- etc.

Sure.

6) Clickies, if staying, bump to caster level 20.

Clickies always good, yes! 8)

[lyrecono]

Just no.

The entire premise is wrong.
In order to entice people to buy new packs it needs loot that is atractive(among other things).

It means that you either upset tr vets who already have it or, when it can be upgraded, that the tr vets won't bother to run the content.

When the s/s/s system was in place most of the scrolls were kept as currency (just like rds and lds) and the rest was traded by using 3rd party chat programs and rl cash.
Or people had 5 guildmembers in the raid that all rolled for you.
It's an incredibly frustrating system.

And i haven't even talked about storage space.

Then there are issues with precious dev time and priour experiances with loot revamps.
We don't need a year delay between new packs or another ghostbane era. Or the loot becommes too strong and it gets nerfed back down (nightmare loot?)

I understand that loot is weak between lv 20-25 for its content, esp for a melee however, better ballanced content with loot would be preferble over a system that rewards tr vets (and former exploiters).

[Matuse]

Most S/S/S items were considered garbage when level 20 was the cap. You ran the quests for the challenge and for the off chance that you'd get a component for one of the good items, because for all the garbage the good items were really good.

I'm in favor of making these items easier to get, I'm not in favor of updating them to current standards. I'm in favor of lowering current standards. When 20 was the cap, the very top +attribute items (of which there was generally only 1-2 total per attribute) were +7. Now you can Cannith Craft that at level 13!? Ugh.

Take Legendary Ravenloft items, take their +attributes and knock the max down to +12 instead of +19 and +20. Scale everything else down from there to match.

Power Creep sucks. End it.

[Grace_ana]

Most S/S/S items were considered garbage when level 20 was the cap. You ran the quests for the challenge and for the off chance that you'd get a component for one of the good items, because for all the garbage the good items were really good.

I'm in favor of making these items easier to get, I'm not in favor of updating them to current standards. I'm in favor of lowering current standards. When 20 was the cap, the very top +attribute items (of which there was generally only 1-2 total per attribute) were +7. Now you can Cannith Craft that at level 13!? Ugh.

Take Legendary Ravenloft items, take their +attributes and knock the max down to +12 instead of +19 and +20. Scale everything else down from there to match.

Power Creep sucks. End it.

Current standards will not be lowered. That's a pipe dream. It makes far more sense to update the loot to reasonable (and not crazy) levels than to sit on our hands and bemoan years of power creep.

[RobbinB]

Current standards will not be lowered. That's a pipe dream. It makes far more sense to update the loot to reasonable (and not crazy) levels than to sit on our hands and bemoan years of power creep.

My advice would be to make the suggested changes slowly with the introduction of new content and new endgame Legendary versions of these items.

For example, for the demon queen stuff make a new raid that continues the story that ended with Lailat's defeat. Instead of introducing 20 or 30 new items that are useless or push the power creep, instead introduce a select # of items that are more lateral in power, have unique effects, or are consumable (eg. augments, non-returning ammunition, pots, etc...). Then introduce very rare "crafting recipe" drops for many of the previous items from the s/s/s series in that adventure area (while simultaneously upgrading the base 20 level stats as suggested by the op). The crafting recipe would produce a very strong level 30 version of the epic item and would require the previously upgraded epic item plus a number of other things (eg. collectables, gems, named items, tokens, commendations, remnants, etc...).

[Andu_Indorin]

It's way past time. The bonuses on that gear is, with a handful of exceptions, terribad in the game as it is right now. Revitalizing loot has the following positive effects:

1. Revitalizing quests/raids. People will run things that they no longer run because the loot isn't worth it.
2. S/S/S running especially lends itself to grouping as people can pass you things.
3. Loot that took forever to grind is no longer a complete waste of space. Make existing items upgradable to the new version in the Stone of Change.
4. People will be happy. ...

My take on this issue -- once I deciphered what S/S/S referred to -- is add a fourth item to the shard/seal/scroll mix, allowing an upgraded Epic 20th level item to be upgraded to a Legendary 30th level item.

My thinking was to include this in a grand Battle for Stormreach adventure pack, which would include -- among other things -- quests allowing players to finally reach 400 favor in each of the Four Houses (DJKP), with some worthwhile bonuses for that achievement; a Stormreach playable multi-player Legendary wilderness (much like the Marketplace in the Chronoscope); Legendary version of some classic quests (the Pit, for example); and a few other goodies.

[Annex]

When I play, I actively collect Shards, Seals, and Scrolls so anything that makes those items more powerful would certainly help me.

However, as I looked through your list I realized I would only use one or two of those updated items simply because Cannith Crafting allows me to put enchantments exactly where I want them.

Perhaps there is another way...

The developers added sentience to Shard/Seal/Scroll weapons pretty darn quickly after it was requested. Maybe the same would work for other Shard/Seal/Scroll items. What if all Shard/Seal/Scroll items were updated to take, oh, two Filigrees? Would that not make many of those items much more interesting with minimal developer effort? Please note I am not suggesting adding Sentient Gems to these items, just the Filigrees. I am also not suggesting adding Filigrees to all named, L20+ items, just the Shard/Seal/Scroll ones. I have always felt Shard/Seal/Scroll items are special and should remain so.

[Gremmlynn]

But new loot requires new content, which is far more time consuming. So overall it is faster to update what exists. Plus...it exists. Already. Floating around with zero use whatsoever. It's a waste. No More Stormreach Landfills! Reduce Reuse Recycle!

Except that that new content gives them something new they can sell to get at that loot (and something they pretty much have to do anyway). The content the old loot is in has already been, for the most part, sold to us.

[HungarianRhapsody]

I finally made a boots of the mire yesterday when I noticed that I had all three of s/s/s for it. I was excited for the 20 Sentient XP that I got.

I think there are about 5 total s/s/s items that I'd actually like to have.

Antique Greataxe
Sword of Shadow
Torc
and probably two others that I can't think of at the moment.