Echo of Wave clickie ends if you unequp

[Lynnabel]

So no more abjuration rings, clickies that disappear when we unequip the item, caster sets that are worse than gear from earlier packs, bad rogue gear justified as utility items, raid daggers with wounding on them, epic helms that can be upgraded with heroic effects, replacement event items that are worse than the originals, items with a negative energy absorption effect that a PM would want to wear, bad raid bows, etc etc etc. It's a long list.

So, that's 22 bad items out of... *checks the record*... wow, I've made 558 items so far since starting work on DDO. That gives me a 3% "bad item" rate, which seems pretty good to me.

Maybe with Sharn I can bring it down to 2% - here's hoping!

[blerkington]

So, that's 22 bad items out of... *checks the record*... wow, I've made 558 items so far since starting work on DDO. That gives me a 3% "bad item" rate, which seems pretty good to me.

Maybe with Sharn I can bring it down to 2% - here's hoping!

This isn't a personal attack on you. I don't care who makes the items. I just want them to be better. But those problematic items I mentioned are examples, not the complete list, so it might be a bit premature to start claiming a success rate and congratulating yourself on it.

Additionally, some of them are so obviously bad they shouldn't have made it into the game. Not every item can be a gem, but the first step in improving this situation is making sure that obviously bad things don't make it in. That would go a long way to helping this situation.

Thanks.

[Lynnabel]

I don't care who makes the items.

I care who makes the items. Making items is fun!

might be a bit premature to start claiming a success rate and congratulating yourself on it.

It's never too early to stick up for yourself.

[Valiance]

Again, the 3 key items from White Plume are restricted by their ease of acquisition - their description is a bit of a hint as to what's coming. We don't want to introduce raid-level items at non-raid levels of acquisition, it devalues raid content's high risk, high reward gameplay. The safest solution is to let everyone play with the fun themes and visuals, and then truly reward dedicated, high skill players with awesome loot that meets their lofty expectations

This explanation is good enough for me. Thanks.

[blerkington]

I care who makes the items. Making items is fun!

It's never too early to stick up for yourself.

Again, there's no reason to personalise this. It's nice you are having fun making items, but for me and I suspect most other customers the primary focus is the outcome. None of us begrudges you your fun or sticking up for yourself (when you are actually being attacked) but if those are your primary concerns rather than producing good work this part of the game will get worse.

Unfortunately this thread appears to have taken the same turn as some other discussions with developers have done recently. That is, the person whose bailiwick is being criticised takes it personally, makes the issue about them and their feelings rather than the topic of discussion, and in some cases even lashes out at customers offering feedback. But god forbid a thread like this be taken as anything else other than a personal insult, rather than say, a starting point for looking at how you can make better items for us in the future.

I suspect part of the problem with the current loot design process is it's missing two steps. One of them is to ask yourselves 'who is this item useful for?' and the second is for someone other than the item creator to be critical when evaulating new items with an eye to how they could be improved. It seems like these sorts of errors are occurring because of a lack of review and not enough thought being given to function. If you do actually have checks like that in place now they aren't working properly.

Some really good examples of this are some of the Ravenloft items. Let's start with the Keylock Ring, which has spot on it as well as two trap skills and open locks. It's not a good spot item because the value is not significantly better than is available from other sources and it has three effects which are not needed most of the time but have an opportunity cost in that it prevents other combat or utility effects from being slotted. It's also subpar even as a Level 29 swap item.

Then there's the raid dagger Suffering. You described raiding in this thread as a high risk, high reward activity for highly skilled players. And yet this item has an effect on it that is almost completely useless in anything other than the easiest difficulty settings in the game. Was the thinking behind this that when these highly skilled players are not raiding, they are off running six person quests on casual or normal? Is anything in quests on casual or normal going to survive being hit by the dagger long enough to worry about CON drain?

Then of course there is the famous abjuration ring from Mad Tea Party. An item that was apparently created just to round out the bonuses to spell schools, even though the game hardly has any useful abjuration spells in it.

This also ties into the issue of that extremely arbitrary, harmful and not even being observed all the time 'rule' of four effects per item. If going forward this is going to be your design principle for loot, please be far more careful about wasting space on items with junk effects. Or preferably, scrap that rule entirely and just use good judgement instead when deciding how to build items. We've had long periods of time in the game where no such rule existed and the game didn't break. Sticking to an arbitrary rule like that hasn't produced good loot so far and there's no guarantee it will in the future.

Thanks.

[TitusOvid]

Again, there's no reason to personalise this. It's nice you are having fun making items, but for me and I suspect most other customers the primary focus is the outcome. None of us begrudges you your fun or to stick up for yourself (when you are actually being attacked) but if those are your primary concerns rather than producing good work this part of the game will get worse.

Unfortunately this thread appears to have taken the same turn as some other discussions with developers have done recently. That is, the person whose bailiwick is being criticised takes it personally, makes the issue about them and their feelings rather than the topic of discussion, and in some cases even lashes out at customers offering feedback. But god forbid a thread like this be taken as anything else other than a personal insult, rather than say, a starting point for looking at how you can make better items for us in the future.

I suspect part of the problem with the current loot design process is it's missing two steps. One of them is to ask yourselves 'who is this item useful for?' and the second is for someone other than the item creator to be critical when evaulating new items with an eye to how they could be improved. It seems like these sorts of errors are occurring because of a lack of review and not enough thought being given to function. If you do actually have checks like that in place now they aren't working properly.

Some really good examples of this are some of the Ravenloft items. Let's start with the Keylock Ring, which has spot on it as well as two trap skills and open locks. It's not a good spot item because the value is not significantly better than is available from other sources and it has three effects which are not needed most of the time but have an opportunity cost in that it prevents other combat or utility effects from being slotted. It's also subpar even as a Level 29 swap item.

Then there's the raid dagger Suffering. You described raiding in this thread as a high risk, high reward activity for highly skilled players. And yet this item has an effect on it that is almost completely useless in anything other than the easiest difficulty settings in the game. Was the thinking behind this that when these highly skilled players are not raiding, they are off running six person quests on casual or normal? Is anything in quests on casual or normal going to survive being hit by the dagger long enough to worry about CON drain?

Then of course there is the famous abjuration ring from Mad Tea Party. An item that was apparently created to round out the bonuses to spell schools, even though the game hardly has any useful abjuration spells in it. Adding to that, every time the community raises the issue of getting more spells, if we hear anything back at all it's how making new spells is too hard.

This also ties into the issue of that extremely arbitrary, harmful and not even being observed all the time 'rule' of four effects per item. If going forward this is going to be your design principle for loot, please be far more careful about wasting space on items with junk effects. Or preferably, scrap that rule entirely and just use good judgement instead when deciding how to build items. We've had long periods of time in the game where no such rule existed and the game didn't break. Sticking to an arbitrary rule like that hasn't produced good loot so far and there's no guarantee it will in the future.

Thanks.

^^

Edit: Tbh, I would add reputation to all your posts in this thread so far if I could.

[Drwaz99]

Again, there's no reason to personalise this. It's nice you are having fun making items, but for me and I suspect most other customers the primary focus is the outcome. None of us begrudges you your fun or sticking up for yourself (when you are actually being attacked) but if those are your primary concerns rather than producing good work this part of the game will get worse.

Unfortunately this thread appears to have taken the same turn as some other discussions with developers have done recently. That is, the person whose bailiwick is being criticised takes it personally, makes the issue about them and their feelings rather than the topic of discussion, and in some cases even lashes out at customers offering feedback. But god forbid a thread like this be taken as anything else other than a personal insult, rather than say, a starting point for looking at how you can make better items for us in the future.

I suspect part of the problem with the current loot design process is it's missing two steps. One of them is to ask yourselves 'who is this item useful for?' and the second is for someone other than the item creator to be critical when evaulating new items with an eye to how they could be improved. It seems like these sorts of errors are occurring because of a lack of review and not enough thought being given to function. If you do actually have checks like that in place now they aren't working properly.

Some really good examples of this are some of the Ravenloft items. Let's start with the Keylock Ring, which has spot on it as well as two trap skills and open locks. It's not a good spot item because the value is not significantly better than is available from other sources and it has three effects which are not needed most of the time but have an opportunity cost in that it prevents other combat or utility effects from being slotted. It's also subpar even as a Level 29 swap item.

Then there's the raid dagger Suffering. You described raiding in this thread as a high risk, high reward activity for highly skilled players. And yet this item has an effect on it that is almost completely useless in anything other than the easiest difficulty settings in the game. Was the thinking behind this that when these highly skilled players are not raiding, they are off running six person quests on casual or normal? Is anything in quests on casual or normal going to survive being hit by the dagger long enough to worry about CON drain?

Then of course there is the famous abjuration ring from Mad Tea Party. An item that was apparently created just to round out the bonuses to spell schools, even though the game hardly has any useful abjuration spells in it.

This also ties into the issue of that extremely arbitrary, harmful and not even being observed all the time 'rule' of four effects per item. If going forward this is going to be your design principle for loot, please be far more careful about wasting space on items with junk effects. Or preferably, scrap that rule entirely and just use good judgement instead when deciding how to build items. We've had long periods of time in the game where no such rule existed and the game didn't break. Sticking to an arbitrary rule like that hasn't produced good loot so far and there's no guarantee it will in the future.

Thanks.

+++

[noobodyfool]

The solution is to truly reward dedicated, high skill players with awesome loot that meets their lofty expectations

You mean like the Specter Deflector I like it Let's Reward them for their lofty expectations
Mirror_demon.pngmaxresdefault.jpg

[blerkington]

^^

Edit: Tbh, I would add reputation to all your posts in this thread so far if I could.

Thank you for the support.

Unfortunately that will just be interpreted as you also being a terrible person out to make the developers feel bad like me.

Take care

[ThomasHunter]

In general I'll disagree with the last few replies. I think overall that the loot in the last few updates has been nothing short of amazing. I believe good design creates different kinds of loot for different players. As a more casual player I really appreciate the loot that was mentioned as being terrible. Shoot, if I don't like a certain item I simply believe it was designed for someone else.

Specifically let's look at the Keylock Ring. I think I started a post on this several months ago and my opinion holds. It might just be my favorite item from RL! I couldn't have been more happy with that ring.

tl;dr if one person doesn't like an item chances are good that someone else does.

Moar lootz!!!

Happy gaming,
Taleisin

[SerPounce]

Loot design recently has been great, and lynnabel's explanation here makes perfect sense. The forcefield effect on Wave wasn't meant to be an equip/unequp "clickie" it's meant to be a power of the item when you're using it. That's a perfectly valid gear design decision. I'm glad they have the tech to do this and hope they use it more in the future.

And the power level makes sense also as a starting point for future upgrades. Making the items super rare drops and very powerful would have been a bad decision. Super rare drops are frustrating. It works for novelties that aren't essential to any build like jibbers or reaper ability bonuses, but I wouldn't want to deal with those drop rates for a basic item.

Thank you for the support.

Unfortunately that will just be interpreted as you also being a terrible person out to make the developers feel bad like me.

Take care

And you're accusing other people of taking stuff too personally? Who remotely implied you're a "terrible person." Your argument just wasn't that persuasive, no need for melodrama.

[Arkat]

You're argument just wasn't that persuasive, no need for melodrama.

Astrican (blerkington) pretty much always makes good arguments and I thought this last one a few posts up was also good.

BTW...I tried to give him some +rep but I have to spread some more around before giving it to him again. Unfortunately, there aren't that many good posters or posts these days so it might be a while before I can hit him again.

[Elfishski]

I suspect part of the problem with the current loot design process is it's missing two steps. One of them is to ask yourselves 'who is this item useful for?' and the second is for someone other than the item creator to be critical when evaulating new items with an eye to how they could be improved. It seems like these sorts of errors are occurring because of a lack of review and not enough thought being given to function. If you do actually have checks like that in place now they aren't working properly.

Some really good examples of this are some of the Ravenloft items. Let's start with the Keylock Ring, which has spot on it as well as two trap skills and open locks. It's not a good spot item because the value is not significantly better than is available from other sources and it has three effects which are not needed most of the time but have an opportunity cost in that it prevents other combat or utility effects from being slotted. It's also subpar even as a Level 29 swap item.

Then there's the raid dagger Suffering. You described raiding in this thread as a high risk, high reward activity for highly skilled players. And yet this item has an effect on it that is almost completely useless in anything other than the easiest difficulty settings in the game. Was the thinking behind this that when these highly skilled players are not raiding, they are off running six person quests on casual or normal? Is anything in quests on casual or normal going to survive being hit by the dagger long enough to worry about CON drain?

Then of course there is the famous abjuration ring from Mad Tea Party. An item that was apparently created just to round out the bonuses to spell schools, even though the game hardly has any useful abjuration spells in it.

I've been the first to complain about bland/content invalidating loot design in the recent past with "just randomly pick 4 things from the front page of the character sheet and increase the numbers by 20% from the previous update and call it a day" strategy, but I think you're not paying attention to your own argument.

The Keylock Ring for instance is useless to you and other min-maxing players because you think nothing of swapping items and want all the best combat stuff on all the time. It's very desirable for newer players or lazier players to just have one item that deals with all the trapping. It has a niche, so it's useful to someone. Remember that just because something is useless to you and the people you play with doesn't mean it's useless.

Even the abjuration ring - yes, it's useless, but if we have items for the other schools I think it *is* good design choice for symmetry to round out the spell schools anyway and maybe one day there will be new abjuration spells that make it desirable, if not then that's still fine, we can feed it to sentient weapons with no guilt. It's not like there aren't any other useful items in Ravenloft to acquire (*though maybe not in that particular quest).

The sweet spot for item design is where many builds might fit that item in if they don't have something better, but it will only really excel for one or two niche builds that preferably aren't the current top meta. Not every item should be a must have chaser item for everyone, and clickies that expire when you unequip items are probably a good idea too, there already feels like too many items that have temporary effects that are too good to not carry around in addition to main gear, but that carrying around all those things means a full backpack and hotbars for swap items, and it makes the game feel less elegant.

[blerkington]

Loot design recently has been great, and lynnabel's explanation here makes perfect sense. The forcefield effect on Wave wasn't meant to be an equip/unequp "clickie" it's meant to be a power of the item when you're using it. That's a perfectly valid gear design decision. I'm glad they have the tech to do this and hope they use it more in the future.

And the power level makes sense also as a starting point for future upgrades. Making the items super rare drops and very powerful would have been a bad decision. Super rare drops are frustrating. It works for novelties that aren't essential to any build like jibbers or reaper ability bonuses, but I wouldn't want to deal with those drop rates for a basic item.

And you're accusing other people of taking stuff too personally? Who remotely implied you're a "terrible person." You're argument just wasn't that persuasive, no need for melodrama.

Some loot design has been good, some hasn't been quite so good. I'm glad that you're happy with the status quo, but I was expecting a quota of replies like this claiming it was generally great but offering little to no argument in support of this opinion.

I didn't say the iconic weapons should be super rare drops and very powerful. But I do think they should have been better than they were. None of these items are essential for any build either, so that argument about making them plentiful kind of falls flat. There's plenty of space in between the drop rates we have now and the rarity of items like Jack Jibbers' Blade.

And you're really missing the point of that comment of mine you quoted. This discussion should be about loot, not people telling us how much fun they are having making it or how they should stick up for themselves.

My concern with this issue is we're at a point where developers conclude all too easily that criticism of their work is motivated only by spite and see defending themselves as more important than looking at where improvements could be made. You aren't required to defend yourself if you're not being attacked, and defending yourself is not always a virtue, especially in situations where you've done something that isn't exactly praiseworthy. There is a lot to be said for admitting to mistakes and learning from them too.

Thanks.

[Razor_Wit]

Up until this thread I thought the Wave clickie was bugged and would be fixed at a later date, or perhaps I was casting a buff that dispelled it. My fault for assuming. I cannot tell you enough how disappointed I am with the rational that it expires on un-equip. Wave quickly became my favorite item in the game (in the last 4 years or so) upon pulling it and...where do you get the notion there would be a critical problem with this? SO WHAT IF EVERYONE HAD ONE?? What a bad idea! Right up there with nullifying Mabar ingredients before and destroying Night revels ingredients seasonally now. The gaping hole of a disconnect between SSG and their customers...smh

[Gabrael]

Up until this thread I thought the Wave clickie was bugged and would be fixed at a later date, or perhaps I was casting a buff that dispelled it. My fault for assuming. I cannot tell you enough how disappointed I am with the rational that it expires on un-equip. Wave quickly became my favorite item in the game (in the last 4 years or so) upon pulling it and...where do you get the notion there would be a critical problem with this? SO WHAT IF EVERYONE HAD ONE?? What a bad idea! Right up there with nullifying Mabar ingredients before and destroying Night revels ingredients seasonally now. The gaping hole of a disconnect between SSG and their customers...smh

what you want and what is good for the game environment are two seperate things

I am sure some would love to be given +7 tomes, or 10k DDO points, or a voucher for any item you want, or XYZ new ability, or a sentient xp gem of 100k.
but the problem is balance, and yes having that clicky stay would be overpowered and would be detrimental to the games balance. there is a reason the cursed blade of Jack Jibbers is a 1% drop rate, and why it still kills you after 1 min.
now Imagine the cursed blade uncursed, part of the normal rate loot table, and how it would be considered a huge advancement in power creeps.

the dev wanted an ability limited to the item itself, but that the player could activate at will. mechanic wise thats how it ended up. how about instead the item have a permanent effect of dmg reduction of 5% when holding it, would that be better? if the clicky aspect is whats an issue, perhaps you have an idea of a permanent effect on the item to put in its stead?

having items with unique buffs limited to that specific item is a new and interesting idea I could see expanded upon, it give the item sum personality, and uniqueness.

edit: i would add that the description of the item should, however, explicitly state it as such.

[Razor_Wit]

The forcefield effect on Wave wasn't meant to be an equip/unequip "clickie" it's meant to be a power of the item when you're using it. That's a perfectly valid gear design decision. I'm glad they have the tech to do this and hope they use it more in the future.

So its a positive addition as named loot in the game if:
1. You currently run a melee build that uses q-staffs
2. You are a caster who casts cold and electric spells
3. You enjoy the Swirling Icy Wind Shield and are fine with effectively being able to do nothing of substance for 1 min whilst it's active
(#3 completely counters Lynnabel's rational as explained above btw)


What did I miss? Who else benefits from this incredibly niche weapon?
Why is it good for only a small population of players to get to use it?

[blerkington]

I've been the first to complain about bland/content invalidating loot design in the recent past with "just randomly pick 4 things from the front page of the character sheet and increase the numbers by 20% from the previous update and call it a day" strategy, but I think you're not paying attention to your own argument.

The Keylock Ring for instance is useless to you and other min-maxing players because you think nothing of swapping items and want all the best combat stuff on all the time. It's very desirable for newer players or lazier players to just have one item that deals with all the trapping. It has a niche, so it's useful to someone. Remember that just because something is useless to you and the people you play with doesn't mean it's useless.

Even the abjuration ring - yes, it's useless, but if we have items for the other schools I think it *is* good design choice for symmetry to round out the spell schools anyway and maybe one day there will be new abjuration spells that make it desirable, if not then that's still fine, we can feed it to sentient weapons with no guilt. It's not like there aren't any other useful items in Ravenloft to acquire (*though maybe not in that particular quest).

The sweet spot for item design is where many builds might fit that item in if they don't have something better, but it will only really excel for one or two niche builds that preferably aren't the current top meta. Not every item should be a must have chaser item for everyone, and clickies that expire when you unequip items are probably a good idea too, there already feels like too many items that have temporary effects that are too good to not carry around in addition to main gear, but that carrying around all those things means a full backpack and hotbars for swap items, and it makes the game feel less elegant.

I am not a min-max player by any means. The gearset my main, the rogue, usually wears is very much a compromise between DPS, DC, defence and utility effects. So attempting to cast me as an intolerant power gamer who will sneer at anything not BiS is really missing the mark. I've also spent a lot of time collecting odd and unusual items in the game that I thought had an interesting function.

What I am asking for is more thought to be given to item construction, both on a per item basis and by comparison to what other options already exist in game that serve a similar function. The recent attempt to change the 3BC spyglass was the absolute acme of what is wrong with the loot design process right now. Take an item that didn't need to be changed, make it worse, and then call it good. And incredibly, there are people who support this type of approach.

I don't think we should be adding new items that are worse than existing items. I don't think we should be adding items for the sake of "symmetry" rather than adding a genuinely useful item instead. Not even in the hope that perhaps one day this item may become useful, especially given how quickly items age in this game.

Nor do I think we should be celebrating items that are made in a way to reward laziness, support poor gearing decisions or lead to lack of enterprise in pursuing better gear from other parts of the game. The argument that it's okay for us to get bad items instead of good ones because they can be used as sentient weapon food is just awful; does this really seem preferable to getting good items that can also be used as sentient weapon food?

Nor at any point did I say every item should be a 'must have', and I don't think that Wave would fall into that category if the clicky did work when the item was swapped out. This argument that everyone would stop what they were doing to chase an improved version of that item is unsupportable nonsense. It's just more after the fact rationalisation for questionable decisions.

I don't think entertaining these bad arguments to support poor itemisation is doing the game any favours. There is most definitely a problem with the loot design process producing more than the usual proportion of lemons in recent updates, all excuses aside. The problem is, if there isn't a sensible discussion of what the problems are and an acknowledgement that making improvements is more important just than having fun or standing up for yourself no matter what, the situation is not likely to improve.

Thanks.

[Gabrael]

So its a positive addition as named loot in the game if:
1. You currently run a melee build that uses q-staffs
2. You are a caster who casts cold and electric spells
3. You enjoy the Swirling Icy Wind Shield and are fine with effectively being able to do nothing of substance for 1 min whilst it's active
(#3 completely counters Lynnabel's rational as explained above btw)


What did I miss? Who else benefits from this incredibly niche weapon?
Why is it good for only a small population of players to get to use it?

are you saying that blackrazor should be useful for a THF vistani fighter and Whelm should be of use on a sorcerer? because every item has its niche, as for wave itself, considering it will be buffed further, it would work well in wolf form, on an acrobat, on a quarterstaff monk, on a quaterstaff barbarian (it works) and caster hybrids that fight with a quarterstaff. this is far from being as niche as ornamented dagger, or a great x-bow

[Gabrael]

What I am asking for is more thought to be given to item construction, both on a per item basis and by comparison to what other options already exist in game that serve a similar function. The recent attempt to change the 3BC spyglass was the absolute acme of what is wrong with the loot design process right now. Take an item that didn't need to be changed, make it worse, and then call it good. And incredibly, there are people who support this type of approach.

Thanks.

you mean crystal cove, the old spyglass is STILL available so don't pretend it got replaced, and it was changed exactly because of comparaison with other gear, that are now following a more streamlined progression, this is valid both for older gear being upgraded, or in some case downgraded. also with the new Ravenloft keylock ring and WPM glove that boost search/disable/spot, having the new spyglass trinket actually makes it better for some including myself for stacking, and is precisely what i would call taking into effect other gear.