Should loot be harder to obtain?

[susiedupfer]

I think the drops rates and the BtCoE are exactly right. I am still missing many items for many toons. I, like everyone else, have to choose what to do with my time. If I really applied myself to running the content over and over, then yes, I would eventually get it. But, I TR. It takes lots of my time. So, this is a lifesaver.

[Mastikator]

There is probably some middle ground between the first two options, but overall I agree with you. The grind for desert and von items was clearly way too long; on the other hand, the current grind seems to be way too short. And yea, you can TR to do the same content again, but I wouldn't really call that endgame.

Yeah there's definitely a nice middle ground, however, the thing is that it doesn't really matter whether you're running a marathon or a sprint, what matters is that there is a finish line and once you are on the other side of the finish line there isn't much to be done.

I wouldn't mind some extra options for PvP, I guess it could be a lot of fun; probably would require heavy class balancing, which people don't like.
[snip].

I don't think classes need to be balanced against each other for meaningful PvP to take place, if DDO took place in a more open world where guilds (or groups of guilds) fought over land and resources then the classes may be left as they are, some of the weaker classes may turn out to be vital in PvP siege scenarios, like if one guild use their guild ship to take down another guild's fortress and thus gain control of an adamantite smelter.
I know the game isn't built around such things, and that the playerbase probably aren't ready for such things, but that may be precisely why there is an artificial finish line.

[Argila]

In the last year, the grind for obtaining loot has been reduced considerably. Many interesting items are now unbound, which means they are easily obtained from the auction house. The droprates also seem rather high. While on the one hand it is convenient that gear is easily acquirable, on the other hand I find it quite disturbing. Easily acquirable gear vastly reduces the value of the endgame content. You'll be finished with gearing up your character within weeks.... which leaves you with almost nothing interesting to do once you are capped. I find it really boring that loot is so easy to get. It completely removes the satisfaction of obtaining that one good item that you always wanted. Is this really the right direction for a healthy endgame?

After 369 runs of dq1/dq2 and still no Thornlord shard, yes it is.

[Bacab]

Getting esos is not hard,it is long.
The only gear that is hard to get is ee stuff.

70+ runs spread over 3 toons.

No SoS shard.

One base SoS (won a roll).
3 "20th" lists...no SoS on any lists (though on 16 runs on my main this life...hoping to finally get a Base SoS on him).

Sometimes you just are unlucky...

Flip-side...I have seen an unprepared toon get dragged to the end chest of an EE quest and pull the "big item" on their first run.

[Argila]

70+ runs spread over 3 toons.

No SoS shard.

One base SoS (won a roll).
3 "20th" lists...no SoS on any lists (though on 16 runs on my main this life...hoping to finally get a Base SoS on him).

Sometimes you just are unlucky...

Flip-side...I have seen an unprepared toon get dragged to the end chest of an EE quest and pull the "big item" on their first run.

Not to diminish your effort but 70 runs is nothing.
I have been running it for more then 2 years now (a period that includes the old epics), probably have more then 400 completions now and NEVER got a SOS shard.
The single eSOS sword i have was thanks to a guildy that gave me the shard that he pulled in one of those runs.

So, again, yes the new loot system is the direction the game should take.
(imo, of course)

[DDOisFree]

If you only play the (end)game to just get loot, then that's your problem.

I play games because I enjoy the content, not for the virtual loot they give me. Making loot acquisition based on pot luck has always been the single worst aspect of these kinds of games to me, I have a huge problem when some people end up farming a quest for an item, but don't get it in over 100 completions, but then another person that's doing the same quest gets the item on their very first, or within their first 5 completions.

Such loot mechanics are terrible for MMOs, and really should have only been left to single player games. The best mechanic to handle loot gain in MMOs would be a token trade or completion based method to gain loot, but not anything like what most of DDO has which is mostly based on chance still to get the tokens or item on your 20th reward list, but something like obtaining the items in house C where you get guaranteed tokens for completion based on your score, and then you can turn those tokens in for gear, upgrades, or epic tokens.

I find it to he a huge shame that house C challenges aren't hugely popular in this game, they deserve to be the most played part of the game, such amazing XP and token farming is possible when you find a competent group, and the loot acquisition is based entirely on player skill instead of pot luck.

[Gkar]

Should loot be harder to obtain?

No.

You'll be finished with gearing up your character within weeks....

That may be true for the minority of players that play 8+hrs/day every day. For the vast majority however that's simply not true and in this system they at least have some small hope of getting a portion of their character well geared up.

When I look back this loot system brings us closer to what we had a level cap 10, 12, and 14 and 16 and I like that.

[Bacab]

Not to diminish your effort but 70 runs is nothing.
I have been running it for more then 2 years now (a period that includes the old epics), probably have more then 400 completions now and NEVER got a SOS shard.
The single eSOS sword i have was thanks to a guildy that gave me the shard that he pulled in one of those runs.

So, again, yes the new loot system is the direction the game should take.
(imo, of course)

Oh I know 70 is nothing.

I have never even seen the Shard pulled by anyone.

What I was getting at, was that "too little" grind just seems like a silly statement.

I mean...I would love a shard turn in. Kinda like scroll turn in for Desert epics.

I kinda get a kick out of the person who comes on here who plays 70 hours a week and complains that they "did everything". To me, it is time for that person to maybe play a different game.

I just wish/hope the devs will not balance content for that lunatic that has every optimal item...and 36 past lives and stuff like that.

I would LOVE if Epic VoN6 gave 2 lists (pick from only one though...and it only counts EPIC VoN6 for its 20th list).
List 1. gives the standard base items
List 2 gives shards

[Singular]

I don't think classes need to be balanced against each other for meaningful PvP to take place, if DDO took place in a more open world where guilds (or groups of guilds) fought over land and resources then the classes may be left as they are, some of the weaker classes may turn out to be vital in PvP siege scenarios, like if one guild use their guild ship to take down another guild's fortress and thus gain control of an adamantite smelter.
I know the game isn't built around such things, and that the playerbase probably aren't ready for such things, but that may be precisely why there is an artificial finish line.

Wow, nothing would be cooler than your suggestions!!!

It will never happen, but wow...it's a very nice fantasy, thank you!

[Bacab]

interesting fact...

I pulled my Mysterious Bauble on my very first weapons shipment.

I even tried to put it up for roll. The group refused and told me to loot it lol (I was a FVS).

Now that being said...do I "deserve" my bauble more than that guy who has done 100 runs and never gotten one?

[DDOisFree]

interesting fact...

I pulled my Mysterious Bauble on my very first weapons shipment.

I even tried to put it up for roll. The group refused and told me to loot it lol (I was a FVS).

Now that being said...do I "deserve" my bauble more than that guy who has done 100 runs and never gotten one?

well if the guy that's done it 100 times is a barbarian and never going to TR into a blue bar then yes you do. I've ransacked the bauble chest 5 or 6 times on my wizard and never got one. I even stopped opening free bauble chest LFMs because they did nothing but slow me down. Then I gave up and started TRing.

With weapons shipment though, any arcane or divine caster can solo the quest, so its not an issue how many times you've ran it to get a bauble. My issue is with quests / loot that can't be soloed, or only drop in raids with a 3 day timer so you can't try to farm them.

[Funny_looking_mole]

For me personally I think the move is a great one (towards easy to get EN, semi uncommon EH, and rare EE). The loot was never a big priority for me, I enjoyed builds mostly. And seeing a really really fun looking build that you wanted to try out, but knowing you could never find the items was very frustrating. With the new system you can get items that fit the idea, but can still get upgrades.

[taurean430]

interesting fact...

I pulled my Mysterious Bauble on my very first weapons shipment.

I even tried to put it up for roll. The group refused and told me to loot it lol (I was a FVS).

Now that being said...do I "deserve" my bauble more than that guy who has done 100 runs and never gotten one?

My primary caster is on his 10th life. Each of those have lives I've run DQ 20 times. 4 of those lives I waited to tr until I had done 40 runs. No Torc...

Meanwhile I've been in party to see others pull them on a few occasions but it never shows up for that toon, even on 20th lists. By way of contrast that same character pulled a bauble on his 6th run of Weapon Shipment. More of that irritating mechanic isn't something I'd support in any way.

[EllisDee37]

I think they found the right balance. And I love the way you can placeholder "temporary" items by simply using the EN or EH versions of the eventual EE gear you want to finish with. That mechanic was a stroke of genious, IMO.

As for newer gear being so easy to get, I ran Trial By Fury 3 times a day on 3 different alts, every day, for almost 2 months in order to get my hide of the goristro. Then two days later the second hide I needed finally showed up on the ah so I amassed all the plat from my entire account and managed to win it. Getting both hides was quite satisfying in their own way.

[Aelonwy]

Per the OP, I like it better now. Of course, I have 15 alts all on their first life and only 4 capped (at 20) after playing for 3 years. I'm a fairly casual player and haven't done many raids. Obviously if the game takes up more hours of your life your experience would be very different.

The only problem as far as I can see now is how to move the old epic items over to the new system while not screwing over people with large amounts of scrolls/shards/seals. I would reccommend a barter npc for astral shards/plats/items/epictokens/whatever.

I had an idea for the above problem but i have no concept of how difficult it might be to code. What if they setup barter npcs for the old epics so that you could turn in the base item plus scroll for Epic Normal version, base item plus scroll and seal for Epic Hard, and all the usual pieces for Epic Elite. Then convert old epics to stop dropping the pieces and only drop the item versions per difficuly.

Of course I would like to have some way to upgrade the versions like they appear to be doing in gianthold.

Would this be okay?

[mansrea26]

I think it's important for loot to have a certain level of difficulty in obtaining. I however do not agree that the drop rate is too high. I can think of a list of items that I have been grinding for that have yet to appear.

About 18 runs of DDTW- 2 scales
20+ runs of Partycrashers-No seal for the Phiarlan Mirror Cloak
20+ runs of House of Rusted Blades- 1 seal of house Dun'Robar (passed to me out of pity)
10+ runs of the Detour- No Wizard Ward
5 million runs of the Generals Chest in the Sands- 1 ring of spell Storing
250 runs of the mephit chest in the Sands- 1 bloodstone
20+ runs of Trial by Fury- 1 spider silk robe (passed to me out of pity)

.......The list can go on, but I think my point has been addressed. Either the loot tables are working properly or I am the red headed step child of Eberron. If you think loot is dropping too much please take me with you and I will gladly take the scraps you already have in triplicate.

[FengXian]

I like this direction too, BtCoE is a nice compromise.

However I do think there should be a few end game items that require a lot of grind, just so that we have a reason to keep playing end game content.

For now we have the Comm.s of Heroism to farm, they're definitely not too easy to come by. And, well, +4/+5 tomes...as well as some of the old rare epic items like ERoSS etc...we'll see how U17 adds to that, I don't think that less grindy is necessarily a bad thing.

Also keep in mind that some of the best items are generated randomly, and you need to be running a +2 gem to have a chance to drop one...those are still very rare.

[Gremmlynn]

The only truly endless endgame would be some kind of non-recreational PvP, but that's an elephant in the room that is very, very disliked (for reasons that still escape me) and the game isn't built to support that at all anyway, the game is fully themepark quest-centric and eventually you'll get bored fighting AIs.

Yes, the game isn't in any way made for this.

That aside, while it does make for an endless endgame, it's only really attractive to a small niche of players. Having played such a game, many players who even like the idea in theory, soon get turned off in practice when they find out how dog eat dog things are and it's not a lot of fun if you can't run with the big dogs. The only practical way to avoid that is to "balance" player skill out of the game, which makes for a fairly unattractive game for anyone.

[bartharok]

If the loot had been more scarce the whole way, then i would say that it could remain so. But since it has become (relatively) plentiful, it is way too late to make it harder to obtain. All you would accomplish would be to make a lot of people angry since they could not obtain item X that everybody else has gotten when it was easier