View Full Forums : What is going on with the loot...


Oldoaktree
09-21-2003, 02:59 PM
I know each expansion gets harder for SOE to figure out, but I am really beginning to have a real beef with Min levels on gear.

Fact is, if they want to use this concept, they must either be very consistant, or they must put level restrictions onto the old loot tables to fix the market.

A case in point.

I got that crap shield from a normal MMC dungeon. It's stats..

Rusting Hero Shield:
AC40 HP: +55 MANA: +65 SV FIRE: +7 SV DISEASE: +7 SV COLD: +7 SV MAGIC: +7 SV POISON: +7

<strong>RECOMMENDED LEVEL - 60</strong>

By comparison, a few older expansion droppable secondary slot items...

Tactician's Bullwark: POP
AC: 35 STA: +10 WIS: +8 INT: +8 HP: +65
MANA: +85 SV FIRE: +15 SV COLD: +10
<strong>Recommended level of 56.</strong>

Writ of Karana: POP
DEX: +13 WIS: +15 HP: +90 MANA: +75
SV FIRE: +12 SV COLD: +12 SV MAGIC: +12
<strong>Recommended level of 58.</strong>
Focus Effect: Mana Preservation IV

Book of Unspeakable Fear : CT
STA: +12 WIS: +12 INT: +12 HP: +25
MANA: +75 SV FIRE: +4 SV DISEASE: +4 SV COLD: +4
SV MAGIC: +4 SV POISON: +4
<strong>Required level of 51.</strong>

Tae Ew Shield (Tradeskill made from CT)
AC: 35
STR: +8 WIS: +8 INT: +8 HP: +50
MANA: +50 SV FIRE: +25 SV DISEASE: +7 SV MAGIC: +10
SV POISON: +7
<strong>Required level of 51.</strong>

Bone Braced Buckler: Luclin
AC: 25
STR: +10 WIS: +10 HP: +55 MANA: +55
WT: 2.0 Size: MEDIUM
Class: CLR DRU SHM
Race: ALL

<strong>No level requirements</strong>

That is really just a random sampling...there are a LOT more droppable seconary slot items with at least 50 mana on em.

My real point is that while that new shield may be better than some of the older items, and would naturally go cheaper, why in the hell does it have a 60 level recommendation on it? Is that really level 60 gear?

These items are dropping in normal dungeons for groups of 60+ people, and rarely do I see anyone interested in actually using an item for themselves, regardless of what guild they are in. There is just better stuff out there, and this new gear isn't even suitable for putting on a twink.

Some of the hard dungeon gear is halfway decent, but the junk they put on the nameds in the normal dungeons is hardly worth killing the nameds for.

I actually got the Rusting Hero shield when no one in the pickup group I was in was willing to roll for it, and I was left with it as pack balast cuz I had been the ML for the group.

I haven't been able to sell the thing for 1500 plat. Really kind of sad.

Trevize
09-21-2003, 03:30 PM
Yep....

So far I been doing tons of hard lvl LDoN groups. The drops are nothing I would ever use..... Some of the augs are usefull.... +7 pr augs are a tad too rare =P. Getting the +7 cold ones all the time.... /sigh... No one needs cold cause Ele+ armor is so outa wack with +cold it's silly... Anyway.. The mini-bosses on hard drop crap given the makeup of the groups doing this. Understandably they shouldn't be dropping potime quarly armor. However if they dropped good aug's that fit in all slots types then any group taking on a hard level LDoN adv could benefit from the drops that come from one.

The way it is now there is just tons of junk for sale in the bazaar or rotting.....

Wuven
09-21-2003, 04:46 PM
Does it really matter? No matter what is released people will find something to whine about.

Panamah
09-21-2003, 05:59 PM
It's called complaining. Yes, it apparently does matter to people otherwise they wouldn't be discussing it.

Baptismo Delacroix
09-21-2003, 06:25 PM
Panamah, please apply the back stab skill to the one who doesn't agree with the original complaint decided to call it a whine.

Oldoaktree
09-21-2003, 06:44 PM
sad truism...

A complaint I agree with is valuable...

A complaint I disagree with is whining...

Like talking to children sometimes...

At any rate, I give it about 2 weeks before people start saying "lets not bother with the nameds" in dungeons. Unless there is at least a chance at one saleable item, there is little point in doing them. Already happening on the boxes.

The 60 limit on this stuff is just ridiculous.

Aquila Swiftspirit
09-21-2003, 07:58 PM
Hey, that shield was a NICE upgrade for me!

Half the rants I read on various boards are about groups with people who play like idiots because they leveled in 15 days with super twinking through the Luclin and Kunark highways.

Well, LDoN seems to be SOE's answer: it's REALLY the anti-twinking, anti-PL expansion. You just can't PL in LDoN in the ways you can in most areas, and you can't gear up your level 1 twink with the gear/augments.

Once you start thinking about it as controlling the twinking issues, and recognize that you won't make tons of plat off people twinking up toons, then it sort of makes sense.

(Of course, very well equipped level 20s probably go through these events with amazing ease, but they still only get access to points and augments that are geared for their level.)

Panamah
09-21-2003, 08:57 PM
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Panamah, please apply the back stab skill to the one who doesn't agree with the original complaint decided to call it a whine.[/quote]

After the mood this weekend's pickup groups put me in, I might just do that!

Geddine
09-21-2003, 11:44 PM
I agree and I disagree.

Recommended level was something that EQ should have had from the start and it was introduced a little late to curb the twinking phenominan (sp?). The items that are dropping in these dungeons are good for my twinks, I'm so glad they are not NO DROP and even with the recommended level on them they are still better than what the chars had, although I admit I do not buy equipment from the bazaar at all.

It is a pity that not much (if any) of the loot dropping is of use to my main, but then again most of my gear comes from tier 2-4 planes so I wouldn't expect this expansion to be able to replace more than about 10% of my gear.

Although I did manage to get myself a nice 1HB orb (the pink one :) ) that procs Icestrike(320DD), which makes it fun to melee now :)

As for the examples above I don't really see too much wrong with the recommended levels (depends what your looking for in a shield really), as to them all be in line, I would think that after thousands and thousands of items in a DB you will find there will be quite a few that are just out of whack. You haven't mentioned the augments on the above items either, LDoN items tend to have more slots and greater types available to them.

Cantatus
09-22-2003, 01:07 AM
I think part of the problem with the loot gets back to the normal/hard thing with LDoN. The people who find Hard adventures to be too difficult and Normal adventures to be too easy are obviously going to pick the adventures they have a shot at beating. Because of this, they are getting loot which isn't going to be an upgrade just as someone flagged for the elemental planes isn't likely to find an upgrade in PoJustice.

However, the one big issue that should be addressed in LDoN is the lack of variety in the drop tables. I've been to 35 adventures and in nearly everyone we've been able to kill at least one named mob. In that time, I've seen several items drop multiple times. I've literally seen the Bloody Ancilles Pouch drop half of the 13 times I've done an adventure in MM. How much do you think these are going to be worth in a month?

It also seems like the named mobs of a particular theme all draw loot from the exact same loot table. I suppose this is both good and bad, but I'd like for it to be a little less random. Perhaps instead of putting all similarly difficult mobs in the dungeons that can all drop the same exact loot they could spawn an extra difficult mob that had better drops.

Perhaps the most disappointing thing with loot though is the "interactive objects." I have yet to see anything good come from these and we open every single one we can in my groups. The best thing I've seen drop so far was a +5 dex augment shortly after we got a +6 dex augment to drop from a mob. It's getting to the point where it's not worth the risk to open these because 90% of the time they have nothing in them.

greggo rumbletum
09-22-2003, 02:54 AM
I have been on a number of "pickup" groups with guildmates I dont normally exp with and have been surprised at the number for whom an item is an upgrade. The fact that the gear is universally droppable means it can always go to *someone*. We may be a little different from other guilds because of the wide range of equipment our members have.

Having said that we had a 2HB staff (cant recall all the stats 46/45 +50 hp +10 AC, some other stats), and one of our primal-equipped warriors took it because his 2hb needed improvement.

Oldoaktree
09-22-2003, 07:33 AM
..My issue is not that it is droppable, nor even that it has a recommended level.

It is simply that the recommended level is far higher than it should be in light of the recommneded/required levels on gear from prior expansions.

BETTER gear has a lower recommneded level on it. That doesn't make any sense to me.

None of this stuff, other than perhaps that rogue BP, should be higher than say 51 or 55 for recommended level. It cuts into the market of who would be willing to buy, wear, or use that item in question signficiantly.

And as noted above, these drops are so unvaried that there will be a superabundance of even the desireable ones very soon.

I don't go into a normal adventure expecting a gear upgrade. But if I am going to get a drop that 7 times out of 10 will end up being sold by someone in the gorup, it should be wearable by the level of people who (on the whole) will want to get the item as an upgrade.

TeriMoon
09-22-2003, 09:25 AM
It doesn't seem as though they have any sort of consistent formula they use to dream up these recommended levels. Its about like anything else, there is no one with an overall vision to guide things, its just sort of a non-integrated growth. You are looking for consistency across expansions, and that is a thing that became passe after luclin.

Panamah
09-22-2003, 09:44 AM
Yeah, there's obviously no forumula or even anyone double checking very closely.

I'd like to have a heart-to-heart discussion with the loot-maker-upper person, or team, or whoever. They've been doing a crappy job in the revamps and now in LDoN.

Oldoaktree
09-22-2003, 10:01 AM
Why is much better gear from POP showing a lower recommended level than mediocre gear from this expansion?

I simply don't understand why most of this new stuff is not at a recommended level of 51-55. Isn't VT gear the gear that normally shows a level 60 recommended level? This is the discontinuity I am getting at.

This stuff should simply not be tagged to be 60.

Xitix
09-22-2003, 11:12 AM
The recommended level is just another stat that goes into how valued an item is. LDoN items tend to have values that reflect they are intended for use by those doing the same level dungeons to fill in some slots easily. They aren't for twinking or huge cash sales and if they were would have to a lot rarer. Seems most are complaining there isn't a an easy to get hugely imbalancing twink item that would sell for good prices like centi longswords or windblades.

The shared shallow loot pools for random named in each theme is a concern and could be fixed by more items and common/uncommon/rare drops which there may already be some of.

AmonraSet
09-22-2003, 01:38 PM
The difference between something having a recommended level of 60 and a recommended level of 58 is pretty tiny. You can still use the item at any level, just the L60 item will be reduced by fractionally more until you reach L60.

The difference between 60 and 51 isnt that big either.

Oldoaktree
09-22-2003, 09:44 PM
..that is the point.

If the gear isn't that different, why have such a differnece in recommended levels?

If you could at least sell the stuff to someone who wants it it would be more worthwhile.

AmonraSet
09-23-2003, 12:43 AM
I think perhaps you misunderstood me. I was saying that the difference in an item having a minimum level of 60 and a minimum level of 58 will have little impact on the stats of the item. Any level character using the item will notice very little difference in how much the stats are diminished.

In case you aren’t sure how recommended level works, basically you get a percentage of the base item stats dependent on your level. The formula for the percentage you get is Your Level divided by Recommended Level (with a max of 100%).

Say an item has 100 hp. One version is recommended L60, the other is recommended L58. A level 40 using a recommended L60 item will get 67 hp from the item. If he uses the recommended L58 item instead then he will gain 69 hp from it. Similarly a L58 trying to use either item will gain 100 hp from the recommended L58 item and 97 hp from the recommended L60 item. Very little difference in either case.

So the fact that two very similar items have slightly different recommended levels will not make a great deal of difference to anyone trying to use either of the items. If they are willing to pay significantly different prices for either item then they are just being silly or ignorant.

Geddine
09-23-2003, 12:44 AM
You ever thought that these items will be entering the server at a much faster rate than the items you mention above. Becuase of this they are most certainly going to be targetted for twinking, Recommended Level was introdues to curb or reduce the effect of twinking, the level 60 limit will reinforce this idea. Remember the rareness of the other items can mean that a lower recommended level is not such a big deal becuase the item will be much more expensive and further out of reach of alot of players.

Also you got the item from a 60+ dungeon, why shouldn't the item be recommended for a level 60 player. If anything the other items you listed should be increased not the other way around. The problem surrounding the itemisation of EQ is that each expansion is itemised <span style="text-decoration:underline">almost</span> stand alone. Items from previous expansions do not take into account expansions to come. After your revelation I'd most likely go through PoP realising Sony was very lenient on Rec Levels and up alot of them. Mind you most items I have from PoP are either 60 or 63 rec level, and some even have a required level.

TeriMoon
09-23-2003, 02:39 AM
I don't think Oldoak was upset because of a 2 level difference in recommended level. What he is saying, I think, is that if you look across expansions, blind to expansions, just at items for a slot with reasonably similar stats, you are going to see a WIDE variety in recommended level from none to way too high to be useful for most. And honestly, I do think that SOE could do a much better job of itemization in PoP (still) and definitely in LDON. But more than anything, it would be nice if there was someone there who's job it was to look at these things across expansion for some reasonably consistency. I don't know about anyone else, but I find people purchasing bazaar gear tend to be level 40-50ish. About the time when they decide they might keep this toon, maybe. So recommended level may not matter much in the long term, but in the short run, when you are say level 48, the difference in something with a recommended level of 51 vs 63 is going to make a difference for awhile.

AmonraSet
09-23-2003, 03:55 AM
Imagine for a moment that you are the person in control of creating and adjusting the items in the game. Wait a moment for the mad power rush to subside.

You have a limited amount of time available to you for doing your job, and it matters that the items in the new expansion are consistent with items in previous expansions (even if they are upgrades they should be consistent upgrades). There is lots of work involved in trying to match up hp, mana levels, AC and trying to ensure that focus affects, FT, vengeance, etc are all reasonably spread around on the items. Because you know that if you get this a bit wrong people will be jumping up and down and screaming at you.

Finally a lot of items need to have a recommended/required level added to them. Do you spend a lot of time trying to find out all of the previous items which ever existed for that slot and ensuring that the recommended level fits really well with those items. Or do you just make an educated guess in the knowledge that it really wont make a lot of difference to the game even if you get it wrong by 10 levels or so.

Personally I would rather the item designer spent his time on the factors that really matter than get bogged down in trying to ensure that the recommended level progression works really well.

My guess would be that the item designer realised that this item would drop in a dungeon for L65 people, and thought that people would need to be L60+ to get into such a dungeon. Therefore a recommended level of 60 would be ideal.

The reason that the shield wont sell for 1500pp isn’t because of the recommended level, it is simply because its not that great of an item and there are lots of comparable items. You yourself have posted lots of equivalent items that a player could use. Consider also the size of the market for the item – only int casters and priests will seriously be considering using a shield, and it has neither int nor wis on it. Finally consider how many new and good droppable items have appeared in LDoN and how the massive glut of these items onto the market will be depressing prices.

Xitix
09-23-2003, 04:39 AM
Again, recommended level is varied like every other stat it's not a straight stats of X mean recommended level will be Y. A nice item dropping off a named boss in a lower level dungeon will have a lower recommended level than a very similar item dropping from trash mobs or random named in a higher level dungeon.

Oldoaktree
09-23-2003, 07:25 AM
That is EXACTLY what I mean.

Amonra...if the shield isn't good enough to sell for 1500pp, it should not be recommended level 60. And yes, it is work, but yes, that is what people who work at SOE are getting paid to do. Someone should be responsible for making sure the loot makes sense. It took me all of 5 minutes to do the reserach necessary to figure out that shield is unreasonably high for a level target considering it's quality. Either it should be better, or it should have a lower recommended level. There is much better droppable gear that can be gotten 2, 4, or 10 levels earlier. Not everyone will ahve it, but that does not change the fact that even in pickup groups where I am meeting people less welll geared than guildmates no one is interested in the loot.

Xitix, yes you can wear it before the recommended level, at the cost of making the stats yet worse. It makes it even a poorer optoin for someone than simply saving up more plat, or maybe doing a quest like the shield of bane warding.

2 weeks in this stuff is already beginning to rot. It will not be long before people don't bother killing named in some of the dungeons (at least hte normal setting ones) if the loot simply is not desireable and can't be sold anyway.

Stormhaven
09-23-2003, 07:40 AM
I could be wrong, but I think itemization was the job of the person designing the zone. Not all zones are designed by the same person, so you end up with conflicting loot, similar loot, and random values and tags.

It's a little too late to do it now, but I think for them to have truly uniformed itemization, they'd have to create an item database which associated cost points to each attribute (ie: +2 Wis = 20 points, +10 CR = 50 points, etc). Any items that were over X-number of points automatically got tagged with "NO DROP" "Recommended Level: xx," and so forth and so on.

As it stands, just an expansion like LDON probably added 1500+ brand new items to the database. Being "overpowered" or "unbalancing" is probably more of a concern than "is the recommended level ok?"

Trevize
09-23-2003, 07:41 AM
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
It will not be long before people don't bother killing named in some of the dungeons (at least hte normal setting ones)
[/quote]

High or Normal setting that was already true the day of release for many people. Only time I bother with named now is if the adv requires to kill it for success or a named happens to be in our pulling path.

As it is I still have a bank full of every possible drop from named on normal setting. The loot table is incredibly shallow. No one wants this junk..... I'd make a twink but level ones can't use it =P.

Oldoaktree
09-23-2003, 08:00 AM
Would have been a random chance, albeit a small one, of a good augment. Maybe not the best available, but ...

A named maybe could drop a 30hp augment, or a 30 mana augment. Or a 15hp/15mana augment. In a normal setting. Something that would be more generally useful, and make it more worth the time to pursue them.

Other times perhaps they could just have a lot of plat, or a cash item that is worth a lot of plat...even 1000plat or something. Again, I would sooner see 1k plat on those than more pack balast.

Wouldn't even require removing the dubious loot there now...just add some loot that might be more beneficial.

Storm, I am sure you are right and that they do look first at overpowering items. But especially this far into the game, I think they seriously need to think about an itemization czar position in their team. Someone who can be responsible for consistency of quality and reward. And I think a database on their end would make sense.

The easy way out, though, is simply to have nameds have a shot at dropping augments that are better than the random ones that drop in a zone.

kineada
09-23-2003, 08:07 AM
I think they put in the level 60 restriction because the stuff drops like candy. While they can't control how often loot enters the world in LDoN, they can control who gets to use it. That shield would be way overpowered for a level 1 knight (40AC) but would be appropriate for a non-raiding 60 knight.

Oldoaktree
09-23-2003, 08:37 AM
...they could still find better options than this shield in the bazaar, or through a group in a different zone. It IS high ac for a knight useable droppable shield, but I don't know any knights that actually use shields so....

Xitix
09-23-2003, 12:00 PM
Lets say value represents how disearable the total of the an item's characteristics are. Adjusting HP up or down changes the value. So does varying what slots it can be used in, what classes, what races, what diety, stats, resists, how heavy it is, focus effect, click effect, innate effect etc etc. Adjusting the recommended level is exactly the same and probably equates to less of a difference than the others. I could see complaining about required level on some items but recommended level only really cripples an item if it's twinked way way way down the level ladder. The same item with a 55 or 60 recommended level is pretty much the same to a level 50 player and has not much of it's stats removed. In some cases the wanted stats work at fairly low level for click and innate effects. and losing +2 int for a warrior is meaningless.

Oldoaktree
09-23-2003, 12:31 PM
I am saying they are fubar on the drops from LDON.

That is all.

Older loot that is better has lower recommended levels.

vowelumos
09-23-2003, 05:38 PM
Does it only have 1 type 1 slot?

Oldoaktree
09-23-2003, 09:23 PM
...all the dropped loot in normal dungeons does. Godo thought, and would be ANOTHER way to make that loot more interesting (slot 2 or slot 3, or 1 slot 1 and 1 slot 2 or 3).

But it is just like any other dropped loot you might have atm.

Rheims
09-23-2003, 11:05 PM
What I think is going on is that they can't control the rate of entry of items from LDoN like they could with other expansions. With Ssra or BoT nameds or even something minor from Crypt of Nadox, they can control the rate of entry of the items by how often the mob is allowed to pop.

But with LDoN and instanced encounters, that goes partially out the window, because theoretically hundreds or more people could be killing the same mob on the same server at the same time.

So to compensate I think they were overly cautious on item design until they get the hang of how the instance dungeons effect item-entry. Once the system has been around a few months I expect them to itemize with more confidence.

Secondarily I think they went overboard earlier this summer with the drops from Droga/ChardokB/SolC and flooded the market with really high quality items that go for relatively cheap. I wouldn't be surprised if the LDoN team, busy at work on the expansion, was largely unaware of this.

I do agree that a few of the recommended levels on the LDoN items are just plain silly though. The range item that summons hunter barbs comes to mind as a good example.

Karanthal
09-24-2003, 01:02 AM
A few of the LDoN drops are still selling but within a few weeks I'll be left with a bank full of things noone wants.

On Saryrn the shield is now at 500pp on most bazaar merchants. I've had mine there since day one dropping the price from the 5k it started at. I'm also stuck with one of the Scion Axes, ranger only. Have it up for 1k atm and noone wants.

I did manage to sell, Bloody Ancille Pouch sold for 3k, a Lupine Frenzy Earring for 4k and crypt robbers bp for 2k in the last few days. Not many of them on merchants atm, I guess people are using them as they are the best of the drops from MM.

Cantatus
09-24-2003, 09:35 AM
<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> I think they put in the level 60 restriction because the stuff drops like candy.[/quote]

I agree. Named mobs are spawning too commonly in my opinion. I'd say in 90% of the adventure I've been in I've seen at least 1 named mob, and usually there will actually be 2-3. Named mobs, just like the named mobs in other zones, shouldn't always be up. This, coupled with the fact that loot tables in LDoN are so small, makes items enter the world very fast.

In my opinion they need to:
- Reduce the frequency that named spawn.
- Add more randomized named mobs like named mobs that spawn from other mobs, when specific mobs are cleared or that spawn from the bitten-victim-like mobs.
- Increase the size of the loot table and add some items that are extremely rare.
- Add droppable items to the hard 60+ adventures.