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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
If mythic/elite item X has a drop chance of 1 in 100 for a party of size 10, then in a personal loot system, each member in the party will have a 1 in 1000 chance of getting the same item: 1/1000 * 10 = 1/100, so the average probability is exactly the same between the two systems.
Personal loot does mean there is a small chance that two or more people in the same party will get the same personal loot, since each person's drop probability is 1/1000, but on average, the loot drop chances will work out the same.
Also, am not a fan of BOP. BOE with 2hour window would be nice
Need/Greed system rolling is fine with me.
Perhaps a hybrid system could work as a compromise?
If there was zero personal loot, then I'd definitely want to make sure there are measures taken against ninja looters, kill stealing, and people lying about 'need' when it's just a greed roll. If the leader sets group rolls to need, it'd be nice if the game makes sure the item matches your archetype and that the currently equipped item doesn't rank higher than the one you're rolling on. If the matching archetype players select 'pass,' then the roll can switch to greed and everyone can roll on it.
ROLL FOR THE GODBLADE DO IT! at least then you all have a fair shot right?
Nodes should be able to track our contributions and reward appropriately.
However the final boss of the dungeon should always drop an item for everyone, so you don't feel like you wasted time running it--perhaps you are guaranteed one item rolled from all boss tables and a chance roll at something from their specific table.
It's the drop chance set on the loot tables that dictates the drop rates. For personal loot systems the server computes the individual drop chance based on this and the number of people that attacked the boss. No extra loot is being created here.
I'm not saying that all loot in Ashes should be on a personal loot system. I think guilds should be able to set the looting system for their guild members. Outside of this, I'm all for personal loot because it eliminates loot toxicity.
Sure I get armor and weapons cheaper but it undercuts the efforts of the crafters in the long run as well as such things are significantly more abundant. I'm not saying personal loot is a deal breaker. It just needs balanced in a way that prevents abusive farming. If you craft high quality iron armor you want a fair price for the efforts involved. If masses of resources are available your overall income will drop due to mass production by other people thinking the same thing.
Market undercutting and all that.
So my preference is a chest that actually feels like a chest of loot that you have to think and fairly divvy out through communication. Rather than smash face everyone loots said chest X amount of times potentially dragging 3x the resources that said chest could hold in the first place. XD
With personal loot there is no change to the loot tables of a boss. If mythic/elite item X has a drop chance of 1 in 100 for a party of size 10, then in a personal loot system, each member in the party will have a 1 in 1000 chance of getting the same item: 1/1000 * 10 = 1/100, so the average probability is exactly the same between the two systems.
The market will only be flooded if the drop rates on the loot tables are too high. IS have a dedicated economist on their team who will make sure that the economy and crafting activities are not impacted by loot drop rates.
TL;DR A personal loot system doesn't mean a higher drop chance for loot according to my math, which might be wrong. Based on this, the choice of a personal loot system is about preventing loot related toxicity.
I am a casual player. I don't really care that much about uber gear.
Fashion is more important to me than function anyways.
I want to get some stuff. Sometimes get some cool stuff. Occassionaly get some uber stuff.
Doesn't always have to be gear. Getting a recipe drop or a quest starter could also be cool. Maybe even an augment or cosmetic skin.
On that note, keep the chances of getting gear reasonable. I was pretty upset after 275 runs of Aetherlabs before finally getting my gladiator's spear. I missed out on Zapiels which was already a huge upset.
No what I mean is the main issue is number of drops with the same loot table. You might still get only 1 uber sword in the 10 chances that party has. so say it has a 1 in 100 chance of dropping that's rerolling that drop 9 more times. That part only applies to rare gear though.
The main issue with personal drops is the fact that more of the common materials flood in. This changes values of materials and gear drastically. Or it requires re-balancing either the amounts in crafting or the amounts being dropped overall. Again if you give people 10x the iron the boss would normally drop then you have large amounts of materials going into the market from non-crafters.
I only mean that if the boss drops between 10-100 common ores I'd rather not have that rolled to a potential 1k ores especially if things can be effectively farmed. Gatherers will most likely have roughly set gathering amounts. The drops need to be in line enough to not make that economic stance more of a time waster than profit.
@Bannith & @lexmax
This should take care of excessive drop and help in keeping from flooding the market
The worst however is a group event where someone collects the few drops and, at the end of the adventure, you then have to random roll on them (based on if you can use them). This combines the worst of both worlds PLUS you have to stick around for the whole adventure (so if you drop you get nothing) and it takes literally hours afterwards and lots of organization.
You then also have the side "feature" or wondering if the treasurer will depart with all the loot OR the party leader just decides they get uber item X. (I've had BOTH of these situations happen)
I have faith in IS but this is something that can and has crippled multiple games economies in the past.