How the game handles loot - a suggestion and personal thoughts.

Hi, first post

After I jumped into this forum the first post I saw was this one: https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/47509/which-loot-system-do-you-prefer-for-group-content

Here normal MMO loot rules are discussed, which made me think its not announced yet, is that correct? In that case, here is my thoughts on how loot should work.

First and foremost, forget about traditional loot rules where dices are rolled, where the game forces a "need/greed" system upon us or items are handed out at random.

The game is heavily based on reagents and mats for crafting, so this should be one of the main focuses for loot. Loot also have to make sense. I have never enjoyed being able to loot a chest piece from a dragon that looks like its something a dragon would wear - it wouldn't fit our player model, and it doesn't make sense.
If a dragon shall drop items a player can wear, it should be from previous fallen foes, gear thats dropped from its belly from previously eaten combatants who died in the previous efforts to take it down.

So here is my suggestion:

Epic bosses should be hard to kill, and the rules towards it should follow the logic around PvP and drops from this.
If an epic boss is designed correctly (and devs may trick us here, adding them being OP for a week before they tweak them down, this to force a loot-table being created for the boss), then it shouldn't be killable before a few tries, when people have learned how to kill it. This means that previous attempts from players, groups and even entire raids most likely will die from it! This would bring a risk vs reward scenario also towards epic PvE content. Go to deep into a dungeon to where you start to die, and you may drop reagents, mats and even gear upon dying. All of the items being lost towards the boss is put in its loot table for whomever that is able to kill it.

Now to the part where the boss is actually killed, and how loot should be dealt with in the form of how it is distributed.

In this example I'm gonna use a dragon:
1. The dragon dies. Nothing happens in terms of loot, no stupid "spray of loot" out from it, or a chest that spawns for some reason or anything. The dragon simply does its death animation and its lying there with no signs of life (if devs design this in nice ways, it may be smart to check if its actually dead before you start to poke it).
2. Now its a Free-For-All! All players will rush it to start to harvest it. It would function like any normal crafting object out in the world but with way more hit-points compared to iron-ore, or a tree or whatever.
3. The entire raid rushes towards it and starts to use their skinning knife, or any tool that is logical to skin and pick resources from X boss. In this case its a dragon with maybe dragon skin, so a skinning knife would be useful. For a boss with stone-armour, a pick-axe would be useful etc.
4. The dead corpse have its own stages of an HP-bar that represents the completion of harvesting from it.
5. First phase would be to get its skin, and drop-rates is different per player in the raid. Some have big skills in skinning and gets X% + bonus for epic dragon skin reagents from it. Most guilds would put everything and distribute it evenly anyway, but its a players choice at the end.
6. Next phase is to harvest its bones.
7. Last phase is to finally open its belly to check if its got loot from previous fallen "foes" of the creature.

What this would do is build tension and suspense, plus we fix the old problem of loot-tables that doesn't make sense, and how its distributed. Everyone gets to harvest the creature, and everyone have higher % drop from it to get epic reagents and mats for crafting. All the while it builds suspense towards when the stomach is opened. Epic gear that may have gotten even better because the creature have some weird stomach acid that affected it or something (devs designs how gear gets affected in each creature/boss). The longer the gear have been in the boss, the better it may become. Some gear melts because of the acid making reagents for epic ingots for further crafting, other gear gets hardened to prolong its lifetime outside of it. Weapons are able to be sharpened way more vs previously etc. And while you skin and open the stomach, that gear is distributed towards players who hack at it, with the stomach part having its own HP bar, while it drops its content from 100% to 0% completion.

This system should be carried out towards all PvE creatures imo. Creatures out in the wild that can eat a player can drop old players contents upon dying. Enemies that are our sizes can equip our own crafted items, and improve them before they die from another player who loots it. Etc. Players who lose in PvE content risk the same as in PvP content to build a bigger loot-table for X creature.

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Comments

Warth

Yes, it has been announced. Multiple times in fact.

Ashes will offer a bunch of different loot distribution systems for the party/raid leader to choose from. Mentioned were:

FFA
Round Robin
N/G
Master Loot
Bidding System

Personal loot won't be a thing.

Having said that, I do like the idea that you mentioned.
Monsters, that kill a player should get the items the player dropped added to the next lootwindow instead of the player death simply spawning a loot bag.

Like Player A dies to Wolf A. He drops 10 certificates and 2 Rabbit Pelts.
The next Player that kills Wolf A will get the 10 certificates, 2 Rabbit Pelts and the standard Woolf A Loot.

Alternatively, the dropped loot could also get accumulated at the area's boss monster (which could be a group-sized encounter). All the loot, that was dropped from players to their death to a PvE Mob in this Area will get added to a Chest behind the boss monster. The group killing it gets the key.

oophus

Ashes will offer a bunch of different loot distribution systems for the party/raid leader to choose from. Mentioned were:
FFA
Round Robin
N/G
Master Loot
Bidding System

Personal loot won't be a thing.

Ah, ok. I'm kinda disappointed by this as a new follower of the game. Was hoping they would do more around loot now that they bring so many new interesting ideas around other aspects of MMORPG's.

They've already built a loot system for PvP, so doing the same for PvE would make so much sense imo. Killing a mob would always be thrilling because you never know if that mob maybe killed a guy who spent like 2 hours in a dungeon gathering resources earlier. Suddenly a normal mob could have a small chance of dropping epic mats just because he had killed player before (should only be allowed for mobs that kill to eat). And the harder the mob, the bigger the change a player have dropped against it. Plus I like the Reward vs Risk aspect ratio towards PvE too. Having only a timer for a death seams like it can remove some excitement when entering a new area, a dungeon or something like that. Especially for raids. Choosing to go further down should be based on greed as much as skill. Get wiped, and you are most likely done. Bring more gear to be able to suffer more death's should also bring its own risk, because the raid can always be "ganked" by another raid etc. In anyway, if players can drop chest pieces, weapons etc towards PvE content, you suddenly make the content harder, as you have a natural end-trigger towards how many tries a guild can have vs X boss before they have to gear up again.

This would maybe also introduce the need to bring caravans towards raiding for PvE. Thus another way to re-use already implemented features. Bring a caravan with gear with you, and you make the run longer, but also the risk higher.

Like Player A dies to Wolf A. He drops 10 certificates and 2 Rabbit Pelts.
The next Player that kills Wolf A will get the 10 certificates, 2 Rabbit Pelts and the standard Woolf A Loot.

Yes! But also introduce the economic sink to it all.

A player who dropped 10 certificates will leave a Wolf with a % chance to drop all 10 certificates, but also only 2 if its ben "shat" out again based on time from that last death. If a shoulder pad dropped and got eaten, that would "survive" longer in the loot-table vs certificates for example.

This would give players a good reason to get help for payback too. Die, and run back to get revenge and hope most of the items, gear etc is dropped back to you.

Alternatively, the dropped loot could also get accumulated at the area's boss monster (which could be a group-sized encounter). All the loot, that was dropped from players to their death to a PvE Mob in this Area will get added to a Chest behind the boss monster. The group killing it gets the key.

Perfect! A lot could be done with something like this. If the mob is a typical "hoarder", or maybe it drags bodies back to its cave, den or whatever and a bunch of skeletons are left behind based on number of players killed by it. Finding a big pile of bodies could also trigger a "hunt" for that monster that have that big loot-table linked to it.

This could also be linked to Monster Coin events, where some of the monsters can get away with it even if they lost an attack. Especially player-ran monsters. They can jump in to the fight to try and kill as many people they can. Run away and try and hide the loot somewhere to go pick it up them selves when they return to being them again. People defending could quickly see a monster try and escape and shout in Guild Chat to go get it!

Most importantly I think with this is the world suddenly becomes much more "alive" and dangerous. No more pulling agro from 10-20 mobs just for fun when you may end up dropping items if you die from it. And traveling into new areas is suddenly that bit more exiting.

Quests can also linked to this system kinda like the Bounty Hunter system. If a mob gets above X loot-table, it triggers quests towards it to find it an bring it down. "There is a rumor of a big sea monster that killed 25 people on a ship a few days ago - it was last seen at X location".

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