Different feedback but,
I actually think the rarity that we have seen in the showcases has been all over the place. I like the formula that old WoW has where 98% of the epic+ items you see are at endgame. In the gathering crafting showcase steven had some legendary logs or something, I think stuff like that should not be obtainable at that level. I think all the current rarities in ashes need an adjustment, and no this doesn't actually affect gameplay at all, but aesthetically it matters a lot.
For the most part, rarity should at worst equal difficulty and actually even exceed it.
But just for further interest, maybe EXTREMELY rarely and randomly something unique can be held by a very innocuous critter. As in they found it or it came to them by some fortuitous means.
Like Smeagol/Deagol finding the shiny Precious.
Not all things are obtained by overpowering the owner. There can be sneaky little thieves about.
The girl watched the last of the creatures die and murmured a soft 'Thank you' to her rescuer.
The stranger's eyes lifted to the blood red cloud on the horizon.
TLDR. Pretty rare. Whatever you’re thinking ,make it even rarer than that, but only if acquisition is memorable and value is player driven. =
Yeah I didn't read past the first paragraph but I agree with the TLDR. Finding rare loot is a core endgameplay loop, collectors will want to farm things they didn't get when the content starts to run out, and that's important because the longer you can keep people interested, the more time Devs have to work on another batch of content. The time between the base game and the first expansion sets the clock for the rest of the game, It's good to give a lot of time so people know what to expect.
Monsters dropping items destroys crafting in mmo. Therefore, monsters should only drop resources such as skins, furs, fangs and claws.
Killing a monster shouldn't be a reward. It should be a path to the goal.
Do you want to obtain the best metal ore from which the best blacksmith in the world will be able to forge the most powerful sword? Kill the dragons that live in the cave where this metal can be found.
Do you want to build a house in a forest where legendary herbs grow? Kill all trolls in the area.
Dumb. There should be multiple ways to obtain gear, not everyone likes crafting.
Should be able to obtain gear through PVP, PVE questing, loot, crafting, raids and dungeons.
Crafting is irrelevant in other games ONLY because the gathering and crafting takes so long it's more efficient to level past whatever it is you want to craft and get it somewhere else.
Basicly: IF YOU WANT CRAFTING TO BE RELAVENT, DON'T MAKE OBTAINING THE SKILL AND RESOURCES TAKE LONGER THAN IT TAKES TO LEVEL.
It is an essential part of the risk vs reward equation.
A "rare drop" is only as rare as its drop chances or as its "rare monster" host.
I'm more inclined towards "not too rare of a monster" with "truly rare drops" due to having more shoots at the possible jackpots than "truly rare monster" with "not too rare of a drop" but can understand the utility of having both types.
I believe full gear drops can be amazing rare drop jackpots for both rare monsters and bosses, but they need to have properly balanced drop chances as to not diminish the value and effort of the Crafted full item which should be the main source of such items, while at the same time not being too rare to the point said rare monsters and bosses become unbalanced where their risks outclasses their rewards.
In my opinion Lineage 2 did an amazing job in this regard, there even the average monsters had chances to drop full gear(even if with ludicrously low chances like 1/200000 at rarest)(With rare monsters and bosses having way better chances[but no guarantees] and only Legendary/World bosses having somewhat near said guarantees).
The mere presence of such chances generates the expectation of the possible jackpots everywhere in the world against all monster and gives extra meaning to how much worth there is for the full crafted gear piece.
Alongside such full gear drops possibilites, the average monsters always had the key material required to craft said gear with reasonable drop chances as consolation drops to work towards the desired gear.
James just said everything I wanted to say but even better than how I would've put it.
The only additional note on that design is the supposed promise of "no grinding" from Steven, while L2's design encourages grinding quite a bit. So I dunno if L2's design will fit what Ashes is trying to go for, but w/o any real knowledge of where it's going I got no clue either way.
speaking from my personal feedback + sentiment from discussions I had with my community, something we have a very strong opinion about is that we hope intrepid stay away from mobs/bosses dropping completed items, and this is for all items that artisan classes can craft but especially gear,
it should be materials only but.... IF we are getting completed gear drops (which is already not ideal imo) they should definetly come with randomized messed-up stats to really make it worth deconstructing the item for mats, instead of our everyday themepark mmo where we will be running raids for gear with little to no use for all the logistics of managing the artisan classes,
it takes tremendous effort to organize all the gathering, processing, and crafting professions, please, do not have finished items drop passed the very early, early game... getting quest items or drops up to T1 or T2 max should be the endgoal to really give value to the artisan system, no T3, and absolutely no T4 and T5 finished item drops,
Well said. I would go a bit farther. Gear drops of any kind should not occur. The most common weapon or armor may drop but it should be very worn and in need of repair at best. It should as well reflect the type of mob it came from. If you just killed it then the armor is in bad shape and the weapons sundered. Artisanship of all kinds would be cheapened to the point of non-viability if completed gear would drop. Not seeing the complete artisan system, it is difficult to determine HOW much better crafted gear is to dropped but it should be substantially much much better.
How do you feel when it comes to rare loot? Do you prefer when rare mobs and boss mobs drop something interesting often or less often?
To me, this depends on what you mean by "interesting".
If by that you mean PoE top end unique item "interesting", where having the item literally changes the way you spec and play your character, then such items should be dropped infrequently, with more generic items suited to the challenge of the encounter dropped every kill.
On the other hand, if by "interesting" you mean basically WoW itemization where it is essentially just "make number go up" type itemization where you continue to play your character basically the same way, then such items should drop more often.
This is a difficult question, because it's quite situational.
First of all, you have to take into account the type of rare monster and the associated drops.
I've always found it highly illogical to defeat a gigantic beast and have it drop a two-handed sword. Where does it come from? While butchering the beast for its teeth, poison gland etc. might make sense.
In the case of a bandit leader, yes, it's logical that you can recover some of his equipment if you're lucky enough not to destroy it in battle, or some of the materials that make up his equipment... and it doesn't mean he had ultimate stuff, he can just have some good items of normal to rare rarity. And i think it is totally ok to drop it.
After a battle is over, you can also loot the boss or monster's personal chest (if he was smart enough to own such a thing).
So for me, it would be interesting to make a distinction between rare drops on creatures and monsters that would loot materials in 90% of cases, which could be rare.
And humanoids, who could drop complete items (broken, damaged, recipes, etc.).
The integration of harvesting professions within the monsters themselves could also be interesting, having a master skinner in the group to retrieve the best materials etc. ... but I digress.
As long as complete items retain a role in the crafting ecosystem, and loot rates for complete items are much lower than for materials, I think it's a good compromise. It would allow you to target materials or complete items according to bosses and monsters.
Full items should be repaired/maintained, and while they are very rare and inferior to crafted items in any case, they may remain a viable alternative for less wealthy and less organized players, who would prefer to target full item drops. Although the game has a craft-centric and social component, it shouldn't be unplayable for less-involved casual players either.
Generally speaking, I don't agree that looting full items is problematic. It would be problematic if the loot of the complete item required no interaction with the crafting system for it to reach its full potential. But if the complete item needs to be repaired/sharpened/enchanted, the problem solves itself.
As Ashes of Creation is intended to be a game with interconnected systems, it would seem logical to me that loot should also benefit from this interconnection, to the benefit of the game experience, immersion, economy and players.
there are no problems, only solutions.
To sum up:
- Loot circumstantial and logical in relation to the type of monster / Pnj beaten.
- Mostly materials/recipes, rarely complete items if relevant.
- A minimum number of normal to rare materials, then a chance of better loot, potentially influenced by team raid/dungeon performance.
- Crafted items remain superior to looted items
- It would be interesting if crafting/harvesting professions had the possibility of interacting with the corpses of defeated monsters to maximize the obtainment of better materials. Stone Golem: Miner, Living Tree : Lumberjack etc...
- Looted items remain rare, can be looted destroyed/damaged/need an enchantment to be restored and reach their full potential, be set items, trigger a quest etc.
For bosses with more than an hour respawn timer I would say something like minimum 5-10% drops are good. It shouldn’t be that your character is over leveled by the time they actually get the drop they want that they are farming.
Killing the same boss 20 times to get an item that lasts from level 35-40 is more than enough for it to be considered hard to get. Even that might not be worth farming if you can level from 35-40 in a few days.
I think rare mobs/bosses should always have at least 1-3 option of garanteed drop but they all need to have a unique rare drop aswell that is like 0.1-5% drop rate.
Killing a rare mob or boss and getting nothing feels bad but also getting everything easily also feels bad so need to go somewhere inbetween where the a common loot table the boss drops but also a rare one too. So you dont get shafted with nothing but there always that chance of like a 1% drop for rare item or mount or something like that.
Just dont be super rare drop like say black pearl from archeage where u needed 55 items that had a 0.1% drop rate on 5 different bosses that had alike a 5hr respawn time or something dumb. also trying to farm cannon dmg armor was disapointing too in archage, had 2 do a pain in the ass underwater dungeon and kill a raid boss that had like 25% chance to drop 1 piece of armor did that raid with like 40 people 9 times and came out with 3 pieces not even a full set and the only thing it did was 2% ship cannon dmg no reason why it was a right pain in the ass to get.
baren riven and the tiger boss in ZG in WoW were good esample i think of how to do loot both had a common pool loot where u would get atleast 1 piece of good gear but they also had a super rare chance .5-1% or something to get a unique looking mount that was realy cool to get.
everquest was pretty good system too all named mobs had a common drop and a rare drop and sometime an uncommon drop, you would always get one on kill it was like 70% common, 25% uncommon 5% rare roughly
Depending on spawn rate. If world boss spawns once per day, it can always drop rare item. And it will still be rare, because it's 30 items per server per month, but a lot more players. If boss can be killed many times a day, then not always.
I think all the bosses, especially the rare ones, should drop something worthwhile every time. If it's not a boss that uses equipment, stick to body parts. Scales, horns, claws, meat, feathers, blood, bile, liver, and whatever other materials can be used for crafting or cooking. I would hate to kill a big, beastly boss and and just end up with ashes and a bit of glint. Let us harvest it.
Perhaps if it's a non-equipment using creature that hoards stuff, like dragons traditionally do, sure, throw in some rare finished items once in a while.
Leave the finished items to monsters/bosses that actually use them. Like intelligent humanoid ones. Especially crafting recipes. For example, it makes absolutely zero sense for an Elder Dragon to carry a recipe for a dragon scale shield.
That is like you and me carrying a recipe for cooking human liver, and which chianti it goes with, in case we die.
Hello everyone, I am an old school mmo guy from EQ1 days. I have read a lot of the comments on here and I agree about keeping the artisans in the spotlight. Having a completed item drop from even the rarest raid level mobs is nice, however it destroys the artisan professions once the majority of the player base has reached max level. I would much rather see components for a grand item that needs not just one but multiple artisans to complete and let's face it, if you are there facing down a raid level mob you most likely are already in a guild that has more than a couple artisans willing to lend a hand. I do have some suggestions or requests though regarding raid level mobs. I remember in eq1 days camping out for dragons that only spawned once a week only to find that an asian guild snuck in to get the dragon while western players were sleeping and visa versa. Then once that guild got the kill they would keep it among themselves what time it was killed and they would know exactly when he would spawn again causing that mob to be virtually impossible to others to access until they were done farming him. I do not know how the raid level bosses will work in the world in ashes but, rather than have raid mobs that spawn on a set timer I would love to see more random times to these spawns as well as random locations so that someone with an alt isn't just camping the spot waiting to tell the guild when he spawns. There's no way to completely prevent camping out for a mob but don't make it too easy to farm them. Regarding rare equipment that is bound to the player, I love it and I think it needs to stay this way. If you are looking to make a quick buck then sell the materials that drop to make the rare equipment but once the item is made and equipped, it's bound to that player not the account, the player. Want to level a different guy, work hard and do it again, no easy route. I personally hated seeing twinked out alts flying through levels and content just because the guy that owns the account had completed the content once. Then you end up with a guy that leveled multiple classes very fast but only actually struggled the first time through and you end up with people that because of their gear flew through the levels so fast they don't even really know their own class very well and you get a bunch of unskilled characters running around at max level. Ugh, ok that was a bit of a rant there at the end but thats my broad opinion in a nutshell. Take care everyone and have a good holiday season
Meh.
Rare is the wrong word. When people think of a rare item what they mean is "powerful item". A weaker than normal item that rarely drop will only interest completionist collectors. So it's more a question of quality than rarity, although both are usually tied, and it's by design.
I've often been vocal about my disinterest for gear. I don't get any excitement from a drop, no matter how rare. If its chances of being dropped are low and I have to "work" a long time to get it, I don't go "Yes!" when it finally does drop. It's more in the line of "about time" kind of thought. Yeah, I'm not much dopamine driven, my receptors are probably out-tuned or insensitive.
I don't like the unfairness in time spent inherent to RNG. I thus prefer certainties over RNG drops. Quest rewards cover that in part. Incremental progression is another way I find fair to stretch the time to obtain something, be it through reputation gain, gold put aside, or other slow but steady means. Player made items FTW.
I don't mean there should be no random drops, only that the rarer the possibilities are, the lower my motivation and interest in getting them are. I'm aware "risk vs reward" is one of the pillars, but it doesn't do anything for me, well, the reward side doesn't.
Don't see the point in being given a drop just to deconstruct the drop. Would prefer rare resources instead. There should be a good spread of resource drops because we have a lot of repair and crafting to undertake. I'd rather not have item drops at all.
For a game like Ashes of Creation? I honestly don't know.
In a themepark with well-defined raiding scenarios, where everyone ideally gets BiS eventually, random loot is cancer. This is why WoW slowly introduced other ways to get gear and/or upgrade what you have, and why FFXIV has for many years used tokens and only-slightly-random loot (for gear at least). And in GW2, the few random Ascended drops (or gen 1 precursors) are really just shortcuts to something you are expected to craft/buy.
Of course, in all of those games there are some mounts or cosmetics that continue to be locked behind atrocious random drop rates. I'm not a fan of it personally, but the community seems totally fine with it as a form of rarity.
But this isn't a game like that. People (and groups) will naturally be different power-levels and Ashes seems to embrace that, so there's no need to maintain an accessible path to BiS for everyone. Furthermore, gear in Ashes is temporary. Which means two things for ultra-rare loots: It doesn't provide an undue advantage in the long-term, and the droprate for rare gear can be relatively high. In other games, "rare" stuff needs to have abysmal droprates, because it lasts forever and everyone would get one eventually if the droprate was higher. In Ashes, it's possible to increase the droprate to allow everyone to get rare stuff occasionally, but still have it be rare at any given moment because it's temporary. Kind of like a classic arcade power-up, you'll probably get quite a lot over the course of the whole game, but most of the time you won't have any.
But like I said, I don't play many games like Ashes, so I don't have a clue what the perfect tuning is for rare drops. I just know that rare drops and legendaries and such are probably acceptable at some level, even for a player like me who hates RNG loot. I guess my only request is to try and keep the power differences between accessible, rare, and super-rare gear to a reasonable level. It's fine if legendary items get special abilities and such, and it's fine if they confer an advantage in some fights, but they shouldn't be so obnoxiously powerful that they hard-carry entire GvG fights. People shouldn't have to completely avoid fighting a guild just because they have a legendary or two (for a month or however long it lasts).
How do you feel when it comes to rare loot? Do you prefer when rare mobs and boss mobs drop something interesting often or less often?
This is potentially huge question, and one that alongside combat makes up the absolute essence of any RPG game.
Gathering
Rare loot and gathering... There's two ways (as I can see it) to go about this: Either, you have a chance for a rare material to drop from a regular "source" of gathering - or there is the option where you have a chance for a rare "source" of gathering to appear, which then has a 100 % chance to give you the rare materiale connected with the rare "source". I am for one much more in favor of the latter! I think it provides much more hype and alot more wow-factor to have a burning-spruce tree pop up, a sunlight-stricken ore, a massive three-headed stag, or a huge diety-looking fish! The first option usually ends up with alot of not-so-exciting hours of grinding where you just hope for the next tree to be the one... it's much more fulfilling (especially with your visuals in Vera!) to have some grand and impressive source suddenly pop up!
Crafting / Processing
Again, you could make this RNG and give it so you have a slight chance to get a better outcome - but imo. the outcome of crafting should be fixed to the material-usage, the recipe, skill level and so on.. not RNG
Open-world rare loot
I personally think that every mob in the game from the starting area to the last boss needs to have some sort of chance to provide you with something exciting and good. There are games out there, like SWTOR, where you had to cross a certain level-threshhold before even "basic" green items could drop, and that just feels a little disapointing. I'm not saying level 1 mobs should drop purple/epic items, but they should still provide you with a chance for something!
As for "rare-loot" and "rare-spawns"; alot of games has rare-spawn creatures; creatures you just know are a little bigger and badder than their kin, and I would love to see that in Vera aswell! What I would hate to see, is for them to just pop-up everywhere all the time, and then just have a slight chance to give you something good... as with the gathering; it should be the "source" that is "RARE" and the "loot" from it should be somewhat secured - also makes for a more interesting PVP option to fight for rare-mobs and rare gathering-sources.
Bosses (raids, worldbosses, dungeons)
Loot from bosses has been made in alot of different ways; you can have a totally randomized loot-table, where everything in a dungeon has the same chance to drop something (Dungeon-crawler style) or have the bosses drop rare/epic loot but still from randomized loot-table with randomized stats.
I, for one, feel like gear and loot is the quintessential of what makes RPGs good. The "quest" for betterment is what drives our journey! If it's the Umbra-sword in The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Hand of ragnaros in WoW or the alt art Atziri's mirror in Path of Exile - these big juicy pieces of loot drives us to grind, explore, play and enjoy!
Now what is then NOT enjoyable you ask? R N G. To have that ONE big shiny end-of-the-rainbow item drop - just for it to have been rolled with shitty stats and be totally useless. That makes you wanna quit and go play Hello-Kitty-Island with Butters. Bosses need a fixed loottable. Otherwise, you'll have nothing to drive you towards something - if everything is just random, your means of playing and enjoyment of the game will also be random - and for a game as grand and beautiful as Ashes nothing would sadden me more than to feel like I was just wandering aimlessly around
Generel discussion: Should there be equipable item drops?
A hot take on ALL of this could be, that no equipable items should be able to drop in the game. They could be quest rewards, sure, but imagine a world where you would have to use this worlds vast network of players, nodes and freeholds all the time to get better equipable items! Raid-bosses? They are story-driven characters who is connected to the void and the Three, but they are ALSO guardians of some of the most RARE and PURE crafting materials there is; they are not the end-goal - they are but a pathway to the end-goal!
I don't think something like this has ever been done, and I don't know how or IF it could work, but it would be a very intresting way, and it would make Ashes THE game for people who love the MMO-aspect of the genre; you need even more than just a raidgroup and a guild; you need an entire node, perhabs a certain freehold and boy'o'boy would it be rewarding when you finally get to craft that new gear.
Obviously, this could be taken down a notch... if could just be so, that the best items in the game (and it has to be with some margin) is from crafting, so you still keep that MMO-aspect alive, but doesn't slow down the game too much (which I could fear a totally "loot-less" game would).
I think I prefer to have a very diverse drop table (or even a layered drop table) so that they drop something but the likelihood of them dropping it is extremely low, still rewarding in some way, but maybe not the way you planned/expected.
Gear vs. Crafting Materials: My initial reaction was to agree with the others that have been saying that mobs and bosses shouldn't drop completed gear because it undermines the artisanship system. I understand and agree with that sentiment. After all, why should I bother to level up blacksmithing, put in all the work to purchase a freehold, and build a T5 smithy, if I have a good chance to get epic gear after a single night of raiding with my guild?
However, If bosses only drop crafting materials, then its reasonable to assume that instead of rolling for loot, all the materials would be directly handed to the guild's crafters. I think it would feel frustrating if after a full night of raiding and downing several bosses, I never even got to roll on a single piece of loot.
Therefore, I think both gear and crafting materials need to have a chance to drop, with crafted gear being roughly 10% better than dropped gear.
Drop Rarity: When I played WoW, I created 5 alts to farm the Ashes of Alar mount. Every week I farmed TK on each of my alts to try to get that mount. Finally, after several months it eventually dropped. However, as cool as that mount was, I wasn't excited. Instead, I felt relieved. I thought, "Finally, I never have to do this ever again. I'm done!"
Finding that super rare item can be really exciting, but it can also be really frustrating when your luck is bad. I've always hated quests where I had to collect a drop from a monster when there wasn't a 100% drop chance. I would much rather collect 20 boar tusks with a 100% drop chance then collect 1 boar tusk with a 5% drop chance.
A rare or boss mob should always drop something of some use, not just trash loot. For said mob to drop something truly epic it should also be a rare drop from a rare mob making the item, or the item that can be created truly exceptional and amazing! Mobs around the boss or rare mob should not have the same loot table imo and could drop different things if they are also rare.
The whole concept of rare means that it is truly rare not just uncommon. I don't like it when a level 5 bear could drop some fantastic item, feels like it breaks emersion. That said I also hate it when your fighting say a creature that is wielding a weapon and the weapon does not drop. That weapon does not need to be rare but the weapon needs to drop when you kill the mob. Same sort of thing when you kill a wolf and no wolf teeth, or wolf hide or whatever drops. Makes no sense.
Less often. But I also think the rarest items/mats should also react to groups performance. Say, add 2% chance for Speedrun, or add 3% for Undying, and add another 3% if a group can go both speed and Undying.
Something to spice it up a bit, this way the players always know something is on the line, but don't know exactly what that is. Could come in the form of another chest spawn somewhere, an extra loot-dropping Mimic somewhere , a specific item or material being put in a bosses loot table that wasn't available before, or a spawning Loot Goblin in the middle of a fight, at an awkward time that players have to kill.
I prefer when common mobs have an extremely slim chance of dropping rare world loot, to the point where you might get one drop during your journey to max level. It gives a "Hey, you never know" feeling to looting that I find appealing.
Rare mobs should always drop something rare, rather than compounding the rareness. I like to feel a rush of excitement when I see one, knowing that I'm going to get some rare loot. That said, the mob shouldn't be too common. It should be rare enough to be exciting to find. A quick spawn rate can make them feel mundane.
Bosses should always drop something exciting, but have something very exciting with a tiny drop chance. I think classic WoW did well with the loot on some bosses, where there was guaranteed to be a rare quality drop, but a tiny chance of an epic quality drop. For example in the Blackrock Depths dungeon the weapon Ironfoe has a 1.04% chance to drop from the final boss and is the only epic quality weapon to drop from that dungeon. It has resulted in Ironfoe becoming a somewhat iconic weapon that's exciting to even see equipped on someone.
I prefer when common mobs have an extremely slim chance of dropping rare world loot, to the point where you might get one drop during your journey to max level. It gives a "Hey, you never know" feeling to looting that I find appealing.
This is akin to something I said. I mean make it really rare - like once or twice a month per server. Enough to make higher level players jealous and regret not investigating that innocent looking gang of garden slugs.
It's also a way for devs to let players know - hey, we are not just replicating drops everywhere but are having fun hiding a few surprises for you.
The girl watched the last of the creatures die and murmured a soft 'Thank you' to her rescuer.
The stranger's eyes lifted to the blood red cloud on the horizon.
In a typical MMO you got group dungeons and raid dungeons. The group dungeons serves you blues during leveling or to prepare you for the raiding at max level. The raid dungeons then gives you the best gear, in tiered progression. Pretty quickly the group dungeons fall from grace because gear progression makes the step into Tier 1 raiding easier and easier.
Age of Conan did a revamp of its crafting system (ages ago) and introduced rare drop intermediary crafting ingredients that would drop in all the dungeons. This gave a constant reason to do all dungeons, if nothing else for old completionist players wishing to fill their recipe book.
In other words, rare drops is a very useful tool to keep things relevant.
Personally I'd say the rarer the item, the rarer the drop chance. I want to run dungeons and raids because they are challenging and fun to do i groups with plenty of mechanics and difficulty. But Id want some kind of reason to do it too - I want to feel some progression, although I'd be more than happy to see it being slow.
Its reasonable that some kind of blue always drops in a 6-man dungeon, but one purple to be shared between 20+ people in a raid dungeon.
The definitive answer is, I want to see things drop less often.
There are many well defined answers. I agree with most and to prevent more of the same I will offer a slightly different take.
Crafted items forever being BIS is the best approach forever.
That said I believe rewarding drops can be both moderate and yet satisfying when done correctly.
An example would be unique mounts, Unique buff potions for crafting, as well as increase to non combat X attribute for 30+ mins as a guaranteed buff for contributing to the takedown of said boss.
Another great loot pool drop to avoid the gear treadmill would be something in the way of writs. Items that can reduce taxes on certain activities for 1x use. Perhaps a drop that will increase the breed efficiency of certain animal husbandry traits for x amount of time.
The possibilities are endless. I am all for pieces of crafted gear recipes as well I just would like to stay as far away as possible from raids, open world events and the like from becoming gear treadmills. Allowing common and uncommon gear to be dropped or vendor purchased is fine. The rare, epic and legendary tier items should be craft only and auctioned by players. This while not perfect, will IMO be the best path for continued and prolonged community interaction while also giving deep satisfaction and reason to be apart of a guild and community that WANTS to contribute and grow together.
Comments
I actually think the rarity that we have seen in the showcases has been all over the place. I like the formula that old WoW has where 98% of the epic+ items you see are at endgame. In the gathering crafting showcase steven had some legendary logs or something, I think stuff like that should not be obtainable at that level. I think all the current rarities in ashes need an adjustment, and no this doesn't actually affect gameplay at all, but aesthetically it matters a lot.
But just for further interest, maybe EXTREMELY rarely and randomly something unique can be held by a very innocuous critter. As in they found it or it came to them by some fortuitous means.
Like Smeagol/Deagol finding the shiny Precious.
Not all things are obtained by overpowering the owner. There can be sneaky little thieves about.
The stranger's eyes lifted to the blood red cloud on the horizon.
'We have to move. It's not safe here.'
Yeah I didn't read past the first paragraph but I agree with the TLDR. Finding rare loot is a core endgameplay loop, collectors will want to farm things they didn't get when the content starts to run out, and that's important because the longer you can keep people interested, the more time Devs have to work on another batch of content. The time between the base game and the first expansion sets the clock for the rest of the game, It's good to give a lot of time so people know what to expect.
Dumb. There should be multiple ways to obtain gear, not everyone likes crafting.
Should be able to obtain gear through PVP, PVE questing, loot, crafting, raids and dungeons.
Crafting is irrelevant in other games ONLY because the gathering and crafting takes so long it's more efficient to level past whatever it is you want to craft and get it somewhere else.
Basicly:
IF YOU WANT CRAFTING TO BE RELAVENT, DON'T MAKE OBTAINING THE SKILL AND RESOURCES TAKE LONGER THAN IT TAKES TO LEVEL.
It is an essential part of the risk vs reward equation.
A "rare drop" is only as rare as its drop chances or as its "rare monster" host.
I'm more inclined towards "not too rare of a monster" with "truly rare drops" due to having more shoots at the possible jackpots than "truly rare monster" with "not too rare of a drop" but can understand the utility of having both types.
I believe full gear drops can be amazing rare drop jackpots for both rare monsters and bosses, but they need to have properly balanced drop chances as to not diminish the value and effort of the Crafted full item which should be the main source of such items, while at the same time not being too rare to the point said rare monsters and bosses become unbalanced where their risks outclasses their rewards.
In my opinion Lineage 2 did an amazing job in this regard, there even the average monsters had chances to drop full gear(even if with ludicrously low chances like 1/200000 at rarest)(With rare monsters and bosses having way better chances[but no guarantees] and only Legendary/World bosses having somewhat near said guarantees).
The mere presence of such chances generates the expectation of the possible jackpots everywhere in the world against all monster and gives extra meaning to how much worth there is for the full crafted gear piece.
Alongside such full gear drops possibilites, the average monsters always had the key material required to craft said gear with reasonable drop chances as consolation drops to work towards the desired gear.
Aren't we all sinners?
James just said everything I wanted to say but even better than how I would've put it.
The only additional note on that design is the supposed promise of "no grinding" from Steven, while L2's design encourages grinding quite a bit. So I dunno if L2's design will fit what Ashes is trying to go for, but w/o any real knowledge of where it's going I got no clue either way.
Well said. I would go a bit farther. Gear drops of any kind should not occur. The most common weapon or armor may drop but it should be very worn and in need of repair at best. It should as well reflect the type of mob it came from. If you just killed it then the armor is in bad shape and the weapons sundered. Artisanship of all kinds would be cheapened to the point of non-viability if completed gear would drop. Not seeing the complete artisan system, it is difficult to determine HOW much better crafted gear is to dropped but it should be substantially much much better.
To me, this depends on what you mean by "interesting".
If by that you mean PoE top end unique item "interesting", where having the item literally changes the way you spec and play your character, then such items should be dropped infrequently, with more generic items suited to the challenge of the encounter dropped every kill.
On the other hand, if by "interesting" you mean basically WoW itemization where it is essentially just "make number go up" type itemization where you continue to play your character basically the same way, then such items should drop more often.
not gonna be an mmo if there are no neckbeards playing it lol
You made an account to say that?
1. Steven has ASKED for feedback.
2. Steven has a neckbeard.
3. Shut up.
The stranger's eyes lifted to the blood red cloud on the horizon.
'We have to move. It's not safe here.'
First of all, you have to take into account the type of rare monster and the associated drops.
I've always found it highly illogical to defeat a gigantic beast and have it drop a two-handed sword. Where does it come from? While butchering the beast for its teeth, poison gland etc. might make sense.
In the case of a bandit leader, yes, it's logical that you can recover some of his equipment if you're lucky enough not to destroy it in battle, or some of the materials that make up his equipment... and it doesn't mean he had ultimate stuff, he can just have some good items of normal to rare rarity. And i think it is totally ok to drop it.
After a battle is over, you can also loot the boss or monster's personal chest (if he was smart enough to own such a thing).
So for me, it would be interesting to make a distinction between rare drops on creatures and monsters that would loot materials in 90% of cases, which could be rare.
And humanoids, who could drop complete items (broken, damaged, recipes, etc.).
The integration of harvesting professions within the monsters themselves could also be interesting, having a master skinner in the group to retrieve the best materials etc. ... but I digress.
As long as complete items retain a role in the crafting ecosystem, and loot rates for complete items are much lower than for materials, I think it's a good compromise. It would allow you to target materials or complete items according to bosses and monsters.
Full items should be repaired/maintained, and while they are very rare and inferior to crafted items in any case, they may remain a viable alternative for less wealthy and less organized players, who would prefer to target full item drops. Although the game has a craft-centric and social component, it shouldn't be unplayable for less-involved casual players either.
Generally speaking, I don't agree that looting full items is problematic. It would be problematic if the loot of the complete item required no interaction with the crafting system for it to reach its full potential. But if the complete item needs to be repaired/sharpened/enchanted, the problem solves itself.
As Ashes of Creation is intended to be a game with interconnected systems, it would seem logical to me that loot should also benefit from this interconnection, to the benefit of the game experience, immersion, economy and players.
there are no problems, only solutions.
To sum up:
- Loot circumstantial and logical in relation to the type of monster / Pnj beaten.
- Mostly materials/recipes, rarely complete items if relevant.
- A minimum number of normal to rare materials, then a chance of better loot, potentially influenced by team raid/dungeon performance.
- Crafted items remain superior to looted items
- It would be interesting if crafting/harvesting professions had the possibility of interacting with the corpses of defeated monsters to maximize the obtainment of better materials. Stone Golem: Miner, Living Tree : Lumberjack etc...
- Looted items remain rare, can be looted destroyed/damaged/need an enchantment to be restored and reach their full potential, be set items, trigger a quest etc.
That is my 2 cents on that point.
For bosses with more than an hour respawn timer I would say something like minimum 5-10% drops are good. It shouldn’t be that your character is over leveled by the time they actually get the drop they want that they are farming.
Killing the same boss 20 times to get an item that lasts from level 35-40 is more than enough for it to be considered hard to get. Even that might not be worth farming if you can level from 35-40 in a few days.
Crafters make the best stuff anyways.
Killing a rare mob or boss and getting nothing feels bad but also getting everything easily also feels bad so need to go somewhere inbetween where the a common loot table the boss drops but also a rare one too. So you dont get shafted with nothing but there always that chance of like a 1% drop for rare item or mount or something like that.
Just dont be super rare drop like say black pearl from archeage where u needed 55 items that had a 0.1% drop rate on 5 different bosses that had alike a 5hr respawn time or something dumb. also trying to farm cannon dmg armor was disapointing too in archage, had 2 do a pain in the ass underwater dungeon and kill a raid boss that had like 25% chance to drop 1 piece of armor did that raid with like 40 people 9 times and came out with 3 pieces not even a full set and the only thing it did was 2% ship cannon dmg no reason why it was a right pain in the ass to get.
baren riven and the tiger boss in ZG in WoW were good esample i think of how to do loot both had a common pool loot where u would get atleast 1 piece of good gear but they also had a super rare chance .5-1% or something to get a unique looking mount that was realy cool to get.
everquest was pretty good system too all named mobs had a common drop and a rare drop and sometime an uncommon drop, you would always get one on kill it was like 70% common, 25% uncommon 5% rare roughly
Perhaps if it's a non-equipment using creature that hoards stuff, like dragons traditionally do, sure, throw in some rare finished items once in a while.
Leave the finished items to monsters/bosses that actually use them. Like intelligent humanoid ones. Especially crafting recipes. For example, it makes absolutely zero sense for an Elder Dragon to carry a recipe for a dragon scale shield.
That is like you and me carrying a recipe for cooking human liver, and which chianti it goes with, in case we die.
Rare is the wrong word. When people think of a rare item what they mean is "powerful item". A weaker than normal item that rarely drop will only interest completionist collectors. So it's more a question of quality than rarity, although both are usually tied, and it's by design.
I've often been vocal about my disinterest for gear. I don't get any excitement from a drop, no matter how rare. If its chances of being dropped are low and I have to "work" a long time to get it, I don't go "Yes!" when it finally does drop. It's more in the line of "about time" kind of thought. Yeah, I'm not much dopamine driven, my receptors are probably out-tuned or insensitive.
I don't like the unfairness in time spent inherent to RNG. I thus prefer certainties over RNG drops. Quest rewards cover that in part. Incremental progression is another way I find fair to stretch the time to obtain something, be it through reputation gain, gold put aside, or other slow but steady means. Player made items FTW.
I don't mean there should be no random drops, only that the rarer the possibilities are, the lower my motivation and interest in getting them are. I'm aware "risk vs reward" is one of the pillars, but it doesn't do anything for me, well, the reward side doesn't.
In a themepark with well-defined raiding scenarios, where everyone ideally gets BiS eventually, random loot is cancer. This is why WoW slowly introduced other ways to get gear and/or upgrade what you have, and why FFXIV has for many years used tokens and only-slightly-random loot (for gear at least). And in GW2, the few random Ascended drops (or gen 1 precursors) are really just shortcuts to something you are expected to craft/buy.
Of course, in all of those games there are some mounts or cosmetics that continue to be locked behind atrocious random drop rates. I'm not a fan of it personally, but the community seems totally fine with it as a form of rarity.
But this isn't a game like that. People (and groups) will naturally be different power-levels and Ashes seems to embrace that, so there's no need to maintain an accessible path to BiS for everyone. Furthermore, gear in Ashes is temporary. Which means two things for ultra-rare loots: It doesn't provide an undue advantage in the long-term, and the droprate for rare gear can be relatively high. In other games, "rare" stuff needs to have abysmal droprates, because it lasts forever and everyone would get one eventually if the droprate was higher. In Ashes, it's possible to increase the droprate to allow everyone to get rare stuff occasionally, but still have it be rare at any given moment because it's temporary. Kind of like a classic arcade power-up, you'll probably get quite a lot over the course of the whole game, but most of the time you won't have any.
But like I said, I don't play many games like Ashes, so I don't have a clue what the perfect tuning is for rare drops. I just know that rare drops and legendaries and such are probably acceptable at some level, even for a player like me who hates RNG loot. I guess my only request is to try and keep the power differences between accessible, rare, and super-rare gear to a reasonable level. It's fine if legendary items get special abilities and such, and it's fine if they confer an advantage in some fights, but they shouldn't be so obnoxiously powerful that they hard-carry entire GvG fights. People shouldn't have to completely avoid fighting a guild just because they have a legendary or two (for a month or however long it lasts).
This is potentially huge question, and one that alongside combat makes up the absolute essence of any RPG game.
Gathering
Rare loot and gathering... There's two ways (as I can see it) to go about this: Either, you have a chance for a rare material to drop from a regular "source" of gathering - or there is the option where you have a chance for a rare "source" of gathering to appear, which then has a 100 % chance to give you the rare materiale connected with the rare "source". I am for one much more in favor of the latter! I think it provides much more hype and alot more wow-factor to have a burning-spruce tree pop up, a sunlight-stricken ore, a massive three-headed stag, or a huge diety-looking fish! The first option usually ends up with alot of not-so-exciting hours of grinding where you just hope for the next tree to be the one... it's much more fulfilling (especially with your visuals in Vera!) to have some grand and impressive source suddenly pop up!
Crafting / Processing
Again, you could make this RNG and give it so you have a slight chance to get a better outcome - but imo. the outcome of crafting should be fixed to the material-usage, the recipe, skill level and so on.. not RNG
Open-world rare loot
I personally think that every mob in the game from the starting area to the last boss needs to have some sort of chance to provide you with something exciting and good. There are games out there, like SWTOR, where you had to cross a certain level-threshhold before even "basic" green items could drop, and that just feels a little disapointing. I'm not saying level 1 mobs should drop purple/epic items, but they should still provide you with a chance for something!
As for "rare-loot" and "rare-spawns"; alot of games has rare-spawn creatures; creatures you just know are a little bigger and badder than their kin, and I would love to see that in Vera aswell! What I would hate to see, is for them to just pop-up everywhere all the time, and then just have a slight chance to give you something good... as with the gathering; it should be the "source" that is "RARE" and the "loot" from it should be somewhat secured - also makes for a more interesting PVP option to fight for rare-mobs and rare gathering-sources.
Bosses (raids, worldbosses, dungeons)
Loot from bosses has been made in alot of different ways; you can have a totally randomized loot-table, where everything in a dungeon has the same chance to drop something (Dungeon-crawler style) or have the bosses drop rare/epic loot but still from randomized loot-table with randomized stats.
I, for one, feel like gear and loot is the quintessential of what makes RPGs good. The "quest" for betterment is what drives our journey! If it's the Umbra-sword in The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Hand of ragnaros in WoW or the alt art Atziri's mirror in Path of Exile - these big juicy pieces of loot drives us to grind, explore, play and enjoy!
Now what is then NOT enjoyable you ask? R N G. To have that ONE big shiny end-of-the-rainbow item drop - just for it to have been rolled with shitty stats and be totally useless. That makes you wanna quit and go play Hello-Kitty-Island with Butters. Bosses need a fixed loottable. Otherwise, you'll have nothing to drive you towards something - if everything is just random, your means of playing and enjoyment of the game will also be random - and for a game as grand and beautiful as Ashes nothing would sadden me more than to feel like I was just wandering aimlessly around
Generel discussion: Should there be equipable item drops?
A hot take on ALL of this could be, that no equipable items should be able to drop in the game. They could be quest rewards, sure, but imagine a world where you would have to use this worlds vast network of players, nodes and freeholds all the time to get better equipable items! Raid-bosses? They are story-driven characters who is connected to the void and the Three, but they are ALSO guardians of some of the most RARE and PURE crafting materials there is; they are not the end-goal - they are but a pathway to the end-goal!
I don't think something like this has ever been done, and I don't know how or IF it could work, but it would be a very intresting way, and it would make Ashes THE game for people who love the MMO-aspect of the genre; you need even more than just a raidgroup and a guild; you need an entire node, perhabs a certain freehold and boy'o'boy would it be rewarding when you finally get to craft that new gear.
Obviously, this could be taken down a notch... if could just be so, that the best items in the game (and it has to be with some margin) is from crafting, so you still keep that MMO-aspect alive, but doesn't slow down the game too much (which I could fear a totally "loot-less" game would).
My initial reaction was to agree with the others that have been saying that mobs and bosses shouldn't drop completed gear because it undermines the artisanship system. I understand and agree with that sentiment. After all, why should I bother to level up blacksmithing, put in all the work to purchase a freehold, and build a T5 smithy, if I have a good chance to get epic gear after a single night of raiding with my guild?
However, If bosses only drop crafting materials, then its reasonable to assume that instead of rolling for loot, all the materials would be directly handed to the guild's crafters. I think it would feel frustrating if after a full night of raiding and downing several bosses, I never even got to roll on a single piece of loot.
Therefore, I think both gear and crafting materials need to have a chance to drop, with crafted gear being roughly 10% better than dropped gear.
Drop Rarity:
When I played WoW, I created 5 alts to farm the Ashes of Alar mount. Every week I farmed TK on each of my alts to try to get that mount. Finally, after several months it eventually dropped. However, as cool as that mount was, I wasn't excited. Instead, I felt relieved. I thought, "Finally, I never have to do this ever again. I'm done!"
Finding that super rare item can be really exciting, but it can also be really frustrating when your luck is bad. I've always hated quests where I had to collect a drop from a monster when there wasn't a 100% drop chance. I would much rather collect 20 boar tusks with a 100% drop chance then collect 1 boar tusk with a 5% drop chance.
The whole concept of rare means that it is truly rare not just uncommon. I don't like it when a level 5 bear could drop some fantastic item, feels like it breaks emersion. That said I also hate it when your fighting say a creature that is wielding a weapon and the weapon does not drop. That weapon does not need to be rare but the weapon needs to drop when you kill the mob. Same sort of thing when you kill a wolf and no wolf teeth, or wolf hide or whatever drops. Makes no sense.
But I also think the rarest items/mats should also react to groups performance. Say, add 2% chance for Speedrun, or add 3% for Undying, and add another 3% if a group can go both speed and Undying.
Something to spice it up a bit, this way the players always know something is on the line, but don't know exactly what that is. Could come in the form of another chest spawn somewhere, an extra loot-dropping Mimic somewhere , a specific item or material being put in a bosses loot table that wasn't available before, or a spawning Loot Goblin in the middle of a fight, at an awkward time that players have to kill.
Rare mobs should always drop something rare, rather than compounding the rareness. I like to feel a rush of excitement when I see one, knowing that I'm going to get some rare loot. That said, the mob shouldn't be too common. It should be rare enough to be exciting to find. A quick spawn rate can make them feel mundane.
Bosses should always drop something exciting, but have something very exciting with a tiny drop chance. I think classic WoW did well with the loot on some bosses, where there was guaranteed to be a rare quality drop, but a tiny chance of an epic quality drop. For example in the Blackrock Depths dungeon the weapon Ironfoe has a 1.04% chance to drop from the final boss and is the only epic quality weapon to drop from that dungeon. It has resulted in Ironfoe becoming a somewhat iconic weapon that's exciting to even see equipped on someone.
This is akin to something I said. I mean make it really rare - like once or twice a month per server. Enough to make higher level players jealous and regret not investigating that innocent looking gang of garden slugs.
It's also a way for devs to let players know - hey, we are not just replicating drops everywhere but are having fun hiding a few surprises for you.
The stranger's eyes lifted to the blood red cloud on the horizon.
'We have to move. It's not safe here.'
Age of Conan did a revamp of its crafting system (ages ago) and introduced rare drop intermediary crafting ingredients that would drop in all the dungeons. This gave a constant reason to do all dungeons, if nothing else for old completionist players wishing to fill their recipe book.
In other words, rare drops is a very useful tool to keep things relevant.
Personally I'd say the rarer the item, the rarer the drop chance. I want to run dungeons and raids because they are challenging and fun to do i groups with plenty of mechanics and difficulty. But Id want some kind of reason to do it too - I want to feel some progression, although I'd be more than happy to see it being slow.
Its reasonable that some kind of blue always drops in a 6-man dungeon, but one purple to be shared between 20+ people in a raid dungeon.
The definitive answer is, I want to see things drop less often.
Crafted items forever being BIS is the best approach forever.
That said I believe rewarding drops can be both moderate and yet satisfying when done correctly.
An example would be unique mounts, Unique buff potions for crafting, as well as increase to non combat X attribute for 30+ mins as a guaranteed buff for contributing to the takedown of said boss.
Another great loot pool drop to avoid the gear treadmill would be something in the way of writs. Items that can reduce taxes on certain activities for 1x use. Perhaps a drop that will increase the breed efficiency of certain animal husbandry traits for x amount of time.
The possibilities are endless. I am all for pieces of crafted gear recipes as well I just would like to stay as far away as possible from raids, open world events and the like from becoming gear treadmills. Allowing common and uncommon gear to be dropped or vendor purchased is fine. The rare, epic and legendary tier items should be craft only and auctioned by players. This while not perfect, will IMO be the best path for continued and prolonged community interaction while also giving deep satisfaction and reason to be apart of a guild and community that WANTS to contribute and grow together.