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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
Glint
Zone/Mobtype specific crafting items
Quest items
Level appropriate gear
Do you feel good when regular mobs have a rare chance to drop powerful items?
Yes but never better than dungeon/raid gear. Something helpful for getting ready for dungeons or raids would still be cool to get but not gamebreaking.
Additional suggestion
My favorite item drop mechanic in any MMO: There is a mechanic in Ragnarok online where every unique mob has a very small chance to drop a card that you can slot on specific gear. These cards have effects that are really strong like +20% dmg on specific race or element, element resistance, defense increase, more hp, more mana etc. These effects give insane build variety and its incredibly fun (addicting) to hunt these cards.
for the ones that mentioned some of the legendary gear even if you don't get a whole item if you got some pieces of the gear that you then had to take to a master crafter, of the appropriate profession, to put the broken pieces together and "fix" the item.
i also enjoyed some games where the item was like an unidentified sword with stats and after you identified it then you could find out its special abilities and stats.
something that would be interesting is if mobs looted the guys who attacked and failed to kill them and then those things became part of the loot or the boxes of loot in a camp. they could "collect" items that were dropped or left behind.
I for example find myself farming a pack of wild horses looking for a certain piece of loot that I can use within Animal Husbandry to craft, or increase the power of my own mounts.
Rare enemies and respective bosses should include valuable gold/weapons/armor. I also feel like there should be some super rare loot that could make farming these enemies fun!
Discord.gg/ironoceans
I like when monsters I'm expected to farm or deal with regularly are relevant in terms of drops. Meaning resources to repair or craft my gear.
The super rare chance to drop something amazing off any monster anywhere in the world is also fine by me. I see it as a lottery for people who spend a lot of time playing (mostly.) Harmless and random. I do think based on the level of the monster there should be a range for the item power level that drops. Just to prevent someone spam farming a lower area to force it.
I prefer there being some chance for monsters to drop double their expected resources or higher quality drops on a lower level "rare" drop. Both the uber rare powerful item and common version of extra or upgraded mats do the same thing - incentivize people to play. So do both!
Items the mobs wearing, holding in hands and useful body parts.
And I feel different attack approach should affect the chance and the quality of dropping items. Like fire ball will burn fur and skin or poison will affect to meat and organs both lower the item drop rate. So you may want use bow and arrow or ice magic if you are hunting for fur and skin, and avoid using poison if you are hunting for meat to cook, avoid using piercing type of attacks like bow and arrow that may damaging the organs for alchemy.
-Do you feel good when regular mobs have a rare chance to drop powerful items?
Yeah, but it should be very rare and the reasons why the mob have a chance to drop the rare item should also make sense. And the regular mob that will drop rare item should look no different than normal one but more powerful in some way(s) than the others because of the rare item.
From regular mobs, I've always enjoyed to find various qualities of material, varying from glint in AoC's case, rags of torn cloth, small material gains that can be optained. When this is said, i want to see som varriance in the loot I'm given. For multiple kills getting same 3-4 variances can become stale in my oppinion.
Having rare drops assosiated with some backstory, like a recipe for specic weapon alocated to a thribe or semilar should be farmable, and feel rewarded when achieved.
- This comes with some attention points, where you need to be cautius for a certain creation not being overly camped, or take too much attention.
- Shared loot table with other areas can be good
I do want a chance of rare drops from regular mobs too though. From intelligent mobs, like humanoids, recipes and the occasional item is ok. A recipe for a rare goblin 2H sword. A mask from a shaman. More recipes than finished items though, if it makes sense for the mob type.
Treasure maps, either whole or in pieces, to get people exploring.
Rare materials are ok too.
More than anything else, I would like you to lean into rare cosmetics. Appearance slot items matching the mob if we're talking weapons and armor, like a full goblin outfit. From birds and flowers, very rare cosmetic pet drops. Like babies and seedlings. From mammals, perhaps hunting trophies for the wall at home.
I am not super fond of world loot drop tables.
Some are arguing here that we don't even need regular gear as drops because we have the professions. I'd say at least give us ways to get like 50% of the bare minimum gear needed just to level without crafters so that we still need them but we aren't spending half of our game time just trying to find a crafter for the exact right slot.
As for special % drops... Shrug. Not required imo
-Humans/ player NPC (races ) small chance to get gold in variance not actual gold like silver or bronze, plus small chance at armor, weapon and weapon style, and something that makes sense like maybe a high level bandit would have a health pot or maybe a shaman or herbalist would have some herb mats, maybe rare, again small drop chance, only thing that should almost always drop is money and mats
-Beast humanoid races/ goblins, minotaur's ( semi civilized races ) slightly more gold ( because its decoration for them not currency ) special mats based on mob type, a small chance at weapons, armor ( maybe make it so only a beast race can attempt to wear it on the spot ( tulnar ), but if your more human take it to a blacksmith to get it fitted.
-Enlarged animals- Spiders, scorpions, Deer; so on should be strictly mats and materials, it makes no sense when they have gold unless they've eaten someone, but you know that's a different discussion, maybe when you kill enough of a certain animal mob it can give you more of an inspiration blueprint to build an armor or weapon based on the mob, like for an example i killed 1000 giant spiders of any variation, i might get s small quest saying " I've killed enough of these creatures to know the weak and hard spots of its carapace, i believe someone with my talents could make a then roll a " then either roll a table of what that character uses or if your generous unluck a bunch of blueprints using a special material you can get only after getting that quest, you could even make it based on there profession if you wanted, if they are an alchemist, you could get a crazy potion or something, I feel there's a lot that can be done.
-Large unique/ Bosses/ Rare spawns all 3 of these should have a unique item to them at a semi low drop rate, and not WOW's drop rate of 0.1 % i mean like 2% kind of drop, because you want people to get it, unique mats, Weapons and armor, and blueprints, blueprints can work for these unique mobs because they are always almost very different, there should also be a hoard somewhere from this mob, Dragons or Drakonids would gather gold for greed, but again you could make it based on what it is too, if its the Forest drake, make majority of his loot very unique rare or higher herb mats.
In all i would personally like it to be semi realistic, and for it to make sense, i really don't want to loot a crab and get like 4 silver like i want it to make sense, the glint system though should just be based on the tier of mob it is, and maybe don't have it so readily around, i think the glint numbers need to come down a little.
A: Pretty much the same as @NiKr
The expected glint
Possible crafting materials
Mob-specific crafting materials(used for the crafting of the full items the mob can drop)
Full items
[All varying chances and amounts depending on monsters level/power/rarity(Normal, Elite, Mini Boss and etc.]
Example:
[Undead Soldier] Normal Monster {Level 20}
Drop Group Chance: 50%
[1-2] Dull Glint⬬ Common - 30%
Dim Glint⧫ Uncommon - 15%
Glowing Glint▲ Rare - 5%
Drop Group Chance: 25%
[1-2] Bones 15%
Iron shards 5%
Leather scraps 5%
Drop Group Chance: 5%
Fallen Soldier's Leather Gloves lining 3%
Fallen Soldier's Ring Mail part 1.5%
Fallen Soldier's Sword piece 0.5%
Drop Group Chance: 1%
Fallen Soldier's Leather Gloves (Common) 0.6%
Fallen Soldier's Ring Mail (Common) 0.3%
Fallen Soldier's Sword(Common) 0.1%
Drop Group Chance: 0.5%
Fallen Soldier's Leather Gloves [Uncommon] 0.3%
Fallen Soldier's Ring Mail [Uncommon] 0.15%
Fallen Soldier's Sword [Uncommon] 0.05%
Q: Do you feel good when regular mobs have a rare chance to drop powerful items?
A: I don't think monsters should drop "powerful items" but items within the monster's level, power and rarity 3D Axis point.
Aren't we all sinners?
This is a difficult topic to tackle without knowing how loot drops work in groups and raids. Are loot drops always individual or can a raid leader change that setting? Limiting high end crafting material drops to boss mobs that take several groups to take down is problematic. It could create a WOW-like raid system where raid leaders control and keep all loot (I have this concern for Caravans too).
It would be nice if common mobs could have a very low chance to drop high end crafting materials. These materials could even be broken down into shards a la Path of Exile. It is fun to have the ability to target farm materials, even if the grind required is understandably much longer. I as a player feel like I can make significant progress solo or in a small group.
I can also see how allowing common mobs to have the possibility of great drops could lead to bot farming. I can only hope that active GM's will prevent this. Altering gameplay to counter cheats and botters because game devs don't want to hire active GM's feels awful. Just ask every Escape from Tarkov player.
This is a tough subject that affects a number of game areas. I believe the most important concepts are 'Crafters should make the best gear' and 'Ashes of Creation needs active GM's to preserve the game's economy'. This will create an environment that will create meaningful data that you all can balance over time.
Low-level mobs should - as all mobs should - still offer that 1-in-5000 chance to drop something odd, rare, or otherwise intriguing. In many games past, we knew the *exact* loot-table of certain mobs - and this lent a sense of dullness and predictability to what might be found, of them. However? If there is even the *SLIGHTEST* of chance that something extraordinary might still be dropped by the most-mundane of mobs, then there is no reason to simply avoid that mob, rather than wading through it; Why pass on the smallest of opportunities, when opportunity exists? The lack of this element is the core reason most players avoid the lowest and most-ordinary of mobs. After all, why bother, if there is quite literally no reason to bother?
The most frustrating thing is when bosses only drop parts of a set. Each set consists of 5+ items. And there are sets of light, medium, and heavy armor. And the drop from the boss is not even guaranteed. As a result, you can farm this boss with your party every single day and still not be able to get a full set after a year.
So I think it should be somewhat like this.
Regular mobs:
- mats
- money
- quest items
- lowest grade crafting recepies
Unique mobs:
- mats
- money
- quest items
- ordinary and rare crafting recipes
- parts of full items required for craft
- very small chance of dropping a full item visible on this mob
Bosses:
- same as unigue mobs but the grade of recepies, parts, and items is rare or legendary
- plus eggs (or alternatives) of mounts
World and Raid Bosses:
- same as bosses, but the grade is the highest
- artifacts
Also i expect that "trash" mobs drop alot more green versions of the armor.
It aleays suck when you farm/grind and you dont get loot so drops from everything is a must IMO.
Once every few Years - > i find and take up a "weaker Epic Tier Weapon" or so, from a completely random, regular Mob - in World of WoW-Token Craft.
I think that is kinda fair. They should not drop the strongest Stuff around - and only VEEERY rarely drop a rather high-tier Armor-Piece, Weapon, Ingredient, whatever.
OR - > it should be justified very carefully. Like when some random Goblin, Mushroom-Enemy, or whatever else regular Mob drops something very unusual and valuable, that there might be a relatable Reason Lore-wise, nearby.
For Example - regular Mobs dropping something "corrupted", like corrupted Gems, Wood, Ressources Minerals whatever - when a corrupted Area is nearby.
The Explanation then could be, that they picked it up out of Curiosity.
And very, very rarely - when for Example an absolutely regular Bandit, Minotauer or Goblin or whatever else is very common and regularly in their respective Biomes,
drops a rather rare or even "Epic"-Tier Armor-Piece, Ring, Weapon or whatever - that it can then be explained by that sometimes over the Years, rarely such rare Epic-Tier Items can get lost by People losing it or a Caravan or something else losing it,
OR -> an (imaginary Adventurer) dies somewhere in the Wilderness and then a random Mob happened by Chance to pass by his Remains and pick it up.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
Well... guess I will use "Worl o' Warcraft" as an example once more.
Mind that "white items" are the norm. Green items are rare. Blue items even more rare. Purple are the epics and orange is still the legendary stuff.
Regular mob ( the commonly encountered enemy all over the world )
Chance to drop a green item every 800 kills or so.
Maybe dropping a blue item every 1200 kills or so.
Elite mob ( special mobs who are just stronger due to race, or elite training status )
Chance to drop a green item every 800 kills or so.
Maybe dropping a blue item every 1200 kills or so.
Can also drop a purple item every 1600 kills or so.
Named/Quest mobs
100% chance to drop only items they are connected to. Ranging from quest-items to gear slots.
A thief who stole an axe or a helmet, will drop it upon defeating it. And if you like the item, you can ask the questgiver if you can take this item instead of the currency reward that was innitially offered.
Worldboss mob
Selfexplainatory: Dragons, Ancients and other monstrosities of imense might.
Pretty sure Intrepit already has a loot table for them in mind that is alluring in it's own right.
Super mega hyper giga ultra rare EVENT mob
Mysterious beings who can appear (preferably) anywhere and imbue you with legendary buffs for a certain amount of time or can drop epic(purple) items when interacted with in certain ways.
Example:
The weary old Wanderer
A strange figure in form of an old Human man. He seems confused and is obviously lost. Always talks about if you could stay a while and listen. He then describes how he lost his townportal scroll which could lead him home and describes a place in the world where he lost it. A place always in the same area you find him in.
Helping him in retrieving it will make his gratitude for you overflow and he offers you a reward before he steps through the portal again that leads to god knows where.
You can choose between
* A purple item and for what slot
* A bunch of XP points to level something up with ( Which can be anything really. Those points can also be stored for a later time. )
* A unique and legendary worldclass buff that boosts stats of Intrepit's chosing and lasts for 6 months of online playtime ingame. The timer only decreases when actively logged in and not being inside a node.
This buff cannot be cleansed by any means and remains even after death. Timer does not decrease either while being dead.
( In case we must run back to our corpse in ghostform or whatever happens in Ashes when we die. )
Second example:
"The shining Unicorn"
Yeah... just kill the shining Unicorn before it can run away and despawn. Upon successfully killing it, it will drop itself as a mount version to ride upon. ^^
It runs as fast as your own mounts and it will try to knock you back upon being slowed or stunned.
Should it successfully knock you back it starts to try and flee from you again.
Once attacked it will despawn after distancing itself upon 200 meters from the first player who attacked it.
So you better start out with a stun or slowing effect to make it attack you. Evade its charge to keep it engaged in fight instead of flight.
Good luck.
These are my mob idea's and their respective loot.
The reasons for it:
1. More of an incentive to kill mobs, not just bosses
2. Decentralizes economy more than just a few guilds being able to set prices for everyone by controlling limited resources (not that I think fighting for limited resources is bad, but the people who control them will already have a huge advantage so this will help even it out)
3. Makes people who do stuff in remote, less populated regions even more valuable as the mats will be rarer because of less people killing those mobs there. This encourages players to use all of the map
4. Dopamine hit when something rare drops
But it makes sense that mobs can drop gear-slot items and not just materials.
It would feel very immersionbreaking to me to see me slay a hundred sword wielding foe's and not a single one of them drop a single sword, for example.
To use an example from the pretty cool, also crafting respecting Manga
'GOBLIN SLAYER: SIDE STORY YEAR ONE CHAPTER 88', where an absolute TRASH MOB of a creature, a Goblin, wields a Sword that I would put in the "blue item" category from World of Warcraft.
Not the world, but nothing too shabby either.
1
It is not that it is impossible that a measly little Goblin could get his grubby little hands on something out of the league of it's kind. It is not that they crafted it, but that a species with a much higher level of crafting could lose their gear, no matter how powerful, to the most unlikely of circumstances.
Which leads to the most random of creatures to picking it up.
It would not surprise me to find a very epic and sparkly towershield in the nest of a giant bird of prey that has raven like characterstics for example.
Any kind of absolutism in the game always rows counterproductive to its immersion feeling.
Everything that reminds you that you are just in a videogame is bad for its longevity no matter what it is.
I don't think crafters should fall behind either but they should not make "the best stuff" as proclaimed either.
What they should make is stuff that is ON PAR with the best stuff you can find out there, with the crafting professions might being that the dropchance of the gear they can produce is naturally 100%, simply by acquiring the materials needed for their creation.
And that this path will most likely be much shorter and reliable than the path of hoping for a random worlddrop of highest peaking proportions.
Going the route of ignoring that is a lowblow to what makes adventures, adventures.
The possibility that anything can happen at any time.
That you can come across the epic, or even ultra legendary chance heirloom of a long lost civilication, nation or renowned figure of history.
If there is something that was forged by gods or demigods, I think a player should only be to compete with that if they find a legendary blueprint or recipe as well.
And hopefully these will truly rank only among about 10 players in a year or so, among thousands of players among a server.
If crafting becomes too powerful... why even go out at all?
To gather materials?
So now materials are "our gods & items".
Nothing against the empowerment of the long neglected art of crafting.
I too played WoW Vanilla after all. I just hope it won't feel like "Timmy Ironbeard", the Dwarf who is just a blacksmith for two months, is able to compete with the god of smithing, who's name is only uttered in legends.
That would also feel pretty wierd to me. ^^
I think its fun to stumble upon powerful items from regular mobs and it can feel good, but I don't think it's a necessity. I think specific mobs should drop specific materials, so it can be easy to know where to farm certain things for projects you may be working on. With projects being craft able armor, weapons, and various other items. However, I also don't think it would a bad or unwelcomed addition.
Now, I fully support the idea of having rarer/named enemies to drop rare armor, weapons, and other gear, as well as, them dropping the gear that THEY are wearing. I find in many games that there are many bosses/elite enemies that have the coolest gear, but you can't have it. I would love to see more of that in Ashes where possible. I want to be able see a rare or special boss and say "OOO I want that sword!" and actually be able to do that, based on the drop rates.
Another big thing I would like to see, is lower level areas remaining relevant in end game. Which is where regular mobs dropping specific farmable items that everyone can use/need comes into play, regardless of your level. I think this is a pretty easy way to make sure all places around the map is appropriately populated. Then based on the current player population/player actions of places can help dictate varying spawn rates for said mobs.
More Players = Faster Spawn Rates
Less Players = Slower Spawn Rates
Thoughts?
An air elemental could drop light weight things that were caught in its vortex. A spirit could leave ectoplasmic goo behind. Intelligent creatures could have quest items, stolen material, materials, and gear.
But the thing with gear is how surprisingly tailored it needs to be to be effectively equipped. A helm too small won't even fit a head! So what I propose is that armour drops from normal mobs can't be worn, but give a few different samples to a skilled artisan, to account for size variations and damage sustained (it's from a defeated creatures after all) and the artisan can back engineer the design and acquire the recipe/schematic of that item.
Same for weapons. A minotaure axe is too big for most other races, the balance is way off. Give a few sample to a weaponsmith and they can adapt the item for people of "normal" size.
Fun way for crafters to learn basic items and it creates a market for the un-equipepable armour drop.
Anything that encourages players to spend dozens of hours doing one singular thing, only to possibly walk away with nothing due to chance, is disgusting IMO. That's just a lottery.
Of course, some people enjoy lotteries. They find that RNG makes things more exciting. Totally valid. But I find it unfair, unreliable, and unfun.
Obviously I can't expect the game to be devoid of RNG though, so I'll just ask, please consider carefully where it's appropriate and where it's just frustrating.
Like hunting for rare gems or fish is an activity that RNG is good for. It's an opt-in activity, and it makes sense thematically for those things to be driven by luck.
Similarly, using RNG for common drops, like crafting materials or consumables, is acceptable, due to the law of large numbers. You'll probably get something every hour, and it will average out over time (mostly).
You could also lose a bunch in PvP "due to chance" (crits, unfortunate match-ups, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, etc), but PvP is supposed to be chaotic and risky like that, so that's fine.
On the other hand, large-scale random variation is NOT acceptable when it comes to progression (i.e. loot drops).
Randomly getting ultra-rare gear from common mobs, is just bullshit. If you're able to get usable gear from regular mobs at all, it should be fairly weak (equivalent to moderately-priced crafted items). Elite enemies could drop better gear, but it still shouldn't be anywhere close to winning the lottery. More like finding $20 on the ground (a nice surprise, but not going to change your life in any meaningful way).
Any larger bosses/raids, should follow a similar vein, but from the perspective of a party/guild rather than one person. Powerful rare loot is much more tolerable here, because it's being distributed between a bunch of people (ideally with a fair group-loot system, but I think that was already a dev discussion topic). However, the droprates still need to be tuned reasonably. Let's just say, as long as someone is getting something useful, at least half of the time, then it's acceptable RNG from the perpective of the guild.
As for legendary drops, I would prefer if legendary gear was acquired without any RNG (via long quests, big events, or crafting grinds), but it doesn't really matter that much. I've already accepted that I'll never get any.
I prefer only mats and some rare mats drop from regular mobs everything else dropping from raid, dungeons bosses and world bosses.
I do have an idea though purple or some legendary items could be adquire after finishing mission chains for divine nodes.
After being #1 on the arena leaderboards for militaristic nodes.
After knowing certain amount of recepies for scientific nodes.
After selling certain amount of mats for economic nodes.
All these purple or legendary items adquire by these methods should only last for 1 month.
As for the second question I feel good after getting powerful items if I have done something interesting to get it, not necessarily have to be super hard.
That is usually just right.
However ... ...
... ... sometimes, even a wretched Bandit, a savage Goblin, or a lucky Minotauer - can find and and pick up something that is usually never in the Possession by someone of his Group ... ... ...
A magical Item ... ...
... ... maybe a magical Armor-Piece or Weapon. Who knows ?
The Chance of that happening should be beneath 1% Dropchance. More like something around 0.4% or 0.3% percent Chance of happening,
but it is technically not impossible. While of Course - a Wolf or giant Spider would for Example never have and use a thing like a magical Sword, or magical Ring, or magical Shield or other kind of magical Item - Humanoid Enemies with Hands to use Equipment and Weapons with - could have a slim Chance of carrying and using something unusual.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
If crafting doesnt need a lot of items i'd say you dont need the common mobs to drop extra items too often but having a base reward drop often like in game currency.
I think my preferred version of this is crafting item needs a lot more of said material and its a guaranteed drop of 1 minimum but you can get either rarer versions of the item that can count as many or just a chance to get a bunch just to give you a maximum time-frame to reach that goal and can make it where if someone is playing a class that is good at farming easy mobs they have a good feeling farming method
i also think you dont want common mobs to always be the go to for farming materials, miniboss or more elite enemies need to feel worth their time vs getting a pack of base mobs. If common mob is 1% chance for a rare item to drop but the elite mob is only like 20% it wont feel worth it unless you can also solo the elite mob (but then is it really elite), you'd just kill a bunch of regular mobs. I think having some way to control RNG drop chance is always what feels better since it puts the player in control.
So say the elite mob isnt super common and you need a group to fight it, you probably want to guarantee it drops something worth that time and if it requires a group it might be where you want multiple somethings. 5 people to take it down and it takes a few minutes to kill is essentially 10 mins of time but that doesnt include the grouping up time either for each individual person and making it worth it for them to partake. Problem being is if everyone always gets something is it truly rare so it is a finicky balance.
A different way to handle common mob drops is instead of directly giving in game currency they drop a material whose entire purpose is to npc for that currency to give a bigger incentive for random pvp possibilities. And then you can have whatever the mobs drops as well for crafting sometimes
I do think some rare drops from regular mobs does feel nice but its complicated. If we want something extremely rare it could be something like a weapon/armor skin that is related to said mob as an extremely rare drop from common mobs and just pretty rare from higher tiers so you have multiple avenues to get said thing.
TLDR
Some form of control to RNG where you can view longer periods of time as the control so if you got lucky you save a bunch of time going for whatever the regular mob drops. This is mostly for basic mobs. Day to day use drops for gear or crafting I would want time + chance to reduce time to get item, with non combat/leveling related ultra rare drops (so maybe skins or something in that vein) is my ideal
Drops would have a chance to open different 'boxes', with common drop boxes having decent odds of opening, more valuable drop boxes having low odds, and valuable drop boxes very low odds of triggering. There would then be odds of different loot within each box. Whole item drops exceedingly rare, please.
As an aside, in AoC I will miss the Lineage 2 concept of a 'spoiler.' A Spoiler was one of the dwarven class choices which earned the ability to "spoil" a mob to increase the drop rate and also, potentially, obtain better loot than was available from drops. I loved that, wish we had it here.