Non-raid dungeon loot tables

Zaos

Zaos

Dalayan Adventurer
After having a chance to tour fairly thoroughly all the non raid zones I've really began to wonder why the vast majority of the items that drop in dungeons other than Mielech B are next to useless for anyone capable of obtaining them with the exception of a few novelty items here and there (ie frog in jar, melwins idol, fribby flute).

Kudos on the Kaladim and Mielb loot tables as its remeniscent of the quality of upgrades in the live lower guk zone but they seem to be the exception (and I know theres an item here and there in Paw and what not but, again, those are exceptions and exceptions prove the rule). Unfortunately, that leaves only one zone from 30s to 50s to really camp for upgrades as well as farm in the higher levels (hence the reason its farmed day in and day out). It seems to be pretty well known, as I hear complaints about it often, yet haven't seen much mention made on the forums in recent months.

The problem is, theres a huge gap in equipment stats between normal high level dungeon loot and low end raid loot. I realize that tmaps help fill in the gap some but most of what Im seeing in Velks/Mielc/Kedge is rare drop noob and vender loot. Without going into details or listing items and their stats here I'd just like to suggest the quality of upgrades in mielb be considered in the event that zones come up for an item revamp. In the Velks Lab zone theres much room for improvement as I can hardly justify equipping my newbs with the items that drop there. In fact, some items that drop in 30s dungeons I've found have comparable stats. Just some vague suggestions would be throwing a nice robe drop in Velks and maybe some greaves or a neat weapon or two in kedge/mielc. Going to the end of a wing to find a mob that drops a 5 ac + 50 hp bracer, at level 65, is just disappointing. Maybe a super rare item drop off common mobs like the old belt and book that used to drop in seb.

Tell me what you think :)
(Oh, and I'd be more than happy to help with future item design as I feel like I understand item balancing quite well.)
 
I beleive you're ignoring dungeons like Lasanth, Dragon Necropolis, Fire Grottoes, and Red Sun Mines.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I beleive all of those zones drop fun and useful items for high level peeps.

I'm sure there's more I'm just not thinking of atm.
 
The problem is, theres a huge gap in equipment stats between normal high level dungeon loot and low end raid loot. I realize that tmaps help fill in the gap some but most of what Im seeing in Velks/Mielc/Kedge is rare drop noob and vender loot.
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I disagree. There are some nice drops in all 3 of those zone for higher level pre-raid people. As far as comparing it to raid loot, I belive it is intentional to have raid loot be superior to single groupable mobs (see the other threads suggesting alternative spell and equipment advancement for characters not interested in raiding). Something that takes 3+ groups to kill should drop nicer items than something that can be done with a single, similarly equipped group.
 
No, I'm not ignoring those dungeons. I'm afraid they pretty much follow suit just like the ones named. Fire grottos perhaps being an exception although most of the drops I have seen there that I was able to obtain in an all 60s group weren't items I'd equip on either of my characters at their current level. As far as RSM, DN and Lasanth are concerned, they fit my description above perfectly in that most of the items that drop their I purchased well before I was able to obtain them and had recycled by the time I was in my 50s. People don't usually have a use for items found in these zones by the time they are able to get them. They sell them for cash and give them to their twinks. Again, the exceptions are just that.. exceptions. SOME of those items are fun and good. I'm suggesting the items that are useless to the average group possessing the ability to acquire them should be boosted to give a wider variety of options to those seeking equipment as well as those looking to farm to raise cash.

The proof is in the pudding. /Who all mielechb at any given time and you find someone farming. /Who anywhere else. Why is the zone empty 9 times out of 10 when mielech is occupied? I just believe there can be a little item sprucing to create a greater appeal to group experiencing, exploration and farming. Most of my characters and friends have all had the same gear and most of its come from the same places... miel b and kaladim with a few exceptions.

Yes, obviously I understand the purpose for raid loot being superior. You're missing a good point here. A great deal of my equipment can be aquired by groups 5 - 15 levels below me while I fight harder content to continually receive inferior items, many of which aren't even appealing for to my alts. The point is that items acquired by a single group could be made more useful instead of just going to town and selling to venders or newbs for a few plat what was taken in fighting mobs 40 levels above them, especially those found in 50+ dungeons. Not everyone wants to/can raid to upgrade their 40s and 50s gear when they reach 65.
 
Hmm, I was just wondering, Would it be at all possible to have named mobs ( not just adepts ) drop different loot tables depending on the difficulty of the mob vs. the group ( scaled by level perhaps?) It would give people who lets say, are fighting a mob 5-10 levels above them get a significant upgrade for their hard effort, and discourage them from just logging on their 65's to grab the loot ( I know i do )

I understand, there would probably have to be some kind of fixxes put in to prevent exploting the scaled level system. Just thought I sounded like a good idea =P
 
How about more no drop items in non raid dungeons though? Not to say nerf the items there now as they are still useful to people who exp there (although I killed the offerer tons of times and never ever got a stinkin cloak).


Maybe a few more level appropriate no drop items there?
 
Nodrop items would be good. To me, the biggest issue is upgrading post mielb although there seems to be a great deal of useless vender drops at every level. For sake of farming for cash and other things to more evenly balance it out nodrop wouldnt solve the entire problem.

I try not to compare other games to SoD, live esp being that this server has a lot of original material.. but as far as a loot system goes, back in old pre-way-imbalanced-totally-insane-gear ERA in live I found the majority of drops to be useful and dungeons to be worth camping both for exp/loot and farming. Even common drops were often good for lower levels but if nothing else virtually every rare dropped an item that had some value to it. Just doesn't seem the case with most items 50+ dungeons have been stocked with.
 
Something I would like to point out (that doesn't deserve its own thread) is the severe lack of a back item for cloth casters from level 25 to level 65. Unfortunatally for many, the Rat Fur Cloak is the only back item worth a shit for those 40 levels until you start raiding, just because there are absolutely no droppable non-raid back items.
 
Theres also Cmal, Cata, and Everchill that drop pretty nice loot for the effort required. Everchill may be a 'raid' zone but there are a couple mobs on the exp side that drop really nice items for use, Cmal and Cata (6 man capped zones) drop items that even top-end raiders still use. Yes, they may require a little better of a force but they dont require anything close to a raid, and the risk vs. reward is spectacular :)
 
Zaos said:
if nothing else virtually every rare dropped an item that had some value to it. Just doesn't seem the case with most items 50+ dungeons have been stocked with.
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Part of the problem here is the server economy has become such that people just dont have the cash to spend for items. Thus, you have nice items like the Slime Covered Helmet going for pennies compared to it's actual worth. When this is the case, it's obvious that any lowbie can gear himself out with stuff like that with just a little bit of effort, and then what do you know? He can't get any major upgrades until raiding at 65 because he just bought an item that drops from a 55-60 zone for 50 pp.

Yes, making items like this "No Drop" would make them more viable as upgrades instead of twinkie items (if only because you can't get your hands on it until you're exp'ing there); another option would be to make items (or the mobs) like this much more rare, thus increasing the value of such drops. However, I really dislike the idea of making more items "No Drop."
 
I dont like the idea of making more nodrop either. The low lvl getting the high lvl gear because of economy does present a paradox as well but overlooking that for the just improving the post 50 gear would solve most of the problem. Perhaps just a higher lvl prereq which is better than nodrop.
 
When I say "FE FI FO FUM LOOK OUT SUNMINES HERE I COME", I don't do it for show. RSM has plenty of good loot in it. EC also has some sexy stuff. FG and Kedge, yeah, I can see where you're coming from, but don't go hating on the sunmines okay that zone is a jesus.
 
Maybe what you meant to say is there is not much of a variance of equipment out there? Hence the reason why certain areas are being farmed? I will admit until you hit the raid level stuff, you tend to see all the tanks with all similar armor, most INT casters have the robe of woven fog or the Tier 4 TMap robe, etc. There might not be that variety of armor out there, but in most cases there's typically always going to be that 1 robe, or 1 BP, etc that tends to weigh itself best based on stats/armor/etc. over all the others you can get.

I'd actually be curious to know if there are many zones out there that have not been (I'll use the term) "farmed" to see if there are different loot tables, or items that have not been discovered. It's possible that we/you are only seeing these items as the "only" items because people are not thoroughly exploring other zones.
 
If items do not leave the economy, eventually they will saturate the economy to the point where it isn't worth trying to get the item.

NO DROP and ATTUNE features on items are ways to have items leave the economy.

The exact mechanics of NO DROP/ATTUNE need not be followed. For example, it can be made completely voluntary:
1> Add a new augment slot to all items.
2> Create a set of NO DROP augments for that slot called "Custrom-craft".
3> Make it impossible to remove that augment.

Items that are "Custom-craft"ed then become untradeable. It is voluntary "ATTUNEment".

Multiple "Custom-craft" augments can exist. In fact, high end items could have multiple custom-craft augment slots (to make it more tempting to custom-craft them). All that it takes for an augment to be "custom-craft" is that they be unremoveable and NO DROP/ATTUNEable.

Augment sealers could be coded to turn tradeable "custom fitting" augments into NO DROP "custom craft" augments. Heck, there could even be a table that maps "item" to "boost on item when you custom craft it" -- when you do the COMBINE in the augment sealer, it looks finds the appropriate augment for the item, and installs it in the item.

For extra evil, there could be a random factor involved -- you wouldn't know how well the custom fit will boost the item until you make the alterations. 90% chance of a normal boost, 9% chance of an above-normal boost, and 1% chance of a most excellent boost.

If the "custom fit" augments where cheap (the goal is to encourage people to destroy items), people might take cheap items and keep trying to boost them until they got a good or excellent result (thus destroying more of them).

I suspect even a relatively modest boost to item quality would tempt people into removing some of their items from the economy.
 
Just plain upgrading all the loot would not result in you not being able to buy that loot before hunting there, it would just give everyone better gear at lower levels.
 
Yakk said:
If items do not leave the economy, eventually they will saturate the economy to the point where it isn't worth trying to get the item.

NO DROP and ATTUNE features on items are ways to have items leave the economy.

The exact mechanics of NO DROP/ATTUNE need not be followed. For example, it can be made completely voluntary:
1> Add a new augment slot to all items.
2> Create a set of NO DROP augments for that slot called "Custrom-craft".
3> Make it impossible to remove that augment.

Items that are "Custom-craft"ed then become untradeable. It is voluntary "ATTUNEment".

Multiple "Custom-craft" augments can exist. In fact, high end items could have multiple custom-craft augment slots (to make it more tempting to custom-craft them). All that it takes for an augment to be "custom-craft" is that they be unremoveable and NO DROP/ATTUNEable.

Augment sealers could be coded to turn tradeable "custom fitting" augments into NO DROP "custom craft" augments. Heck, there could even be a table that maps "item" to "boost on item when you custom craft it" -- when you do the COMBINE in the augment sealer, it looks finds the appropriate augment for the item, and installs it in the item.

For extra evil, there could be a random factor involved -- you wouldn't know how well the custom fit will boost the item until you make the alterations. 90% chance of a normal boost, 9% chance of an above-normal boost, and 1% chance of a most excellent boost.

If the "custom fit" augments where cheap (the goal is to encourage people to destroy items), people might take cheap items and keep trying to boost them until they got a good or excellent result (thus destroying more of them).

I suspect even a relatively modest boost to item quality would tempt people into removing some of their items from the economy.
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Along the same lines, you could perhaps take a peice of equipment (your new Warlord's BP), and talk to a master smith to see if he can take this item and make it fit you better.

For example, since it was made for a Male Froglock Warrior, I can imagine that my Half Elf Female must require a lot of extra padding to get her Warlord's Breastplate to sit right, and there's likely a bit of extra weight that can be trimmed off to actually fit her much better.

So, Allielyn takes her breastplate to the Master Smith in Newport and turns it in, along with a 50 pp fee for the work done. Voila; I now have a No Drop Chestplate of the Warlord that weighs 5 lbs less and has 3 more AC.

A leather or cloth wearer could of course take theirs to a master tailor.

Of course, this probably would take way too much work to implement on a grand scale, unfortunately. But it's just an idea. Perhaps a little easier than developing an entire new "attunement" aug system.
 
personally I think that each dungeon should drop a rare set of gear, kinda like Yaralith, where regular mobs drop a magical chain set(among other things) of armor rare. If the armor is OK or better for its lvl to obtain people will wear it. I seen people at 45ish low 50ish still wearing that softlerather and that spectral plate, so to combat that remark Wiz mentioned about people will just have better gear for lower lvl. Personally I think that armor like the chain in yaralith, the gnoll skin in dreadfang, the plate in kaladim, and the soft leather (sets) should be in every dungeon zone. I personally dont see why the mobs in Miellec B drop plate armor and so common, when they should drop something that players hunting there can use even if it is rare. And to avoid farmers named-mob drops be no drop. But seriously higher lvl dungeons are boring, I cant think of any that has a set of gear except Plane of Torment which is not an experience hunting place... but because of it I love hunting there alot.
 
Wiz said:
Just plain upgrading all the loot would not result in you not being able to buy that loot before hunting there, it would just give everyone better gear at lower levels.
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It would result in that item leaving the game, making it more rare, and hence more pricey, and thus making it unaffordable for a low-level player to buy overly good loot.

It isn't a fiat solution to the problem -- is an economic solution.

It doesn't prevent people from buying all their gear. Instead, it makes buying gear harder, so killing NCPs for gear is more attractive.
 
Just plain upgrading all the loot is that they do in the Game every time an expansion is released. It results in everything dropping in zones that are not high-end zones disappear from the market, because it is soon flooded with the new, better items from the most difficult zones of the new expansion. Just plain upgrading loot has been tried already and failed miserably.
 
There is a happy medium for these suggestions. There is a way to introduce armor for level 50s-60s to obtain (to upgrade all those nice items from lvl 40s dungeons - ie mielb). Yes, if there is upgrades in these dungeons it would just make it available to newbies but that doesnt mean that there should only be these vender and newbies items dropping all over mielc, kk, fg et al. The fix on that is just lvl requirements or nodrop. I dont like it but I just find experiencing so much more exciting when you have that chance at getting a decent item to drop. Back in live I found it fun camping most exp spots due to the opportunity at a nice rare itemup grade or something decent for selling. This will allow all these 50s and 60s doing xp in just about any dungeon to upgrade their lvl 30s and 40s gear with the items that they are currently getting in 60s zones.
 
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