Give us your feedback on the in-depth Treasure article.

[Ibn]

Treasure in AC (http://ac.turbinegames.com/index.php?page_id=217)

[JJC]

Remove the 250 weild reqs from the level 5 and above loot profiles. Remove the 300 from the level 6 loot. The reasoning behind nothing but level 7 scrolls there must also apply to melee and archers. You don't give them level 5 and 6 scrolls since they don't need them.

JJC

[Kerlin]

It will be nice to get something besides Leather Armors from lvl 60ish critters.

[Bhodi Amashi]

I didn't see any mention of yoroi armor......

[huan]

Add level 7 spells to items. Make them rare but make them. It will have 2 effects:

1) Add a new variable to the Economy
2) Give those players with no-magic a means to compete a little better.

I understand it would cause some kind of brain-fart for some people, but it's time to do it.

[Futile-Effort]

Interesting read, but...

Why the overkill? I can't recall players complaining about the loot system, and from a balance standpoint there were just a handful of creatures that needed to have their chance of dropping a major tweaked down a bit.


But, since you are going this long and tedious route (tedious on the players too), why are you limiting yourselves to 6 wealth levels? Why not add more? If your goal is flexibility this seems like a no brainer to me.

[Aztek]

The new target level 0f 96 for wealth rating 6.

Does that mean solo dires hunters will have better access to the highest level loot say hunting in the west dires?

Im guessing so, but would like a clarifacation so Im not dissapointed again.

[Naia-Ra-Sal]

Similarly, magic casters might have a damage bonus multiplier that worked the same way – applying the modifier only when the damage of the war spell matched the damage type of the bonus

so , fire vull 7 + new possbile "fire slayer" wand = more damage ?
but fire vul 7 + new possible "acid slayer" wand = same damage as now ?

like say olthoi slayer stacks with a vuln ?

do i understand this right?

[Sac]

Thx Ibn, for taking the time to write that up.

Im very excited about the changes especially the future additions. The changes seem to make alot of sense. One in particular caught my eye and should really make for some happy mages, High Al cove armor with a magic resistance req. Booooyaaaaah

But......

For the love of all that is good in Dereth please bring back our pea droppers, ;)

[Harzah]

I guess I'm still recovering a bit from the plague of "why now" - the attitude of 'why adjust the treasure now'? [... I was just getting used to it. I just figured out what to hunt. I could finally hunt X critter for phat lewt. That sort of knee jerk response.] But then I tend to focus on the "now" more and the immediate future compared to what the Devs have to keep an eye on (ie - the future and where the game is going and how to introduce new items without destroying the balance in the game.) I tend to think this sort of change is only going to become really apparent in all its ramifications, to the players, in hindsight, when new items are introduced etc. It's very difficult to encompass, at least for me ;)

I can say, so far, I really like the scroll change, I like that I don't have to camp one kind of critter and hopefully I'll like the changes to the armor as well. Almost everything I have that I intend to keep is "retained" now so that's enough leather thanks ;) The proposed changes for Covenant sound very exciting, frankly. I have two characters who I'm trying to get outfitted in Covenant so I'm glad to see some thought towards that style of armor.

Otherwise, thank you for the write-up! I'm glad that you guys know where you are heading with this even if I cannot quite see all the "whys". On the one hand, I tend to think of the adage 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' but on the other hand I also have been thinking 'just cuz it works don't make it right'.

[hanyuning]

Great article! I love the detailed explanation, and I can't wait to see all the new armor! I really like the magic def yield req, and I'm sure there will be a new tinker salvage to change wield req's in the future, though I've always thought it should have a negative benefit of changing from say missle to melee, so to benefit those that stuck with specing missle or magic def. Too many ppl just spec melee and change the wield on their armor.

One other concern is that of taking out those "other items" out of loot profiles. I play an axe character that I can take out for hours at a time with no buffing. She uses all her own items and is pretty much self sustaining. I do, howerver rely on finding healing kits, stamina potions, and mana stones on the monsters the keep myself going. It is SO much cheaper to destroy a orb to a mana stone and recharge my items that to have to rely on taking 20 mana charges (costing a TON of pyreals) with me.

I really like finding those items. most people leave them on the body, and I'm happy to come by, scoop them up and use them right then and there!

I think there should be a benefit for those of us that design our characters that don't have to go back every 54 minutes to get "rebuffed". Being able to find those items on mobs helps a ton.

[D X Mage]

In regard to the high weild requirement for some weapons, armor and casters. I suggest that it be much more than simply a status item. Sure it might encourage min/maxing, however min/maxing is not without its minuses. These items should be more than a status symbol. Not that it should be impossible for someone with the skill trained to ever weild it or that their base stats are not 100/100. But it should be more difficult for them if not impossible. The trade off is that they are more flexible and that is a positive.

[Widsith]

Futile-Effort asked a question I had been wondering about since you announced that there are only 6 "wealth ratings'. Would it be so hard to add a few more of them? I have no idea what your code looks like, so I may be oversimplifying the process.

My second question has to do with the creature distribution map and table 4. The map lists areas for people to hunt with the same levels as the table. Can I assume that if I currently should be hunting the 60-80 areas on the map, I will be finding mostly wealth rating 4 loot, with some overlap at the edges of the area? If this is true, once the armor gets taken care of in April, I think I will really like this change. Well, except the magic defense requirement on covenant, my main has lousy magic d.

[Aztek]

I like the idea of taking those items off the monsters and putting them in towns.

Gives more of a reason to go to towns/vendors and makes more room in the monsters packs for the good stuff you cannot get in towns.

[Apocalypso]

This is great! I like the chance of Covenant spawning with a magic D req. I don't think new armor levels will be enough to attract characters to specialize Missile D, it will make spec Magic D worthwhile even after getting into VoD. Just a question though, did you look at average skill ranges of characters or just total xp spent to come up with the ranges?

Bhodi - the article mentions that "plate" refers to Plate, Scale and Yoroi

[hanyuning]

In response to Naia-Ra-Sal's question about the new properties on wands:

I can't wait to see that! No longer just looking for 4 workmanship +8 mana wands, now If I'm going to imbue a wand with fire rending, I'll wait till I find a work 4, +8 + 2% fire damage staff that I can imbue!

Could this be possibly implemented on other melee weapons too? Silver Tachi +6 +10 +1.3% slashing damage would be neat,

Or maybe make it random, so you end up with a Silver Flaming war hammer +4 +7 +1.2% Frost Damage!

That'd be fun!

[Zalliun]

Will the monsters get a additional buff ? it seems that the new magic mod and melee mod on wands will empower chars alot, i hope that creatures get a buff also so the game just dont get easier.

[Shaolin]

All very interseting and well written, but......

Please make sure you spend time testing!

also would it not have made more sense to have sorted the bread and butter loot 1st? e.g. peas, that way looting would have still been worth while during the past few months, and then the high lvl wealth?

just wondering as as it is now, it is extreemly boring and fruitless
in terms of cash loot and pretty much everything else for that matter ;)

as long as you guys have been supporting this game, you above all should have learned not to degrade game mechanics in such a way as to effect all aspects of 1 percieved game dynamic (loot)
in such a way as to make it pretty boring and fruitless for months at a time, although it is needed, it should have been implemented all at once or, in a manor as to not render an ingame option as a waste of effort to spend ingame play time on.

[Tsariun]

Very informative.

Concerning the possible addition of damage bonuses to the new high-end missile weapons and wands, will it be possible for one to generate with more than one applicable bonus, ie +x Slashing, +x Fire? This would allow missile weapon users and mages to carry fewer pieces of equipment (considering that both types typically have less strength than melees), but at the same time, for missile weapon wielders, it means that they need fewer imbued weapons (AR/CS with a bonus to multiple damage types almost sounds too good.)

I can see the choice equipment for missile/magic becoming things with the appropriate damage type, rather than high mod/defense bonus or high mana con bonus. This is not necessarily a bad thing though.

I'm not so sure on the possible removal of potions/scarabs from the loot profile. With pea drops already being odd, characters without strong item tink abilities need these little lightweight, stackable extras to help save packspace when looting. I won't miss them that much on most of my characters (only a few of which have item tinkering), but I'm also considering those people that truly need lightweights/stackables.

[Helbereth]

It's all starting to make sense.
Now you can start a newbie, find him some equipment to start with my hunting down things in his level range, then gradually find better equipment as you progress. There's one small problem with that in that it really doesn't take long to get through the first 3 wealth levels for most players, but that's a non-issue.

My only concern at this point when I hunt is cantrips, and I don't mean minors either. Literally. The only real thing I'm looking for is cantrips -- I already have everything else. The chart says that it's possible -- however unlikely it may be -- to find Major cantrips in among the level 5 wealth level. This however seems not to be true considering the amount of time I spend hunting that particular level.

I hunt alone. Many might ask me why, but my motives are my business. Near as I can tell the only real way for a level 100 toon to hunt in the level 6 wealth arena (and I do mean arena) is with other players. This is a result of a simple fact: I don't have enough xp yet to have invested enough in my skills to be capable of killing anything there on my own at a reasonable rate of success.

I suppose what I'm asking for is for you to move some of those level 6 creatures across the border into the level 5 areas. Much in the way you've made it so you can start finding loot in the next wealth level 5 levels before hand. Create a neutral zone of sorts at the perimeter of the hunting areas. In these areas, monsters from both sides can leak and blend among eachother, making it possible for you to work your way into battling with them slowly -- sort of like training wheels.

I may be called strange for saying this about a game like AC, but I don't see any reason why trial and error should involve frequent trips to the lifestone. This way we can tread in, peek around, kill stuff, and if we get in over our head we can run the heck away before we get crushed by an Obliterator. While we're there we might even sneak away with some new shoes or perhaps a hat.

[deryk]

give me my copper and silver peas back on olthoi. Only find a few an hour now :( and only on swarm guardians and mutilators.

[knopp]

So, another 2 months of paid Beta testing.

You guys have already lost my accounts. Email me when you get the game working again, and maybe I'll come back.

thanks.

[Tyndall]

I think that variety is the spice of life and this new armor fix will defintiely lead to that. Folks often complained in the past of the "cookie-cutter" look of most characters.....all the mages wearing amuli, all the sharded shadow armor looking the same, the covenant not being able to compete with tinked plate. Now I think there will be many more iterations of different "looks"...enought o hopefully satisfy most players.

I am still waiting for the changes to all be implemented before I can say I "like" them.....but I do understand your goals and now I understand how you are attempting to reach them.

Keep at it.......it seems to be working.....it takes a lot of time and effort to turn this ship we call Asheron's Call.

Bring back ASH!

[sublimaze]

PLEASE be true that you are adding diversity back to the critters loot profiles with this "wealth" modifier. It's WAY to boring to hunt in, say, the west dires when you know that EVERY creature will drop the same stuff.

I REALLY liked running around and finding the somewhat rare spawns of critters like, say Reedshark Slashers, and thinking "A Reed Slasher, Nice!" and maybe getting something different from all the other junk that's dropped.

I like DIVERSITY.

If the money gets put where the mouth is, GO TURBINE!

[MaddyFF]

Very informative, been nice to see this back when the changes started :) But, better late then never. Can't wait to see the new armor.

[flashypaws]

ok. sounds good. at least i know that majors are still dropping, at least in theory. :p

but you guys cant handle 1000 data files? you gotta be kidding. why would you have to tweak em all at once? why cant you just tweak say, 50-75 a month, every month. so that different critters drop boss loot for a couple months, and then go back to a level 5 profile, or whatever.

i think you need another 1000 monsters and another 1000 profiles. :mad:

[Pureblade]

Ibn,

Excellent article. Thank you for the information. This is definitely a step in the right direction. Maybe I'll actually have time to play the game at some point.

*grumbles about working 16 hour days*

-Pure

[Rhesus]

In looking at the new Magic Defense wield requirements (which I absolutely LOVE as a mage), will we also be getting a revisit to the activation requirement tinkers?

Technically, we now need the following 3 tinkers for activation:

1. Transform activation requirement to Melee Defense
2. Transform activation requirement to Missile Defense
3. Transform activation requirement to Magic Defense


The possibility of being able to take a piece of otherwise useless armor and make it so it has a Magic Defense activation requirement excites me beyond belief!

[Bensam]

In addition, we are extending the new ‘quality’ property to a host of creatures, including randomly spawning boss monsters like the Lord of Decay and Plaguefang, as well as creatures like Crystal Golem and Reedshark Slasher. Any chance you could vary the "quality" creature(s) every month? That way it won't be Cabalist/Peerless all over again. Instead, we will need to figure out what the "monster(s) of the month" are and where they are, etc. Would add interest and reward those who "hunt" for top end loot, rather than just "find" it.

[Piejack]

Please, Please, Please

Fix the Olthoi Warrior bugs profile. They are an uber level, but are in olthoi north, which is a moderate level area, but these are HIGH level creatures!

They are very difficult for a level 84 Mage to take on alone. After fighting and getting creamed by Olthoi Warriors, you find 14 pyreals? What?
Please double-check the high level Olthoi in Olthoi North! :)
Thank you:)
:)

sig: I love my cottage in Olthoi north. (where's Olthoi North? some out of the way area in the NE mountain range with Eviscerators and Warrior bugs!)

[sylphia]

Remove food drops from WR 2-6, period. I m tired of finding GRAPES on LVL 100+ mobs. I am also tied of finding Good healing kits on them. Go with the idea of removing kits as well; we can buy them in stores all across dereth, in towns that are already "level appropriate" to our toons' abilities to get there. Peerless kits should be made a little more available, though, though most folks I knoew jump straight from Excellent to Treated kits. I hope your changes also mean I will finally stop seeing lvl 3 scrolls on the mobs I hunt (100+). Put peas back in; there are 6 different kinds of scarab peas, and 6 WR's. It doesnt take a genious to figure out how you can distribute those :) For the love of GOD fix rank requirements. A lvl 3~4 spell item that spawns with a rank requirement of 5 is insane. Instead of having to use salvage to REMOVE a useless rank requirement, how about you change it so that certain kinds of salvage can ADD a rank requirement in exchange for progressively harder tink difficulty and better arcane breaks? Better yet have both, but remove rank req's from spwning loot. Only a relatively small portion of the population actually digs rank req items; for mostof us, it ruins an item. Especially a rank req that is so drastically out of proportion to the item itself.

And I saw alot of stuff about healing kits vs wealth ratings in there, but still no mention of mana kits, nor any of the other stuff that was supposedly going to be adressed in the article, such as healing speed, etc. I didnt really see how you were going to adress this in a treasure article, but I DID wait to see if you would. In fact, I dont really see how you figured that article adressed ANY of these questions at all:

http://forums.ac.turbinegames.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4713&perpage=15&pagenumber=1

(Number 3 in the linked thread).

Your response to it was:
Originally posted by Ibn
3) There will be some more information about this in a treasure article that I believe will be posted early next week. Not everything you're looking for -- there are some parts of the formula that we do not plan to release publicly -- but it will have some of what you're asking for.


Not trying to hammer you here Ibn, but I just dont see how you figured that would answer any of what was asked in that section.

[Grinless]

All in all,

A nice piece of work. Speaking both for the treasure system overhaul and the new communication strategy.

Congratulation Turbine.

[EvilElvis]

2 things:

but for missile weapons and magic casters we have a slightly different idea in mind. In short, missile weapons would get a flat damage bonus (similar to the bonus from Blood Drinker) *only* when the damage type of the arrow in use matched the damage type of the bonus
Fine, but then 127% - 130% bows need to cease being the most difficult weapons to find. Any bow with an elemental BD spell will relegate any RR imbues to be of the same element. This will make it more difficult for archers to get the exact imbue they want.



We would also like to revise and expand our armor system in the future, both by adding more types of armor and by possibly adding more types of wield restricted armor.

More armors types isn't necessarily a good thing. There's a huge visual difference between the existing armor looks. The problem is, armor types cover the entire area they protect, and have extremely different visual appearances from one another. These 2 things combined make armors very distinguisable, but also make them clash horribly. Noone wants to wear a mixed suit with a scale cuirass, celdon arms, and koujia legs because the result is painful. If you add in more armor types that look god awful when combined with one another, it just makes it harder for players to put a good suit together with the types of prots/spells on them that they want without looking like an eyesore.

However some armor types go well with just about anything. Helmets look good with most armor types, as do STB's. The new leather gauntlets would go well too, if they didn't have the distinguished tint that leather has over metal armors (it would be really nice to see some STB-ish version of these which overlap the forearm graphic so people could wear them with sleeves/berks).

It would be nice if some of the armor types received a touch up to make them better looking, and also with the idea of armor mixing in mind. Plate/scale/yoroi need a texture upgrade badly, so they don't look so bland compared to newer armors, celdon to use a revamp with maybe less/more attractive veins in the sleeves and legs, and kouji legs need to be alot less poofy.

[Helbereth]

The generalization they're talking about it makes it so all the critters you kill in an area will drop similar loot. In following months -- if I read it right -- they'll be looking at specific critters profiles and altering them to include more rare items. So the coveted Peerless Drudges, Gotrok Titans and Reedshark Slashers might get an upgrade, but it will ultimately depend on whether they're considered to be the upper classmen of the 5th wealth level.

I personally think Banderling Agressors make a good candidate, but my understanding is they're melee fodder. Platinum Golems are a difficult kill for any class, as are the aforementioned Peerless and Titans. And I mean difficult in comparison to the targeted level thay think will be going after them (80+). I personally don't think a level 80 mage would last long up against a pack of Peerless and Cabalists, but that may just be me.

These changes -- to me -- have only altered one aspect of AC, and that is solo players. Now we need to hunt in groups to get any good loot. That just plain sucks in my opinion. I shouldn't have to team up with "P M I G A M A I" and his band of zip-heads in order to find any good loot. But Turbine doesn't consider solo players in their equasions.


EDIT
STBs DO NOT look good with amuli. Period. They look silly and unrealistic.

They do have a new 'Long Leather Gauntlets' that cover the forearms in the way STBs cover up to your knees, but they're very low al and can't be worn with armor that covers the forearms.

[Danilo Thann]

I like it... :D

When can I get my Major War orb?

[Taker_AC]

Well, as we said in the February Rollout Article, our goals for treasure are pretty simple: we want treasure to be useful and interesting.

Until I can start making a profit hunting, the treasure system is neither useful or interesting. BRING BACK PEAS!

The following table presents our current thoughts on the skill levels we would like to see in the future for wield requirement. Note that magic casters come in at a higher level, because below that level the spell levels provide an effective scale of damage.

I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE, wield req's. I miss the old day were I could equip a sword, to see how it looked, without activating the spells on it.

Activation Reqs GOOOOOD... Wield Reqs BAAAAAAAAD...

[Shelendil]

(Referring to EvilElvis) I don't think that would need to be adjusted. For archers, any bow has always been useful for any imbue or damage. Melees have been restricted by element and attack mod on top of any requirements for a bow (ws, damage, melee d). This brings it a little closer together, the same way introducing mutations for damage on bows did. Elemental weapons have always been difficult to find. Welcome to the club.

we want to design these higher weapons so that they provide only a negligible benefit in terms of damage but function more as a status symbol for high level characters.

Either introduce damage that doesn't just provide a negligible benefit, or leave the current system alone. Don't waste time doing something that will be used a status symbol. I personally favor leaving the current wield and damages alone.

[Helbereth]

Wield requirements and activation requirements are separate animals.

Wield requirements prevent low level noobs from using overpowered equipment.

Activation requirements limit players from using the arcane lore on weapons, which is usually 2-3 useless spells that have no effect on your overall ability.

[Aaryna]

This sounds wonderful, but I'd like to ask... materials and workmanship were not mentioned at all. With Tinkering, these are also major concerns of the new treasure system. How will these be affected by the changes?

Also - I am VERY concerned with the idea of removing items that can be found at vendors from loot, like potions. One of the best parts of the Caul for me when it opened, was the copious Elixirs that dropped. I used to collect them and use them as an emergency backup when I got overwhelmed. I also used them to fuel another character somewhat... it is enjoyable for me to "luck out" finding enough potions in the field to reduce my costs when I get back. I do NOT like the whole kill-kill-kill loot-loot-loot sell-sell-sell buy-buy-buy repeat mentality... having these only available at vendors is another reason for me to play less, since it will be more boring to hunt. The same goes for other non-combat items. Especially food. Finding food in the field makes Cooking more valuable, because you can craft things to help out stamina... that was another fun thing to do... finding scarabs helps reduce restock costs. Looting lockpicks is the only way I get them... I never have bought one. And I don't want to. Mana stones break so often that it's very valuable for them to drop in the field - I use this feature to keep my armor charged while in the VoD, so that I don't need to spend half my earnings on charges in town. It's one of the best reasons to open K'nath corpses. If anything, add MORE non-combat items to loot... it's fun, for me. And I'm sure I'm not alone.

[EvilElvis]

STBs DO NOT look good with amuli. Period. They look silly and unrealistic.
For the most part, STB's look good with most armors. yeah, they dont' look good with amuli. But they mix better with other armor types then koujia does. That was my point.


They do have a new 'Long Leather Gauntlets' that cover the forearms in the way STBs cover up to your knees, but they're very low al and can't be worn with armor that covers the forearms.
Yeah, that's what I said, and why I asked for a version which does overlap the forearms. I didn't mention the low AL because they say they are tweaking leather.

don't think that would need to be adjusted. For archers, any bow has always been useful for any imbue or damage. Melees have been restricted by element and attack mod

Yes, and melee's have raised the issue that they have to carry a weapon for every damage type. Now they're doing something similair for archers. To offset, archers can't carry a weapon for every element because it's too heavy, and our weapons are the hardest to find (and melees dont' have to worry about melee d mods, but archers do, so it offsets).

Toss in the 33% imbue rate, and it might be insanely hard to find an elemental BD for the damage type you need, and get an imbue to land. Melee's won't have to worry about that. Put the drop rate on high end bows up there with the other weapons, and things will be on an even footing.

[Helbereth]

Workmanship seems to have no described system to it from my experience... except that you don't find wk 10 in low mobs and you don't find wk 1 in high ones... other than that it seems like a completely random number.

[Mildly amused]

Can you please consider making it easier for melees to get imbued weapons. Damage type and attack mod as additional variances combined with the 33% chance to imbue make it much much harder for melees to get a decent arsenal of good weapons than for archers and mages. Also remove food and healing kit drops from the high wealth loot.

An indication which key (sing, granite, mahog, sik...) types give access to which wealth loot would be nice too.

[zathros]

My first impression is you are doing a great job of communication. Thank you for the information.

I like the idea of covenant armor based on magic D. Finding a full suit with majors and good spells will be a challenge for a while. :)

[KirillHuntersun]

Originally posted by Helbereth
I personally think Banderling Agressors make a good candidate, but my understanding is they're melee fodder. Platinum Golems are a difficult kill for any class, as are the aforementioned Peerless and Titans. And I mean difficult in comparison to the targeted level thay think will be going after them (80+). I personally don't think a level 80 mage would last long up against a pack of Peerless and Cabalists, but that may just be me.

I'd have to say that that's just you. I've been taking out pods of Peerless and Cabalists with my mage since she was 85.

You're also missing one critical aspect of the way these groups are balanced. Realistically, it's balanced so that the 60-80 areas, for example, are decent hunting for a group of 60-65 characters, or decent hunting for a solo 75-80 character. If you hunt the areas that way, it works. Anything in between is doable, but challenging.

These changes -- to me -- have only altered one aspect of AC, and that is solo players. Now we need to hunt in groups to get any good loot. That just plain sucks in my opinion. I shouldn't have to team up with "P M I G A M A I" and his band of zip-heads in order to find any good loot. But Turbine doesn't consider solo players in their equasions.

Oh, now THERE'S a bunch of silliness and hogwash. The devs have repeatedly acknowledged that AC's soloability is one of it's greatest strengths. You're still looking at a system that is, for all intents and purposes, broken. Granted, it's only broken because it's not finished, but it's still not working as they want it to.

If you really think that these changes ignore solo hunters, bear in mind that the changes they've made already have fixed the problem of Level 4 spells dropping on critters in the 60-80 range, and that armor is getting fixed next month so that it's WAY easier to find strong armor early on, when a character needs it most. AL 300-350 Covenant armor is nothing to sneeze at, especially when it has multiple banes on it, and as of April that's going to be possible on loot dropped in the 40-60 ranges.

Frankly, I fail to see how any of this - unless you're referring to the current supposed lack of 100+ hunting grounds (you DO remember the two 100+ dungeons on Aphus Lassel that are ideal for hardcore tanks, right?) - can be construed as solo-hunter hate. If anything, it's solo hunter love, because those of us who like to wander the wild and wooly lands of Dereth and just shoot at anything that moves no longer have to stop that to go hunt "loot mobs" to get equipment that's worth a damn.

[ipeacefrog]

http://forums.ac.turbinegames.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4342

Something is not right with the Oak and Hog chests. From what I read they are basically staying the same. :confused:

Please send help.

No one has commented as of yet on the above thread to give us some feedback.


Otherwise I like what I see in the letter.

[Helbereth]

One interesting thing at the end is the possible introduction of wield reqs on wands.... What I wonder is what the heck would be the requirement. A sword is easy enough; you base it on sword skill. But you use a wand for 4 different schools of magic. Perhaps the wield requirement will involve mana conversion or perhaps magic defense...? If not those then which of the 4 schools is most common? Item probably, but which one are you going to raise to meet a wand requirement? War? Life?

Will it have a random requirement? This wand is life req, that one is War req, that one is Critter req and so on. Interesting idea, but I'm not quite grasping the logistics somehow.

[exet]

Interesting read, would have been good to see where you where going with the loot system a month or so ago.

Like the idea of uprating weapons, armour etc. Finding the same old stuff but more off it again is not going to keep many people interested for ever. :)

Also might kick start the economy a bit and bring a bit of fun back to trading.

[KirillHuntersun]

Good point on the wand reqs. I'd assume that they were just thinking of War skill, since they're referring to an elemental damage bonus, but I think there should be an option for a Life skill req that allows for bonuses to Drain/Harm/Hecatomb damage. There are more than a few mages out there that don't HAVE a War skill, and leaving them out of any kind of mage love would be flat wrong, because they play one of the most difficult types of mages out there.

[Kelthar]

Please ignore what one of the earlier repliers said. Leave the lower wield-requirement items in the higher loot profiles, so that those of us with vassals can actually find good items to pass to them.

[Dukak]

Thank you very much for the detailed article! I enjoyed reading the explanation of how the treasure system works, and it certainly helped to explain "why" things needed changed.

I'm really looking forward to the changes to the armor treasure system! Only finding wimpy leather armor on level 85 critters gets a bit frustrating! It will be great to find good armor on critters and it will certainly ensure that I loot everything I kill.

[obie]

Some ‘second-class’ melee weapons such as jittes and shou onos – weapons that are far behind the more popular weapons that use the same skill – will get a small boost to their damage in order to make them more attractive to characters of all levels.

May I suggest that the second class weapons instead have higher get melee and defense ranges that the larger weapons instead of increasing the damage. A long sword would have more attack than an short sword but a short sword would be easier to hit and block with.

Looks like I am coming back, AC is the best game out right now and It seems that the Developers are learning quickly how to deal with us, the rabid customers. The upcomming changes look good. I really like the higher end items. There should be some items that only people with the MAX Skill can use.

[Tofino]

Great article. Small concern on the healing kits thing. High level players ABSOLUTELY rely on the upper end healing kits to both augment their healing skill and to heal a LOT of damage. When fighting HARD content, it's simply not an option to fail a heal, or to botch an amount-healed roll. Because of this, players invest heavily in their healing skill AS WELL AS buy the "uber" kits such as plentifuls (and treated to a lesser extent). Reducing the healing bonus on these would be catastrophic.

The expensive kits SHOULD be outright better than the non-expensive kits, just as upper level armor should be outright better than the lower armor. This is not a CCG where you need to balance uncommons versus rares to create a level playing field. A level 40 AC character should not be able to loot off monsters ANY equipment that a level 120 would want to use.

[Larytia]

Most of this sounds good with a few exceptions. You talked about the "wealth rating", but failed to discuss the "pyreal rating", meaning how much can I sell all this junk loot for. At this point, it is very hard to make a nice profit hunting unless you're an uber character that can slice through uber level mobs. In fact for many characters it's hard to break even. As a level 90ish melee, I can cut through the "extreme" areas pretty quickly and feel challenged and make fairly good progress XP-wise. However, with the loot changes I have to hunt in the "uber" areas (yes, I realize that is supposed to be my hunting area) and solo I hunt at about 1/3 the speed and have to avoid about half of the mobs there (say for instance Virindi, cause I have no chance of killing a Profatrix etc). Which means that I'm still making less money than I did prior to the changes, plus I'm making less XP than in the "extreme" areas and coming away with less "keepers" in terms of loot with the exception of scrolls. I think a good indication of how bad the current situation is would be to look at the level of healing kits are acquired in the various areas. "Extreme" area mobs are dropping Good and Poor kits while "Uber" area mobs are dropping Excellent and Poor kits. Hmm, I started buying Excellent kits around level 15 or so and switched to buying Peerless kits around level 30 and again switched to Treated Kits around level 50. So does that mean I should switch back to Excellent kits since I'm only in my 90s?

I understand and agree with most of your arguements over why the loot system needs to change, but my question is this: Why, did you have to change it so dramatically, so rapidly? Was there some impending doom that was about to fall on our heads if it wasn't fixed in 3 months time? To the average player, this looks like a knee-jerk reaction far worse than the PVP changes that you just recently rolled back out of the system. Please don't take this as a criticism of the hark work that you put in, but rather as constructive input about how the changes affect real players instead of test characters on a test server.

Larytia Al-Qaqa
TSC/Leafcull

[Ibn]

Originally posted by Bhodi Amashi
I didn't see any mention of yoroi armor......

Yoroi is considered plate armor in the charts. "Plate" covers Yoroi, Platemail, and Scalemail.

[Ibn]

Originally posted by Futile-Effort
Interesting read, but...

Why the overkill? I can't recall players complaining about the loot system, and from a balance standpoint there were just a handful of creatures that needed to have their chance of dropping a major tweaked down a bit.


But, since you are going this long and tedious route (tedious on the players too), why are you limiting yourselves to 6 wealth levels? Why not add more? If your goal is flexibility this seems like a no brainer to me.

The changes were necessary so that we could move forward with adding higher wield req weapons, new types of armor, better spells... just cooler things in general at the high end.

Unfortunately adding more wealth levels would, believe it or not, be even MORE work than the changes we are currently making. And it would still leave the existing wealth levels out of whack.

[Fizzlesticks]

I noticed that you mentioned the reqs on the Covenant armor would be tweaked. I hope that they will, as nothing breaks my heart more than to Ust a piece of AL400+ Covenant armor that has a 280+ Missle D req.

As for the AL 500 Covenant, all I can say is *yum*.

:D

[Rhysem]

Pray tell, how are we supposed to notice a +2.5% boost on magic/missile d skills?

Both of those max out a lot lower than meleed due to divisors being way higher (/6 or /7). So if you're a spec magicd mage with maxxed attributes you migth hope to buff to 400 magicd. With +2.5% that's another TEN points. Woo woo. Bust out the party. Now let's say you aren't an uber mage but a 10/10 melee with it specced. At level 100 you've got about 250 in the skill so you get +6 points. So useful.

Maybe they'll test it with an orb that sucks in all other ways but has a big, fat +10%d mod.


Other complaints: magicd wield on cov is cool but um how about those missile req'd spells. How about a magicd req to activate spells please?


High level archers do not need a damage buff if their ammo type matches. If you haven't noticed they already tear stuff apart in DV like nobody else. High level mages need SOMETHING to make their 28 pt to spec skill worth it and "mostly cosmetic" buffs just don't cut it.

I'd really like to see a reason to keep playing my mage over my archer. I enjoy being a caster - I can do damage, I can vuln the mob up, I can heal party members at a critical time, purge negative spells off them, etc... but not so much I'm willing to put down a railgun that hits things for 1,500 plus commonly. Especially not when I'm about to be able to get a life VI/major life wand with a meleed mod I can tink up so I'm not squishy when I whip it out to vuln stuff as the archer.

(Note: I hunt almost exclusivly in DV or Caul)

[Erudine]

As many of the posters before, I'd like to say that higher wield reqs (405+ melee, 355+ magic skills) sound like a very exciting idea. But to make the weapons be "only negligably better" than other weapons is sort of insulting. Make it worth doing. Don't make it something silly like the "armor defense imbues."

[Raylin]

Originally posted by Bhodi Amashi
I didn't see any mention of yoroi armor......

Yoroi is mentioned. Yoroi is a plate armor type I believe, much like Scalemail is a chain type armor.

At least, that's how I interpret it.

[Ibn]

Originally posted by Aztek
The new target level 0f 96 for wealth rating 6.

Does that mean solo dires hunters will have better access to the highest level loot say hunting in the west dires?

Im guessing so, but would like a clarifacation so Im not dissapointed again.

Yes, it will definitely be possible to find wealth rating 6 in the west dires.

[EvilElvis]

BTW, I won't be returning to this game anytime soon, even after you'll have pretty much nailed the new system down 2 months from now.

Why? First, Majors. It was a mistake to put these in the loot profile to begin with. +15 to a skill is huge when they're stacked, and when a person has a full suit of them. You either had to always make them rare, or make them readily availible. Eventually, they became fairly common. Then the problem arose: you nerfed their drop rate incredibly. It's now extremely rare to find any majors (not to mention that most majors still suck). Once again, people are rewarded for cashing in as soon as possible. You can't go from a glut to a draught. It's an incredible nerf, and I'm less then happy about it.

The second reason is that I see you guys are planning on another round of higher level weapons being introduced at some point. I felt this coming once I heard you say you were tweaking the loot system. So now, anything less than the absolute best in the loot system is going to be substandard for high level players when this system goes inplace. Given how difficult "perfect" loot is to find in this game, added with the major nerf, why would I want to spend any time hunting from now until the changes are put in place?

There will probably be a round of armor upgrades to the higher levels of loot with the new armors, and if/when you put in higher req weapons too, invalidating any old armor that doesn't have the now uber majors on them. Blah.

I understand you want to continue to make hunting worth while, but you can't constantly go into the loop of upgrading weapons and armor, then upgrading mobs, then upgrading quest items, then going back to upgrading weapons and armor. It's a vicious cycle which destabilizes alot of things. Sometimes its needed, and I'm not arguing the loot system didn't need it now, but it needs to end. Soon. Alot of players don't want to spend time doing things they know are going to be inconsequential to them in the near future, and I'm one of them.

[Ibn]

Originally posted by Widsith
My second question has to do with the creature distribution map and table 4. The map lists areas for people to hunt with the same levels as the table. Can I assume that if I currently should be hunting the 60-80 areas on the map, I will be finding mostly wealth rating 4 loot, with some overlap at the edges of the area? If this is true, once the armor gets taken care of in April, I think I will really like this change. Well, except the magic defense requirement on covenant, my main has lousy magic d.

That's correct, if you're hunting in the 60-80 areas you will be finding mostly wealth rating 4 loot. Starting with the April event, you'll also start seeing more rating 5 loot as creatures that were statted for level 76+ get bumped from 4 to 5.

[D X Mage]

What about the idea that Obie had? Simply have the secondary weapons have higher att. and def. modifiers. There are many instances where having the higher defence or attack is desired over damage delt.

[Aaryna]

Originally posted by Rhysem
Pray tell, how are we supposed to notice a +2.5% boost on magic/missile d skills?

Assuming these bonuses are applied over buffed skill, you'd notice a +2.5% boost about the same as you notice a Moderate-Major magic defense cantrip, in most circumstances...

[Raylin]

Although I'm really intrigued and happy about most of the changes mentioned, I do have one comment to make.

It says in the article that you're thinking of higher wield req missile weapons and magic casting implements getting a damage boost if the ammo type matches the bonus. I think you really need to rethink that. Melees of all types, including sword, already fall far behind war magic, bow, and x-bow. Imagine how much worse it'd be if say an archer had a bow with a bonus to fire damage, as well as a fire rending imbue. Combine that with deadly fire arrows wnad what chance exactly does a melee have to compete, especially if they target is weak to fire already. You're talking about taking the two highest damaging class types in the game and making them even more powerful.

The only missile type weapon that could use a damage boost like that is thrown weapons I think.

And yes, I have a level 85 bow character and I'm complaining about archer damage. That's because I also have a level 93 sword character and I know if I could possibly have them fight alongside each other the bow character that's 8 levels lower would kick my sword character's butt.

And this is jsut in PvM combat. I can't even imagine how unbalancing this change would be in PvP considering how powerful mages are already in that realm.

[otto mo beale]

Looks like fun is going to return to the loot- o - matic.

Cov Shields. Ive been looking for an AL 400+ Imp6 with 3 physical banes one for a while. Gonna tink it for acid for a super no buff bug shield (that +.2 vs +.4 tink thing is the reason why I want banes for physical damage). Please consider going to profile 5 with cov shields or going up just a bit for shields in profile 4.

You are worried abut missile d mods??? I can understand the desire to be careful with magic d mods but I kinda doubt even +15 Missile d will do squat.

Please take this time to adjust the armor imbues to something more useful. Consider making it a NONSTACKING +5 or +8 or a +3% or something. Making it non stacking would ease the difference between 5 piece suits and 9 piece suits.

I would love to see a ton of previously unused weapons come out at FULL max damage like the mace, naginata, etc. IE expand this idea.

Swarm Mutie is an 80+ critter right? (Well 80+ for a melee. an 80 mage is a lunch to a mutie just as some critters are killed by an 80 mage but a 120 melee.) 100+ critter is a VOD or Caul right? please provide a few examples of each level type so we can cement these ideas in our minds.

[Yew Wan Sum]

I will wait, once again, and see how these changes pan out, but I have one complaint that cannot wait.

Your 'possible wield reqs' are so high at the highest level, that it is impossible for a trained skill to attain, even with perfect starting stats.

To me, this is unacceptable. A long time ago, there was a philosophy at Turbine which said (paraphrase) "A character who is trained in a skil should eventually be able to do anything a specd character can, but it will take more effort and time to get there". I agree 100% with that.

With a 355 base magic skill req, you have just cut off the trained mage, and permenantly buried any possibily of diversity. 350, fine. 355, no way. The same goes for melee def, missle def, etc.

Being specd already has its benefits, and plenty of them, in the existing gameplay. There was enough uproar about 'spec-only' items when they were introduced. If you must make a spec only-item, do it through the quest system, backed up by lore. Don't do it through wield reqs in the general treasure system.


Short Form: Unless you are going to change AC into a class-based system with a half dozen basic templates, DONT make wield reqs exclusive to specd 100/100 characters, becuse both, in practice, will have the same practical effect on diversity and choice.

[Sorrowfull]

to go alogn with the new changes in loot you really should take a look at the craftmanship of items....

no matter how cool it is if its work 9 odds are itll be left to rot ...


please bring back crft 3 & 4 items to the higher end loot...

[Futile-Effort]

Thanks for the reply Ibn, the vision you guys have for the loot system looks good overall. Also publishing the article seems to have eased some of the tensions people had (especially concerning high level loot for solo play). I think the biggest plus is the added variety. I'd love magic defense req covenant armor for instance. That's potentially a lot less banes I have to cast. And of course new types of armor in general is always welcome, now maybe some new weapons too?


If I'm not mistaken though, this means we're going to stop seeing loot tendencies as much as we used to? Such as golems dropping gems, tuskers dropping junk, and certain creature types dropping particular types of salvage more regularly? I'll miss this to be honest, as I think it added some sense of immersion to the game. But it's pretty minor overall.

[zathros]

Originally posted by Ibn
Yes, it will definitely be possible to find wealth rating 6 in the west dires.

Over time, I would hope one would find more wealth rating 6 items in VoD than in the west dires. Will this remain the case?

Also, given that chests should contain slightly better loot than the monsters that drop the keys, shouldn't oak chests contain wealth 6 items and mohogany chests contain slightly higher quality wealth 6 items?

[StormLaery]

I like the article... very informative! A lot of it sounds really good... some of it... not so good.. .but then I understand that you can't please 100% of the people 100% of the time :)

One thing I would like to see.... on these higher lvl wealth system is PLATS!!!

With sooooooooooooo many higher lvl characters, (80+) casting lvl 7 spells all over the place... having plats only found in arch mage shops and 44k pyreals a pop, and not finding them anywhere else... very expensive, not not cost effective, imo. And I would like to see the return of pyreal peas in the wealth generator system... I burn them more than anything else!


And maybe you could introduce platinum peas.... you could make them really rare, on the lvl 6 wealth rating only maybe...

just a couple of ideas :)

also I agree with the ones that mention the out distancing between mages and archers... and meleers. I understand that archers aren't that great if the creatures close with them, and mages are the same way... but let's face it... EXCEPT in tight dungeons.... how many times to creatures really get close to the distance hitters? If I hunt with a group of mages and archers... by the time I run up to attack a creature... it's dead. Means I run around a lot and don't get many kills.... which is why I do a lot of solo hunting. I just can't compete. And with the changes you are considering, I can see it becoming worse.

Another concern I have is quest loot....
Take the new ancient vestment armor... It's really nice, I like the way it looks. High level quest, I haven't had the pleasure of going on this quest yet. Here is my problem.... I was given a piece of this armor... lvl 100 wield req. I was only 94 when I got it. I busted my touchie... made lvl 100 and thought 'ooh now to see this new ancient vestment I got!' I put it on and looked at it... and realized my tinked major bp and sleeves were much better (except maybe the al). Basically.... it's nice... it's great... and I will prolly never use it. Now if I had been able to use it at say.... lvl 75 to 80... it would have been worth it.

I guess what I am trying to say is that some of the wield reqs are too high for what the item does. By the time we reach the reqs to use them... we have out grown them.

I hope these are some of the things you will be addressing. But the fact that you understand the problems are steps in the right direction!

[Rhesus]

Just checking to make sure, but does this mean items can have a Magic Defense activation requirement now (or will all Covenant still come with either a Missile or Melee Defense activation requirement)?

[Raylin]

As far as archers being at a disadvantage it the monsters close to melee range, that's not necessarlily true. Not only is my archer hunting in AL 350 tinked amuli that's fully baned, with a fully baned rianment underneath, but she has Melee D trained. Yes, she's 3-school with bow and life spec'd and MeleeD trained as well as some other fun stuff. She rips through monsters and can stand toe-to-toe with them almost as well as my melee character can.

[Telal03]

Nice changes for the most part. Only thing I wanna know is when Devs will look at source code for Missle users and make it so that +attack will actually add to the users missle skill....

[Shojimbo]

IGN, please clear this up for me?

According to the creature distribution map, the only "uber" (lvl 100+) hunting area is in VOD.

According to this letter, the only place to find "Uber" (level 6) loot is in the uber hunting area.

With the April event, the level restrict changes to 96+.

I primarily hunt the west Dires, solo. This area is marked "Extreme" (lvl 80+) on the distribution map.

I guess my question is - Are the people who live in VOD going to be the only ones to find the "Uber" loot and/or Majors after the April event?

I haven't unsubscribed yet, waiting on the loot changes to be completed. If VOD is going to be the only place to get Uber loot, I see no reason to play any longer. I enjoy my casual hunting and I don't consider VOD hunting very relaxing at all. I don't enjoy being forced to fellow with people just to hunt an area.

Thanks :)

[EvilElvis]

"She rips through monsters and can stand toe-to-toe with them almost as well as my melee character can."

That's nice. When's the last time a hollow vod lugian hit you for 5 hp's on your archer though?

As long as melee's take 5x less damage than archers/mages, they don't have alot of room to complain about their damage output as long as it's in the same ballpark. And considering swords DoT has been shown to be at least equal to, if not greater, than bow, they are fine right now.

[sursun]

Overall I think the changes sound very good, but I would like to make a few specific comments.

1 I like the fact that a lot of creatures drop level 7 scroll, but I think you have made them a little to easy to get. Unless you are planning on adding level 8 spell.

2 Taking away potions mana stones and healing kits from creatures would be a mistake. The fact that you can loot what you need to stay out hunting adds something to the game even if most chars do not use the ability. In fact I think you should add prismatic tapers to the loot system.

3 High level healing kits can not get worse. You already reach the point in the nonextreme level with healing were raising you health does you little good, because even though you might survive a couple of big hits with more health you will be dead before you can get off a successful heal.
4 Now that the second-class’ melee weapons are getting an update you might want to think about doing something to update the hiltable weapons. They are going to be the last true junk weapons in the loot system. If they are prevent from dropping in the higher level loot drops because of there no wield requirement status it is probably not a big deal, but I do not think that is the case right now. These weapon may be causing the likelihood of finding a good sword or dagger to be slightly lower then you intend.
5 One of the major disadvantages of the low or no magic melee char in general hunting is the need to cast 4 spells to buff a weapon. This ends up being a lot of spells when you need many damage types. One thing you could do to really help low magic melee 's would be to cause all weapon's with a 350 or higher wield req to have a built in swift killer spell. At 370 you could cause weapon to always have all 4 item spells. Bows would get 2 item spells at 335. Most of these spells would be 5's, but you could get 6's. At the 405 360 level all weapons would come with built in level 6's.

[Ibn]

Originally posted by zathros
Over time, I would hope one would find more wealth rating 6 items in VoD than in the west dires. Will this remain the case?

That is correct.

[Ibn]

Originally posted by Shojimbo
I guess my question is - Are the people who live in VOD going to be the only ones to find the "Uber" loot and/or Majors after the April event?

I've already answered this earlier in the thread, but it never hurts to repeat myself.

Wealth rating 6 loot will be able to be found in the west dires and the obsidian plains. It won't be found there as frequently as in the VoD or the Caul, but it will be able to be found there.

[Surfal]

Thanks, Ibn & Team. Adding level 6 (oops, wealth rating 6) loot to the West Dires in this way makes a big difference to me - I really dislike hunting in the VoD/Caul - whacking on the same monster and virtually *requiring* life magic to kill many of them is just no fun to me. I have much more fun wading into a swarm of nasties :)

But I'm also a loot whore. A smaller chance is great :)

[Zero_Washu]

TURBINE : WE REWARD MACROERS


--regardless of that known fact--



Covenant should never use MAGIC DEFENSE as a wield requirement. You made Covenant as a reward for MELEE style characters. This was to allow us to approach the protection levels that mages were used to with their inate ability to buff.



Second, the permutation on bows is still broken. A 105 should never have a wield requirement!!!! I find lots of 105 mod bows with 250w requirements. If your going to permutate the modifier and it increases do so WITHOUT increasing the wield requirement.


Lets all play mages...

[Archer Medes]

Thanks for the information. It's been a wild ride these last 2 months.

More PEAS please and other lightweight stackable loot. My archer can manage financially, but it is not fun. Its hard enough to stay under 100% burden, but getting hit with Senescence or even Weakness Other 1 could turn into a death sentence. It doesn't have to go back to pre-February levels, but it can be better than it is now. What purpose does it serve other than to serve someone's Machiavellian sense of humor? I have read previous posts and have done my own tests. Yes, you can make enough money if you loot and sell everything, but does anyone really think that is fun?

Any hope of having stackable Gems of Stillness?

I like the idea of MagicD req. on armor. This will at least make MagicD good for something ;)

After dusting off some olds toons and doing some leveling, I find that I could never find the next level weapon before my skill reached the next plateau. Typically, I would be approaching the (325/290) plateau before I would find the (300/270) weapons. This was while fighting 40~50 levels higher than my character. I wound up sending my higher toon to find the usable weapon for my lower toon. [Reality check here] I have found that typically toons reach max wield reqs. around level 51. Is that your understanding too? What level creature (or who) do I have to kill to get any 325/290 weapon?

Eagerly looking forward to the upcoming changes.

[Toxeus]

My only concern is for the "solo hunter" aspect of the game. I don't like VoD or Caul fellows and I want to know that I will have the same opportunity to kill wealth rating 6 critters.

Can you clarify if there will be soloable mobs at wealth rating 6?

[Logan]

And the troll says....




...cool :)

I think those are good plans!

[Jaspo]

Very well done.

I will wait to experience the loot changes before making any hap-hazard guesses about the outcome:p

[Cotonagiu]

my main concern with the new proposed wield reqs...

at level 140 my characters base magic defense was not even close to 355... in fact Im not entirely sure but I dont think obtaining a BASE magic d of 355 is even possible (correct me if Im wronf, but I think 319 base is the absolute max).

So what Im getting at is, are the profiles for wield reqs of magic D items possible?? probably going to need to tweek those a bit, and please, whatever you dont do NOT adjust how magic D works because it is actually VERY balanced in comparison to the other magics.

[Aztek]

Thanks for the reply Ibn.

I look forward to worthwhile hunting again.

[Dreamweaver]

I have tried almost all other MMORPG's out there and find nothing compares to AC1.

I am having extreme difficulty getting enough pyreals to pay for my comps since this last patch. I only use VII's for buffing and usually burn a couple plats, but in the time frame of the buffs, don't find enough pyreals to replace the two I burned. I kept 100 plats on me before the patch and since, I have dropped to 75. At this rate, I won't be able to cast VII spells by the end of April.

[ayreon]

seems to me lik eloot moving in great direction. woot for my mage and melee with spec magic defense :)

[Shojimbo]

Originally posted by Toxeus
My only concern is for the "solo hunter" aspect of the game. I don't like VoD or Caul fellows and I want to know that I will have the same opportunity to kill wealth rating 6 critters.

Can you clarify if there will be soloable mobs at wealth rating 6?



My concern also :) It sounds as though the solo players are going to be left out and/or forced into group hunting on the Caul or VoD. :(

[Apocalypso]

*

[Cotonagiu]

Reading through someones post about being sick of finding grapes on level 100's just gave me a great idea...

why not have tier groups for food types as well, and make some ingredients that cooks could use to make items that say, cast level 7's, minors, or even majors on whoever eats them. These ingredients could be very rare for the really good ones, and could allow for you to add alot mroe different types of ingredients/food to the game. The cooks skill could determine success or fail, just like it does now, or you could add a modifier where based on the skill decides how cool the spell the food you make is (kinda like when you apply sword skill to making an isparian weapon)...

this could do 2 things...

1. Make Cook a useful skill for more than just dyeing armor

2. Make melees able to further diversify... a melee cook could possible survive without creature magic because they have the ability to cook all of the spells they need...

just a thought, but would be really nice to find a playable class at a higher level that doesnt require at least 3 of the 4 base magic types


edit: in reply to Apoc, the chart I was referring to was not armor, but future weapon wield reqs (chart 8), where it lists magic items, tier 6 items are listed to have a req of 355, and if that is base, its impossible to obtain

[YekYai]

Point 1. Leather, leather, leather. Why is there leather armor in the proposed level 4+ wealth ratings?

NO ONE wants it. By the time you hit level 60 you're fighting creatures that use every damage type, including all the elements, and leather has awful protects vs. elemental attacks. You will DIE if you wear leather.

At level 80+, leather armor is completely, 100% useless. I wouldn't strap a piece of leather armor on my mage even if...all right, I would if it had a dual major or such, but I'd worry about it constantly. I have a crossbowman whose melee D buffs to 483, and he wouldn't wear it either. It's just asking for trouble.

You could remove it entirely from loot classes 4+ and the only people who'd complain are people who want to Leather their gear. And they could just spend 5 minutes in the Acid Vault, since 90% of the bugs I kill there have leather on them. (Ironically, leather is useless armor when fighting bugs, since it's Poor to acid. I like to think they're smarter than they seem and are trying to get me to wear what amounts to gasoline armor.)

Point 2. 'Level 100+ intended' is deceptive. Creatures and areas 'intended for level 100' are, in fact, intended for GROUPS of level 100 characters. VoD and the harder parts of Caul can be solo'd by very powerful characters, but they are intended for groups. Why not just come out and say, 'Wealth level 6 is intended for groups'. You've already made it clear that it is, since you nerfed every single non-group critter that dropped it. The ONLY non-VoD/Caul critters I know of that drops it now are the Crystal Lord and the 25,000 health Diamond Golem Suzerain. And if those aren't group-intended monsters I don't know what are.

Point 3. You need to address the Mana C percentages on caster items dropped at different wealth levels. An orb with 0% mana C is 100% useless at the moment, no matter its workmanship and value. When Minors and Majors can spawn on them, they won't be quite so useless, but they will still not be popular. There needs to be a minimum Mana C bonus on caster items dropped at high wealth levels, and at no point in your lengthy dissertation was one mentioned.

-- Yek.

[ufhamlet]

VERY exciting, Ibn! Thank you so much for the depth of the information. Many of us eat this stuff up. More rationale and formulae really give us a greater ability to see what the devs' vision is.

I have only one concern: the wield reqs on the highest Cov armor. My main has 278 MagicD. He's 4 points from maxing it. After Will and Focus (innate 100/100) are maxed, he'll have 291. If the highest magicD is 300, you're forcing people to spec the skill to use it? Seriously? I understand it on the weapon scale, but the defenses?

If there were a lack of people spec'ing MagicD, I'd understand. But there's not. Please consider sliding things down so that the maximum wield is 280 OR lower the MagicD divisor by 1. Given the current disparity between schools and magic, I think that's the greater solution, but I can hear the PvP screams now...

I didn't run the numbers on MeleeD and MissileD, but I'm worried that they force the wearer to spec the skill as well. Is this intended?

[Retread]

The article was very informative for what it covered.

However my only real issue with the treasure system relates to the amount of time I would have to spend hunting in order to afford the cost of operation of my mages.

In the current state, I am unwilling to play AC as I have to spend too much time hunting for cash as opposed to questing or hunting for xp purposes or exploring.

Are there plans to increase the value of items or to lower the cost of playing?

[Kyo_AC]

I like the way the treasure loot is going, however....I don't like how the mutations for Covenant Armor & wield reqs on weapons/orbs are gonna turn out.

Previously stated, Covenant Armor was originally intended for melee characters who don't like to bane their armor. Adding a Magic Defense wield req on future mutations is a bad idea in its entirety. Eventhough I don't PK/PKL, even you have to agree that this is a bad idea from the get go.

Second, the future Weapon/Orb wield you have planned also looks like a horrible idea. Basically how you people at Turbine have it planned is that we're better off playing as archers & mages. This proposal in all essence is more than likely a melee & mage nerf. Yes, melee weapons will see higher base damage/defensive/attack stats & will hit for more damage...but in all essence it's the archers who will benefit the most. Archers alone will see damage modifiers of upwards to 160% & xbowers up to 185%. Think about the fact that if they are lucky enough to find a max bow or xbow with max damage mods, a high enough defensive modifier & lets say that either weapon has a low craft to boot. That bow or xbow will hit for unbelieveably amounts of damage & will leave both melee & mage characters in the dust.

In all essence Turbine, you are really starting to imbalance the game further than it already is with these up & coming proposals on the Covenant Armor & Weapon/Orb mutations.

Think before you act Turbine.

Thank you.

[gaandar]

1. I'd like to see a weapon wield category between 250 and 300.
2. I'd like to see a tinker ability that would change Missle D Wield req. to Melee D.

[JJC]

> Point 1. Leather, leather, leather. Why is there leather armor in the proposed level 4+ wealth ratings?

For reedshark, dillohide and other tinkering items. With the additions of better Cov armor I wouldn't be surprised to see the need for quanity and quality increase. While nobody would wear it there are uses beyond weilding.

JJC

[Futile-Effort]

Well that's fine, don't make covenant with a Magic Defense requirement, I guess it doesn't make much sense. My mage has melee d anyway, so no biggie :p

[Zero_Washu]

Second reason for no MAGICD requirement on Covenant.

Because MAGICD is a free skill.


Put the max levels of armor higher on those who have melee/missile

[Kaillus]

What about creature spells on weapons and armor?

I never find creature spells on level 1 armor or weapons.

Will that be addressed as well in the future?

I don't know what level 1 gauntlets do not have a chance to spawn with level 1 sword/axe mastery or etc.

Having appropriate level creature spells appearing on all levels of treasure would be super helpful and fun for newbie characters.

I look forward to a reply IBN.

[ouchthathurt]

“High level players, on the other hand, need high level content and high level content should drop high level loot, and the fact was that once you were past level 60 or so you were pretty much looking at the same treasure for the rest of your character’s lifetime was just not exciting to us, or to you.”

Why? Why should high level content drop high level loot? Why can’t high level content reward players in ways other than loot that 95% or more of the player base will not be able to obtain thru their own actions, even if they are of equivalent level? A 170 Tank/Archer cannot take on content a 170 Life/Archer can. I am talking about solo here. In a group all dynamics change because the combination of strengths makes the weaknesses irrelevant. I’m not sure what is exciting to you but I’m pretty sure you don’t know what is exciting to me. If you are going to make statements like this, at the very least qualify it with a “we think” or we believe”, otherwise “we players” may begin to think you are arrogant enough to actually believe you can read minds; I think. :) I don’t believe you guys are very arrogant. You do seem to listen to us and to take our views into consideration, but the appearance of arrogance can be very damaging. I don’t remember a great out cry from the players over the loot system and I don’t remember you asking us before hand if we would like a new loot system or what we wanted to see in it.


“We want everyone to have good reason to check the corpse of every creature they kill, because they might just find something fantastic.”

Since the February patch, I haven’t had reason to check the corpse of every creature I’ve killed because after the first several hours of hunting I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to find anything fantastic. I am hopeful, from the info in this letter, you are going to restore loot of the highest level in areas other than 100+, even if there will be a lower chance of finding it. I will reserve judgment until I have had a chance to compare loot now with loot after April’s patch and with loot I remember from before the Feb patch. Keeping that in mind, I plan to hunt a minimum of 10 hours in the next week of so while logging every mob I kill and every piece of loot on em. I will do the same after the April patch and compare.

“In conjunction with this, magic casters can be enchanted with Defender and Lure Blade spells, and tinkered with brass. “

I think this will get less “feedback” than the recent PK changes, but you never know. Lure blade spells on the mages casting instrument can be a pretty big magnet to some pretty big hits. :)

“In short, missile weapons would get a flat damage bonus (similar to the bonus from Blood Drinker) *only* when the damage type of the arrow in use matched the damage type of the bonus. Similarly, magic casters might have a damage bonus multiplier that worked the same way – applying the modifier only when the damage of the war spell matched the damage type of the bonus.”

How many bows do you want us to carry around? If I wanted to devote an entire pack to weapons, I would go melee. The only reason to obtain a higher wield bow is if it provides a tangible benefit to damage or survival or if it looks cooler than the bow I already have without being less effective in combat. If you put in weapons with appreciably higher DOT values, you will eventually have to put in creatures which are harder to kill. Otherwise everyone will get bored of 5 shotting the Obliterators. It’s like a dog chasing its tail. A whole lot of action and fun to watch, but in the end the dog doesn’t get anywhere.

“For this reason, we want to design these higher weapons so that they provide only a negligible benefit in terms of damage but function more as a status symbol for high level characters.”

The cool factor, this is the way to go in my opinion. Less tiring for the poor dog. :)

Something I would like you devs to consider for the future, is putting in monsters in all level ranges which non life spec characters can kill as quickly as life spec characters can kill the present monsters. This could be done by making them immune to life magic and designing them to be killed in the same amount of hits as a regular critter with a vuln and imperil on them. This does not nerf the life spec characters because they can kill just as fast as the non-life spec toons with equivalent weapon skill and they will also have the traditional monsters to hunt. The two mob types can be mixed and matched in places and one or the other more predominant in other places.

Thanks for your patience and if you can read minds, get the heck out of my head. There isn’t room for 3 of us in there. :)

[Khorlo]

Okay, I don't want to cause a big tangent in the discussion, and I know what I'm about to suggest seems a bit divorced from the treasure system, but here goes.

Considering the potential of much higher wield reqs for Covenant Armor, and considering the sheer volume of xp necessary to meet these requirements, is there a movement afoot to remove the level cap?

Now, before the thread erupts, I'm not saying I'm in favor or against such a measure, but as somone who has worked on getting defenses to high levels, I know a bit about what level you'd have to be to have both a high (max) weapon skill and have the ability to meet the new max wield reqs.

For example, to reach 330 missile defense or 400 Melee Defense, plus having an equitable weapon skill would require close to level 120, even if all your xp was spent soley on those two skills plus their respective stats. Even if the stats were aligned, as they would be for dagger.

Add Xp for a single magic school, health/stam/mana, plus even a single support skill, such as lockpick or mana conversion, and you're easily level 126.

[ufhamlet]

Washu, think about it. Shouldn't the people that have the LEAST probability to evade have the HIGHEST armor levels? They get the most use out of it. For the sake of argument, I'm for all 3 skills being used as wield reqs. I just don't see why mages should be shafted. In theory, they're the ones that should be getting the most use out of the new Frore, Plaguefang, and Reedshark robes, but melees wear them all the time. Turnabout is fair play, man.

[turnstyles]

these changes are a breath of fresh air to the casual player.
in theory, and i base this on what i perceive as turbine making the better loot accessible to a wider player base, this consistant loot system will drive down prices on morningthaw's rather inflated economy.

i do, however, agree with those above asking for the 'if' in regards to the implementation of level 7 spells on loot to become a 'when' and further, i hope that 'when' comes to pass around summer time.

cant wait...

[God Slayer]

in theory i've never seen a mage in any rpg orianted anything wear armor

they havn't the stregnth for it

now loot robes with AL is something that should happen.

[Dusktreader]

Originally posted by hanyuning
It is SO much cheaper to destroy a orb to a mana stone and recharge my items that to have to rely on taking 20 mana charges (costing a TON of pyreals) with me.


I agree wholeheartedly! I'm a melee character and I never buy mana stones. I exist on picking up "empties", sucking the mana out of loot-generated orbs, and using that to replenish my armor/jewelry while out on a hunt.

I can do without most other things, but I would sorely miss finding mana stones on corpses

[Lil Death]

As part of your treasure update, you are looking at adding new heritage armor types as well as possible new armor in the future.

I am hoping that somewhere in this process you will allow us to turn in a piece of armor at a smith, with maybe a payment of some sort allowing the armor to be modified or rebuilt as a new type. Like I turn in a piece of plate to the celdon blacksmith to get a like piece of celdon.

I ask this of you as for those that are not wealthy enough to win auctions for certain armor pieces, it is currently near impossible for them to create full suits of like spells types that ALSO match.

Anyway, Thanks

[_DOT_1_2_3_4_5_]

hm interesting ... one problem the tinkerer in me finds is workmanship on any item... use to have possiblity of finding great wk on rotten treasure but not lately... now wk seems to be equal to the "wealth" rating and not good for tinkering ... is this going to change and if so how please?

[KirillHuntersun]

Originally posted by God Slayer
in theory i've never seen a mage in any rpg orianted anything wear armor

they havn't the stregnth for it

now loot robes with AL is something that should happen.

Why do you think I play a mage in AC? Do you really think that it's so I can wander around in a limp, wussy padded robe that's supposed to protect me from scrapes and bruises?

I LIKE the idea of a mage in plate armor. I think it's one of the cooler things about the game, and I'm glad it's the way it is.

Should mages have the ability to wear a robe if they want to? Sure. And they do. Always have, in fact. It's even easier now, what with the Reedshark robes.

But a flimsy piece of cloth or soft hide should NOT be able to protect you as well as wrapping yourself in a quarter inch thick piece of steel. And honestly, I resent the robes-only crowd trying to take MY choice of playstyle away, when I'm not trying to do the same to their choice of playstyle.

On an unrelated note:

And can SOMEONE tell me what the difference is between a mage running around in Covenant armor that happens to be fitted with a MagicD req and the same mage running around in the same armor with a MissileD req? Or are you folks forgetting that a lot of mages take Missile for equipping Majors?

Or for that matter, what the difference is between a mage running around in Cov and a mage running around in either Olthoi armor, or tinked and baned Amuli or Plate or Celdon would be? Because I'm not seeing it, unless you're talking hollows. And even then, I'm not really seeing it.

[Zero_Washu]

Sure Krill,

Missile and Melee cost your mage points to train. Magic Defense is free. Yeah its free for non-mages, but non-mages don't usually have the points to dump in focus/self that mages do.

Besides Covenant arrmor was created to give melees better odds. Of course the developers screwed that up with tinkering... where we ended up with everyone in 400+ base al suits. Covenant meant something at one time.

Sure your mage can wear it, but before he could never really wear the best pieces a melee could. Now that advantage is lost. I am not saying mages should be robes, but I do think that they should keep the advantage (let alone restore it after it was lost to tinkering) that covenant offered people who raised melee/missile to such high levels.

Frankly it makes me wonder why I should play anything but a 3-school now.

[Rhysem]

Why would you bother with three school? Just train item and spec lore - they've already said there may be 7s on loot stuff. Why spend the extra 20 credits to train life/critter AND have to deal with buffing vs the 6 pts to spec lore and use almost any item in the game?


I also don't see why a skill that's 12 pts to spec shouldn't have cov armor. The 10 pt to spec missiled has it.


What they ought to do is eliminate racials. You start with a blank slate and no racials (man yer run gonna suck hard). Train what you want. No limits. No leftover racial melee weapons for the heavy weapon melees. No useless appraise person or such. They'd have to give a cost to most of em, but give them a cost and let people choose to use them or not.

A melee/archer who puts points into their magicd will resist stuff. One who does so and specs it will resist almost everything (but DV). It's not the useless skill it was once viewed as since mobs got their skills nerfed.

Tho I still object to some of the skills. Nothing that's only casting a IV should be able to punch thru my 335 buffed magicd on my mage. Sorry, shouldn't happen.

[God Slayer]

because people that pump endless amounts of xp in raising their melee d skills should wield the award

what game do you play where mages walk around in the same type of armor a melee does?

it doesn't even make sence

chainmail, leather and studded leather should be a mages limit

not platemail and conv.

[Geraint]

Great Article Ibn, You made all this very easy to understand, well almost :D

I'm hoping they do some really extensive testing with the use of defender and melee D mods on wands before they roll that one out. I'm looking into my crystal ball and thinking that some of the high level PK's could become nearly untouchable if this is not done very carefully.

I'm also a bit leary of the "status"weapons. I'm not quite sure the developers are thinking this one through. How many of you would give up you trusty weapon that you've put 10 bags of salvage into for a "neglible" difference in damage?

All in all, I like the idea of most of the changes. I just hope they don't do it too fast. Maybe they could even do "minipatches" and roll out a few of these changes at a time and then give a few days for player feedback.

Thanks again, G

[Rhesus]

The point people who are used to playing class-based games keep missing about Asheron's Call is that it is NOT class-based.

It is skill based and Turbine continues to keep that in focus.

If a mage wants to pay for the skill or the attribute in order to wield or carry a melee/missile-oriented item, so be it. If a meleer wants to pay for the skill or attribute in order wield or carry a magic/missile-oriented item, so be it. And if a ballisteer wants to pay for the skill or attribute in order wield or carry a magic/melee-oriented item, so be it.

I don't see the problem since there is an opportunity cost associated with the pursuit of any given path. My patron is a level 126+ mage with spec'ed Life/Mana C and trained Melee Defense. His time and effort helps him reap the benefits of armor with melee defense activation requirements and I am more than happy for him. In contrast, I am a BM with lockpick trained. I get extra killing power in the field relative to my patron and I get a dungeon-crawling convenience skill to which he has no access, but he is much better at support and and is much better at tanking than me.

I don't want the skill-based paradigm to change into a class-based one. If I wanted to waste my time with a class-based MMORPG, I would be playing... um, anything OTHER than Asheron's Call.

[Rhysem]

God Slayer: if you want to play EQ, please, by all means, go do so.

Oh, and while you're at it, how about mentioning how that heavy armor makes your 400 buffed meleed so effective? Let's put a cap on it just like d&d eh? So you're in half-plate that's a max dex bonus of +0 bringing your meleed down to, um, 0.

Maybe that doesn't sound like such a good plan, actually...

[Futile-Effort]

what game do you play where mages walk around in the same type of armor a melee does? AC is a skill based game. Some people still fail to grasp that. Furthermore it's not your basic Tolkien fantasy ripoff. Both of these allow for conventions to be ignored.

If my mage has the strength to wear plate, then damnit he should be able to wear plate. If my mage trains melee d, then he should evade. Simple.

I don't see anyone complaining about melees being able to use magic...

[Rhysem]

Originally posted by Futile-Effort
I don't see anyone complaining about melees being able to use magic... [/B]

I did earlier - well about archers - and indirectly.

The whole double vuln with life magic then hit for 1500-2000 or more with a 16 pt skill to spec, vs my 28 pt to spec skill hitting for ... 700.

It's really very disheartening.

I don't think lv 8s are the way to fix it. I'm not sure boosting war damage is the way to fix it either. Skill based boost would be okay (there's a minor one now, it would need significant buffing). I think the best tho would be very controversial.

Drop armor self and imperil from the game. No more double vulning. Or make it not stack with the vulns. That'd be really hard with AR weapons tho. But it'd bring the sword and archers who are critting for over 2k on some mobs back down to nearer the mages who are happy to crit for 700-800.

[Eruditus]

A question, how will magic def mods on Cov armour fit into the lore given it was kinda designed as anti-magic armour for melees.

I would of thought a mage wearing a chorozite suit would be a really bad idea all said and done.

Given the skill synergy mages have on magi defence I feel the max req should be a little bit higher, say 325-330 since only dagger has a skill set which has synergy with melee D.

[Silifi Of Death]

Just a couple requests...


For one, fix cooking. Rations were boring, what we need is MORE food drops, that recover more stamina, and, in the case of meats, can be sliced into larger quantities.

I need more food out on the field, and food that can actually do something. Don't change the store bought stuff. Just add new foods. Like Reedshark Meat. Large Fish (like from fishing). Maybe some super cows or something too. Tumeroks and Lugians should also be dropping Meat. Stuff like that would help.

[Cuttler]

Alex, this was a well written article but it did not address any of my concerns. I actually knew how the loot system worked from reading turbine Q/A's for years and your explanation didn't add much new to what I knew.

Unless I'm blind, nothing was stated about the general concern about making enough money to cover the amount of consumables during a hunting session. And if we can't even coer our hunting sessions, how do we cover our housing and such? This has been a major opinion voiced within this forum and it was totally ignored in the current typical fassion I've come to expect from Turbine as of late. Please address how you expect us to pay for comps, mana stones, and ammo with this new system.

I noted that scarb peas were never mentioned in your little explination of the new system. Heal kits, of which very few players even pick up because we utilizing treated or plentiful kits which are not part of the loot system, were mentioned though out the article but peas were not mentioned once. I would like to see a table indicating what worth rating is assigned to each of the scarb peas in the game. Perhaps it could address why lead peas are falling on creatures over level 95 which dropped copper and silver peas before the new "improved" changes.

As for actual loot, I rarely save anything from creature drops now as it is as I have better (low workmanship, low value) items muled from a year ago when Trubine decided that we shouln't be aloud to own items of uber quality that could actually be tinkered 10 times with out tremendous risk and that wouldn't drop on death without appropriate coverage of a like tinkered item. I believe you attempted to touch on the quality of items but I don't feel your explanation was clarified appropriately. I'd like to know if we are going to continue to see weapons with the best damage/mods/bonus generating with workmanships of 7 or higher and with high values. The same goes for the armor scheduled to be changed. Will the armor with ratings of 220+ generate with workmanships of 7+ and values of 20k? To me these items are plainly junk, now worth picking up unless I'm at the end of my hunting session and I'm fulling up to go sell.

Finally I am not happy about seeing the increase of wield requirements. Once again you are rewarding the players who macroed or chained and leaving those of us who didnt (and now cannot make up that ground with the xp bonus nerf) out in the cold.

[ufhamlet]

Good thinkin' Eruditus.

http://www.treestats.com/index.php?Type=Char&Name=Krieg%20the%20Mage&Server=3

Max spec'ed MagicD with Max Focus/Will innate 100/100 = 319. See the post I made above voicing this very concern and how the wield req at the highest level is too high.

[Piley]

I really like the loot changes being proposed, especially the new Level 7 Arcane Items and Weild Requirements.

Just make sure that jump in the quality of weapons are worth the jump in the Weild Requirements being proposed.


Unless I'm blind, nothing was stated about the general concern about making enough money to cover the amount of consumables during a hunting session. And if we can't even coer our hunting sessions, how do we cover our housing and such?


Unless my last few months of hunting has be askew... there is no concern over money for covering the hunting expenses. You can EASILY cover any and all expenses right now with the current hunting/loot profiles. In fact, I can easily make fairly decent profits every loot run...

Or if it's money is really that big of a concern for you... you can always macro Healing potions for 117+ plats a day.

Piley the Archer --- Level 176 Archer
Piley -- Level 128 BattleMage
Piley's Fist of Blades -- Level 98 Axer

[Athenah]

If Melee Defense, Missile Defense, and Magic Defense will all be found on covy armor, will there be a corresponding salvage to change armor items to a Magic Defense requirement?

Thanks

[Rhysem]

Originally posted by Athenah
If Melee Defense, Missile Defense, and Magic Defense will all be found on covy armor, will there be a corresponding salvage to change armor items to a Magic Defense requirement?

Thanks

There's never been a salvage to change wield reqs.

[Cuttler]

Originally posted by YekYai
Point 1. Leather, leather, leather. Why is there leather armor in the proposed level 4+ wealth ratings?

NO ONE wants it.


I want leather! I use it to PROTECT my tinkered weapons and armor. And I'm not bring my level 126 character to a level 20 spot to find it either. I was very happy to see it listed in even the level 6 wealth range or I'd have made a point of it in my first post.

[Neue Regel]

So let me get this straight.

In order to get the highest level loot, we must fellowship hunt in the smallest areas of Dereth and cannot solo hunt unless we are 200+. That really is another reason why I shoudl not bother. Way to go for keeping us interested. I thought we were supposed to be spending more time all over dereth and not in 2% of the map.

[MimsterofMT]

1. I saw NO mention of the distribution of WMS within the loot system.

Currently I see some wms 9 and 10 items but I never, never see wms 1 or 2 items. I think both should be just as likely.

2. Please keep mana stones, healing kits and potions droppping on creatures of all levels.

3. Should chests that you use keys on, directors, singularity, oak, etc... ever be empty? I know its possible that a monster has no loot but does a chest also have a chance to be empty?

I look forward to the loot changes.

Mimster

[rageofmages]

My swordsman does not have melee d, but has specialized magic d. He is a melee just doesn't have melee d. This is a nice change for covenant.

[BorderlineCase]

PLEASE make it so that casters spawn WITHOUT spells on them... also, PLEASE make it so that they spawn WITH particle effects.

[Ibn]

Originally posted by Toxeus
Can you clarify if there will be soloable mobs at wealth rating 6?

There will be.

[Ibn]

Originally posted by Cotonagiu
my main concern with the new proposed wield reqs...

at level 140 my characters base magic defense was not even close to 355... in fact Im not entirely sure but I dont think obtaining a BASE magic d of 355 is even possible (correct me if Im wronf, but I think 319 base is the absolute max).

So what Im getting at is, are the profiles for wield reqs of magic D items possible?? probably going to need to tweek those a bit, and please, whatever you dont do NOT adjust how magic D works because it is actually VERY balanced in comparison to the other magics.

The proposed wield reqs on casters would be based on casting skill, not magic defense skill.

[srand]

I'll be going through this thread more later, but real quick I wanted to share the workmanship table with you. We haven't changed this at all, but of course with the wealth rating changes the distributions of workmanships on creatures has changed.

Wealth Rating: Workmanship Range (Ave. Workmanship)
1: 1-5 (3.45)
2: 2-6 (4.45)
3: 3-7 (5.45)
4: 3-8 (6.41)
5: 3-9 (6.77)
6: 4-10 (7.34)

[Ibn]

Originally posted by Neue Regel
So let me get this straight.

In order to get the highest level loot, we must fellowship hunt in the smallest areas of Dereth and cannot solo hunt unless we are 200+. That really is another reason why I shoudl not bother. Way to go for keeping us interested. I thought we were supposed to be spending more time all over dereth and not in 2% of the map.

Please use the Dev Tracker to see posts from the Live Team -- frequently your question has already been asked and answered.

It will be possible to find wealth level 6 on soloable creatures in the West Dires and Obsidian Plains.

[Great_Hippo]

aaah n/m found it :D

[dz366]

I was just wondering about the rumor that characters also haveing a profile of how often they will find trophy's, majors, minors, etc.....

And If the generation of treasure and what spells it casts, like armor- how come it seems like almost everything has either impenetrebility 6 or impregnability 6 on it?

Thanks for letting me ask 2 dumb questions

[Bobs]

So now a mage can wear high-al cov armor.
Brilliant!

[TravelerHG]

For the most part I liked everything on there...few things I don't see as particularly useful/great...

Magic D wield Cov: Everything about cov seems to make it melee-friendly, except for this. I seriously doubt a mage will swap their 1200 AL to all protects 2-piece suit for amuli just because they can now. Cov is still lacking in overall protects and AL as opposed to regular armor, still unbanable, and still 10 pieces that are relatively heavy compared to other suits.

To me this just seems like a type of covenant armor that the majority of people using cov won't be able to put on. With my current spec magic D I won't be getting any of the 400-500 al stuff ever.

Magic D mods on weapons/wield reqs: I'm already planning to remake an entire arsenal based on the Magic D mod changes. PLEASE do this all or nothing. The idea of getting the salvage, weapons, and successful imbues together to redo my arsenal two months back to back makes me queasy. If there's going to be a tinker to make it better, or a salvage that improves the stuff, I really hope its available soon. Players are already spending small fortunes on the new, higher-damage weapons available now. To stay a competitive fighter in the wild is going to take have an insane cost if the changes are spread out.

Did enjoy the other ideas. New armor sounds cool.

[LusPahntz]

So you mean that after all my hard work of imbuing 325 weapons and the money and skill spent into tinking them (I should add luck also)

I am going to have to get new wield req ones because obviously I wouldn't want to fall behind the times....oh frustrating.

[AC-Vet]

Ibn
That was by far the best article and information ever released and I compliment you all for taking the time....

I have some questions that come to mind that may or may not of been asked already....

1. Is there a chart that displays how critters fall into catagories? meaning am I just to assume that all critters above level 100 are catagory 6 or is there a certian break down how the critters are placed.

2. I have to asked this, peerless, cablis, Bloodletters...They are all the same level but each have a unique diffrence in difficulty to kill...has there been any thought as to how to seperate thier loot drops? if so explain please

3. also critters such as VoD mobs that basically require team effort to kill....how does this fit into the loot system? are thier specail provisions for exceeding the standard loot drop?

4. I saw mention of Boss monster Class....Will this include C lords, Crystal Sentenial( Frags) as well as High Level Quest critters such as G-man and Bobo? and even the boss critter for the decanters?

5. I didn't see salvage mentioned in the article....Is it safe to assume that Granite and Red Garnet difficulty to find will become evenly dropped as opal?

6. Sorry had to add in a 6..lol...When in reguards to majors...will we see some additional change that will make majors "Mage" friendly? Like adding Alore, Magic D instead of none mage skills like missle and melee d

I guess what I would like to know mostly is how critters fit into loot classes.....It can't be based off level but more in the line of difficulty...There are way too many variables that make critters diffrent....Like in Caul....Level 130 class can't really be compared to a Tusker when thier abilitys far exceed them.....So I would find it very intresting if I could see a chart that defined critter placement and difficulty rating and how it fits into the loot system..


Thanks again it was a vantastic article...

[StabA]

Originally posted by ufhamlet
Good thinkin' Eruditus.

http://www.treestats.com/index.php?Type=Char&Name=Krieg%20the%20Mage&Server=3



Use those 2 credits and spec Leadership.



IBN: Make them fix golden gromnie drop rates.

[Red al-Boom]

Thanks for the detailed account. This level of communication is greatly appreaciated, at least by me.

Thanks for not changing the workings of the Gems and please consider not ever changing how they work, even if you work out the debuff layering effect. They can be a life saver for those of us who have melee characters with limited magic cababilities.

Keep up the good work.

Red

[urgnul]

Detailed articles are good, great work!

Comments:

On wield requirements. I think it would be a great idea to add items with multiple wield requirements as well. (eg. instead of having 400 melee req on a piece of armour, it can have both melee 370 and missile 305). This allows for some room on the min-max issue.

On the shou-ono/jitte weapon types. People tend to max their characters regardless of how little the difference does, so making the weapons better but still not as good as silifis/morningstars will still make them very rarely seen. So instead the extended +att and +def idea makes a good option to investigate or extended +magic def. Increasing the speed of the attack animation for these weapons is another idea.

Looking forward to the April patch.

[Peknanjo]

How about reserving the highest level or two of Cov armor for people with 2 of the defense skills (Like rather than 370 melee, 350 melee and equivilent missile)? Or somehow integrating that with the system. I feel a bit averse to the idea of magi suddenly being better suited to wearing covenant armor than melees, but if they requiring 2 skills then it would be back to rewarding those who put points into their defense skills, and/or making covenant bothersomely heavier.

[ufhamlet]

StabA, that's not my character. I was using it as an example of max'ed out MagicD.

Here's Max for trained:
http://www.treestats.com/index.php?Type=Char&Name=Woe%20Kitten&Server=3

Max Missile at trained is 324:
http://www.treestats.com/index.php?Type=Char&Name=Fleshly%20Demon&Server=3

Max Melee is 401 at trained:
http://www.treestats.com/index.php?Type=Char&Name=Steven%20Hood&Server=3


I would highly recommend you drop that wield req on AL 500 armor so that people without 100/100 innate attributes can use it and that the skill doesn't have to be spec'ed. I understand the marginal increase in the armor, but I would suggest that this is overkill. The silver lining is that clicking that 300+ mil XP arrow gets easier when it allows you to touch something shiny and new. ;)

[yodha]

We need to revisit a lot of the selection tables for supplies like healing kits, lockpicks, mana stones, scarabs, potions, food, etc.

One idea to introduce some rare high boosting items. e.g. a super heal potion which can restore 100 health, or a super revitalise potion which can restore 150 stamina... These would be a nice addition instead of dropping 25 hp health potions. Players will also be able to use those items while in combat, and will love to pick such items from the loot.

Only thing is that, they should be better than any item which can be crafted. Crafted items are for large supply. These would a rare surprise and a useful thing to find in the field.

[DadgaSilverhand]

dont forget, the rank requirements are totally useless for those are either low levels and dont have vassels if they are high levels.
just remove rank requirement from the loot profile.

most allegainces are rank 6 and it should be no higher than rank 4 or rank 5 on some higher grade loots.

it is sick and sadistic to find loot that have rank 8 or 9 required on the loots. there is only few "Mega" monarch clans on some servers.

also another issue with rank, mansions required to be own by rank 6 monarch, just every month some clans do get smaller and smaller whenever some folk quit (due to RL issues, gone to colleges, gone to military duty, or lost of employments).

i feel that rank requirement to wield is a mistake, arcane lore requirement is okay on the loot profiles.
I can support with melee D, missile D, and now adding Magic D requirement to wield is good start, most mages will be happy, and maybe even throw in Mana Coversion base requirement.

to make Loyality and Leadership base require to wield could be done by adding to loot if they are high level items.
however, adding more "Requirements" on the loot profile may create problems with text codings and huge volume to work with.
most folks dont want to see long scrolling idenification box to see too many wield requirement list.

[Aaryna]

On counterpoint, I'm quite pleased with the fact that the very highest levels are only realistically obtainable by specialised characters. It adds more value to specialisation beyond a built-in moderate cantrip for the skill.

Makes sense that the best items are only useable by those who have dedicated themselves to the study of the necessary skill.

EDIT: yodha, the Potion of Black Fire (I think that's the name) can heal 100 HP.

Dagda, I agree somewhat on rank requirements... but, I don't think they should be removed completely. Rather, I would simply like to see a bit more variety. The only rank requirements I ever see are 7 or higher, which I will never, ever have any hope of attaining. The only value of these items to me is the slim chance of landing Silk on them. If there was a bit more variety... say, rank requirements of 3 and higher, that would give me something to be proud of, and to work towards.

[Aelryinth]

Hah! And here I was posting that I wouldn't be able to use the best crossbows, despite having maxed out both coord and my trained crossbow skill!

I'd like to see the maximum level dropped down just enough so that trained people who max the skill should be able to get it. It is something to look forwards to.

==Aelryinth of Leafcull

[Fen-Li]

This post applies to two threads, so I'm reposting it here as well..........

Would it be too much to ask to allow players a one time only full respec?

I mean, very broad changes are being made with the addition of melee d bonuses on wands and magic defense bonuses on weapons.

Many players would like to try these changes but it is going to take them months to tweak their charachters to be able to utilize these changes.

I mean, an archer/melee starting with 100 coord and 10 quickness will not evade a whole lot against VoD monsters.

A mage starting with 10 coord and quick is going to spend alot of exp just to evade OP stuff and evading VoD monsters simply isn't a reality.

With the lack of exp chains and no more UCM'ing people arent going to reroll to create a mage that would have respectable melee defense.

I mean for a mage starting with 10 coord/quick it will take at least 2 months depending on his spec to raise coord and quick to a viable level to make their melee worthwhile.

I like the changes, thats a good thing. But I would also like the idea of being able to enjoy these changes before Julyish.

[Corsi]

Caul or VoD Are for all pratical purposes a group combat enviroment.
For someone reason that I have yet to figure out, Turbine frowns upon Solo hunting.
I along with a large part of the paying customers like to solo hunt and quest.Yet Ibn said it, in Caul or VoD you will have a better chance to find the ""UBER"" items.Sure he also said that in the west dires you will find the ""Uber "" items, BUT at a much less chance.
So basically to have the best chance to find the ""UBER"" items we{the SOLO HUNTERS} will have to join up in groups??
Why should we have ANY penalities because we opt not to hunt in groups?
Why not have the same critters with the same loot profiles in the west dires, just with a lower experience point value.
That way, Not only will you keep the Solo hunters happy, but the groups will get their Experience points, which by the way is the only reason I see people actually going on fellows.

If, as I have seen more and more lately, I find it harder and harder to hunt as a SOLO, then I will find what little interest I do have left in this game will be gone.
Also keep in mind that a sizable chunk of your player base may also come to that conclusion and quit or threatened to quit as was seen with the changes you made to the pk scene, which you saw so quickly happen that you HOT FIXED the game to try and stop.

It is sad that a game that I have played and loved for 4 + years will more than likely be relagated to a few fond memories if there are not any changes made to make this game More SoloFriendly.

You folks have done a great job, dont get me wrong.But you have drifted away from the SOLO HERO type, and have made for all practical purposes a game 80+% group hunting.If I am wrong here, please explain it to me.:confused:

[_AbBaNdOn]

-Leather, studs, and chain need to not drop at all after level 3 loot. Unless you make them capable of al-400+ after tinking.

-Cov armor will never compare to tinked armor unless you change the tinkering affects for the materials that change protection values. If you use a protection altering material it should add +2.0 and max it out. Even on an extremely low craft piece of armor that only leaves you 3 tinks to do other things. Cov armor is only good for 1-2 damage types after you tink them and NOT for all purpose use. Are these ever gonna drop in multipiece sections?

-DO NOT remove healing kits and mana stones. health,stam, and mana potions can all take a hike though. As far as magic comps this stuff needs to drop: prism, gold and pyreal pea's need to drop and also SINGLE plat scarabs so we can hunt for as long as we want. The one good change in the loot system was finding healing kits off everything, I am gonna start carrying next to none thanx to this cuz i know if i need them i can just grab them as i hunt. And being able to fill up mana items as you hunt is also great.

- I read how the wealth rating affects things but i did not see a word on whats going on with the value on loot. Is it suppose to be this low? I loved being a money maker and selling plats to mages for the stuff they find since i wouldnt even think of hunting what they can cuz the game is so balanced. And making money now is a brutal business.

- You got two types of people to make happy in games. The ones who wanna have fun and the ones who want to be challenged. I think the people who want challenged have had your focus long enough. The loot change is kinda for the fun people but look at where all the best loot is and there goes that thought.

-*points down at sig*

[Rauth]

Hopefully this won't drown in the usual tide of "I'm cancelling" posts that follow every article posted with information on forthcoming changes.

Thank you for the information. I had to read it in sections to digest it, but I think I understand better now where we are coming from and where we are going. A lot of the changes are intriguing and reveal hints as to many other dynamics you might be tweaking at some point down the road.

Fascinating stuff.

[MaddyFF]

Remove health and stamina elixers? I hope not, I have characters that rarely restock these thanks to monster drops :)

[Toleak]

Just wanted to add my support for the following ideas.

1. Earning money, I believe it should be made somewhat easier to make money from hunting than it currently is, but nothing drastic.

2. Mana stones, potions, tapers, etc. still dropping on all mobs. Whatever you do, allow the possiblity for someone to never have to return to town if they really don't want to. Not my playing style but I definately like a variety of choices.

3. Workmanship on high loot items, it would be nice to see this tweaked a little. Make low workmanship drop slightly more often at high wealth levels than what it does currently. I think it would also be good to see lower workmanships drop than what is currently possible, but make them rare. Perhaps what workmanship 4 currently drops at from wealth level 6 could be changed to the drop rate for workmanship 3 and workmanship 4 could have the current drop rate of workmanship 5 etc.

4. Majors... what happened? These are way too rare now, tweak the rate drops on these a little.

5. Rare items, I remember you talking about unique very rare drops that can occur on any mob in a letter to the players, I really like that idea and hope it is still in the current plans.

6. New wield requirements... I think you should make the highest wield requirements attainable for a 100/100 character with only trained in whatever skill is needed possible with max stats.

7. Mahog/oak chests... why the drastic reduction in the amount of items given in these chests? Increase the amount a little closer to what it once was. Also fix the bug others have reported about chests turning up empty.

8. Is it possible to give creatures mixed wealth levels? Like half the items being wealth lvl 5 and the other half being wealth lvl 6? I want to see a little more diversity in the loot profiles as right now many creatures seem too similar. I really liked how in the old treasure system all the creatures seemed to have a distinct (even if sometimes bad) loot profile.

9. Cooking ingedients discussed by others, I endorse their ideas, perhaps can be part of the rare loot system I talked about in #5, have cookable food items that can cast layerable spells, but make their ingredients somewhat rare.

and one final one...
10. Extreme items. I know it might not be a real popular idea, but I'd love to see super rare but extremely good items drop from the loot system. Like (up too) 20% attack/defense mod weapons, higher base al armor etc., but make them rare enough that the typical person could only accumulate a small amount of them after several months (i.e. no player should ever be able to accumulate a full suit of this armor/have a weapon of every element without extreme dedication), and even then they would probably not have other modifications desired like spells. Maybe you could make them appear only in a chest at the end of a quest which could only be completed once every few weeks and therefore would give casual players an equal footing at getting them.

[Leelando]

It is amazing, that if you (Turbine) take the time and let the players know about your plans for our game that we the players can come up with many good ideas that you all can then use.

Now on to this article about the loot / Trophy changes. Sounds good !!!

/rant on

I just wish that you could have held off on the changes until they were all completed and then introduced them at one time, as now we have had to suffer from 2 months of 2/3 completed changes. I read a post from Knopp earlier in this thread that said it perfectly when he said that this was just paid beta testing. Guys & Gals, this is production, don't bring us half completed ideas or half completed plans. In the real world, we would loose our jobs if we tried that.

/Rant off

Sorry for the rant, just my feelings on the matter. Anyhow back to the changes, in their entirety the sound GREAT !!! THANK YOU, for the needed change.

And thanks for the Goal of Super Uber weild requirements, 340 for an uber missile weapon. Man, I got to get in more playing time.
[COLOR=blue][COLOR=blue][COLOR=blue][COLOR=blue]

[Dom on TD]

I like most of the ideas in the letter, but some things were missing that I think need to be addressed.

#1 Value. I didn't see any mention of the value of items, or peas. Hunting is expensive, as I've burned up to 3 plat scarabs buffing my melee for 1 cycle. This is an even greater problem for mid-high level characters, since they have low mana c, and consequently have to cast more transfer spells as well as recasting fizzles. Please make looting for cash worthwhile again.

#2 Trophy items. Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see any mention of the frequency of trophy items dropped. I've been looking for a Swarthy robe since the 1st time I heard of them to no avail. Did you take them out? Meanwhile, almost everytime I see a D lord, I have to carry the burden of a new D shield, a heart, and possibly a D powder. Seems a little unbalanced to me.

#3 Prismatic Tapers. Every other type of spell comp with the exceptions of D scarab, plat scarabs, and chorizite potions drop on critters, why not prismatic tapers? Why don't you add prismatic peas?

#4 Sing Troves. Since I started playing, Sing keys have been the base of th economy. Now that you pushed the Sing Troves down a loot level, alot of trade bots won't take sing keys in trade. Some are takin plat scarabs as the same value as a sing key. Why did you destroy the economy?



In short, I like the concept of the proposed changes. As long as you don't screw up the execution, it should be a good change.

[Graywys]

I am sure I will live with the current changes. I did see a mention by others about workmanship. But I feel you forgot about the tinkers. Are you eliminating this skill. If not, than you need to address this issue also as part of the changes.

There needs to be a chance that quality items will drop that have a low workmanship. I am not seeing much of this currently. Thats why I have the impression you are dropping tinking or dicouraging this skill.

I also miss seeing scarb peas drop for the level spells a person might use for the paticular level critter slain. That to me is a good guide on what pea drops on what critter (IMHO).

[Aaryna]

Originally posted by Toleak
10. Extreme items. I know it might not be a real popular idea, but I'd love to see super rare but extremely good items drop from the loot system. Like (up too) 20% attack/defense mod weapons, higher base al armor etc., but make them rare enough that the typical person could only accumulate a small amount of them after several months (i.e. no player should ever be able to accumulate a full suit of this armor/have a weapon of every element without extreme dedication), and even then they would probably not have other modifications desired like spells. Maybe you could make them appear only in a chest at the end of a quest which could only be completed once every few weeks and therefore would give casual players an equal footing at getting them.

Rare items of power NEVER work in an MMO setting, becaue they are inherently UNbalancing. Inevitably, once they are released they become the new "standard" of power. Everyone decides they "need" them to compete. And then they're all standing around on the boards complaining about your time-wasting rare item system and how these items should be more common so that they can play the game without having to spend months gathering equipment.

I'm VERY glad Turbine has finally realised this after four years, and has no plans to increase the general power level further.

[Jas-of-HG]

"We need to revisit a lot of the selection tables for supplies like healing kits, lockpicks, mana stones, scarabs, potions, food, etc. One option that we are considering is removing most of these items from creature treasure and instead making them more available at vendors."

Don't go overboard... some players use some of the stuff mentioned.

For instance, when so many of us switched to foci, our ability to field-stock magic components was dramatically reduced, introducing much higher strength levels to mages, at the same time dramatically reducing the number of items they can carry at one time. I know, it's self inflicted, and we have a choice... but be careful removing mana stones, healing kits, elixers... if it helps keep peeps out in the field, playing the game, having a good time... it's a good thing.

[D X Mage]

Is it possible to get a major BT, major Def, WS 2, 155% +15 xbow from the current loot system?

[Phosphine]

ok, everyone bury Cutler under thier bags of salvaged leather! :)

[ufhamlet]

Minimum WS on that XBow would be 4, I believe, DX.

[Dews_Pistol]

Two questions:

1. What about Yori Armor?

2. What about cash values of items. Is there a way to up the value of lower level loot? I am finding it hard on a lowbee to get cash needed to supply myself. I have to log the big char to generate the cash for the lil folk because the stuff droping off the lower level stuff I hunt is low cost/crappy.

This then poses a more in depth question on cash values of loot. What will happen to the new clients you get when they cannot support themselves? The value of scarabs & Tapers and cost of fighting vrs the loot dropping do not balance enough to pay for lost comps and scarabs? OR mana stones and Stams etc etc etc.

[Aaryna]

Yoroi, Scalemail, and Platemail are all covered under Plate.

[Lloth]

Like they said, I believe rare items of power NEVER are good for a MMO setting.

I played Diablo2 before coming to AC. At the end of my D2 experience, everyone wanted the same items and considered them the the "must have" type. It got so bad that people were buying and selling items on Ebay OR running macro's that would kill high end loot dropping bosses over and over. This led to an entire gaming community all wearing a shaft stop armor and a vampire gaze helm lol. You'd enter a game and find 5 amazons that looked and were equipped almost exactly alike.

One thing I love about AC is that I DON'T have the very best items, in fact there is no such thing as a BEST item (excluding the 166% bows lol). I have a major war magic helm... awesome yes, best? no. Another in my clan has a Major Focus/war magic helm. You see where this is going. It is very possible to have awesome equip, but you can be assured someone else has something just a bit better.

I think that with the monsters getting more powerful every patch, that the loots should start going up. Armor dropping with higher AL, weapons dropping with better mods etc.

Myself and many of my buddys love the fact that the game can be solo'd. This is slowly changing IMO to being forced into groups due to the critters getting more powerful and the same old stuff dropping.

[the-dark-one]

So ... those weild req's on these "proposed" magic casters... those are War/Life magic reqs?

Cause if those are Magic D.. well, trained Magic D, with Foc and Self maxed, maxes at 291...

Unless those changes were to be *extremely* useful, I wouldn't see many people going out to spec shrines to spend 12 credits on Magic Def.

[bertman]

I want to put in my thoughts on the whole group/solo thing:

I like the social interaction of the monarchy, being able to help other players, groups getting together to do quests, and xp fellowships. A multiplayer game is of necessity a social endeavor. That having been said, I also enjoy being able to hunt solo for things that I am interested in solely for the benefit of my own character. VOD and the Caul are places where you have to be in a group to gain any benefit from the loot drops, let alone survive for any length of time.

I have been playing rpg's for longer than some AC players have been alive; Times of Lore, Ultima 1, Rogue, and I always liked the magic-caster type of character, so I play one character in AC, a mage. Mages have distinct advantages, like all damage types, buffing spells, debuffs and drains, but the downside is having to self-heal and regain stamina and mana while taking an incredible beating and trying to cast attack spells with long windup times. I'm not complaining, because if it weren't this way, everyone would be a mage.

But in a group, a mage, who has to debuff for other players, heal other players, and try to get a few hits in, I never seem to get to the corpse first. The treasure drops in VOD require that you get to the corpse first, or you will come up empty every time. The other issue for the solo mage is that melee and missile characters get the most damage in, and so they will own the kill more often. If, for some reason, they choose not to share loot, then that makes me an unpaid employee. Basically, a solo mage takes longer to kill a monster than a solo melee, and in a group, the mage contributes the least amount of actual damage to the monster, and so doesn't get to refuse to share fellowship loot, since he doesn't own any of the kills.

I am not here to complain about the loot value, although it would be nice to see the peas come back, even the component peas, as they add a visual variety to the open corpse. Stacking makes them nice, so even taper peas can be picked up, since a pack slot can contain 50,000 pyreals worth of red peas. My issue is that the rewards are potentially highest for the ones that group together, which isn't me most of the time. I would like to see some places where good loot dropping monters spawn in manageable groups spaced far enough apart that you can afford to try to take them on solo. The monsters themselves wouldn't even have to drop any loot, since the fellows would be camping all such places, they could be guarding grade 6 runed chests or something.

I have no trouble making my quota of trade notes and salvage even with the new treasure system. In the long run, the loot changes will make the game better, and if people quit over revisions to the software, I will miss them, and they will miss out, but the game will go on. Maybe we are better off without the ones that threaten to quit every time the game changes.

It is refreshing not to have to see the 'Asheron's Call is Dying' threads that were so prevalent a year ago. Overall, I think the game is going in a positive direction, but please don't forget about the solo gimp mage in your future plans.

[ouchthathurt]

The player economy has always essentially been seperate from the game economy. At one time smalls were the currency of choice. They lost favor as currency because pretty much everyone that wanted a shadow suit had one. Plats were at one time as well, but lost favor with all the money xploits/macros. They seem to be making a comeback though. Sings have been a currency probably the longest. Sings have stood the test of time because there were no xploits, at least widely known, to farm them and you don't complete something with them. You just keep using them up.

It seems that as part of their loot changes Turbine wishes to make pyreals, or things you buy with pyreals (plats), the basis for the player economy. I hope this is not the case and they either bump sings back up or make keys available to lower level characters to whatever chests will be level 6 loot. Sings are actually perfect because relatively low levels can find sings on mobs they can kill and the troves are in areas where many can get to. In other words they are both acquirable and spendable.

On the subject of solo vs group hunting, almost all VOD level mobs require life debuffs to kill in a reasonable time. The only characters who do well in VOD or upper Caul are mages and life/missle toons. They can solo those mobs really well if they are careful how they hunt and use good tactics. For everyone else group hunting with a life mage is the only way to do well there. This is not so bad if what you get there is mostly xp, as it was untill a few months back, because it was designed to be a group hunting area.

The problem is, mages and life/missle toons are their own group, with the life/missle toons having the advantage of the two because of their higher DOT. Life/melee toons are not as effective because at times they can't draw with life alone and even if they do, sticky melee smoetimes drags them in alert range of other spawns. All classes should be able to solo hunt in an area which has the highest chance of dropping the best loot in game, otherwise the Turbies will have created an instant social class system. We have enough of that in the real world, we can do without it in our virtual worlds.

[Lloth]

I don't fully understand how the new treasure generated wands are going to affect me in the least as a mage. As a mage I started with a template of 65,55,0,0,100,100. 65 Str so I can carry those incredibly heavy tapers, 55 endurance so I'd have some health to counter the constant melee damage I WILL be taking. 10 on the coord and quick because as a mage I simply HAVE to have the highest possible skill due to the ever increasing monster magic D.

Now you tell me your adding missle and melee d bonuses to my wands... L O L. I know few mages with melee d. Why have it when your starting stats aren't going to allow for a skill high enough to dodge anything but the weak critters. Better to rely on a nice suit of high AL armor to reduce the dmg you take as much as possible. So am I going to trade my 31% FR wand for a lower mana c one with some bonus to melee d? Nope. I took missle d when I untrained leadership due to the xp nerf in hopes that I could try a little PK to renew my interest in the game that has taken away my ability to up my stats past the 126 lvl range where tusks still gave me good xp. Still not going to trade my wands in for a new one since my missle d just keeps the archers from being able to slide the bar all the way left and fire super fast.

Now your going to up the melee d and ATTACK bonus for melee weapons. Skills that are divided by THREE not FOUR like magics. You want to put something useful on my wands? Add life and war magic bonuses to them. Think of them as defense (life magic) and attack (war magic) bonuses. The life magic would help my drains land more reliably, and of course the war bonus would have me getting resisted less by creatures that have no buisness resisting my 438 buffed war magic skill anyway. How does an ignorant tusker resist my magic at all?

Mages, your days are numbered just like mine. Better run out and spec. critter just so you can yeild and not be resisted half the time. Assuming of course your yeild spell lands ROFL.

[nofeir]

From your letter on treasure I have questions/comments on Table 6: Covenant Armor - Wield Requirements vs. Armor Level.

Take profile 3 as an example, with an armor level range of from 300 to 350. The wield requirements seem to me to be very unbalanced. On the surface, it looks like it takes less to use either missile defense or magic defense to wield covenant. But it actually would take a much higher investment in experience points.

For a player trying to meet the melee requirement, you'd have to have a base melee skill of 300. Melee skill is Coordination + Quickness / 3. To come up with a skill of 300, you'd have to have 450 coordination and 450 quickness. (I know you can raise the skill directly, but stay with me here. I want to compare the root attribute requirements. Let's assume that each player starts with 100 in each attribute in question and would raise the skill directly by the same amount.)

For a player trying to meet the missile requirement, you'd have to have a base missile skill of 245. Missile skill is Coordination + Quickness / 5. To come up with a skill of 245, you'd have to have 612.5 coordination and 612.5 quickness.

For a player trying to meet the magic defense requirement, you'd have to have a base magic defense skill of 225. Magic defense is Focus + Self / 7. To come up with a skill of 225, you'd have to have 787.5 Focus and 787.5 Self.

This seems unbalanced to me. No, I don't want you to raise the requirements for melee players (I have several), but it seems you're penalizing those who rely on their missile defense or magic defense skill to use covenant armor.

Why are the root attribute requirements to wield covenant armor so much higher for missile and magic defense?

[Rhysem]

Originally posted by Neue Regel
So let me get this straight.

In order to get the highest level loot, we must fellowship hunt in the smallest areas of Dereth and cannot solo hunt unless we are 200+. That really is another reason why I shoudl not bother. Way to go for keeping us interested. I thought we were supposed to be spending more time all over dereth and not in 2% of the map.

Soloing pre-126 is quite viable in DV, and even Caul probably (haven't done it there tho).

Mages solo fine. It's a harsh life but you do it fine.

Life archers or melees kick some real boo-tay.

Even without life, my archer (117th) can take out paradox. It'd be messy but I could do it. Easier mobs and it'd be well easier. Oh btw I only had AR and CS bows onhand, and only the AR was tink'd at all.

[Rhysem]

Originally posted by srand
I'll be going through this thread more later, but real quick I wanted to share the workmanship table with you. We haven't changed this at all, but of course with the wealth rating changes the distributions of workmanships on creatures has changed.

Wealth Rating: Workmanship Range (Ave. Workmanship)
1: 1-5 (3.45)
2: 2-6 (4.45)
3: 3-7 (5.45)
4: 3-8 (6.41)
5: 3-9 (6.77)
6: 4-10 (7.34)

Originally WMS went up across the boards so newbies could have a better chance at using salvage.

When you need an average of 30 bags of salvage, that ain't real great for a newbie, ya know?

I think the real problem here is that it's easier to tinker crappy workmanship items. This seems backwards. If it'd been easier to tinker higher quality items then the WMS above would make so much more sense.

[Taker_AC]

Originally posted by Helbereth
Wield requirements and activation requirements are separate animals.

Wield requirements prevent low level noobs from using overpowered equipment.

Activation requirements limit players from using the arcane lore on weapons, which is usually 2-3 useless spells that have no effect on your overall ability.

Simple fix: Make the + to attack and Melee only work when the weapon is activated, otherwise, it's zero. Then get ride of the wield req all together.

I HATE HATE HATE wield req's.

[Lloth]

Why would it be easier to tinker a piece of armor or a weapon that was put together by a clumsy craftsman? So you got a wk2 leather BP... Seems to me that wk2 says that its a ragged piece of leather stapled together (litteraly). And a wk9 leather BP that is wonderfully fashioned and sturdy? Perhaps they mean you could add alot more to the piece of **** armor while a wk9 piece of armor is so close to perfection you can't really add much to such great workmanship. Would also keep you from getting 10 tinks on your Major coord sword or something along those lines that will deffinately NOT be wk2 =P. Then again, why can't you have 10 tinkers on your major whatever weapon or armor? Shouldn't we as the residents be allowed to forge weapons of epic quality? Should not Wimp Tinker of Solclaim with all his skills and majors be able to craft a Excalibur-like sword? And does it really make much difference seeing as how major coord on a sword doesn't add an incredible amount to your attack and defense skills?

[Dr_Dave]

Ok, let me get this straight...YOur going to add Melee and/or Missle Defense to a wand??? (I assume it's only going to be less than 10% for the most part?)
I'm a Level 75 UA/Life/Creature spec Item/War mage (I know, redundant) who plays solo most of the time because my job takes up most of my time. I was never part of the chains so it has taken me a long time (and a lot of monkeys) to get where I'm at. I figure it will be at 40 more levels before I can even think of taking Melee D.
Now what is it you expect me to do with 3,4, or 5 percentage points of Melee D besides die. The whole reason I quit playing AD&D years ago was because of GG's attitude toward mages.
Am I being forced once again to start looking at alteratives to AC because of some bigotry to mage types again.
Please don't even try to tell me they are to powerful in this game as they are. Not when I have a Swordie and Bow who have made it to lvls by themselfs with only a little help from others and my main toon that my main tooks many months to get there.
:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :(

[Havo]

Ok now the $20,000 question: When are we going to see the re-distribution of monsters to make this all work? 80% of the players are playing in 20% of the land mass.

It is now very easy for a 50th level character, especaly a spec life, to hunt most of the dires. The only area off limits are the west and OP.

[Myk]

Here is a nifty idea.....Instead of making missile weapons with higher reqs give us ammo with higher reqs or special properties.

This would also be fletching love, have the skill to flecth them too.

Base bow skill of 360 DAPs 30-35

Not a big up on damage but the lower end damage would work.

[Bhodi Amashi]

How about making the WS = the number of tinks a item can "safely" have with no chance of destruction.

For example, a WK 6 Tachi can take 6 tinks with no chance of failure (except for imbues). However, on tink number 7 it becomes subject to the normal fail rates.

[Hamster]

I didn't get a chance to scan the whole thread for this suggestion, so if this has already been suggested then forgive me oversight.

I really like adding magic d specs to covenant armor reqs possibilities. As it stands right now, I pick up covenant armor with my mage, and I don't even bother to look at it half the time.

My suggestion is to extend this to all armors with spells on them, so armor with spells on it won't just be either melee/missile/arc/racial req'd but magic d req'd as a possibility as well. This would make utilizing some of the spells on armor more feasible for a lot of mages, which would be nice.

[Some weird guy]

Sounds great, they just need to hurry up and get it done. =(

Best ideas in the world aren't going to help as more and more people get bored and leave...

Oh, and why are there 250 weild weapons in the level 6 loot? Please remove these.

[Kossuth]

Sorry, can't be bothered to read the last 13 pages of comments. :o

Just wanted to say how nice it was to see it all laid out. Seemed to contain a lot of good ideas too.

Grats on a good job Turbine!

[sharpy-sc]

Please change the wield to wealth rating to this:

Table 1: Weapon Wield Requirements

Wealth Rating
Melee Weapon Wield Requirements
Missile Weapon Wield Requirements

1
0
0

2
0, 250
0, 250

3
250, 300
250, 270

4
250, 300, 325
250, 270, 290

5
250, 300, 325
250, 270, 290

6
300, 325
270, 290

[Amalthus]

My only concern about the prospective changes to weapons fall with missle weapons. For a long time, melee chars had to carry around different weapons for different damage types. Archers could carry around one good bow and different dmg type arrows. This helped to offset the fact that archers typically started w/ a lower STR than the average melee. If Archers start having to carry around a series of bows to supply different damage types, that's gonna leave a lot of people (myself included) VERY encumbered. Now this problem was agravated when the dmg-type rending imbues were added, since an archer can no longer cover all his bases with an armor rending bow anymore. Bows are typically about 800bu btw, 5*800=4000=more than the total weight of my spell components, or armor *bleh*

OR if you could add like a weight reducing bag/quiver for all those arrows, (but i'm not sure how easy that'd be to write)

Another thing I'd also like to address, If you're gonna require/encourage missle-weapon charachters to tinker multiple weapons, you MIGHT want to think about changing the drop rate of mahogany so it's more in line w/ iron, seeing as they're going to be in equal demand now. If you don't think the vastly inflated price of mahogany is silly, stop by the marketplace on solclaim and see how much discount mahogany you can find for sale :P

If anyone getting paid by turbine actually read this,
I SALUTE YOU!!!

--Amalthus 99 Life/Archer of Solclaim
A.K.A The Green Goblin :)
(yes, I'm 99 and i'm still wearing a robe b/c of encumberance, please don't tie iron weights around my ankles!)

[Darro]

Thanks for the information on how it works and where you are going with it.

I have a question about the new heritage armor though. It has always bewildered me how the Aluvians with a racial weapon skill of Dagger have the heaviest armor of the heritage armors (celedon). I would have thought that the Aluvians using a weapon that ignores strength would have had an armor that is very light, flexible and flows with dagger fighting, something like Scalemail or chain. Is there any chance that the new heritage armor for the Aluvians could reflect that??

Also, please leave the potions, health kits and mana stones as loot. I think the aforementioned super potions or kits on the level 5 and/or 6 creatures would be great. My dagger character is my explorer, yes I still explore Dereth there is lots I have not seen in my 2+ years of play. He is the one character I have on 3 accounts that I will log out in the middle of no where since he doesn't have to buff as long as he keeps finding healing kits, stam potions and mana stones.

Again, thanks for the info. Look forward to seeing more of this.

[Poly451]

Great article! Thanks for keeping the players informed.

[Mogosh]

This item was taken off of a quite deceased Bane Grievver, a looong time ago:
BS/2: Silver Kabuton, (5) craft, AL 177, Impen III, Major Focus, Minor Acid Bane, Diff. 128, 1.3/1.0/1.0/0.4/0.8/0.6/0.9, Value 4,823, 412BU



It will soon be impossible to generate.



I believe this is a MAJOR problem (no pun intended).

You describe perfectly why you had to introduce a "quality" to the loot profile specifications. The very same argument should apply to where the cantrips are located.

If you decide that cantrips should be available only on very high level treasures, this is understandable. However, it will be indirectly tied to other characteristics of high level loot, i.e. many high quality spells. This translates usually in a very high arcane requirement.

Majors are completely vital at high level. Arcane is completely useless. The new system may tie them indirectly if not amended properly.


There are many solutions to this. I suggest a simple one: transfer of requirement. Currently, silk can remove a rank requirement. Why not add 3 tinkering operations, that would transform an arcane requirement into a missile, melee, or magic defense requirement?

[reven]

I'm really excited about all the new changes, ideas, and innovation that Turbine has been investing in AC.

One thing which I do not personally like, however, is the high wield reqs at the high end. Not only from the min-max perspective, but looking at the majority of players out there, how many are going to get that high of a base melee skill. Correct me if I'm wrong, but relatively few people are that uber of a level to benefit from the wield req changes.

[Jet-eye-nite]

Nice read , I hope your plans go thru . I am a middle of the road player and with march have as much exhausted my total of my wealth ,so I wait with baited breathe that I won't need to get a cardboard sign and start bumming in MP (LOL). On the idea of potions how about remove them totally from loot system and give the trades player a chance to gain xp and pyreal by selling made potions to town npc's. Maybe with healing kits they could be given to a friendly alc or cook who could turn a crude kit into an elex kit or a peerless into a treated kit and gain xp and pyreal for their trouble. I would hope that you have also considered adding plats to loot system and maybe even in pea form .On the topic of SiK,SSK as they are now they are totally worthless with the mobs now dropping lvl 7's,(which is fine by me) and the chests that are used with these keys generate nothing but ****.
And my hunting in the month of March thus far killing above 2000 lvl 120+'s has netted 1 lousy major a ws 9 al 120 pair of Major storm bane STB ( please stricken the word Major Bane from the loot system ) a ton of 120-130 bows and less than a hand full of swords .Don't get me wrong the bows are fine but I also play sword,axe,spear and of those 3 weapons all I saw was junk .This was all played thru a new toon which I have gotten up to lvl 60 , I shelved all my toons from lvl 70-100 as I couldn't afford to continue to play them .

[Kyayote]

Ummm your article looks good, sounds good.
I hunt vod alot & with those level monsters I'd think i'd find some good stuff. Not really. So I'm hoping that your new system will fix this.
Thanks,
Kya

[Zeds]

the article is interesting , but says nothing convincing about why this was done

this long drawn out process to fix a loot system that wasnt broken drove me away from a game I enjoyed for 4 years


it says nothing convincing to me about when the loot will be back to a point that hunting will be fun /selfsustaining/profitable again if ever.

as I said so many times in the past , I wouldnt/didnt /am not going to pay to play beta changes.
I dint exploit or macro mules full of plats to be able to weather this poorly thought out loot system change
those who did had no problems , once again you have rewarded the macroer and the exploiter and driven the honest player away

I am not convinced to return to AC yet , I may never do so , if I do I guaratee you I will wait an extra month or so after I decide to come back to make sure you get my message (an extra month or twowithout the cash my subscription(s) would have been steadily been bringing to you if you had simply not screwed with the loot.


in closing , I am still unconvinced , it is up to Turbine to convince me to return

[Anaximander]

Something seems wrong with the idea that a melee could find Cov armor with a magic D weild requirement out of reach.
This would require the melee to "waste" a tinker(Weild MagicD to Missle/Melee D) on a non-buffable armor. An armor that is inferior protection-wise because of it's non-buffable properties and requires tinkering to it prots.
It seems a slap in the face to anyone who trained/spec'd Melee D and/or Missle D and possibly eliminating them from 1/3 of the Cov armor dropped.

Magic D weild requirements should not be added to Cov. armor and the base protections of Cov. armor should be raised to make it a viable alternative to other armor.


An armor that a melee cannot wear? Just plain weird....

[Nemis]

Originally posted by ufhamlet
StabA, that's not my character. I was using it as an example of max'ed out MagicD.

Here's Max for trained:
http://www.treestats.com/index.php?Type=Char&Name=Woe%20Kitten&Server=3

Max Missile at trained is 324:
http://www.treestats.com/index.php?Type=Char&Name=Fleshly%20Demon&Server=3

Max Melee is 401 at trained:
http://www.treestats.com/index.php?Type=Char&Name=Steven%20Hood&Server=3


I would highly recommend you drop that wield req on AL 500 armor so that people without 100/100 innate attributes can use it and that the skill doesn't have to be spec'ed. I understand the marginal increase in the armor, but I would suggest that this is overkill. The silver lining is that clicking that 300+ mil XP arrow gets easier when it allows you to touch something shiny and new. ;)

I'm talking about Table 8: Future Weapon Wield Requirements here....

If the Max levels above are correct, that means the new level 7 stuff with missle def reqs will only be able to be weilded by those 1/20th of 1% of players with Specialized Missle defense and most likely levels in the 140 range...?

As always, it looks like your first guess at the weild reqs for Missle weapons (both missle skill and missle def skill) are higher than is reasonable.

Looks like the other levels are also skewed too high. Due to having to spend so much XP in support skills, almost no missle users in your targeted ranges will actually have the missle weapon skill or missle defense that you list in your tables.

I hope you re-examine these reqs before it goes live or you might have major issues and a lot of complaining.

Regards,
Nemis
(currently inactive)

[Thundercutter]

I like the proposed change that will increase the damage that an caster may have with regards to certain damage types. When I first got my Branith's staff, I found it odd that there was no difference between fire spells cast while wielding it and any other type of war magic. I see this change as a potential to add a lot of new casting/missile weapons without throwing the game balance out of whack.

[Tesuji Aji]

>>>> In short, missile weapons would get a flat damage bonus (similar to the bonus from Blood Drinker) *only* when the damage type of the arrow in use matched the damage type of the bonus. Similarly, magic casters might have a damage bonus multiplier that worked the same way – applying the modifier only when the damage of the war spell matched the damage type of the bonus.<<<<<<<<


This sucks forbBow, its just the same as mulitpal elemental bows, or rend in each flavor... which are completly useless, the BU of keeping 9 bows, and the time for buffing each bow.

With your proposal, an archer will have to switch bows as well as arrows constantly. That is why the elemental rend bows never cought on.

360 base bow is lvl 110+ 381 is max bow. Is the Melee req 21 points short of max?

[sylphia]

Ibn,
Something that was left out of the treasure articles: What AL ranges (on non-covenenat) armor) can we expect to see in each WR?

IE testing out the lowest tier of loot, I have found that currently WR 1 = 20-108 (anything at and above 100 being extremely rare in the tests I have done so far). The armor revamp is scheduled for April, as I recall. What will the new ranges be, please? :)

[Dragonsbreath]

Are you ever planing to add major and minor war/life to wands and other casting devices?
You have major bows on bows why can't mages have it also?

[Dom on TD]

Originally posted by Dragonsbreath
Are you ever planing to add major and minor war/life to wands and other casting devices?
You have major bows on bows why can't mages have it also?

"Magic casters will also have the chance to generate with appropriate item enchantment spells (Defender and Hermetic Link) and with appropriate major and minor cantrips (including skill cantrips for things like alchemy, but not for things like sword). "
that was copied from the in-depth tresure article
I think what it's saying is that they can have majors to help anything but melee/archer abilities(since you wouldn't need a wand equipped to use those skills.)

[Sabu]

I'll pass judgement when I see it. Lower prices on Health potions aint a bad side effect.

Can't wait to see scenario's newest creation.

Brb here post patch!

[Sabu]

Originally posted by Lloth
I don't fully understand how the new treasure generated wands are going to affect me in the least as a mage. As a mage I started with a template of 65,55,0,0,100,100. 65 Str so I can carry those incredibly heavy tapers, 55 endurance so I'd have some health to counter the constant melee damage I WILL be taking. 10 on the coord and quick because as a mage I simply HAVE to have the highest possible skill due to the ever increasing monster magic D.

Now you tell me your adding missle and melee d bonuses to my wands... L O L. I know few mages with melee d. Why have it when your starting stats aren't going to allow for a skill high enough to dodge anything but the weak critters. Better to rely on a nice suit of high AL armor to reduce the dmg you take as much as possible. So am I going to trade my 31% FR wand for a lower mana c one with some bonus to melee d? Nope. I took missle d when I untrained leadership due to the xp nerf in hopes that I could try a little PK to renew my interest in the game that has taken away my ability to up my stats past the 126 lvl range where tusks still gave me good xp. Still not going to trade my wands in for a new one since my missle d just keeps the archers from being able to slide the bar all the way left and fire super fast.

Now your going to up the melee d and ATTACK bonus for melee weapons. Skills that are divided by THREE not FOUR like magics. You want to put something useful on my wands? Add life and war magic bonuses to them. Think of them as defense (life magic) and attack (war magic) bonuses. The life magic would help my drains land more reliably, and of course the war bonus would have me getting resisted less by creatures that have no buisness resisting my 438 buffed war magic skill anyway. How does an ignorant tusker resist my magic at all?

Mages, your days are numbered just like mine. Better run out and spec. critter just so you can yeild and not be resisted half the time. Assuming of course your yeild spell lands ROFL.


Actually Some melees/archers would benefit from melee d bonuses.... Nice to have a +13% wand with which to recall when swarmed.

[sylphia]

Hmm, the AL question is probably better directed at Srand now that I think about it, since she seems to be most familiar with the loot changes :) Still waiting on a response from Ibn (or anyone who wants to tackle it form the Turbine team) on the HEALING thing, but I am going to start a new thread for that one, rather than pull this one off topic.

[Tekblade]

Again, it seems to get any type of response from the devs, it has to be a topic of how the PVP is getting nerfed or oh my god, that much damage on weapon x is just unfair.

Well, I just wonder what it takes to get any kind of response on the impact to the economy or effects to the lower chars that used to have a chance at good tradable loot via the sing key.

Yes, I have read through all the letters to the players concerning treasure and the changes, for the last couple of months, and I have posted questions and points of view about these changes.

Apparently these views or questions are negligable when someone starts a rant about how they will quit the game because of all the changes to PVP. I have read through page after page of comments and questions only to see a majority of replies to concern these few limited topics.

Does that mean my points or concerns are invalid because the bandwagon is flaming on with me? I don't think so, or feel that should be the case.

Because I don't want to waste my time typing it all over again, please look for my post on the last letter if you don't know what I am talking about. Wait, maybe I should type it again, I mean, I don't want to provide any excuse for someone to not read it.

No, I am tired of walking on glass and holding hands and smacking people in the back of the head that are staring at TV when you are trying to talk to them to get their attention, time to get off the proverbial lazy butt and do something.

Tekblade

[Thundercutter]

Tekblade,

I looked through this thread twice and couldn't find your original post(s). Did you post them as a different user?

[Tekblade]

No, same user, lemme go see if I can find it...

[Tekblade]

Ok, here is the link

http://forums.ac.turbinegames.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3427&perpage=15&pagenumber=26

Not sure if it will work, othewise, its in the march letter to the players, page 26, posted on 3-3-04 at 11:02 am

[Thundercutter]

Tekblade,

Your link works but it points to a different thread. I'm confused as to why you posted to this thread. Why not read them the riot act on that thread? Now, to keep from getting any further off topic, I'll post to the thread to which you provided the link (after reading through the 43 pages on the other thread).

[Tekblade]

Well, for starters, the march letter to the players is when the whole treasure system revamp was laid out.

Since this thread is still about the treasure changes, and it is the current thread on the topic, it seems the best place to rant about the treasure changes and refer to my first post that was ignored.

Make sense?

Tekblade

[Jet-eye-nite]

In further reading I see the question posed about making enough to support continued IG hunting/housing . But to loot every mobs and stop at safe burden lvls takes up valueable buffed time . 1 hour buff time is very limited in what you can do . I realize you are working on this but it still should be factored into the equation .

[hobbittx]

If you are, as you say you are, trying to attract more folks(NEW FOLKS) to AC, then making the game a whole passel more complicated is quite the wrong direction.
Ok, that having been said, if I can expect an influx of new players, what with the new XP pass-up system, I need to have lots of low-level-but-decent equipment ready for the budding slayers. BUT WAIT--OH MY, I have no room to store anything else.
Yes, I have already gone the get-another-account-to-get-another-apartment route, twice. With all the holding of stuff, there's still no room. Anyone else have that dilemma?

For those snobs out there who do NOT have trouble with space, spare me the diatribes, please. Snicker in private, and move on.

Disraeli, et al, on MT

[knopp]

Originally posted by Sabu
Actually Some melees/archers would benefit from melee d bonuses.... Nice to have a +13% wand with which to recall when swarmed.

Thats the problem man. Once again the melee class will benefit greatly where the mage class will benefit little.

War and life mods would be great for magic, and more in line with weapons that spawn with +19a. thats a little disgusting if you ask me.

But then again, the Devs utterly destroyed Daggers usefulness in AC, looks like mages are taking the same route.

[Thundercutter]

Tekblade,

I finally finished reading the 43 pages of the forum that you had hyperlinked. I compiled a list of 20 issues/topics that I thought should be mentioned/considered/discussed and when I got to the end of the forum I saw that it was closed.

Since the bulk of my issues aren't about treasure, I don't feel that this is the forum to state them. (It would have been a good read though :) )

[Crevanor]

"In terms of cool new features, we’re considering adding higher level wield requirements to missile and melee weapons, and adding wield requirements to magic casters at high levels. For melee weapons, it would be sufficient to increase the damage of these weapons, but for missile weapons and magic casters we have a slightly different idea in mind. In short, missile weapons would get a flat damage bonus (similar to the bonus from Blood Drinker) *only* when the damage type of the arrow in use matched the damage type of the bonus. Similarly, magic casters might have a damage bonus multiplier that worked the same way – applying the modifier only when the damage of the war spell matched the damage type of the bonus. "

Also have questions on this.

(1) So the new bonus is damage-type specific?? If so, are they still imbuable with renders??

(2) Will wands have a damage bonus multiplier that worked like b/f or a flat bonus like the missile weapons are getting?

[Bruiserk]

Raise the drop frequency for majors.

Fix the pea problem.

Up the treasure profile for Olthoi. Especially Eviscerators.

[gzus]

The Article was very informative. I think you are mostly addressing my concern. I have played this game since beta and I just like to solo loot hunt. Thats it thats all I've ever really liked doing. I think there are probably many people like me and the present changes have pretty much destroyed that aspect of the game. I will hold out another month to see if the treasure system is repaired. My main character is level 96 so it looks like it may be ok in the end. With the present pass-up changes and my lack of interest in exp hunting It will take a very long time to see even level 100.

[knopp]

There are only 2 reasons in AC to hunt.

1. XP

2. Loot

Reason 2 was killed 2 months ago. And I dont hunt for XP.

[DraconisUmbra]

Hmm lot of stuff I'm not going to read through here so if I'm going over something that has been gone over already, tough. Table's 1-5 and the information concerning them all sound great. However, the changes to Covenant Armor concern me. If the requirements for wielding Cov armor remain a base requirement, than it effectively prevents a very large number of people from using the best Cov armor because the wield requirements are either impossible or extremely difficult to meet unless you have a specific template. For example, my main is a 3 school UA with only Melee and UA spec. He has 100 innate Coord, and 60 innate Quick. The maximum base for my Melee under these circumstances is 406. That's over 12 billion xp that I'd like to get someday but will take me quite a long time to get. Also I have Missile Trained. The maximum for my Missile D is only 316. Of course I also have trained Magic D. I have 50 innate Focus and 10 innate Self. My maximum Magic D is (I believe) 271. My point is that without drastically changing my template I will be unable to ever use the best Cov if it has a Missile or Magic D requirement and it will take me forever to use the best Cov if it has a Melee D requirement. And a large number of people will be in the same boat. I undertstand that a lot of people have maxed skills but giving them their own little set of treasure isn't a good solution. High levels should have content designed for their level. Oh wait they do. They want more content, fine. More quests designed to give them a challenge, maybe a new island with tougher critters stuff like that. Shutting the rest of us out will only make the situation worse, not better. If this has already been addressed somewhere please let me know otherwise I am curious as to whether or not these concerns will be addressed.

Also I have much the same concerns regarding the new wield requirment for weapons, if of course that ever gets implemented but I think that making more of a status symbol is a good way to do it. If that's the way it would be done then I wouldn't mind seeing em.

[Phosphine]

this sounds very complex. I want to see how the loot generates. The scroll drop had been generous but its hard not to run a deficeit unles you are hunting the far west dires. I'm not playing my archers or my mages, just my mellee due to the expense. I want to hunt something besides banderlings after level 90 . . . . .maybe you can at least put them in different NFL colors.

Madam DeFarge, have you seen my stocking cap?

[GoLdEnEyE]

I've played AC for many, many years............and my one gripe, was the treasure system, I can still vividly remember slugging away at some Matty (cant remeber the type ;-) ) while only being a pre-teen char and my huge disappointment after a long and valiantly fought struggle where life and limb were in gross danger, only to kill and loot the beast to find it carried only a gem worth less than 200py, or some totaly usless piece of junk worth even less..............

Its good to see the treasure system get a long overdue revamp, however id really like to see some sort of reward for lower chars daring to take on something that ought to skin them alive.

Though after seeing a level 1 flanked by 2 80+ tanks while he wittled away at Tuskers with a bow, reaching level 30 in a matter of minutes, I myself fail to see how a rewarding treasure system can be effectively implimented

Maybe something based on the chars equiv buffed level? ;-)

[evolutionoccurs]

Simple, mid to high lvl content (lvl 90+ creatures) should drop on accasion (useable items)ie. 290 wield bows 130mod+ +10+md
ws<5..... 24-40+ 10+10+ swords , 20-34/36 +10+ +10+ axes of sorts... to easy huh...
considering on avg you may blow up 5 in a row trying to imbue with rends....' and that's just to make 'one' rend, for 'one' of your characters........ omg . whewwww, glad i cancelled them other 10 characters i was working on.... lol..

[Kyayote]

I'd like to suggest that Chests being that they are special entities should have a garunteed at least one uber thing in them. The highest level chest should at least produce one major be it a good or bad one.
Kya

[Low End]

I am going to have to agree with Futile Effort on this one. The treasure system is already unbalanced. It is so very easy to make the Pyreal. Maybe this treasure system would work if the game was played the way it was designed, but with the widespread usage of buffbots and waltzing over to your local tusker island portal to make over 4 million exp. per L7 buff cycle as a L45 character, there is no need to make sense of the treasure system anymore. Although, I guess this is going right in stride with what this game has morphed into---Lets keep making everyone happy by handing them ways of being "uber".

Covenant Armor. This was originally a great idea. For my next explanation I am going to place all the classes into two broad categories. So here I go. In the mid and upper levels, mages far exceed the abilities of the pure melee. Amuli gets tinked to over 400 base AL and they can now lay in the middle of a room full of Olthoi, a place that was once feared. Covenant Armor came along. Great, something that will assist the pure meleer. Meleed and Missile req. You won't see any mages wearing these, well why should you do that. The first mistake was all these new tinkering additions, but thats a different subject. Now the mage can wear the magicd req. covenant armor.

What gives?

Take me back 4 years when the game was pure. Please, I beg you.

Sorry for the rant. But you wanted opinions.

Low End
:(

[Ghorak]

Well thought out, much welcome improvements on all counts. Thank you.

[FmrSentFlatfoot]

I've played AC for many, many years............

Hey! Careful with such a statement! You're making me feel like Old Man Moses! :eek:

Seriously though... many, many? Um, it's not quite 4.5 years since retail, and another 6+ months of beta (all totalled). I wouldn't even call that "many", unless I started at 8 years old. lol

[GoLdEnEyE]

Surfice to say im a 'Silver Surfer'

i have 2 kids, eldest is 22, youngest is 19..............must give u a clue........ :D

[FmrSentFlatfoot]

must give u a clue........

Yup, sure does.... just 7+ years later than me. ;)

[Winter]

Someone linked me to this, and while it is quite a ways out of date, Id like to comment. I believe that as wield reqs go up, damage should start to scale up significantly on higher wield melee/missile weapons, unless you want every single high level character to be life spec and probably 3 school. Since Melees and Archers have to deal with Armor levels and natural resistances of monsters, there needs to be a significant damage overhaul when considering the Armor levels of the higher level monsters. I know someone is going to come along and say I have AR and RR weapons to combat armor levels and resistances. My response to that, is when has a monsters armor level affected the damage a mage casts with a spell? Never. So unless you want the upper levels of the play to be group only to be viable, (especially with the features coming with the x-pack) I would take this into consideration.

As a side note, since you are thinking of taking the damage mod and making it a flat damage bonus, why dont you just revmp the system so it scales all the way down the list? I.E. do away with damage mods and have everything show flat damage bonus.

[Tsion]

Thanks Ibn for an interesting letter about the changes to our loot system. Although, I would like to see one change occur during a patch. The gold tumerok insignia that were introduced many months ago, need to be updated. The signia should be of value relative to the tumerok's level.
Thanks for a great game.