Powerful items should be rare, and very difficult to get.
Other magic items should be hard to get and should give that "ooh this was a good session" feeling.
A weapon the glowed used to be a big thrill even if it didn't actually do anything useful. Or maybe was +1 against rats. Not enormously unbalancing to get that even at level 10 for example.
As we know, we are going to have different kinds of damage, heat, cold, kinetic, magic, and who knows what else. If AC only protects against kinetic (which seems to be the case) then anything with a magic component (or heat/cold for that matter) will presumably inflict more damage against non-magical equipment. I think in Pantheon armour will need to have components that protect from each type of damage possible and so will need to be magical in nature.
A +10 shield will be great against a tank with a non-magical mace, but pants against a wizard, fire drake or ice giant. The market will always favour the types of equipment that help all round.
Moon touched weapons or what have you would probably be ideal for the game from how little light there is. That is honestly the type of gear I hope we see. No torch necessary I collected a cool light producing scimitar from ____ in the ____ mine!
I would love to have magic items such as that be the focus of the game, but fear it will be an MMO with everyone vendoring magical armor every hour or so as the lvl 3 boots of STA are better than the lvl 2 boots of STA.
Get magic casters to go with you into places where magic-affected things are? and work out strats? " Ok, I'll make sure they hit me. You heal me and you, you damage them, see how we do."
Then the caster could say - "hey, you know there's this Giant? and I can't seem to get his toe. I noticed you can take a beating. Think you could *tips head in general direction of giant*... help me with it? after we're done here of course or tomorrow- whenever- yeah?"
Before I give my opinion I think that it is important to reiterate that the Devs are trying to be mindful of stat scaling and player power progression to the point that stats at character creation have been drastically reduced. I also don't know if you are referring to traditional item rarity (white/common, green/uncommon, blue/rare, purple/epic, orange/legendary...) when you refer to magic items or if you mean items that have special effects or on use abilities. I will give my opinion on both though.
In terms of a traditional rarity, I think that you should always have the chance to find uncommon items regardless of level, and that level 1-6ish should have the most reduced chance of this occurring. Then moving up in level it should become more "common" to find these items. I think that rare/blue items should start appearing around the level 15 mark depending on the content that you are doing with this gear coming off longer quest chains. dungeon bosses, crafting and maybe having a chance to drop off rares found in the world. Purple items should start appearing around level 35ish when raiding zones start opening up to the player base. Then as for legendary items, I think these items should also start appearing around level 35 as well but they shouldn't drop as completed items. Legendary items should drop in parts that have to be combined to make the whole and these parts should come from a variety of sources and locations. Then I'm also going to add one more layer of rarity in the form of relic items that are red in quality. Relic items should be derived from legendary items and only be obtainable at max level. The process to get an item of this quality should require a player to have a legendary item crafted, then find an obscure quest source that sends them on a long and challenging journey to fully unlock the item's potential.
*Before moving on to the magic items I just want to mention that I would be cool with not seeing rarity identified with colors with the exception of legendary and relic items. I think that it would be cool to let the player base determine for themselves if an item is rare or not. For example, if a Ring of Wisdom drops and it provides +2 wisdom then another Ring of Wisdom drops and it provides +5 wisdom at the same level then the +5 is naturally rarer in quality than the +2 variant.
Moving on to items that have magical effects and on-use abilities. I would like to see items that have magical effects like +5 fire damage on hit or a chance to curse with X ability start appearing in the level 15-20 range. These items should come from crafting. bosses, and quest chains. Then as for items that have on-use abilities, I would like to start seeing these appearing at the level 30 range. These items should come from long progression chains. special end of raid bosses, and maybe special events. When I think of magic on-use items I think of the J-boots in EQ and I feel like on-use magic items should be decently more challenging to obtain than standard + stat items.
In terms of how fast gear is thrown at you, a traditional MMO should never take the approach of an ARPG like Path of Exile or Diablo. Gear in a traditional MMO needs to provide value to the player experience and entering a situation where gear is just thrown at you constantly really undervalues the progression experience and the accomplishment of obtaining the gear. I won't go into detail but WoW has had this issue in recent expansions were drastically increased gear obtainment rate has negatively impacted the sense of meaningful item progression. I don't want to see a situation in the Pantheon where this happens but I also want to see items with stats dropping by level 10 or so due to the reduction of player power at player creation.
TLDR version: The gear progression rate should be a positive experience. Throwing too much loot at players isn't good, Due to the devs stance on power creep and heavily nerfing stats at character creation items with stats need to become a standard thing around the level 10 mark.
@FatedEmperor The "green" magic items that has taken over as a standard across current MMOs are still magic items. Sounds like you are wanting that, meaning like what ~20 magic items at lvl 10 then by lvl 40 it would be >1000 magic items looted per PC?
You say a traditional MMO should never take the approach of an ARPGs even though they literally did that when making WOW and every mmo since WOW trying to copy the quick dopamine hits for throwing magic items at players left and right. You acknowledge the recent increase in loot drop rate made for less fun yet don't continue that thought process one step further.
There is no demand for trash items, nor is there any real demand for crafted armor since gear is just thrown at you. Blues and purples are still just vendor trash to be replaced with common green magic items after a few extra levels just how power creeps up with expansions only its built into the game as "progress".
Table top games with their actually rare loot still give that exact same feeling from years back when magic items were actually rare. The excitement after a hard boss fight of "what dropped?" The flash of consideration for how good it would be for your PC. The horrible realization it is better suited in your friends hands than your own. Actual rarity is still a great feeling, MMO's threw it away for quick dopamine hits.
Adonhiram said:Jobeson said: I remember getting that and being so sad I couldn't use it.OMG you looted a pre-nerf Circlet but you were no SK nor NEC ? I guess you earned some acid comments from people :-)
LOL I honestly thought it was a random drop for the longest time until people claimed it was a named spawn. "named" something absurdly ordinary like "a goblin"
I'm a proponent of "low magic" worlds, and a huge fan of players having to make hard choices that matter, but I realize I am probably in the minority.
In pen & paper RPGs, I always played that too maany magic items would interfere with one another, even cancel each other out in some cases. This forced players to choose.
I would also offer up the idea that items could have both positive and negative effects. I.E. A sword imbued with powerful magic, but each swing reduces your endurance, or an invisibility ring that drains away at your hit points as you wear it (until you become a ringwraith ... hmmm).
"These magic boots will increase your speed, but you may find it harder to dodge an enemy's attacks- and if you take them off, their magic will diminish for a time and you will actually move slower. Choose wisely"
Stuff like that.
Wyvernspur said:I'm a proponent of "low magic" worlds, and a huge fan of players having to make hard choices that matter, but I realize I am probably in the minority.
In pen & paper RPGs, I always played that too maany magic items would interfere with one another, even cancel each other out in some cases. This forced players to choose.
I would also offer up the idea that items could have both positive and negative effects. I.E. A sword imbued with powerful magic, but each swing reduces your endurance, or an invisibility ring that drains away at your hit points as you wear it (until you become a ringwraith ... hmmm).
"These magic boots will increase your speed, but you may find it harder to dodge an enemy's attacks- and if you take them off, their magic will diminish for a time and you will actually move slower. Choose wisely"
Stuff like that.
That's true, but you have to consider that MMO's just work differently than pen & paper games. Although it is the same Tolkien/fantasy based world, MMos underline way more the importance of mathemagics overall and in regard to items specifically. For that reason, the way loot is handled is so different between pen & papers and MMOs. MMOs are much more loot-centric and offer a much larger choice in loot. It would be impossible to put restraints or balanced limitations on every magic item, that wouldn't make sense and people would probably lose interest.
Adonhiram said:That's true, but you have to consider that MMO's just work differently than pen & paper games. Although it is the same Tolkien/fantasy based world, MMos underline way more the importance of mathemagics overall and in regard to items specifically. For that reason, the way loot is handled is so different between pen & papers and MMOs. MMOs are much more loot-centric and offer a much larger choice in loot. It would be impossible to put restraints or balanced limitations on every magic item, that wouldn't make sense and people would probably lose interest.
MMOs since EQ shifted towards a loot centric idea. EQ being heavily inspired by AD&D a pen and paper game. Not surprisingly EQ magic items were not balanced at all thus making them heavily desired.
VR has stated they want to bring back these kinds of desired iconic magic items EQ had. No one will care about your purple lvl 8 sword in Pantheon when next week you throw it away for a new green sword. Gear will never be iconic when you only use it for a week. You don't get iconic gear via transmog.
How many magic items do you think your standard adventurer should have at lvl 5, 10, 20, 30, 40?
lvl5 0-1
lvl10 0-1
lvl20 1-2
lvl30 3-4
lvl40 4-5
lvl50 6-8
levels 1-10 You should still be very new and weak. Maybe finding a rare named mob who dropped a magic item that has a low drop rate.
levels 11-20 You should be starting to explore the world and finding unique areas and possibly finding unique gear like +endurance gear we've seen in streams that help with exploration.
levels 21-30 You've explored your starting continent and in doing so have found a lot of unique areas with unique named mobs and some interesting dungeons and possibly a low end raid zone. Opening up some magical gear options for you.
Levels 31-40 You've explored huge swaths of the World of Terminus and in doing so you've come accross a lot of problems and terrain that requires multiple magical items to access like +endurance gear and unique Artifacts. These aren't magical items that will make you super Overpowered, but they have magical properties that will help you over come obstacles that you encounter within the World of terminus.
Levels 41-50 You've explored each continent and have come accross many foes who have tested your skill in battle and your perception. Opening up many options for gear through crafting and farming named mobs. As well as daring to explore dungeons and raids. Maybe you've found your guild at this point and have a really good team to help you overcome the challenges that Terminus brings thus allowing for better gear and more options for you to collect that gear.
Jobeson said:@FatedEmperor The "green" magic items that has taken over as a standard across current MMOs are still magic items. Sounds like you are wanting that, meaning like what ~20 magic items at lvl 10 then by lvl 40 it would be >1000 magic items looted per PC?
You say a traditional MMO should never take the approach of an ARPGs even though they literally did that when making WOW and every mmo since WOW trying to copy the quick dopamine hits for throwing magic items at players left and right. You acknowledge the recent increase in loot drop rate made for less fun yet don't continue that thought process one step further.
There is no demand for trash items, nor is there any real demand for crafted armor since gear is just thrown at you. Blues and purples are still just vendor trash to be replaced with common green magic items after a few extra levels just how power creeps up with expansions only its built into the game as "progress".
Table top games with their actually rare loot still give that exact same feeling from years back when magic items were actually rare. The excitement after a hard boss fight of "what dropped?" The flash of consideration for how good it would be for your PC. The horrible realization it is better suited in your friends hands than your own. Actual rarity is still a great feeling, MMO's threw it away for quick dopamine hits.
What I want to see is a situation where items with stats start dropping post 10. I don't care about seeing rarity indicated (again with the exception of legendary+ items) and I personally think it would be a better system if the gear dropping wasn't color coated. The whole color-coated meta has created a mentality in people where people feel bad when they replace items as you yourself sorta referenced. Funny thing is that regardless of how gear works in an MMO it will always eventually become outdated as the game in question ages.
The point that you brought up about trash items not having demand or crafting items not having demand that may be true in modern MMOs but it doesn't have to be true going forward. The simple solution to this is to make crafting items better in most comparisons and require resources that can only be obtained by scrapping/recycling items found in the world. Most games don't intertwine dropable gear and crafting enough to maintain the demand of either. However, If I'm being honest I find the argument of stat/magic items dropping early null and void in the long run when it comes to hypothetical demand in Pantheon. Currently, almost everything is planned to be subject to free trade and level scaling, so whenever these items do start dropping nothing is stopping a player from gearing up an alt with these items.
And yes there is a difference between loot in modern MMOs and APRGs. Sure MMOs since Everquest have increased drop rates of gear and I don't think this is a bad thing. The bad thing is when you continually get loot to the point you don't even remember where it came from or the process you had to go through to get it. The other bad thing is when you are replacing higher quality loot almost consistently. I remember getting the crescent staff in WoW off a quest from WC and this staff lasted from level 18 to level 25 or getting the Whirlwind Axe on my warrior and it lasting about 12 levels before needing to be replaced. The issue with games today is that the loot especially the higher quality loot just doesn't stay relevant long enough or in different situations for a player to fully appreciate it.
FatedEmperor said:What I want to see is a situation where items with stats start dropping post 10. I don't care about seeing rarity indicated (again with the exception of legendary+ items) and I personally think it would be a better system if the gear dropping wasn't color coated. The whole color-coated meta has created a mentality in people where people feel bad when they replace items as you yourself sorta referenced. Funny thing is that regardless of how gear works in an MMO it will always eventually become outdated as the game in question ages.
I wasn't meaning players should feel bad about it. I am pointing out the item that is supposed to be well above average is quickly trash by design. We see people talk about this very problem for expansions. All their hard earned top quality gear worthless, but they don't realize that is the literal design they are asking for when wanting everyone to vendor thousands of magic items. If you build the game around ever scaling trash magic items as a baseline then you end up with exactly that. Any expansion that increases the level cap would continue that progression of turning previous gear worthless. The lvl 57 Giant rat will drop trash magic items better than your lvl 50 Raid gear. It is an absurd system.
People want magic items to be iconic.
People want expansions to not turn their hard earned gear into trash.
People want to look unique and varied from one to the next rather than full patchwork armor for the ever changing stats.
lvl 5 - 0-1
lvl 10 - 1-3
lvl 20 - 4-7
lvl 30 - full
lvl 40 - full +options
Now I don't want magic items to be thrown around ultra-liberally as it cheapens the experience, but considering how dependent pantheon abilities will be regarding stats, magic items should be plentiful enough to influence players towards adjusting both their gear and their playstyle to complement one another.
As a players class ability codexes diversify so should their gear options, otherwise you have players corralled into the "best build until you have specific gear" metagaming that the devs have specifically been trying to avoid. The obverse being gear so plentiful that you only take the gear to complement the "best build" and leaving the rest to rot.
Too few magic items and people are incentivised to play a specific style, too many magic items and players are also incentivised to play specific style. A nice middle ground incentivises players towards capitalizing on what options they have available to them. The whole meaningful decisions thing.