Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Let the Loot Fall Where It May

    • 209 posts
    September 6, 2021 4:01 AM PDT

    On the stream with Cohh a few weeks back, there was a point where the topic of loot distribution across Terminus was discussed. I was very excited to hear that the plan is to handle loot in a varied and “non-linear” way, so that unique items of different power levels may drop in special places all around the world (as opposed to only dropping in certain areas that the character is led to which are meant to be the “right” areas for their level), and even some items with a lower level may end up being stronger than their level would indicate, just because of their unique identity. I, like Cohh and the devs, have really felt that this is something lacking from today’s mmos, and I’m super hyped to see it again in Pantheon. Good call, guys!

    On a related note, one of my long-standing disappointments with most mmos is that raiding is usually the only way to get the best gear at endgame. I’ve raided from time to time, but am not a hardcore raider, and would usually much rather play with a smaller group, which basically means that I can forget about having any hope of obtaining the truly powerful gear. I’ve always dreamed of a loot system where there were multiple ways to get that really epic loot. In my dream system, top level gear would still drop from raids, but would also be obtainable through crafting, or even from adventuring in a regular group in especially remote or dangerous areas. The very best gear would probably have an incredibly low drop rate or otherwise be very difficult to get, as would the mats for crafting that gear, but both the gear and the mats would be obtainable, with enough time and effort, without ever setting foot in a raid if the player so desired. Also, this isn’t to say that the exact same gear would be obtainable from grouping, crafting, or raiding, but rather that each sphere would have access to at least some of the strongest gear in the game. Yep, that’s my itemization dream world in a nutshell.

    I’d like to hear what everyone thinks about this topic. How do you feel gear drops should be handled in an mmo?

    Stay epic,

    Gyl

    • 223 posts
    September 6, 2021 5:58 AM PDT

    Given the time and effort investment that comes with raiding, it's difficult to strike a balance, but I feel it can be done. Not all BIS need to come from raids, or one-offs, and not all BIS are always necessarily BIS for all situations. 

    And arguably, someone's BIS may not be BIS for someone else.

    Ill be interested to hear more from VR on this as Pantheon progresses.

    • 1281 posts
    September 6, 2021 7:48 AM PDT

    Gyldervane said:

    On the stream with Cohh a few weeks back, there was a point where the topic of loot distribution across Terminus was discussed. I was very excited to hear that the plan is to handle loot in a varied and “non-linear” way, so that unique items of different power levels may drop in special places all around the world (as opposed to only dropping in certain areas that the character is led to which are meant to be the “right” areas for their level), and even some items with a lower level may end up being stronger than their level would indicate, just because of their unique identity. I, like Cohh and the devs, have really felt that this is something lacking from today’s mmos, and I’m super hyped to see it again in Pantheon. Good call, guys!

    I don't think any of us know for certain, but the impression I have from them over the past several years is that they will have some items randomly drop within a certain area. Say in a dungeon, there may be a few rare items that can randomly drop from mobs rather than from a specific named. I have never got the impression from them that the same items will randomly drop around the world. The exception being mastery points, if they end up dropping from mobs. That said, it doesn't mean that all area's won't have named/rare drops and possibly even some random drops. However, a key tennent of this game is that you want a specific item you go to a specific place to get it.

    On a related note, one of my long-standing disappointments with most mmos is that raiding is usually the only way to get the best gear at endgame. I’ve raided from time to time, but am not a hardcore raider, and would usually much rather play with a smaller group, which basically means that I can forget about having any hope of obtaining the truly powerful gear. I’ve always dreamed of a loot system where there were multiple ways to get that really epic loot. In my dream system, top level gear would still drop from raids, but would also be obtainable through crafting, or even from adventuring in a regular group in especially remote or dangerous areas. The very best gear would probably have an incredibly low drop rate or otherwise be very difficult to get, as would the mats for crafting that gear, but both the gear and the mats would be obtainable, with enough time and effort, without ever setting foot in a raid if the player so desired. Also, this isn’t to say that the exact same gear would be obtainable from grouping, crafting, or raiding, but rather that each sphere would have access to at least some of the strongest gear in the game. Yep, that’s my itemization dream world in a nutshell.

    I’d like to hear what everyone thinks about this topic. How do you feel gear drops should be handled in an mmo?

    Stay epic,

    Gyl

    Again we don't know, but even as a non-raider as well, I would diagree with you that you should have access to the best loot without having to take on the toughest enemies. In context of a roleplaying game, I would want the dragon horde (RPG trope end game) to have the best loot ...


    This post was edited by bigdogchris at September 6, 2021 7:51 AM PDT
    • 3852 posts
    September 6, 2021 7:59 AM PDT

    I agree in all respects that Pantheon should not focus on raids, any more than it will focus on solo play. Both should be available since both add value to significant portions of the player base but there are all too many solo-focused games out there now and almost equally all too many raid-focused games out there now. I hope Pantheon will focus on group play.

    If such is the case it almost necessarily implies that the best dungeon loot will come from difficult group content which almost without exception is much harder for the players than difficult raid content. I say this because raids more or less uniformly build some slack in so that even a challenging raid boss will go down even though one or two players aren't contributing much or are even afk (or dead without being able to be revived). On the other hand a challenging group boss will rarely go down if even one player is not contributing. 

    Hopefully, as the OP says, there will be other ways such as crafting to get high quality gear.

    Note that although raid bosses should be easier to beat than group bosses this does not mean that a raid is easier to beat than comparable difficulty group content. A raid requires greater levels of organization and although one or two players can normally slack off without wiping the raid there are more players that can do something seriously wrong that can wipe the entire raid. Avoiding this can be a major challenge. My agreement with the OP isn't because I think raids are inherently easier as a whole - it is because they aren't necessarily *harder* as a whole either and there are so many games now where raids are almost without any thought simply assumed to be and treated by the developers as the only important content in terms of getting good gear. Raid-focused games aren't necessarily bad. Solo-focused games aren't necessaqrily bad. Pantheon adds more value if it is neither.

    Looking at the comment above about how the hardest boss should drop the best loot - I disagree to a large extent. The hardest boss in the game  may actually be one of the easiest to beat if one factors in the number of players intended to fight it. Sure a 5 trillion hit point dragon is harder than an ogre but if the fight with the dragon is not especially hard for 50 people whereas the fight with the ogre is exceedingly deadly for 5 people - shouldn't the ogre drop better loot? This is where I question the standard MMO meme (or is it trope) that raids should drop better loot.

    Note also the old chestnut that "casual" players don't need good gear because the content is easy enough for them and only raiders need good gear. This is true so far as it goes in most MMOs but overlooks one thing. People like to have a chance to get top quality gear even if they don't really *need* it. Even though in the long run it may even make playing less fun because it becomes too easy. More importantly, we can hope that Pantheon will be difficult by today's standards and well designed group content may be very difficult. Thus, non-raiders may need the gear even more than raiders since the hard part of raids (coordination and organization) is independent of gear but the hardest part of group play (the actual combat) is not.


    This post was edited by dorotea at September 6, 2021 8:05 AM PDT
    • 2419 posts
    September 6, 2021 8:15 AM PDT

    Gyldervane said:

    I’d like to hear what everyone thinks about this topic. How do you feel gear drops should be handled in an mmo?

    What I would hope that is the different spheres we have for gear, that of questing, crafting and looting (group or raid) what is considered 'best' for a given person changes as we level such that at no one time would all your 'best' gear come from a single sphere and they would all not necessary need upgrading on the same schedule.  You might start the game with a quested chest piece, then later find that a crafted one works better for you and later yet it's a looted one.  As you go through the levels,  your full gear set is a mishmash (for lack of a better word) of all three spheres. 

    When it comes to raiding, what I would prefer to see is that the percentage of content in the game that is designed as raid remain constant throughout the life of the game.  So if Pantheon were to release with 15% of the total amount of content dedicated to raiding, that in 10 years time it is still 15%.  I do not really want the game to end up soley focused on raid content nor for it to even be the dominant focus.  Let it remain a part.


    This post was edited by Vandraad at September 6, 2021 8:16 AM PDT
    • 209 posts
    September 6, 2021 9:06 AM PDT

    bigdogchris said:

    Gyldervane said:

    On the stream with Cohh a few weeks back, there was a point where the topic of loot distribution across Terminus was discussed. I was very excited to hear that the plan is to handle loot in a varied and “non-linear” way, so that unique items of different power levels may drop in special places all around the world (as opposed to only dropping in certain areas that the character is led to which are meant to be the “right” areas for their level), and even some items with a lower level may end up being stronger than their level would indicate, just because of their unique identity. I, like Cohh and the devs, have really felt that this is something lacking from today’s mmos, and I’m super hyped to see it again in Pantheon. Good call, guys!

    I don't think any of us know for certain, but the impression I have from them over the past several years is that they will have some items randomly drop within a certain area. Say in a dungeon, there may be a few rare items that can randomly drop from mobs rather than from a specific named. I have never got the impression from them that the same items will randomly drop around the world. The exception being mastery points, if they end up dropping from mobs. That said, it doesn't mean that all area's won't have named/rare drops and possibly even some random drops. However, a key tennent of this game is that you want a specific item you go to a specific place to get it.

    You're right, I didn't mean to say that they said the same item would drop all over the world (I sure hope that won't be the case!), just that different items would drop in different places, maybe only one place or maybe sometimes a few different places -- no one knows yet. But the key point was that the player will not be led to these places based on their level; they will need to discover where the best items for their character drop through exploration and experimentation. I'm really looking forward to that.


    This post was edited by Gyldervane at September 6, 2021 9:23 AM PDT
    • 1860 posts
    September 6, 2021 9:17 AM PDT
    The way VR is focusing on horizontal progression means that the "best gear" will be very situational. I don't think you will have to worry about the end all/be all BIS gear only coming from raids.
    • 392 posts
    September 6, 2021 10:50 AM PDT

    I may have misunderstood when they talked about it as well, I took it as not bottle necking the speed boots for instance.

    One named in a dungeon on Kings Reach could drop the Twinkle Toes boots of Speed

    While another named on the another continent would drop Boots of the Wolf

    Both boots serving the same role but you have the camps spread out across the world.

    • 810 posts
    September 6, 2021 11:06 AM PDT

    A while back they talked about raid tier group dungeons as well.  My guess is early on we will have real alternatives from nonraids.  You may want the raid set bonus or whatever they add in, but the gear from the hardest dungeons and quests would be on par with overall stats from raids otherwise it is not horizontal progression.

     

    My fear is we fall into the MMO trope of new raid zone comes out with better gear the game devolves into raid or die.  It takes a lot of effort to keep gear progression horizontal.  Sprinkling rare items or rare crafting mats etc around the open world is nice.  It makes sense for dungeon loot to not be as static as it is in most games, perhaps a previous adventurer dropped it.  Rare drops wouldn't allow dungeons to compete with raiding as a source of gear if you are purely banking on the 1/1000 drop chance, but it all adds up and makes nice alternatives to the more common high quality items you could find in the dungeon.

    • 1992 posts
    September 6, 2021 11:45 AM PDT

    Gyldervane said: this isn’t to say that the exact same gear would be obtainable from grouping, crafting, or raiding, but rather that each sphere would have access to at least some of the strongest gear in the game. Yep, that’s my itemization dream world in a nutshell.

    I totally agree with this, particularly with calling it the "strongest gear" rather than the best. Because I agree with the others who point out how "best" gear (according to VR's stated intention) will have less meaning, as situational gear will be more important for everyone.

    • 134 posts
    September 7, 2021 5:30 AM PDT

    Gintoki88 said:

    I may have misunderstood when they talked about it as well, I took it as not bottle necking the speed boots for instance.

    One named in a dungeon on Kings Reach could drop the Twinkle Toes boots of Speed

    While another named on the another continent would drop Boots of the Wolf

    Both boots serving the same role but you have the camps spread out across the world.

    This is how I understood it as well. I think it was in one of the Amberfaet streams where Joppa talked about how similar items may drop in multiple areas of the world. They will look different, and might have very slightly different stats, but they are generally equivalent gear.

    Which would help with one of EQ's biggest problems, and a problem with non-instanced content. Loot bottlenecks.

    • 500 posts
    September 7, 2021 10:57 AM PDT

    Vandraad said:

    When it comes to raiding, what I would prefer to see is that the percentage of content in the game that is designed as raid remains constant throughout the life of the game.  So if Pantheon were to release with 15% of the total amount of content dedicated to raiding, that in 10 years' time it is still 15%.  I do not really want the game to end up solely focused on raid content nor for it to even be the dominant focus.  Let it remain apart.

    Nailed it Vandraad. My sentiments exactly.

    • 55 posts
    September 7, 2021 11:21 AM PDT

    One system overlooked here and not well explained yet is the lack of bound gear. Devs have repeatedly said that the majority of gear will not be bound and fully tradeable. They haven't specifically mentioned raid gear in this context, but they have in terms of BIS. 

    • 80 posts
    September 7, 2021 4:21 PM PDT

    Gyldervane said:

    On the stream with Cohh a few weeks back, there was a point where the topic of loot distribution across Terminus was discussed. I was very excited to hear that the plan is to handle loot in a varied and “non-linear” way, so that unique items of different power levels may drop in special places all around the world (as opposed to only dropping in certain areas that the character is led to which are meant to be the “right” areas for their level), and even some items with a lower level may end up being stronger than their level would indicate, just because of their unique identity. I, like Cohh and the devs, have really felt that this is something lacking from today’s mmos, and I’m super hyped to see it again in Pantheon. Good call, guys!

    On a related note, one of my long-standing disappointments with most mmos is that raiding is usually the only way to get the best gear at endgame. I’ve raided from time to time, but am not a hardcore raider, and would usually much rather play with a smaller group, which basically means that I can forget about having any hope of obtaining the truly powerful gear. I’ve always dreamed of a loot system where there were multiple ways to get that really epic loot. In my dream system, top level gear would still drop from raids, but would also be obtainable through crafting, or even from adventuring in a regular group in especially remote or dangerous areas. The very best gear would probably have an incredibly low drop rate or otherwise be very difficult to get, as would the mats for crafting that gear, but both the gear and the mats would be obtainable, with enough time and effort, without ever setting foot in a raid if the player so desired. Also, this isn’t to say that the exact same gear would be obtainable from grouping, crafting, or raiding, but rather that each sphere would have access to at least some of the strongest gear in the game. Yep, that’s my itemization dream world in a nutshell.

    I’d like to hear what everyone thinks about this topic. How do you feel gear drops should be handled in an mmo?

    Stay epic,

    Gyl

    I agree. Though in mmo's and crpgs loot is handled in such a way that the algorithm they use is always linear -> The more powerful the character = the more powerful the item. The only instance of non-linear loot tables is ad&d, 2.0 and 3.0, where if you complete a dungeon and come upon a hoard, you roll a d20 or d100 and if you roll a 20 or a 1 or a 100 you get an artifact or relic, even when you're not that high of level. Hopefully Pantheon can address this, it would be fundamentally neat to find a pair of epic/legendary boots behind a secret door at a random house in the middle of nowhere because you detected a secret door, etc.

    • 160 posts
    September 9, 2021 7:42 AM PDT

    Silvermink said:

    One system overlooked here and not well explained yet is the lack of bound gear. Devs have repeatedly said that the majority of gear will not be bound and fully tradeable. They haven't specifically mentioned raid gear in this context, but they have in terms of BIS. 

    That would be an extremely bad idea. Just look at the games where all the items are tradeable infinitely. The power curve goes through the roof since first everyone's alts always get highest level items that they can possibly equip, and then after alts, it's all on the market.

    The result of that is that people who have played for a few years have so over-equipped characters that either the end-game content is trivial for them, or impossible for anyone else. And when that gear hits the market, people who haven't done anything more complex than repeated farming of common content can buy it.

    Any other solution is equally bad; the developers can then try to reduce drop rates, or turn crafting and questing into a RNG fest, where you click on the same button for a hundred times, spending farmed resources every time, hoping and praying that something useful comes out of it, like in Path of Exile.

    Have the gear decay over time and eventually get destroyed, just from use, and have to be replaced? So the item you spend a few months of raiding just poofs and you need to do it again? No thanks.

    Bind-on-Equip and even Bind-on-Pickup are a must. You can let a small percentage of items be tradeable for the fun of it, but the majority of items, once equipped, have to stay on the same character or be destroyed.

    Anything else will ruin the game in the long run.

     

    • 160 posts
    September 9, 2021 7:47 AM PDT

    Raid vs group vs solo balance: reward must be equal to effort. Also, the game should intend to promote people playing together.

    Based on that, a raid has to give better items than a group, and a group has to give better items than solo.

    Try putting together a guild, and getting 60-100 people (depending on the raid size in game) to play in an organized way for some months, and actually take down some raid bosses, then you'll see what it really takes. If this produced loot no better than what you can get in a random pickup group, it would be a slap in the fact of all those who did raids; the game might as well not have any raid content.

    And if soloing produced as good loot as groups (or, God forbid, raids) 95% of the people will solo, and the game devolves into a Diablo clone.

     

    • 793 posts
    September 9, 2021 9:40 AM PDT

    Aethor said:

    .... If this produced loot no better than what you can get in a random pickup group, it would be a slap in the fact of all those who did raids; the game might as well not have any raid content.

     

    If the only reason to raid is to get good loot, then if good loot was available via challenging group content, then there would be no reason for raids, and people would adapt. Just like if the ONLY way to get good loot was to RAID, then people would be less likely to group and more likely to raid.

    But, if both forms had a chance at good loot, but raiding had a 1% chance of good loot dropping, versus a group that had .01% chance, both methods could be used to reach the same result, just in different time frames. 

     The main reason we have raids today, is that certain loot was put onto mobs that required multiple groups. But there was never any reason those encounters couldn't have been group focused instead.

    in some ways, it is almost counter intuitive that we allow 40-80 people to attack 1 creature. If players could damage other players, it cwould not be possible to have that many people attacking a single mob.

    Note: Percentages are just for demonstrations are in no way meant as accurate statistical values.

     

     


    This post was edited by Fulton at September 9, 2021 9:43 AM PDT
    • 1992 posts
    September 9, 2021 3:45 PM PDT

    Aethor said: Bind-on-Equip and even Bind-on-Pickup are a must. You can let a small percentage of items be tradeable for the fun of it, but the majority of items, once equipped, have to stay on the same character or be destroyed.

    Anything else will ruin the game in the long run.

    VR has stated repeatedly, for many years now, that only a few, specific items will be BoE or BoP. Everything else will be freely tradeable. Gear and other usable items will also not have level limits on it.

    Their plan - which we do not have details on yet - will be to scale down the power of items to the level of the user.

    Assuming that their algorithms work properly in doing this, you will be able to take your level 50 'hand me down' gear and put it on a twink so you can ignore loot drops and focus on leveling up. But the gear wont be overpowering.

    • 209 posts
    September 12, 2021 10:08 AM PDT

    dorotea said:

    Note also the old chestnut that "casual" players don't need good gear because the content is easy enough for them and only raiders need good gear. This is true so far as it goes in most MMOs but overlooks one thing. People like to have a chance to get top quality gear even if they don't really *need* it. Even though in the long run it may even make playing less fun because it becomes too easy. More importantly, we can hope that Pantheon will be difficult by today's standards and well designed group content may be very difficult. Thus, non-raiders may need the gear even more than raiders since the hard part of raids (coordination and organization) is independent of gear but the hardest part of group play (the actual combat) is not.

    I agree, and this is another important point that I think is often overlooked. In my opinion, everyone willing to put the effort in in some capacity deserves to have a shot at some truly epic gear -- even if raiding doesn’t appeal to them, and regardless of what they do with it in the future. And yes, in a game as challenging as Pantheon, I doubt the strongest gear would make any content "too easy."

    • 209 posts
    September 12, 2021 10:15 AM PDT

    philo said: The way VR is focusing on horizontal progression means that the "best gear" will be very situational. I don't think you will have to worry about the end all/be all BIS gear only coming from raids.

    Yeah, that does sound like that is the direction they are heading in. I’m very much a fan of having multiple “best” items, builds, etc. depending on situation and preference, so was happy to hear them talk about that.

    • 209 posts
    September 12, 2021 10:31 AM PDT

    Jobeson said:

    Rare drops wouldn't allow dungeons to compete with raiding as a source of gear if you are purely banking on the 1/1000 drop chance, but it all adds up and makes nice alternatives to the more common high quality items you could find in the dungeon.

    Well said. I wouldn’t expect (or necessarily want) the very best gear to drop commonly from six-person dungeon bosses, but rather from certain “regular” mobs with a very low drop chance. That way, it might actually require more of a time investment than raiding, and really test a player’s tenacity, which to my mind is a very valid measure of challenge, even if the single mob a piece drops from is not as hard to kill as a raid boss.

    • 209 posts
    September 12, 2021 10:41 AM PDT

    Aethor said:

    Raid vs group vs solo balance: reward must be equal to effort. Also, the game should intend to promote people playing together.

    Based on that, a raid has to give better items than a group, and a group has to give better items than solo.

    Try putting together a guild, and getting 60-100 people (depending on the raid size in game) to play in an organized way for some months, and actually take down some raid bosses, then you'll see what it really takes. If this produced loot no better than what you can get in a random pickup group, it would be a slap in the fact of all those who did raids; the game might as well not have any raid content.

    And if soloing produced as good loot as groups (or, God forbid, raids) 95% of the people will solo, and the game devolves into a Diablo clone.

    I agree that reward needs to be equal to effort and difficulty, but I do think there are other ways to create that difficulty besides the organizational challenges of mounting a raid, such as extreme rarity of drops, very difficult (and rare) group mobs, long and involved perception “quests,” faction grinding, and making special crafting recipes and materials very hard to obtain, each of which would require the player to invest a lot of time and effort into the acquisition of powerful gear. Certainly this is a different kind of challenge than organizing and executing a raid, but properly done I think it could make for the same level of challenge overall.

    • 209 posts
    September 12, 2021 10:45 AM PDT

    Fulton said:

    But, if both forms had a chance at good loot, but raiding had a 1% chance of good loot dropping, versus a group that had .01% chance, both methods could be used to reach the same result, just in different time frames.

    Exactly. Both paths require considerable effort, even if the details are different. I can see both being equally viable ways to gain access to top-level gear depending on player preference.

     


    This post was edited by Gyldervane at September 12, 2021 10:55 AM PDT
    • 209 posts
    September 12, 2021 10:46 AM PDT

    oops, unintentional copy


    This post was edited by Gyldervane at September 12, 2021 10:48 AM PDT
    • 209 posts
    September 12, 2021 10:47 AM PDT

    And another. (Actually just doing whatever I can to get my post count up. Shhh! ;) )


    This post was edited by Gyldervane at September 12, 2021 11:02 AM PDT