Nothing like a controversial topic...
I'm wondering what people's opinions are on trivial loot code: should there be code to limit or prevent a high level players from having an incentive to camp a spawn that is trivial for them to fight.
One the one hand you have high level players farming low level spawns for money. On the other hand you have players who just want to go back to an old spawn that is now trivial to them to get a nice item for an alt. On the third hand (yes I have three hands) you have an ideal that there should be no such thing as free or easy money, items or experience, and looting items from trivial mobs is easy money. Some high level guys camping mobs well below their level has always been a problem in EQ, but at the same time something many players have a legitimate reason to engage in.
My personal opinion is that there should be a limited form of trivial loot code, but it should not stop you from going back to get an item you missed. If you loot something valuable and/or sought after from a trivial mob (one that does not give experience) then the item should go on a list and you shouldn't be able to get any item on that list from any trivial mob again until you loot 20-30 other different valuable items from trivial mobs (thus dropping the item off the list).
I like the trivial loot code for that ability to limit higher levels from camping certain items for discovered quests where the info about the quest is shared elsewhere.
Maybe have the item not drop as often for a higher level? but that would in turn have that higher level slaughtering everything.
Ideally it is the lower level player that is in search for the item and in doing so , learns their class along the way (hopefully) I would also go back to newbie zones, but not to quest low items. It it is a good topic and brings up the question- how do you deal with wanting to do a quest and realizing you should have gotten this piece, 5 levels ago. I think there should be something like a trivial loot code that lets you realize you are beyond that, now. A player market would help as the lower level player can sell the lore item (different from No-drop)- and faction quests are not dependent on level so there would be some alternate methods. One server had both if I recall; A trivial loot code, and no drop and lore items. So if you didn't get it, you weren't going to get it, considering that at your current level, there were better things to quest for.
This comes down to don't fix a problem with an atomic bomb.
Instead of preventing it outright you should make it so its not easy to farm older stuff. I think the idea that if I am 10 levels above something that it means I'm just going to steamroll it is a bad approach. Maybe at +10 you only need three people instead of 6 to hold the area down and even then you have to be on your toes.
Dullahan said:
Artificial restrictions have no place in a virtual world. That is all.
How is something not happening artificial? Which is more artificial: killing the same thing over and over, as it artificially pops back into existence, and drops the same item, or it just never drops certain things to some players. My point is the whole situation is highly artificial as is wanting to kill the same thing over and over.
Personally I am against a trivial loot code. There is immense satisfaction in being able to go back to a zone that utterly wrecked you as a noob and return the favor. As for player bad behavior (Killing mobs low levels are camping), in a social game that kind of behavior resolves itself. In a game that relies on social grouping...reputation is king.
Kayd said:
Dullahan said:
Artificial restrictions have no place in a virtual world. That is all.
How is something not happening artificial? Which is more artificial: killing the same thing over and over, as it artificially pops back into existence, and drops the same item, or it just never drops certain things to some players. My point is the whole situation is highly artificial as is wanting to kill the same thing over and over.
The game is designed for mobs to spawn on certain cycles regardless of level. So, some suspension of belief is going to exist as it is a game, in which thousands of people will play. For the developer's sake, there has to be spawn cycles - they can't develop endlessly dynamic content that after Mob A dies, a Unique Mob B spawns some period later. I do get your point though that the term "artificial" is a matter of perspective; however, I argue that it is not artificial to accept that fact that there are spawn cycles as some mechanics have to be in place for the game to work, versus others being implemented for player convenience.
With that said, why I believe the trivial loot code is artificial, is because once you hit X level which puts you into the trivial loot code range, the game places a restriction on you to no longer be able to obtain that item - a restriction that is not innate to the game that magically happens after leveling. You could attempt to write some lore related piece into the game to make it seem less artificial; however, either way, it is a game mechanic designed to restrict a higher level player from obtaining an item that he/she once could at a lower level.
TLDR: I view the trivial loot code as an artificial restriction; however, you could just remove that world artificial altogether and say I don't want designed restrictive gameplay and it could have the same meaning.
Baulkin said:
Personally I am against a trivial loot code. There is immense satisfaction in being able to go back to a zone that utterly wrecked you as a noob and return the favor. As for player bad behavior (Killing mobs low levels are camping), in a social game that kind of behavior resolves itself. In a game that relies on social grouping...reputation is king.
Just to be clear, I was advocating that you could go back and "return the favor," you could get the item once (or even once in a while,) but not over and over.
Raidan said:
With that said, why I believe the trivial loot code is artificial, is because once you hit X level which puts you into the trivial loot code range, the game places a restriction on you to no longer be able to obtain that item - a restriction that is not innate to the game that magically happens after leveling.
I wasn't proposing that you not be able to get the item, just that you can't get it over and over. In this context I don't know how to view that as artificial or not.
Ideally there would be a system wherein if a Higher level character was killing a trivial mob the chance of getting a rare drop would be lower. In practice tho I think this would be a hassle to code compared to itemizing a mobs loot upon spawn. (Which is needed sense loot is visible on mobs).
Baulkin said:
Ideally there would be a system wherein if a Higher level character was killing a trivial mob the chance of getting a rare drop would be lower. In practice tho I think this would be a hassle to code compared to itemizing a mobs loot upon spawn. (Which is needed sense loot is visible on mobs).
True.
Baulkin said:
Ideally there would be a system wherein if a Higher level character was killing a trivial mob the chance of getting a rare drop would be lower. In practice tho I think this would be a hassle to code compared to itemizing a mobs loot upon spawn. (Which is needed sense loot is visible on mobs).
Could that not in theory make the problem worse? Lower drop rates means they have to farm it for longer to get the desired outcome.
Personally I am against these kinds of restrictions, especially if itemization works here like I would have it work (items of value can be lower level, not necessarily the 'best' of items but valuable items that have a wide variety and extensive use).
I don't know how Everquest handled this issue however so I have to ask... how did rare monsters spawn in the world? Were they all on timers? Were some lottery spawns (term used in ffxi for rare monsters that had a % chance to spawn when you killed a placeholder monster, often also had a short minimum timer before it could spawn again)? How about popped spawns (again ffxi term, this one was you could buy or farm up items needed to force a specific rare monster to spawn (double note, this only applied to certain specific monsters, not all) at a specific location)? and/or were there special spawn conditions (time of day, maybe some player needs to die somewhere or some number of players need to die, almost any misc condition)?
Coding a mob to drop different loot based on the players level is an artificial restriction. No other way to look at it. Once a player is higher level, if content is designed properly, they generally won't be interested in farming the same lower level mob for prolonged periods of time because it should be worth less for them to do so than to find another higher level rare item camp.
If it becomes a bottleneck that creates such a problem then there are other alternatives to pursue. Making the mob harder, moving the item to another mob, creating a similar item in another location are just a few ways to resolve that problem.
I know we can all think of situations in classic EQ where a valuable mob or item existed in trivial content, moreso than was probably even intended and it became heavily camped for a long time or nerfed down the line. I'm assuming that experience from EQ and Vanguard will help them place items in appropriate level content that they won't be so crucial to a characters advancement that higher levels would feel obligated to go back and farm it for personal use or for money. If these situations are few and far between I don't really see a problem. There will always be a few things that are highly sought after and heavily contested. Thats just the nature of a game like Everquest (and hopefully Pantheon) and is something you will have to deal with. Do we really want to remove the sort of things that made EQ different and exciting?
All that said, this is why I played on Rallos Zek.
It wasn't so much that valuable loot was on a trivial mob, but that a way to get easy loot is to outlevel the encounter, then go back and get the loot. This is doubly true if you are a solo player and the loot is on a group encounter. If you're goal is to create a game where loot has to be earned then waiting until an encounter is trivial to get the item is antithetical to that goal. The flowing black robe in EQ, at least early on, on our server was rarely camped by appropriate level people, it was camped by people who had easily outleveled it, and most of the time I would bet it was to farm it for platinum. This was true of many of the really valuable items because they could be sold to appropriate level players for a lot of platinum. I can't count the number of times I was trying to get a piece of loot from a mob at my level when a duo of people 7-10 levels above me would come to see if the camp was open.
It's not so much farming that is the problem (although IMHO it is,) but as a strategy, waiting till you've outleveled an encounter to get an item, is like killing mobs 20 levels below you for experience. Both are ways to trivialize content, and don't seem consistent with the idea of making a game challenging.
Kayd said:
It's not so much farming that is the problem (although IMHO it is,) but as a strategy, waiting till you've outleveled an encounter to get an item, is like killing mobs 20 levels below you for experience. Both are ways to trivialize content, and don't seem consistent with the idea of making a game challenging.
It depends again here. If you're going back to lower level content as a high level to upgrade your gear, then you could make the argument that content is being trivialized. Although, if you achieved a higher level with terrible gear in which trivial content provides an upgrade, you could also make the argument you made it more challenging on yourself to level with terrible gear.
As far as farming goes, it's going to exist, regardless if you put in a trivial loot code or not. At higher levels in EQ, content didn't become trivialized for about 15 levels or so at 50, which would include a lot of popular farm spots (Gukbottom etc.). So, it may keep people from farming really low content, but again, I'd rather deal with the farmers than put in restrictions.
I am mostly with radian on his last comment there. In general I am fine with that activity, leveling content is going to be variable like that and somewhat should be. I am sure that later on too, assuming lower level population thins out a person may farm targets with a higher level friend/guild member which also would 'trivialize' it under your perspective. Should that not be allowed either? I think its best left without the restrictions even if there is some negative that comes with that.
Amsai said:
This to me also falls in the "down time " activities category. Did just this sort of activity in a couple of games. It doesnt trivialize content, to me its more like it keeps it relevant.
This too, this is something I hate about a lot of modern mmos. I don't like that once you out-level an area there is no reason to ever go back there and having enemies that drop unique/useful/valuable items is one way those areas retain their value.
One thing to keep in mind is the frequency of drops/upgrades as well. One reason you saw those people come back to lower level zones to farm was because the item lasted so long on a character. Personally I am tired of seeing upgrades every level or every few levels. Between items lasting a decent amount of time, and those items with rare effects, you kept people circulating the game world more frequently. Giving people more opportunities to socialize for the good and bad situations of it.
That high level druid camping a spot nearby who offered lowbies buffs to pass the time, or a cleric offering a rez at a certain camp spot as long as the corpse was dragged to them... how many times was this seen by everyone? Or the high level that made a dungeon group possible when there wasn't enough people interested in a camp there, "I'll go but I want _______ if it drops" type of deal.
Part of what made EQ great was that people were spread all over the world because there wasn't just one place to find item upgrades. I think having valuable items spread across levels and zones adds more immersion and encourages players to explore the world. I don't want to see another game where at max level there is only one place to get item upgrades and everyone is hanging out there.