New NPC - raid exchanger

[snowli]

<p>Killed Maalus Hard Mode for 6 months, in that time zero healer necklaces have dropped. I think there should be a safety valve for when the RNG just mega-fails like that.</p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">I'd like to see an NPC where you can take say 4/6/8/10 ? useless bits of raid loot and exchange them for 1 useful bit of raid loot. It should be done by mob loot table, so to get a particular toxx <span style="color: #ff0000;">hard mode loot</span> for example you have to turn in 4/6/8/10 ? items that <span style="color: #ff0000;">only come from</span> the toxx <span style="color: #ff0000;">hardmode loot table</span>.</span></p><p>A lot of the drop rates in raiding are pretty messed up compared to the actual rosta of players needed to raid. For example, we mute and alt tons of tank gear, especially the brawler stuff. Because a raid only needs 2-4 tanks. Meanwhile things like the maalus healer neck haven't dropped once all expansion we've just had tank necks constantly, and we've got 8-12 healers to gear up on the rosta. It's pretty dumb that 2-4 people get 3 different necklace chances, while 8-12 people get just 1 necklace chance (which for us means zero actual healer necks all expac).</p><p>Drop rates just aren't tuned at all well to the real way raids are run and who's needed on raiding rostas. There needs to be a safety valve against having 3 different tank necks and just 1 healer neck and not having it turn into a total RNG [Removed for Content] all expac.</p><p>Now I have nothing against farming raid mobs, or tanks getting 3 flavours of necks for example, I'd say the most important people to gear first are the tanks, the problem is what happens after they're geared. I don't like the tons of redundant tank gear going onto useless alts who are never going to help the raid and just go to instances where they don't need raid gear. I'd rather real raiders bid on redundant hard mode gear to eventually turn enough redundant pieces into useful hard mode gear gear that actually helps the raid.</p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">The turn in method should still require substantial farming just to get the redundant pieces for a single exchange. Numbers should be deigned so it's just a safety valve against really bad rng streaks, e.g. 8 even 10 pieces of HM loot to turn in for 1 piece of needed HM loot, etc.</span></p><p><em>edited for the "omg don't destroy raiding as we know it" replies - lol, and added some colours because about half the respondants seem to have missed I was suggesting that HARD MODE loot collection is necessary to eventually get a turn in and needed piece of HARD MODE loot. It's nothing to do with turning easy mode loot into hard mode or anything about circumventing the encounters or finishing the expac quicker, it's just purely about a targeted solution to the RNG totally failing some guilds on some mobs and solving that particular occurance.</em></p>

[kelvmor]

<p>That'd the fun out of raiding.</p>

[Seiffil]

<p><cite>snowline wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I'd like to see an NPC where you can take say 4 useless bits of raid loot and exchange them for 1 useful bit of raid loot. It should be done by mob loot table, so to get a particular toxx hard mode loot for example you have to turn in 4 items that only come from the toxx hardmode loot table.</p><p>A lot of the drop rates in raiding are pretty messed up compared to the actual rosta of players needed to raid. For example, we mute and alt tons of tank gear, especially the brawler stuff. Because a raid only needs 2-4 tanks. Meanwhile things like the maalus healer neck haven't dropped once all expansion we've just had tank necks constantly, and we've got 8-12 healers to gear up on the rosta. It's pretty dumb that 2-4 people get 3 different necklace chances, while 8-12 people get just 1 necklace chance (which for us means zero actual healer necks all expac).</p><p>Drop rates just aren't tuned at all well to the real way raids are run and who's needed on raiding rostas. There needs to be a safety valve against having 3 different tank necks and just 1 healer neck and not having it turn into a total RNG [Removed for Content] all expac.</p><p>Now I have nothing against farming raid mobs, ortanks getting 3 flavours of necks for example, I'd say the most important people to gear first are the tanks, the problem is what happens after they're geared. I don't like the tons of redundant tank gear going onto useless alts who are never going to help the raid and just go to instances where they don't need raid gear. I'd rather real raiders bid on redundant hard mode gear to eventually turn enough redundant pieces into useful hard mode gear gear that actually helps the raid.</p></blockquote><p>If you want to have an exchange like this, then why bother having them drop anything except items that any player can turn in for what they want. I don't agree with the turn in idea, especially if you're talking about non-armor items.  Part of raiding always has been what's going to drop today.  If that instead gets changed to, I don't care what drops cause I'll still be able to get what I want, then what's the point of even raiding.</p><p>At this point asking SOE to look at drop rates probably won't help anything, but I'd rather suggest urging them to look at the itemization and drop rates for velious to keep anything like what has happened with the SF expansion occurring again.</p>

[Kunaak]

<p>why not just kill a mob, get a drop box with the mobs entire loot table... you pick 2-3 items you want, and call it good.</p><p>who needs to raid for a entire expansion, gear for everyone in a week, then we can all run instances! when raiding gets too hard, we should just be allowed to let bots do the raiding for us, so we can log in and have new gear every day.</p>

[snowli]

<p>4 or more useless pieces to turn in for a needed piece, that still represents a massive time and farming investment by a guild, there's nothing remotely easymode about that, despite the flippant replies.</p><p>Think of it as a safety valve for when the RNG + a badly designed loot table, accidentally screws your guild over, like for example zero healer necks all expansion from maalus hard mode, or when you want to trade some of those endless tank legs on toxx for something useful etc etc.</p>

[Seiffil]

<p><cite>snowline wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>4 or more useless pieces to turn in for a needed piece, that still represents a massive time and farming investment by a guild, there's nothing remotely easymode about that, despite the flippant replies.</p><p>Think of it as a safety valve for when the RNG + a badly designed loot table, accidentally screws your guild over, like for example zero healer necks all expansion from maalus hard mode, or when you want to trade some of those endless tank legs on toxx for something useful etc etc.</p></blockquote><p>The bigger issue if they do that is if you do it for this expansion where admittedly the RNG for loot drops is absolutely horrid in many cases, people will expect it to be in place from now on.  I realize that it still requires some work from the guild because each player will now need 4+ pieces in your proposal from the same mob (assuming you have that requirement). </p><p>If they were to make this change, the moment anyone else feels screwed over by the RNG in future expansions they will start asking for the same system, and on what basis can you truly deny it for anyone in the future if they implement in this case.  Where do you draw the line in the future?  How many guilds need to experience the same horrible droprate before it is acceptable?  I mean just consider the other threads regarding itemization that are out there, where some guilds complain about how they see so much leather armor drop, and then you had other guilds that complain it hardly ever dropped for them.</p><p>I think it is a bad idea in general, and even more then that I think it would set a horrible precedent once it is applied in this manner.</p>

[Gisallo]

<p><span ><span style="color: #ffffff;"> </span><p>To the OP, from this and the idea that u want raid fail conditions to only fail on the peeps that screwed up I am really beginning to wonder if EQ2 raiding is for you.  Raiding is about having the rng keeping you killing the same mob over and over again to get your loot for all the raiders.  its what keeps WW 1st guilds raiding past 2 months into an expac just as a person screwing up and creating a fail condition is a way of making sure that everyone is paying attention and not just having the bards as AF boxed toons where someone just makes sure they spam a COB, POTM, Blade Dance or JCAP macro every so often.</p></span></p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>snowline wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>I'd like to see an NPC where you can take say 4 useless bits of raid loot and exchange them for 1 useful bit of raid loot. It should be done by mob loot table, so to get a particular toxx hard mode loot for example you have to turn in 4 items that only come from the toxx hardmode loot table.</blockquote><p>And aside from progression mobs, why would any guild go back to those zones after a few runs? This would basically ensure that after a month or so, every serious raiding guild would just be camped out in UD all the time (as if we don't already spend 90% of our time there anyway); for those few who've cleared all the content, they might as well just logout and come back in February.</p><p>As much as we'd all like to have that piece of loot we just can't seem to get to drop, this is a terrible idea for the game overall.</p>

[snowli]

<p><cite>Galibier@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span><span style="color: #ffffff;"> </span><p>To the OP, from this and the idea that u want raid fail conditions to only fail on the peeps that screwed up I am really beginning to wonder if EQ2 raiding is for you.  Raiding is about having the rng keeping you killing the same mob over and over again to get your loot for all the raiders.  its what keeps WW 1st guilds raiding past 2 months into an expac just as a person screwing up and creating a fail condition is a way of making sure that everyone is paying attention and not just having the bards as AF boxed toons where someone just makes sure they spam a COB, POTM, Blade Dance or JCAP macro every so often.</p></span></p></blockquote><p>you've misremembered the other thread - I said I was tired of fails that cannot be attributed to anyone, not even with hours sifting through logs and act, because they are so obscure. I'm also a bit tired of nearly always seeing similar new versions of the same raiding fail mechanic, i.e. when dps screws up it has no impact on them at all, it just adds pressure to healers and tanks.</p><p>Back to this thread. The unrealistically designed loot tables and streaky RNG. If lets say 5 of your always around healers pickup a Maalus neck, that effectively upgrades the aoe/spike survival of your raid by 3k? effective hp for each raider, if ur guild gets the brown end of the RNG stick and you get zero all expac - that has an impact on how your guild progresses, purely from RNG. It's nothing to do with wanting it earlier or wanting it now or wanting to avoid farming, it's about what if seriously useful stuff never drops, for an entire expac. Often loot tables are way off the actual composition of raids, and this expac moreso than most, it's quite possible for lots of key stuff to simply never get geared with a little bad luck.</p><p>There should be a 'safety valve'.</p>

[snowli]

<p><cite>Arandar@Everfrost wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>snowline wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>I'd like to see an NPC where you can take say 4 useless bits of raid loot and exchange them for 1 useful bit of raid loot. It should be done by mob loot table, so to get a particular toxx hard mode loot for example you have to turn in 4 items that only come from the toxx hardmode loot table.</blockquote><p>And aside from progression mobs, why would any guild go back to those zones after a few runs? This would basically ensure that after a month or so, every serious raiding guild would just be camped out in UD all the time (as if we don't already spend 90% of our time there anyway); for those few who've cleared all the content, they might as well just logout and come back in February.</p><p>As much as we'd all like to have that piece of loot we just can't seem to get to drop, this is a terrible idea for the game overall.</p></blockquote><p>Right, everyone & the new recruits would be finished in a few runs.... rofl....</p><p>Just how fast would you actually get 4 (5 6 whatever) pieces of loot that could be traded in this way.... when the trash loot would no longer be trash alt loot but have a purpose for mains, oh yeah, months of killing the same mob. <strong>Think it through properly.</strong></p>

[Seiffil]

<p><cite>snowline wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Arandar@Everfrost wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>snowline wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>I'd like to see an NPC where you can take say 4 useless bits of raid loot and exchange them for 1 useful bit of raid loot. It should be done by mob loot table, so to get a particular toxx hard mode loot for example you have to turn in 4 items that only come from the toxx hardmode loot table.</blockquote><p>And aside from progression mobs, why would any guild go back to those zones after a few runs? This would basically ensure that after a month or so, every serious raiding guild would just be camped out in UD all the time (as if we don't already spend 90% of our time there anyway); for those few who've cleared all the content, they might as well just logout and come back in February.</p><p>As much as we'd all like to have that piece of loot we just can't seem to get to drop, this is a terrible idea for the game overall.</p></blockquote><p>Right, everyone & the new recruits would be finished in a few runs.... rofl....</p><p>Just how fast would you actually get 4 (5 6 whatever) pieces of loot that could be traded in this way.... when the trash loot would no longer be trash alt loot but have a purpose for mains, oh yeah, months of killing the same mob. <strong>Think it through properly.</strong></p></blockquote><p>Everyone is thinking it through properly, except for you.  You're way to focused on the I want this stuff now part, rather then thinking about what impact is this going to have in the future.  And sure it might take months for everyone in your guild to get all the items you want, or enough pieces to exchange for them, but you're also basically saying, that you don't expect the actual items to drop at all during those months either, if everyone has to resort to this to get their items.</p><p>1)  Anytime someone has an issue with something never dropping, even if other guilds or raid forces have different experiences, they can fall back on this post as to why they shouldn't have to keep working for something until it drops.</p><p>2)  It gives SOE a way out if there ever seem to be issues with the RNG or Loot Tables being badly implemented in the future, instead of forcing them to evaluate their loot tables and how the drops get chosen, whether it's truly random or if there's some sort of weighted system in there impacting which items drop more frequently, or if it's just an issue of a mob having just much too large of a loot table.</p><p>Part of raiding has always been whether you can get something to drop.  While certain items definitely will seem rarer for some guilds or raid forces other guilds might have those items coming going to someones 3rd or 4th alt.  This just isn't the way this problem should ever be fixed.</p>

[Banerm]

<p><cite>snowline wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I'd like to see an NPC where you can take say 4 useless bits of raid loot and exchange them for 1 useful bit of raid loot. It should be done by mob loot table, so to get a particular toxx hard mode loot for example you have to turn in 4 items that only come from the toxx hardmode loot table.</p><p>A lot of the drop rates in raiding are pretty messed up compared to the actual rosta of players needed to raid. For example, we mute and alt tons of tank gear, especially the brawler stuff. Because a raid only needs 2-4 tanks. Meanwhile things like the maalus healer neck haven't dropped once all expansion we've just had tank necks constantly, and we've got 8-12 healers to gear up on the rosta. It's pretty dumb that 2-4 people get 3 different necklace chances, while 8-12 people get just 1 necklace chance (which for us means zero actual healer necks all expac).</p><p>Drop rates just aren't tuned at all well to the real way raids are run and who's needed on raiding rostas. There needs to be a safety valve against having 3 different tank necks and just 1 healer neck and not having it turn into a total RNG [Removed for Content] all expac.</p><p>Now I have nothing against farming raid mobs, ortanks getting 3 flavours of necks for example, I'd say the most important people to gear first are the tanks, the problem is what happens after they're geared. I don't like the tons of redundant tank gear going onto useless alts who are never going to help the raid and just go to instances where they don't need raid gear. I'd rather real raiders bid on redundant hard mode gear to eventually turn enough redundant pieces into useful hard mode gear gear that actually helps the raid.</p></blockquote><p>Not to nit pick but isn't this why they added marks/tokens and vendors selling gear for those marks? Yeah I know the mark gear isn't optimal but is it not good enough to fill the gap until the drops you want actually drop? It would defeat the whole purpose of raiding if smart looting or a gear exchange vendor was implemented. Content would  become dated even at a faster pace than it already is. In EQ we didn't have a mark/token vendor to fill the gap, in WoW they added token vendors and heriocs to fill the gap till people got the optimal drops for their class, EQ2 has done the same.</p><p>I feel your pain I've gone an entire expansion missing that one item that never seems to drop, but it doesn't effect my game play. Not having a neck item is not game breaking. Besides the new expansion is right around the corner.</p>

[Gisallo]

Snowline, maybe the problem is your raid force. I looked at ur post in the thread about the Stained Glass necklace. Unless u were exaggerating your raid needs 11 of them? How many healers do you run? Do your healers have all their t3 armor pieces? Are you putting getting alts the loot into the equation as well? When they make loot tables its based on keeping a 24 man raid force raiding through out the expansion, not on gearing up the force and then 3-4 back up/alts. I do belive they need to add some code that would detect when the rng is "streaking" but ur suggestion would lead to the serious progressions guilds being done with the expac tops. Heck guilds content with doing easymode (and they are out there) would have been done in 6 tops. I know u want item x. I have an item or two I would still like from my "niche" on the progression scheme, but that is what made it so I didn't take a break before the summer ended.

[hellfire]

<p><cite>snowline wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>when the trash loot would no longer be trash alt loot but have a purpose for mains, oh yeah, months of killing the same mob. <strong>Think it through properly.</strong></p></blockquote><p>So you want labs again where you can farm trash loot  for the best loot possible?</p><p>You should ask for the RNG to be looked at or changed or something not making stuff easy mode so thatguilds are  completely geared out in 2 months.Raiding isnt for you i think cause you dont want to put  any effort into the time sink of gearing everyone out.Thats why smart loot isnt added to the last 2 months of the expantion if you got all the loot you want/need in a couple months then there is no purpose drive  to keep raiding these zones.</p><p>So sorry just gonna say no to pick a loot any loot easy mode adventuring.</p>

[Blakkmantis]

<p>While I can completely understand why you would want such a thing, I have to say it's a horrible idea.  The game has already been dumbed down so much from it's original state, the raids in the game are about the only thing challenging at all anymore.  many people only login now to raid, and then logout never to be seen again until the next scheduled raid.  The loot the mobs drop are about the only thing many people are interested in.  Making it easier for folks to get that one piece they have been wanting would just kill the game.  People need to have to work for the finer things.  Too much is already just handed to players in the game now as it stands.</p>

[snowli]

<p>If you kill a mob every time the lock refreshes for half a year, and it drops ZERO of the item all the healers need, 6months is a large enough period you're quite likely to have at least a couple of healers turn over and have to gear up new ones. Plus maybe you're lucky enough to have 8 healers with 100% attendance but many raiding guilds would have a few healers more than 8 because they don't all have 100% attendance. So 11 seems a pretty reasonable goal over that period. Now if an item's rare as rocking horsepoo and some guilds end up with 6 maybe over that half year, 1 a month, I could accept that, but zero? It's not about me getting the neck, there's noway I'm catching several healer's dkp, it's about anyone in the entire guild, ever, getting that neck in the whole expansion of raiding.</p><p>I am surprised everyone is so locked on status quo that must be protected at all costs like it's the only way to do things, whatever happened to a bit of innovation & rethink. 6months raiding to produce zero of one of the items your force needs the most, I'm sorry but "RNG is the only way to do it because that's what we're used to" no type of safety valve for crappy RNG streaks should be considered just doesn't cut it.</p><p>Seals would be another way of approaching it, you could put the neck on the seal vendor for 200 seals or something, the drawback with taking that approach is, you can only add those items once you've identified a loot table problem that's existed for quite a while. With an exchanger you can tweak the figures so that for the guilds that get 12 of a particular item in an expac it has no impact and for the guilds that get zero of a particular item they instead end up with 4 maybe by the end of the expansion. If you put the exchanger in right now we'd still finish the expansion with maybe zero healers necks, because others need to take tank necks and turn them into the necks they need.</p><p>The bonus of an exchanger npc is the only guilds who are getting enough of the junkloot to make use of an exchanger are the guilds that are killing that mob lots, but getting the shaft by the RNG, so it actually keeps the farming level higher overall than using a seals type approach. It's a safety valve that only operates when the RNG is consistantly failing on a particular mob for a particular guild.</p>

[Gisallo]

My guess is people are locked for a couple reasons. First while it took until a little most of the healers on the raid force I was with who had been there for at least 2 months (we had some turn over), got their neck off Maluus imbued (as an example). I understand that your experience is different, but if u were seeing nothing but tank necks say that's because the rng is streaky. You fix that by tweaking the rng. When u start putting in smart loot or exchange merchants then peeps will not only expect it when its taking too long for them to get what they want. It in essence would encourage instant gratification. As an example, people complained about RoK and TSO armor pattern drop rates. Near the end of expansions they started smart loot but people then started whining it should be smart loot from the beginning. Give peeps an inch they want a mile. Things do need to be addressed. If there is a problem right now in actual itemization its created by their being defensive and offensive tank gear and casters having caster and pet gear. After that its the rng. You fix these issues by addressing the actual problem. Up tank dps in offensive for when they are expected to dps (and make no mistake OT's and brawlers are expected to do exactly that when tanking) or give them more useful utility. Have shared stats for summoners. Tweak the rng so it detcts streakiness and adjusts, that is doable as well. Stop gap solutions like u suggest however, once introduced, have a history in this game of becoming either expected by players or insitutionalized even if they hurt the game over the long term. No one is aying all is 100% right with the world, we are just saying if there are problems, learn from them and fix the problem right.

[snowli]

<p>right so a couple of months killing a mob geared up all your healers. RNG wins.</p><p>6 months killing this mob failed to gear up a single 1 of our healers. RNG mega-fails.</p><p>alternatives should be considered.</p>

[Gisallo]

Yes it needs to be fixed. It should not be fixed in a manner however that encourages instant gratification. The RNG has problems with streaking so fix the RNG. Once u blow some seals in your car's engine simply pouring more oil in everyday is an option to stop the engine from seizing, however in the long term the engine is till going to fail or even light on fire because of the oil sitting on the hot manifold so it is neither a long term or a "good" fix. You fix the problem by replacing the seals in the engine, or in this case the rng and the bad class design that resulted in fighters and mages requireing two entirely different set of gear. This close to the end of an expac is not the place to do a "quick fix" its the place to encourage SOE to fix the underlying issues. Ur solution would keep the underlying issues broken and encourage the already growing "instant gratification" attitude in some quarters. This would hurt end game raiding overall.

[Mayz]

<p>Lazy tonight so I didn't bother to read all of it but....</p><p>You do realize that there is a market for these things called manas... they occur when you Xmute fabled stuff.</p><p>IMO they should nerf the drop rates in instances as well, its WAY too easy to get gear as it is... this kind of a change would be lame IMO even if I did have to raid palace for a month 2 times a week to get my stupid gloves to drop.</p>

[snowli]

<p>I can't agree, I think massive loot table or class redesign is entirely unrealistic. I think this actually is a much better solution that targets a specific problem and addresses it.</p><p>If months of killing a particular mob totally fails purely because of RNG just because it can happen with dice or with anything random. Then a targeted fix like this that only solves a particular streak of badluck is a good solution.</p><p>Please get out of your mind that this is some whine to get raiding made easier. You haven't properly considered the idea until you take that step.</p><p>If months of RNG fail had a safety valve that produced 1 or 2 of the item that failed to appear as it normally should, that is a good thing. An exchanger really fits this problem as a solution because your guild needs to be accumulating large numbers of un-necessary loot from a particular mob in order to get something you do need from a particular mob. It's a very targeted solution.</p><p>You still need to have the un-needed stuff drop, people still need to bid on it and accumulate it. How long would it take for a single healer to accumulate 4 un-needed necks for example maybe 3months and only after u've been killing it several months and it's on farm status? and then the next healer needs to line up? healers aren't the only class getting shafted by the 3 tank necks on maalus either.</p><p>I maintain the snap judgements of "no to easy mode" haven't thought it through properly. If it changes using this example 6months killing HM Maalus with zero healer necks into 6months killing it and 2 healer necks, that still a substantial rng-fail compared to your couple of months and gearing out all healer rng-win, it's just not quite a total failure.</p>

[Gisallo]

So basically its I want my gear now and even if the fix to give me what I want now hurts raiding overall so be it. Btw. They have the fix for the mage issue planned for velious, shared stats with pets so there doesn't need to be pet gear so a similar change to fighters is not out of the question. Also a change to the coding of the rng would NOT be a big issue. There is already a standard for deaing with it because it is a well known fact in coding circles that a basic rng is not actually random. Why confuse your desire to get your gear now with facts though right? These fixes are pretty simple. Its just that implementing these fixes for velious doesn't fix the fact u want what u want and want it now. You think we aren't thinking it through. Perhaps not to "how do we make snowline happy", that would be true. What we have thought through to is "how do we keep people playing and subscribing and not being bored and canceling by august." I promise u if something lik this gets implemented then people will insist on it being both permenant and extended to instance play. If people think this game became a ghost town in October, just wait and see what happens when they get geared up by July at the latest. It would help if we even knew your guilds name though. My sneaking suspicion is that this might be relevant to the conversation. I have to be honest because I know many guilds that have been killing mob x for 6 months plus. NONE of them are in a situation where they have never see a specific item drop. Regardless fixes based on personal desire and greed, not on the over all health of the game never end well because such desires of usually counter to the motives to stgay subbed up and active for extended periods of time.

[snowli]

<p>You fail at reading comprehension, I don't have the DKP for the maalus neck as I've said, this is not about I want my stuff now, it's about when the RNG streak gets totally out of hand. And some backend rng modifying code that your suggesting has totally no way of allowing for what different guilds really need, so it's not as good a solution.</p>

[Gisallo]

First to answer your question as too how long it would take. It would take approximatley 4 months for an entire raid to be geared out using ur method if a piece NO ONE in the raid could use ever dropped. So before june hits every class is geared out by just trading in gear they can't use (faster for toxx loot). Now of course this time table would be faster because initially stuff would drop that could be used for some classes. Sorry but your complete dismissal of the need to address the real issue is pretty much what is amking u seem like instant gratificatiob boy. And I am sure the fact that other people have more dkp and are probably banking more to stay ahead of u has NOTHING to do with your desire to get more loot in the pipeline, nor the fact it looks like u have 5 different classes that are "raid" toons that u want to gear out (u have started illy, summoner and two different healer threads (warden and mystic.) Also I forgot to say I did read ur post about accountability and u complained about how the fails penalize the healers and tanks more than the person who screwed up and even ended saying this "Even better would be building accountable encounters where failing caused problems for the person who slacks. For example instead of triple adds as a fail where dps causes problems for tank/heal classes uld be building newer encounters where attacking at the wrong time maybe added incurable debuffs to the person who failed e.g. stacking 4E. 0% longer to cast any ability..." etc. But u don't want raiding made easier or dumbed down etc. <strong> Edit due to double post

[snowli]

<p>Of course the figures need to be designed in a way that it has almost no impact on regular farming progress through raiding, it's a safety valve against bad RNG. There's no need to be so pedantic about OMG IT WOULD DESTROY RAIDING - that's precisely not what it's supposed to do, it's a safety mechanic to respond to extreme streaks.</p><p>10 pieces of HM loot to exchange for 1 needed piece, start it off super extreme and check it's impact.</p>

[Gisallo]

<cite>snowline wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Of course the figures need to be designed in a way that it has almost no impact on regular farming progress through raiding, it's a safety valve against bad RNG.</p><p>10 pieces of HM loot to exchange for 1 needed piece, start it off super extreme and check it's impact.</p></blockquote> Okay this isn't as bad as 4 pieces but starting at 10 still has issues. First history shows that once a system like this is introduced people will cry for it to be made easier. Heck the idea for status for city writs was so non raiding or non crafting guilds could still levell with some effort. Now we have people wanting exclusive mobs cause they do not want to wait. Also I honestly think this has a better chance to fail balance wise. They are giving summoners shared stats (something most raiding summoners I know have wanted for sometime). All they need to do is look at the overall purpose of tanks (they are expected to be more than meat shields now) and tweak that. Then add a small piece of code to the rng to remove the streaking and the problem is fixed without having to experiment with a system that could create a mess in terms of enhancing a sense of "mine now mine now" that already exists.

[Gaige]

<p>No.</p>

[BabyAngel]

<p>No</p>

[LardLord]

<p><cite>Kunaak wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>why not just kill a mob, get a drop box with the mobs entire loot table... you pick 2-3 items you want, and call it good.</p><p>who needs to raid for a entire expansion, gear for everyone in a week, then we can all run instances!</p></blockquote><p>Yeah, it's not so much about difficulty...it's more about replayability.  Once you've farmed a zone a little bit, you usually only go back for a small handful of items.  Making it easier to obtain those items in any way ends up giving you fewer reasons to run the zones, which makes the expansion boring sooner.</p><p>There's also the more abstract point that the suspense in opening a chest would be diminished if you knew you were definitely going to get the item you wanted eventually.  People whine about the RNG all the time, but I think it's actually one of the better tools the devs have to make the game more interesting (as sad as that may be).  Less predictable and more dynamic games are more fun.</p>

[snowli]

<p>They have already gone down the route of adding code to adjust the rng. Like 'smart loot' except that the smart loot was not nearly smart enough to know what players wanted, and sometimes would prevent the correct loot from dropping by giving again and again unwanted items. Something with intelligent input i.e. player involved in that killing that mobs input is naturally going to end up smarter overall.</p>

[Gisallo]

Smart loot was simply the ultimate extension of what u are asking for. Now did it give u what u wanted? No. Guess how u fixed that, don't bring someone along who does not have all their patterns made. That simple action makes getting up to speed for sf raid start easy. Bring the new guy along, blast through TOMC and POTAO and they have a full set of crit mit. If you bring peeps along without that stuff in the bank sorry u loose. Don't like it look for something different tbh. They did NOT put in the code, which exsts, that allows the rng to notice it is streaking and adjust through statistical analysis. The more u talk the more it seems u simply want no randomness at all. You want a system where you main healers can get their stuff asap so u can get ur 4th alth their loot shortly there after. Thank you but no. That is good for you but bad for the game. Sloppy solutions lead to disasters. Your solution has everything to do with ensuring u or ur friends get what they want when they want without addressing the actua problem. Still waiting for a guildname on runnyeye btw.

[Gungo]

<p>The problem with the OP is not all raid loot has the same drop rate. Some items have 5-10% drop rates whereas other pieces have 20% drop rates.</p>

[snowli]

<p>The problem really is terrible streaks of the RNG, like killing a mob everytime it's up from july until december and seeing zero of an item that's a real benefit to raid progression, having a substantial affect on getting your squishier players through hard mode physical aoes.</p><p>Raiding used to feel more about the skills of the players on the night, more and more, it seems to be about how lucky with the RNG loot table was your raiders, and can you gear your players faster than the lock system versus having to replace geared people with gearless new recruits because of churn.</p><p>The growing importace of the RNG and loot table is partly a function of moving away from raids where the tanks channeled the mobs damage,  and eventually your Main Tank might get that srar shield drop that let your raid progress a bit easier. To newer style aoe raiding, where the entire raid channels the bulk of the damage via aoe's versus gear/crit mit and tanks only really channel the auto-attack damage which is fairly minor in comparison.</p>

[Soul_Dreamer]

<p>I think the more obvious problem this expansion has been the different "Sets" of loot.</p><p>Armour - Plate - Fighter DefensivePlate - Fighter OffensivePlate - HealerChain - ScoutChain - Healer Leather - Fighter DefensiveLeather - Fighter OffensiveLeather - HealerCloth - MageCloth - Summoner</p><p>10 sets of armour, 4 of which are for classes where you only have 2-3 of the class in a raid. so 40% of loot for 10% of the raid?Really, brilliant planning!</p><p>Maalus Necks - Class by primary Stat</p><p>Necklace of Ruin - MageBladebane Choker - ScoutBlighted Mithril Choker - Fighter (Hate)Bloodgorged Choker - Fighter (DPS)Clasp of Elemental Power - SummonerMarble Infused Choker - Fighter (Defense)Stained Glass Necklace - Healer</p><p>Even if they all have the same chance of dropping you have 3 for fighters again almost 50% of the necks are for 10% of the raids characters. Why they can't just merge the fighter armour I don't know especially the mithril and bloodgorged.</p><p>I hope they realise next expansion that fighters don't need an offensive and defensive set, they just need a "Fighter" set.</p>

[Aremban]

<p><cite>snowline wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The problem really is terrible streaks of the RNG, like killing a mob everytime it's up from july until december and seeing zero of an item that's a real benefit to raid progression, having a substantial affect on getting your squishier players through hard mode physical aoes.</p></blockquote><p>There is no single piece of gear that would hamper guild progression. It would be a total disaster if everyone started bidding for non-needed items because you could trade them in. Imagine 24 players bidding DKP each and every time...</p><p>What about guilds that use leader assigned loot? Suggesting something to benefit "your" guild is nice, but you do have to take in the whole picture.</p>

[feldon30]

<p><cite>Kunaak wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>why not just kill a mob, get a drop box with the mobs entire loot table... you pick 2-3 items you want, and call it good.</p><p>who needs to raid for a entire expansion, gear for everyone in a week, then we can all run instances! when raiding gets too hard, we should just be allowed to let bots do the raiding for us, so we can log in and have new gear every day.</p></blockquote><p>You measure the difficulty of raiding by how many times the mob drops something that NOBODY needs?</p><p>Wow, that's so simple and easy. You've just helped the EQ2 team immensely did you know? Now they can design all the raids the same, and to make some mobs harder, they just reduce the drop rate on any loot worth talking about from 1% to .001%. Brilliant!</p><p>The RNG is broken.</p>

[snowli]

<p><cite>Aremban wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>snowline wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The problem really is terrible streaks of the RNG, like killing a mob everytime it's up from july until december and seeing zero of an item that's a real benefit to raid progression, having a substantial affect on getting your squishier players through hard mode physical aoes.</p></blockquote><p>There is no single piece of gear that would hamper guild progression. It would be a total disaster if everyone started bidding for non-needed items because you could trade them in. Imagine 24 players bidding DKP each and every time...</p><p>What about guilds that use leader assigned loot? Suggesting something to benefit "your" guild is nice, but you do have to take in the whole picture.</p></blockquote><p>With leader assigned loot would actually make it easier I'd think. You can pick people and stick useless hard mode loot on them on a per mob needed upgrade basis, if it hasn't dropped in 3 months of killing the mob or whatever, voila, hand in, at least 1 person gets 1 of the progression upgrades.</p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>Soul_Dreamer wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>I hope they realise next expansion that fighters don't need an offensive and defensive set, they just need a "Fighter" set.</blockquote><p>Right now, we have to make decisions about what mix of gear we need to wear for particular fights. If it's mobs that we have on farm status, it's going to primarily be DPS gear, but for completely new mobs or ones that we're still getting down, we can switch to more defense oriented gear. Forcing everything into a one-size-fits-all mold might be easier to balance for loot tables, but it would be yet another dumbing down of the fighter classes. Fighters are expected to be able to do both mid-range DPS and tank in the raid on an as-needed basis; our gear needs to be able to match those expectations.</p>

[hellfire]

<p>Also what people are forgetting is no where does it state or even assumed that you will get everything you want from a mob.There are  prior expantions where there are things i never got that i wanted.Im also sure its designed  so that  some items do not have a higher drop rate becuase they dont want everyone to actually have the item.</p><p>Its good design imo  and one that has forever been apart of preety much any progression style MMO ....you are not garunteed to get everything you want....no matter how many time you kill a mob or cry and moan about it on the forums.Hopfully they keeps things status quo and maybe look at the RNG ...but keep the design or loot dropping mechanic in tact.</p>

[Zabjade]

<p><span style="color: #00cc00;">Take more brawlers on raids, Duh! We never get to see the gear. ;p</span></p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>Bigron@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Its good design imo  and one that has forever been apart of preety much any progression style MMO ....you are not garunteed to get everything you want....no matter how many time you kill a mob or cry and moan about it on the forums.Hopfully they keeps things status quo and maybe look at the RNG ...but keep the design or loot dropping mechanic in tact.</p></blockquote><p>Agreed. The only tweaking with the RNG I think may be a good idea is if they biased against more than one item of the exactly same type dropping from the mob in the same chest. For example, I've seen three pairs of scout forearms drop from HM sages on more than one occasion, and that's a bit ridiculous.</p>

[Gisallo]

<p><cite>Soul_Dreamer wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think the more obvious problem this expansion has been the different "Sets" of loot.</p><p>Armour - Plate - Fighter DefensivePlate - Fighter OffensivePlate - HealerChain - ScoutChain - Healer Leather - Fighter DefensiveLeather - Fighter OffensiveLeather - HealerCloth - MageCloth - Summoner</p><p>10 sets of armour, 4 of which are for classes where you only have 2-3 of the class in a raid. so 40% of loot for 10% of the raid?Really, brilliant planning!</p><p>Maalus Necks - Class by primary Stat</p><p>Necklace of Ruin - MageBladebane Choker - ScoutBlighted Mithril Choker - Fighter (Hate)Bloodgorged Choker - Fighter (DPS)Clasp of Elemental Power - SummonerMarble Infused Choker - Fighter (Defense)Stained Glass Necklace - Healer</p><p>Even if they all have the same chance of dropping you have 3 for fighters again almost 50% of the necks are for 10% of the raids characters. Why they can't just merge the fighter armour I don't know especially the mithril and bloodgorged.</p><p>I hope they realise next expansion that fighters don't need an offensive and defensive set, they just need a "Fighter" set.</p></blockquote><p>The problem with tanks is not only what Kordan mentioned with tanks needing to have different gear for different fights, they also have an issue similar to what mages deal with (atm).  </p><p>Mages needed seperate "caster" and "summoner" necks due to the summoner having pets and the summoner's stats not being shared with their pet.  With tanks its kinda similar.   Some get a higher % aggro management from aggro tools, others from dps, others are squishy as heck.  Raids (and these gear drop in the raid zones so its relevant) expect tanks to dps decently when not tanking a mob.  This all means that tanks need different types of gear because of both the mechanics handed us by SOE and the current expectations of the plauer base.   Not trying to be rude, but if you are not raiding this is not your problem.  U may not expect the tank to dps but progression raid forces do.</p><p>Unlike the other classes you don't have classes with a different niche in the over all scheme.  Predators t1 dps, rogues t2 dps and debuff/utility etc.  All fighters are expected to fit into the same niche TANK using different methods so the gear needs to be different, and when not tanking all are expected to be in the middle of the parse at the least.  That means some tanks benefot more from hate, others dps and still others getting more defense and that ALL need at some point to dps tbh.</p><p>Since Fighter 2.0 got derailed they needed to introduce gear to help the tanks in how they do their jobs currently.  Also I think this was taken into account to be honest.  I have not seen more tank nexks drop in proportion to number of tank necks out there.  Now they have finally fixed summoners.  They really need to sit down and look at tanks HARD but not in the cookie cutter over simplistic method that Aeralik had for fighter 2.0.  Not having the different kinds of gear though will create issue though because of how SOE allowed the tanks to evolve. </p>

[snowli]

<p>I am extremely supportive of tanks getting gear and having even different setups, their gear is more important than anyone else's. A leftover EQ1 raiding thought process perhaps, where maintank over all, but there u go. However I find it extremely tedious to raid for months to gear up 14 "who's character is that?" tank alts with the constant spare tank loot, that never get played let alone raid. When that useless loot consistantly holds back progress because it's impeding the necessary farming to get further along, that's a big part of the issue for me.</p>

[Alazarz]

<p>That sucks that the healer necklace hasnt dropped for you guys. ive seen it the last 3 times killing maalus hm.</p><p>The item exchange isnt a good idea. What is a good idea is putting all T3 items on a merchant that can be aquired through seals.Make each item cost a crazy amount of seals and/or even plat. say like 300 - 500 seals and like 100 - 200pp per item</p><p>Ofcourse you would have to be flagged for killing certain mobs in order to buy their loot. That way guilds couldnt just farm all easy modes hella fast and gear up with T3 without actually having to kill a certain mob.</p><p>All of these ideas wouldnt even exist if we had smart lewt!!</p>

[Kordran]

<p>I'd have the same general issue with buying loot from a mob's loot table if you're flagged for killing it. Part of the fun is the "Yes! The item I've been wanting has dropped!" moment; of course, the flipside of that is that you're going to experience disappointment when it doesn't. All part of the game.</p><p>The only possible exception that I could see for this would be with the release of a new expac, and this kind of system was introduced for the <strong><em>previous</em></strong> expac. For example, a few months after Velious rolls out they could add a new vendor that would sell SF T3 loot, with the requirement that you're flagged for killing the mob, and it will cost you a ton of plat. Seals, not really a big deal. But the one good thing you could get out of this is turn it into a major plat sink. Oh, you want those T3 gloves that HM Klak never seemed to drop for you? No problem. 100 seals and 1500p and they're yours. That sort of thing. I suspect that would drain the swamp pretty fast.</p><p>Edit: And unlike SLR gear that just shuffles plat around, this would actually remove plat from the game's economy. For that kind of a benefit, perhaps it would be worth considering. But never anything like that for current expansion gear.</p>