Trivial loot code

Phoebes

Does anyone know if trivial loot code will be implemented in Pantheon?

Adamantine

Whats that supposed to be ?

waynejr2

When a character kills a mob, loot drop rules come into play. With Trivial Loot Code, if the character is too high level, there is no loot.  Prevents high level characters from farming low level content for items and such.

Rattenmann

God, i hope not. 
All these unnatural restrictions of modern mmos ruin the genre.

Sinist

Rattenmann said:

God, i hope not. 
All these unnatural restrictions of modern mmos ruin the genre.

While I don't dismiss the issues some bring up when allowing high level players to farm items from low level mobs, I agree that such an implementation has no place in this type of game. It really kills the enjoyment of being able to go back and obtain an item that you never got the chance to see drop.

Amsai

No trivial loot code. If people are greifing or over monopolizing low level content. Then report them. But if every now and then I want to farm some low level mobs for mats that shouldnt be a problem. 

Amathe

I think you for sure ought to be able to get drops from quest mobs that are needed for quest turn ins. Some people like to be able to say they did all the quests. But no need to farm +1 hammers. Though you would think there's not a lot of coin in +1 hammers? 

Sinist

Amathe said:

I think you for sure ought to be able to get drops from quest mobs that are needed for quest turn ins. Some people like to be able to say they did all the quests. But no need to farm +1 hammers. Though you would think there's not a lot of coin in +1 hammers? 

Why not? Maybe you are doing it for an alt and want to twink? They said they are designing the game to be friendly to that form of play, it would be counter productive to work against it.

That said, lets hope they aren't designing the loot with simplistic linear progression gear, lets hope there are clickies, interesting effects, etc.. that may be situational and useful for a higher level. Also keep in mind that gear will have meaning for a much longer time. You won't be upgrading sets of gear every level as is common in many games today. The loot treadmill won't be so consistently repetitive. Even in EQ, I level 40 could still find some use of a level 20+ content item. Heck, on my monk I wore many things I obtained in my 20-30's by the time I hit Kunark (50+).

So there will be some use for returning to older content from time to time. Not to mention, you have layered levels of content in a given dungeon. So, someone might be camping a level 40 boss in the zone, but swinging by to check on a level 25 named spawn as well.

I many of times would be farming multiple named in an empty zone, only to have someone look for the named I just killed and I would just give him the low level item. Done and seen that quite often.

The worry though are those who will turn it into a business, which is why I never really liked the economies in EQ and all the trash they brought with them (ie gold sellers, gimmick farmers and sellers, etc...).

Amsai

@Sinist ;

That just becomes a whole other barrel of monkeys. I think you agree with me. But what you are saying about RMTs and what not is a problem. And while its a very important point. It should be seperate from this issue. I dont want the devs using a trivial loot code as a way to mitigate these type problems. But I guess at some point you do need to worry about people abusively monopolizing content...... but I honestly dont see it as a problem most of the time. FFXI had this issue with a couple of droped items and the fix was to make them non-tradeable/sellable...... which sucked and wouldnt fit Pantheon anyway. But the worse issue was RMTs playing the market and raising prices for low level items into the 100s of millions. And ill be the first to admit I dont have good answers....... but locking out low level content from high level players isnt an answer I can support.

Sinist

Amsai said:

@Sinist ;

That just becomes a whole other barrel of monkeys. I think you agree with me. But what you are saying about RMTs and what not is a problem. And while its a very important point. It should be seperate from this issue. I dont want the devs using a trivial loot code as a way to mitigate these type problems. But I guess at some point you do need to worry about people abusively monopolizing content...... but I honestly dont see it as a problem most of the time. FFXI had this issue with a couple of droped items and the fix was to make them non-tradeable/sellable...... which sucked and wouldnt fit Pantheon anyway. But the worse issue was RMTs playing the market and raising prices for low level items into the 100s of millions. And ill be the first to admit I dont have good answers....... but locking out low level content from high level players isnt an answer I can support.

To be clear, I do not want any form of loot code trying to pick who can and who can't, that is a terrible feature, but... as I said I do understand the concerns some have in the abuse of it.

As for the market raising the prices, see... I don't like the AH systems, I don't use the in game economies because of the gimmicks I have discussed previously in other threads. My concern was not buying, it is obtaining on my own which is the real game play for me (buying it regardless of using in game money just feels like a form of PTW personally). so for me, the only real concern would be having some AH gimmick seller perma camping a spawn 24/7 so he can work the market. In those cases, that form of game play intrudes on actually playing the game for me (which was an issue form time to time in EQ on some very hot key items that sold for a lot and why I preferred the Test server over production because people didn't do much selling/buying on that server).

Though that can be settled by VR if it becomes a reoccurring problem.

Howbadisbad

If the drops are so good that even high levels are farming them then shouldn't the drops be nerfed? Why even bother with this trivial loot code.

Amathe

Well one issue is you otherwise will have a guy that rushed to level 10 just so he could aoe murder all the mobs in the starter zone to grief the newbies. 

So maybe the solution is to have TLC for levels 1-10 (other than for quest items)  and then not have it after that at all. 

Amsai

Thanks for the clarificarion. And it seems I agree with you on all but the AH issue but thats for anothwr thread. Suffice it to say Id be in favor of no economy aside from limited npc bare bones merchants...... if that. But thats not what the devs want so.... nevermind that

Sinist

Howbadisbad said:

If the drops are so good that even high levels are farming them then shouldn't the drops be nerfed? Why even bother with this trivial loot code.

People farm rares for more than just personal use, especially if there is a player economy. If it were simply an issue of people farming them for personal use, that would work itself out eventually.

Sinist

Amathe said:

Well one issue is you otherwise will have a guy that rushed to level 10 just so he could aoe murder all the mobs in the starter zone to grief the newbies. 

So maybe the solution is to have TLC for levels 1-10 (other than for quest items)  and then not have it after that at all. 

I don't think that will be an issue. In EQ, there is no way a level 10 could "AoE murder" all the mobs in a starter zone. A level 40 could easily get overrun by mobs in a level 20 zone. A level 10 would still have to be very careful about such things and most spells/abilities as it concerned AoEs were never that strong in EQ.

Lastly, personally... I don't want the first 10 levels of a game to be treated as fodder everyone tolerates to get through, I really dislike that about games today.

Thebeasttt

Trivial loot was terrible, everyone on FV hated it and we went to great lengths to get around it(like grouping with a noob to loot or forming a small raid just to loot). Don't add this nonsense, it was a bad idea back then and it's still bad now.

Rattenmann

Howbadisbad said:

If the drops are so good that even high levels are farming them then shouldn't the drops be nerfed? Why even bother with this trivial loot code.

Well, or we just let midrange items be BIS as well? Who said you have to be max level before being able to get any BIS items?

Thinking about the glowing black stone in EQ1 for example. It was close to BIS for a while and dropped from a rare spawn in a lowbie area. And that was totally fine. Part of making levels before "highest" valuable and fun. 

Amsai

XI had a lot of low and mid level items that were BiS for a long time even til endgame. Though to be fair XI specialized in situational gear so it wasnt Bis all the time.

joeslowmoe

Yes, please keep trivial loot coding out.  We should be able to farm whatever at whatever level.  Keep all dumb and useless restrictions out of the game.  I understand the issue from the standpoint of the person who is having their exp party ruined by some high level farming mats of low levels, but honestly this was never that big of an issue.  The person farming, unless 100% douchebag, will normally relinquish the area to an exp group when they see them role into the camp anyhow.  Most of the time this sort of farming is done in people's "downtime" and not something they deem worthy of harassing lower level players over (mind you I'm making this statement based on the games I've played that are in the same vein of Pantheon and their communities not the general shit show that has become the average MMO populace of late). 

Amsai

LMAO. Shit show....... made me snort my drink. Its funny but so true.

joeslowmoe

Yes, XI, and EQ even, had some lower level items that had great longevity.  Most of the time those items were very situational but there were other items, at least in XI, that were just straight up BiS for 40-50 levels such as Leaping Boots or Emperor's Pin, Peacock Charm and such.  The mobs that dropped these had pita spawn conditions, such as huge array of PHs any of which could spawn the mob and therefore hours of camping ruined by some random running through and getting your claim or for Argus shared a spawn window with another NM and unless you had ToD and knew which was killed last it was a total crap shoot if you were wasting your time, that made the task of obtaining the items worthy of the quality of loot.  These items were not game breakingly good, they simply were BiS for leveling purposes because of the way gearing worked during leveling in that game.

Hrimnir

Sinist said:

Rattenmann said:

God, i hope not. 
All these unnatural restrictions of modern mmos ruin the genre.

While I don't dismiss the issues some bring up when allowing high level players to farm items from low level mobs, I agree that such an implementation has no place in this type of game. It really kills the enjoyment of being able to go back and obtain an item that you never got the chance to see drop.

Its also good for the game economy.  If you decide to show up as a level 50 in a level 30 dungeon to camp items, provided nobody else is there, who does it hurt?  I regularly spent a lot of time in permafrost camping items to sell at wee hours of the morning because of my work schedule, and rarely saw any level appropriate groups show up wanting to do that content.

Hrimnir

Sinist said:

Amathe said:

Well one issue is you otherwise will have a guy that rushed to level 10 just so he could aoe murder all the mobs in the starter zone to grief the newbies. 

So maybe the solution is to have TLC for levels 1-10 (other than for quest items)  and then not have it after that at all. 

I don't think that will be an issue. In EQ, there is no way a level 10 could "AoE murder" all the mobs in a starter zone. A level 40 could easily get overrun by mobs in a level 20 zone. A level 10 would still have to be very careful about such things and most spells/abilities as it concerned AoEs were never that strong in EQ.

Lastly, personally... I don't want the first 10 levels of a game to be treated as fodder everyone tolerates to get through, I really dislike that about games today.

Sinist said:

Amathe said:

Well one issue is you otherwise will have a guy that rushed to level 10 just so he could aoe murder all the mobs in the starter zone to grief the newbies. 

So maybe the solution is to have TLC for levels 1-10 (other than for quest items)  and then not have it after that at all. 

I don't think that will be an issue. In EQ, there is no way a level 10 could "AoE murder" all the mobs in a starter zone. A level 40 could easily get overrun by mobs in a level 20 zone. A level 10 would still have to be very careful about such things and most spells/abilities as it concerned AoEs were never that strong in EQ.

Lastly, personally... I don't want the first 10 levels of a game to be treated as fodder everyone tolerates to get through, I really dislike that about games today.

I'll give a personal example of this.  On Mithaniel Marr, and acquaintance of mine named Greycloud, was a barb warrior for Afterlife, a major top end guild. This guy was geared to the teeth. He came to help me camp something for my epic in Castle Mistmoore, and ended up getting killed trying to run to zone line because he ended up getting like half the castle aggro'd on him.

Aradune

Hrimnir said:

I'll give a personal example of this.  On Mithaniel Marr, and acquaintance of mine named Greycloud, was a barb warrior for Afterlife, a major top end guild. This guy was geared to the teeth. He came to help me camp something for my epic in Castle Mistmoore, and ended up getting killed trying to run to zone line because he ended up getting like half the castle aggro'd on him.

Now that's my kind of TLC

Stormsone

I never did understand all the new loot rules games post eq added. Every one of them was made to prevent you from having fun it seemed like. Level requirements is the most annoying one of all imo. EQ let you make alts into low level demi gods which was fun, level requirements killed that fun for me.

Rattenmann

Stormsone said:

I never did understand all the new loot rules games post eq added. Every one of them was made to prevent you from having fun it seemed like. Level requirements is the most annoying one of all imo. EQ let you make alts into low level demi gods which was fun, level requirements killed that fun for me.

I agree 100%.

Not only did all those new rules make no sense and removed fun from looting stuff, but also screwed over people in bad ways. How? Like this:

1. Some people COULD ruin the fun of low level players by twinking out a toon and claiming all camps as a demi god. So let's just screw over ALL people by disallowing to twink a toon in the first place.
2. Some people COULD ruin the fun of low/midlevel players by camping a boss with a highlevel toon. So let's just screw over ALL people by implementing trivial loot code.
3. Some people COULD killsteal a mob from others, so lets just screw over ALL people by disallowing to engage a mob that has already been tagged by someone else (not even to help them to not die).

I am sure you can come up with dozens of other examples for this. Bottom line: Let the community fix this. Don't force a dumb "fix" on players by default that screws over many more people than it actually helps.


Just a personal thing regarding loot:
In modern games you just have to watch the level of an item and its color. If it is not max level, don't bother looting it. You can not trade it anyways, money is rarly if ever an issue and it can not be an upgrade for you.

Back in Everquest if an item dropped it could be something unique and an upgrade / alternative item even if it was WAY below your level. Or it could be valuable for a twink... or for a friend. Or for selling. You almost always checked out those items, you almost always thought about them at least for a second. You never cleared a dungeon without looting the bosses. 

That was fun. With all the new rules forced upon us looting became more of a drill aka "is it max level? no? ignore it!", then fun and enjoyment.