DLC7: Items and Player Rewards

Welcome to the Controller club. There has YET to be a good controller belt that dpses get most of the time.

You are talking about the 85 blue belt that has really horrible sockets. I use the 75 one too. I saw the 87 one that is like the good 75 one (trink, con, wild, wild) 3 times. Once when I was in dps stance and two times on my EU toon. :/ It drops off the big ugly before going into the museum in FR.

I haven't heard from Crafty in a while, I was hoping that he would chime in about the discussion of the Time Traveler piece maybe becoming unattuned. :/

Actually, I don't like the fact that V plans drop like candy on the 4-man ops.

They seem to drop far more than IV plans or other plans and have become quite common. I'd prefer to to see some weapon drop instead, because we all know, that we are all looking for a better weapon of the type we prefer to use. So far, I had the feeling that every boss in the 4-man ops drops a V plan. I didn't count the bosses, but 1 plan every day for each party-member is a lot.

Some of my friends already have the majority of plans they need (e.g. all DPS-plans) and OC has only launched recently....

A Booster Gold inspired style?? It may as well be an iconic. Tanks, Trollers and Healers are all going to want this too, not just for the feat.
Leaving it as DPS only will cause a lot of aggression with and against many players.

Unattuned is the best solution.

#1- I believe the V plans dropping like candy is a great idea. I expect that the V consumables will be popping in to replace the drops soon. That will add quite a variety and a reliable source for trying to find that perfect plan for each player.
#2- I also support the unattuned Booster Gold style. I refuse to roll need on anything but Tank or Brawlers. I pass what I already have and I greed for style. I am all for the DPS cring up before me, but I don't see an instance where I will ever get to finish that feat...I mean I'm still tryin to get the oolong set finished, because my league is almost always running something for gearing up someone or another person in the raid of a different role requests it first.
#3- For the love of all that is holy in DCUO, start dropping the V sodas. Remixes look like extremes to a T3 for me now. They barely hit for a tenth of my health unstacked. I've got people yelling for me to hit a soda...I just did, the increase was SO slight they saw it increase and thought I hit a regular self restoration move.

Does anyone know where a all trinket or would card healer and dps belt drop for the new content?

Hey I think I seen you around in DCUO.

I'm sure it does but I'm more sure the devs decremented its drop rates to increase content replayability.

no one else will probably care about this but i do. Fireplaces. There are 2 of them as drops. the "Fireplace" and the "Fancy Fireplace". Both appear stone (marble) but the fancy fireplace has a chiney that extends upwards above the mantle whereas the normal fireplace is just a standard one with nothing above the mantle. the fireplace is a good scale because these usually are modest. but the Fancy Fireplace is way out of scale and too small. It's barely wider than a character's width and the height is around the same height as our tallest character model. a fireplace with the extending chimney would be floor to ceiling and at least 2-3 characters wide. it needs to be much larger in scale and impressive -- especially since it's called "fancy fireplace" there's nothing fancy about it right now. it looks ridiculous. :/ ... i was so excited to get it too. :/

For those that have not already collected styles for the feats should the styles dropping from the t5 instances count towards the feats. One of my league members collected the insectoid back which showed not collected and it didnt count so we were wandering if it was supposed to.

I would like to be able to purchase good weapons for any particular level of content, including T5, without having to hope that my preferred weapon(s) will someday randomly drop.

I really, really, HATE the RNG being used to determine what weapons are available. We get to choose our weapon when we roll a character. We get to buy whichever weapon we like in Central City. Why doesn't the option to buy the weapon of our choice exist throughout the game?

Where are the CR85 or above rifles dropping? I have only come across a CR 83 rifle and nothing more. Would anyone care to explain if that is intended?

Hey Crafty, Any way I can get you to comment on this thread about DLC 7 Loot?

Here's the gist of what's said:

I would just like to know where are all the handblasters? Maybe its different for some players. I have seen a few controllers with the 83's. I know they supposedly drop from Bizarro in his solo instance so hopefully with dutiful grinding they too will soon be mine but overall handblasters seems to be an extremely rare drop. i've grinded my main toon to full t5, one alt to half t5 and my third alt has the t5 chest.

Through all of those iconic anomaly, many t5 operations, a few successful "exploratory" nexus and paradox wave runs and one successful nexus run~through all of that i've seen maybe six pairs of handblasters drop. both drop points being from the sub bosses that have been nerfed in the central city portion of the t5 ops and from the iconic encounter in the Brother in Arms op. Since the CC sub bosses have been nerfed the last pair I saw was 81 cr level and that was about a week and a half ago.

Where have all the handblasters gone?

Overall I think I'm okay with the way loot is dropping the in raids. It may not seem beneficial right now but for those of us who have a few alts or like to play both roles at any given time this will actually end up saving us time.

I do not like this raid drop ratio of just one piece per boss drop. there are eight people inthe group and getting through the new raids requires a lot of work for all involved. there is no coasting..or at least not yet and no matter what unless the group gets super lucky and scores the max number of best possible drops its very easy to see some unlucky players might not get anything beneficial for several run throughs...

I do think there should have been more style options available for t5. A vendor that sells t5 equivalent accessories or even one that sells a set of "starter" 81 cr gear (the stuff that drops in the solos and sub bosses) for a few marks could be have made those sub bosses count for more.

i also appreciate the new lair items. i like a few quite a bit. the new paintings arent bad. i like the new crystal formations and some of the statuary but some of these items are poorly scaled. We still need more secret lairey type stuff.

Having given the current breakdown a fair chance, I wish to point out certain changes to the looting system that I believe are detrimental, rather than beneficial, to the game as a whole. Take this as a compliment, Crafty, as it means that I thoroughly believe that you had things right before, and that you are capable of doing so again quite easily.

When the game launched, there was only one style of Teir gear available to players at each teir. This was quickly acknowledged as an inferior game design as players completing their teir gear were shown to drastically reduce their gameplay. The amount of people who run the content for the random drop once the Marks become useless is drastically lower, so the mentor restrictions were lifted and everybody was presented with 3 options of teir gear for both T1 and T2. Additionally, T2 was initially available only through raiding, so it was guarunteed to be earned at a slower, weekly pace.

When T3 was introduced, it was also available exclusively through raiding, and there were 4 potential T3 sets, so Marks of Krypton retained their value for a long time. Eventually T3 Alerts and Duos were added to increase the pace at which players could acquire their gear, but it was the large number of T3 styles that kept the players re-running content and collecting Marks of Krypton for a long time.

When T4 was introduced, it was only available through raiding. There were 4 sets of T4 gear, so players had a use yet again for their first 1600 Marks, enough to keep us busy for quite a while. Eventually T4 Operations were added to assist players in recieving their gear quicker, but ultimately like every teir before, it was the Marks and not the drops that kept players running the content. Nobody wants to farm for some rare, unattainable style for months on end when there is nothing else to be gained. Marks gave everybody a small, measureable method of guarunteed progression. Lose every roll, or see nothing but trash drop, but it didn't matter because you still got your marks.

With T5, it launched with not only 4-man alternatives to recieve the gear, but also SOLO content in the form of the anomolies. I know this was designed to encourage players to gear up first through solo and small group content so that the raids could be geared towards players already having achieved the gear, but an unforeseen negative was that it permitted daily progression towards our teir gear instead of restricting it to weekly. At launch, the most a player could recieve was 20 MoD per week. At T3 release, the most a player could recieve was 10 MoK per week. At T4 release, the most a player could recieve was 13 MoW per week. But with T5, players can actually recieve (I believe) 56 MoR per week without even having to touch the raids. If the intention was for us to be able to get our T5 gear via solo and small group content prior to jumping into the raids, then mission accomplished. But this is a problem for the playerbase. In a matter of a few weeks, even slow moving players who do not use Replay Badges have completed their first suit of T5 gear... and that's the only one.

Without a purpose for the Marks of Reality we are earning, everything boils down to just the RNG luck-based drops. Whereas previously players could still be working towards styles for months, seeing progression each and every time they played, now we have lost that. The T5 content is an all-or-nothing situation, of winning the loot rolls or walking away with nothing to show for our time. And the attitude of many players is that, as soon as the Marks stop being useful, the Replay Badges stop being spent. I do not spend real-life money on a roll of the dice, hoping that A) an item drops and B) I can win the roll.

Having only one suit of T5 gear killed the replayability of the raids, which then adds increased frustration to the larger loot tables, because we're playing exclusively for the rares. The Marks need to be made useful again. Never before has a teir been so easily exhausted in a matter of days to the point where players see nothing useful from running the hardest raids in the game within the first week of release.

Possible solutions that do not cost you money to develop?

Take existing rare styles that are otherwise unreasonably rare and re-introduce them as alternative suits of T5 gear. If Avatar Infiltrator, Hive Defender, and Runes of the Norseman were available as alternative T5 suits, then earning the MoR would still serve a purpose in progressing through these styles that most players have otherwise given up on.

OR take the PvP styles and turn them into alternative T5 gear. Allow players to be able to fully obtain those styles without having to play both aspects of the game, so that PvP sees fewer of the "I don't want to be here" players. If a player doesn't actually desire to PvP, chances are that none of their teammates are enjoying having them in the match either. Allowing them to obtain the style they're chasing without PvPing makes both the PvE and PvP players happy to not have him in those matches.

OR the new drop styles from the T5 content, introduce that as alternative suits of T5. Many players have been asking for this for years, the ability to just buy styles instead of depending on random drops. This could be your chance to test the waters on this. If you put Time Traveler and Traces of Time in as alternative suits of T5 gear, then everybody would have the option to obtain it via drops, or to eventually buy it via marks, so there would be less group-contention over rolling and less dependance upon luck for feats.

OR (my favorite option) Gate the PvE gear the exact same way you've done with PvP. Once a player has the full suit of Item Level 85 gear, open up a teir of Item Level 86 gear for PURCHASE with their MARKS, instead of requiring the dumb luck of drops. Once Item Level 86 is complete, open up Item Level 87.

Right now, the system that has been implemented is entirely counterintuitive to the changes that were made to prevent players from skipping teirs of gear. The development team made a huge step forward by removing drops for walk-in low CR players a while back. Now that one step forward has been followed up with two steps back, making it so that the best gear, Item Level 87, is dropping for players who may not have achieved Item Level 86 (or even 85). We get upgrades for Best-In-Slot as drops, and these can obsolete our teir gear before we even have the chance to earn it. Progression should be linear. I learned counting in Kindergarten. We should go 79, then 81, then 82, then 83, then 85, then 86, then 87. Shuffling them all into a hat and drawing them out at random just means that many of us get the high end first and are skipping teirs, even if we didn't want to (and in effect, we lose replayability that way).


Oh, and lastly, I love DCUO so, what you did with the Booster Gold style was just silly. "We made it all Non-Role Specific because we knew everybody would want it". Seriously? Have you even played the game? Making it all Non-Role Specific practically guaruntees that we'll be bullied and harassed and blacklisted if we ever attempt to touch it as anything other than a player who is currently filling the DPS role. And the last thing the game needs is even more players who refuse to be Healers and Controllers and state they will only fill the bloated, overpopulated ranks of "I only DPS" players. They don't need you to further encourage them.

You want to make a style available to everybody? AMAZONIAN. You got it right with Gates. Everybody was able to finish amazonian, and nobody ever really complained (except over the cruddy stats when it was launched), because it was available easily to all players. Why on earth do you punish Tanks, Healers, and Controllers by recycling old styles back in at these high teir raids, but then make the Booster Gold suit exclusively non-role. Just make the drops for all four roles be Booster Gold style and then you'll actually accomplish your "we knew everybody would want it" objective. I have no need for a Fourth World Belt in T5 content; I got mine on the Brainiac Ship during the tutorial two and a half years ago. If your purpose in making the Booster Gold style non-Role only was to make it available to everyone, then why on earth didn't you just use it for All-Roles instead of recycling back these redundant common styles from back at launch.

i would just like to change just one thing in Brit's post here, i.e. Booster gold gear should have been unattuned.
rest i agree with.

Hey crafty when will you devs address this thread? It has 80+ likes and is all about in game rewards across all the games content.

https://forums.station.sony.com/dcu...-luck-from-our-skill-points.9625/#post-124144

I'm not a fan of unattuned gear when collecting styles, because unattuned gear doesn't show whether the style has been collected or not. But, six of one, half dozen of the other, in the end it's the same results.

The most important thing is just giving us something to do with our darn marks.

yeah as i suggested some time back they can just change it to show the style collection information, it's not a big change.

absolutely.

Translate your MOR to MOT, thats very usefull

lol. i have 50k MoT and 250 MoW already.. plus some 2500 MoT use-ables in my bank..

I am very extremely disappointed in the vault drops, the drop rate for jewelry is so low! I have been tying to get the resto/resto rings forever and will probably never see it drop! And what's more I can not get the might/ might rings either, very frustrated about these specific drops and jewelry drop rates! Hint hint!