Work In Progress Improvements to the Loot System

90% of this thread is just one massive face palm with all the crying and boo-hooing going on.

if you're so unhappy go play and spend your money elsewhere. Trust me, if/when Fallout 4 drops I will be the 1st to leave. Until then ...

Do all of you keep going back to a restaurant with service/food not to your satisfaction? Do you make and keep friends who make you unhappy? Do you keep spending money on guys/gals that make you miserable?

One of my favorite Einstein quotes goes, "insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." How many of you professed a complaint over something to have the devs come back and say, "no" or "not gonna happen". Yet you keep asking/crying.

When in the last 4+ years have we ever got the loot we wanted outside of vendors?

Absolutely no idea what you're on about, you quote the right person?

The Elite raid is a new idea. Im pretty sure if the the Elite Came in HOP2 then the same table can be made for WOTL2. Its an optional Raid for those willing to do it. If not, normal progression is still there and doesnt hurt anyone or anything.

you do realize that disregarding the elite raid entirely that there is still a difference between the AF2 and HoP1 right?

How are you proposing to do that? Those with money will always be able to afford more replays than those without. There's no way they can make it so that replays don't grant gear, because why even have replays if you can't re-play. Those who can, will. Always. (Not me, I can't afford a bunch of replays either)

Just want to say I agree with all the other people who have already said it: "bad luck" includes getting 7 trinkets, 6 waists, 5 necks, 4 backs and 4 two handed weapons before I get a single ring, feet or utility belt, let alone legs, chest or helmet. It's just as frustrating, or even more, to get the same piece of 100 gear drop again and again as it is getting a piece of 98 gear. If the new loot system does nothing but offer me the same pieces of "rare" gear again and again it doesn't matter that I'm getting two rolls of the RNG dice. All it really seems like the new system is doing is giving me an extra chance to get that 8th trinket or 6th neck come up as one of my reward options. Our league actually lost a core member who was a long time player out of frustration with this issue. He had put three years and 170+ skill points of time and effort (not to mention hundreds if not thousands of dollars) into the game and he still deleted all three of his characters and quit because he felt cheated that resetting and running 20+ raids couldn't get him another piece of 100 gear other than the same 5 he had gotten in the first week the DLC dropped.

You mean how Vendor is 99 and the gear in Raids is 100? Not much of a difference since Im a Vendor chaser. Some players chase for Vendor and others will chase for the Raid Gear. That's what we have, is the chase. Different roads of gearing. Raid gear to me is just extra fluff, that ice cream you get after cake

Let me see if I've got this right

There are two random numbers rolled, the first is the chance that "something" drops. This you are mitigating by increasing that chance, the longer a dry run occurs. Seems sound and can't imagine anyone having an argument with that.

The second is what is offered, to mitigate this you give a choice between two gear rolls and also offering a mark, base item or plan as alternatives if the gear rolls doesn''t progress your toon. Mostly ok with this too as now the side drops don't happen regardless, my first thought was those base items had better be pretty damned hot to compete with gear.

For me at least comparing with the existing system the biggest change is you get to choose trash drop or mark. Where a trash drop is one that no longer progresses your toon, as all trash drops are there to increase your salvage count by one.

Also there is still nothing stopping a player from going four or five bosses with nothing so there will still be plenty of raids run where someone will be able to say "I got nothing". In fact depending on which DLC you compare against, you could easily end up with less. HoP1 for example, if no gear, always a mark which contributed to progression (vendor gear).

No matter how they present your chances I guess it boils down to the drop rates. either they are high enough for people to be happy or we'll be back here with more complaints on how "it does not work". I shall wait and see where on the scale the next DLC sits.

Thanks for commenting on this. Ever since the AF2 came out, my drop rates have been kinda rare that I can keep track of the items I've received: 4 lvl 100 backs, 2 lvl 100 Pouches (this was very odd, because got them on the same day from HoH and Throne), a Katar, neck and shoulders (shoulders came after a dry spell of not even receiving furniture).

I don't have as terrible luck as that person that killed 19 bosses and never received an item, but it is pretty low. Hopefully, by being able to select something from the table, chances of going out with something you want will increase and avoid cases like you mentioned.... where you get your 7th back.

Edit: Also got the lv 100 feet.

Possible solution to issue of duplicate drops:
While still keeping the system which lets you choose rewards as outlined let loot tables for armor start with preset values as they do now then every time a certain piece of a set drops it's likelihood percentage decreases 3-4% and conversely every time a piece of that set does not drop it's likelihood percentage increases 1-2% until a full set is earned at which point all values reset.

This way it could still take awhile to get certain rewards like chest or legs since the chances start out so low to begin with but players can rest assured that every time they run a piece of content they are increasing the odds they'll get what they really need and even if they get something they don't need the next time they run that content it's that much less likely they'll get it again.

I didn't say to make it so they can't get gear... I said exclude them from the chance escalation. They will still get the good gear the way they usually do, which would be replays. Those of us in the bread lines will have the chance of getting good gear increase with each run.

Compromise? Lol what ? A compromise to what? This would have been a compromise : Make the vendor sale the best gear. Make it like pvp gear vendors are. The first set is the 99cr set (it drops in alerts as uncommon and in raids as common) it costs the same amount of marks that it does now. The second set of gear is the 100 cr gear (it drops as uncommon in the raids) it will only appear in the vendor after u have at least full 99cr gear and comes at a 20% increase in price of marks. Then the 101cr gear (drops as rare in raids) will become visible after u have atleast all 100 cr gear it's cost will be the mark cap limit for one piece (100 marks as of now).
Don't act like this is a benefit to us that wanted vendor gear to be EVEN to the raid gear we didn't want it better but all I hear out of the pro raiders is that gear has to be better? Why?
What skin off of ur teeth is it how someone else got their gear? But they only played the solos for it, so u know how long it would take to do that (nows here's the real question devs do u know how many replays badges it would take them?)
I don't get why u push half of ur customers away from ever using replay badges, when u could get all of us spending badges.

Maybe Im stupid but can someone explain how the selecting of the loot will work. I reread the explaination and looked at the table but Im confused. Forgive me.

If there is no difference as you say than the Devs should have no problem making them Raid gear and Vendor gear the same Crbut with different stats

The Difficulty is different in AF2 from HOP2 so I see why the CR is different. Will they do it the same in the next Large Group DLC? Maybe, just depends on that Risk/Reward factor.

Business is business and money has to be made so enough with that. REGARDLESS, this is a postive change to the system. Accept that for what it is, nothing will be perfect because everybody prefers things handed to them rather than putting in the work. This makes it far easier and still retains some challenge. I for one am content, especially if they offer the option for an extra mark rather than accepting the junk gear to salvage. That alone would be more than worth it. Just saying. Skid out

Major problems and concerns from the players/community that would like an answer from the devs:

1. How does this system ensure I wont get 5 of the same rare piece in a row?

As far as the community knows it doesnt, you could get the same rare drop 5, 10 times in a row, but hey you are still getting a rare drop and thats what matters. We want to see people get rare items dropping for them, even if its the same neck piece over and over again.

2. In the past on bosses I would get both gear and base items or gear and R&D items such as plans, focus elements, etc, with this new system it seems I am getting much less loot?

Yes but at least you get to choose that 1 item instead of getting 2 random. Hopefully there will be a better option to choose 2 items at the last boss instead of just 1, with restrictions of course.

3. If a dev was to give an estimate, what would be the average estimate # of bosses before we see a rare drop, is it under 10, is it under 5? Under 15? If the new system is implemented and on day 1 you dont see a rare drop after 7-10 bosses, is the system still considered a success?

Most reasonable would be 5 boss minimum with 15 being the maximum number of no rare drop in a business world. However most players might have "bad luck" and wait 7-10 bosses and then there are players that just have all the worse luck and stop at 15. Most likely devs will not give us this answer, but if its day1 and you have defeated 7 bosses and still no rare drop, then well you get the idea.

4. Going further will vendor gear always be 2 CR below raid gear or never the same CR as raid gear again?

Looking from the community uproar that this has caused in the past, going further vendor gear will be no more than 1 CR below raid gear. It is a big community fear that vendor gear will be so behind in raid gear that vendor gear wont be worth purchasing. As we get closer to the next DLC, a dev should answer this question easily.

5. Wont this new loot system have people scared to run old content as DLC's progress?

We want people playing whats hot now. DLC longevity is key and is what the dev team is aiming for. If you want your rare item to drop in the new content, well you are going to of course have to play the new content. Devs are not forcing players to play only a certain DLC to get "good" drops, but certainly encouraging players to play content where they want their rare drops to fall.

From a mere perception this new loot system is amazing. The answers to the questions in blue are what several players think but not the entire voice of the community. But if you break it down to key questions and if those questions that you ask all have negative answers, then we might just be worse than from what we started with.

So can we stop harrassing devs, calling them cash grabbers, pointing fingers and look at this system rationally. Can we look at the positives, the negatives. What needs to improve and what recommendations that need to be changed.

Agreed! Be rational, offer postive suggestions, and let's make this a stronger game. You catch more flys with honey....just saying.

I got my 5th back piece, yesterday. lol. I only have 1 back..... I really hope the changes addressed screwed up things like this.