Game Update 29 Loot Changes Discussion

Or even have walk-ins based on the old loot system and have queues based on the new one.

I like that idea!

Noooooooo!

(Walk-ins involve me going to The Watchtower and The Watchtower Is A Trap!)

But I guess I could live with it.

I actually don't see this effecting Leagues too much.

For an example, say you defeat a boss in a Raid who drops 2 pieces of loot, say a piece of Controller gear and a DPS piece, along with a Focus Element and a plan. How it would be before was one of the DPSs would get the DPS piece, a Controller would get the Troll piece, and the other two would go to 2 random people.

How it is now, with 8 people getting a piece of gear with a 1 in 4 chance of being the correct role, means on average 2 people would get a piece that would be the role they are playing as. Counting in the fact that everyone has access to DPS and a second role, and the odds are even higher that more people should get a piece they can use from each boss than before. Meanwhile, all 8 would get a Element and have a chance of getting their own plan, as opposed to half the group getting nothing from that boss like how it was before.

The main thing I see this hurting Leagues in is when a League tries gearing up a certain person, as that one person would not be given any rolls he may have had otherwise from the previous way. Outside of that though, I see this as being helpful for Leagues.

You're too pasty, you need to get out more anyways.

I love the changes to the loot system CC, thanks and cant wait to see it added to the rest of the older raids and pve content

Trust me, the amount of people playing this game in leagues who distribute loot evenly vs everybody else is going to be a single digit vs double or triple digit number.

The new system is a double edged sword attempting balance - you get something, sure, but the chances of it being something you can use are 1/2 if you still need to build a damage and specialized gear set, and 1/4 if you're only looking to build one specifically. Leagues who shared loot geared up fastest and they were the first to stop playing the content. This design staggers them and forces them to keep playing for a longer duration. On the flip side, the cutthroats and last-to-finish-nice-guys alike are now no longer having to worry about an unsightly problem.

I think this system is definitely on the right track, BUT, and this is considering your point, DCUO's players could surely use some new method of exchanging gear so salvaging stuff that's otherwise useless to them isn't the only option left on the table. (A few component bits still aren't a worthy reward for the effort).

Tossed up a few ideas and I think the best way to go about it would be to allow players to salvage high quality gear into marks. Directly salvaging the gear into marks would result in the lowest yield, but for players that don't need the stuff, they get some extra marks (or can just salvage it into components). The second part of this idea is to get rid of the trade restrictions on gear items and utilize this same mark exchange system with a slightly better yield. This would allow a player to put a gear item on the broker that can only be purchased with marks (rated for that gear's tier equivalent). The mark cost would be automated (system controlled) but would result in a higher mark return than if salvaged directly for marks. This would allow players a method to purchase gear they need from the broker while still having to spend required marks toward the items. This would help people gear up on the .5 type gear items so long as they are playing like content and earning those marks. It incorporates other ideas such as being able to buy styles from a style vendor (in this case players become the style vendors in full), encourages replay use, promotes the new loot system, and doesn't hurt replay badge purchases.

If leagues run it and get 2, maybe 3 expert plans to divide amongst the league, is that much of a drawback? or more of a benefit? What if 2 members get a piece of level 86/87/88 gear that they can wear, bettering the stats of the team? That's 100% loot than what would have dropped, is that a drawback?

I am personally very pleased with the new system. I expect there to be glitches as the system has only been tested on a low population server. There will be things discovered about this feature that were over looked during development, just like every single addition that goes into games like this.

Do not change it back. It's a much fairer system, even to leagues.

First I'd like to say this games loot system, especially in raids (a topic I haven't exactly kept quite about) have seemed like a source of strife and has routinely left a bad taste in my mouth and those of others. A shift of this caliber tells me that you all are adhering to player feedback and are taking measures to reduce player conflict. So right now, thank you, this is definitely a positive step and even if you stopped the improvement here, I'd be happy.

What you're going to see now is players being frustrated because they don't understand, they used to see four things drop now they only see one or two, and they feel cheated without realizing just how rare it is for them to walk away with any of that loot. As a whole raid group you've doubled the size of total loot, but the average player doesn't see that, so that bit will take time.

An appropriate analogy (and this is just an analogy) would be meat hanging at the end of a stick in front of a dog, instead of having 4 pieces of food for a group of 8, you've now got 8 8 with 8 sticks and 8 pieces of food on the same road. The dog get excited by seeing the 4 pieces of food together and so he'll come back to that road again.

However, if the aim of this move was in fact to reduce player conflict, instead of pointing the gun at each other as we have been, it will now be pointed at the RNG system, and why it was implement by you and the rest of the DCUO team. The sheer bulk of loot available in DLC 7 ( especially the final raid bosses, another topic I've addressed), I won't talk about DLC 8, players will likely be made more aware of how small the total loot table is of actual of worth to them, i.e. the piece of meat on the stick isn't dog food or something of the like)

TLDR1: RNG is going to make people rage

The source of this rage is RNG, there's no way around this, I understand that it is impossible to get rid of it completely, but I beg of you, I really do BEG, give us ways to work around it. Here are some of the suggestions.

1) Make everything unattuned

Doing this will eliminate the "this piece is useless for my role" type arguments. It'll put that last 1/4 of thr RNG in the players hands and makes Iconic pieces ( I'm glaring at you time traveler) useful for all roles, and if a player get's a piece they don't necessarily need, but is relatively high in cr, they can save it for an alt role that they can decide on later.

2) Attach Ultra-rare/rare/role-locked styles to more cr's of gear

Doing this will eliminate the "this piece is useless for my cr" type of argument. Power creep is a very real problem in dcuo, and one that hasn't really been addressed. The mark conversion was really the last draw, and the incentive to run lower tiers is in the gutter if the only thing I need is one style that only comes from inner. At the very least, you can give me a reason to complete the new duo's from the new that I'm paying extra for as a legendary member to make getting that last style feat a little easier. You guys have touched on this, I want more or this and LESS VODOO. The three things that make this game special are it's IP, it's combat, and the fact that we can style ourselves however we'd like. More styles are always better, always, always, always better.

3) Make every piece of gear purchasable through marks

"Did he just bring that up?" yes I did. If you're going to remove the 4 pieces of meat in front of me, I'd like to know that staying on this road there's that really big fat juicy piece of meat I was hoping to get. When I say every piece I mean every piece. The pieces we want for CR Time Traveler, Traces in time, and even pieces we want for style Hive Defender, Avatar infiltrator, and ALL the cross faction styles etc etc, I'm not against the first two costing over 200+ MoR a piece, but the simple fact that replaying and running things aren't a complete waste will give players more incentive to keep playing and will ward off the whole "why do I even bother" type argument.

That's all I got for now.

Fairer? Absolutely. I've said that this new system is better for most of the player base - because most of the playerbase pugs.

And will there be more Expert plans out there? Of course. (They've already plummeted in price these last weeks after all the glitching anyway, so their value isn't much of a consideration for leagues that already have all they need).

My point is that in a close league, if something that is actually useful drops (a rarity), the group makes sure the right person gets it. With the new system, it's possible that nobody actually gets anything except salvage fodder. After five or six weeks in a row of a healer getting something that the controller could have used and visa versa, it's going to get frustrating.

Edit: I'd like to make it clear that I'm not really unhappy with the new system. I just think it penalizes close-knit Leagues.

I personally like your points but disagree with the system you are proposing based on the current system for buying gear with marks. For your system to work, I believe the value of the gear would need to be significantly increased to make it worthwhile.

However, I do mainly just disagree with the idea that something needs to be compromised for the adoption of the new system. If you ignore the negative feedback about the way the system deals loot out and look at the way it operates, it's a vastly superior and much fairer system than what we've been using in the past.

People are complaining that other people are getting gear which is the role they are playing. They say this assuming that if the game was operating under the old system, the loot the other player got would be the loot that dropped. As we both know this isn't the case. Loot and quantities of extras are always random.

Another point that people are overlooking is that they are guaranteed to leave Nexus with 5 drops. Personally, I've only won 3 items in 10 runs of Nexus. 1 of them I won to count towards a style feat. Everything else I won was useful to my character and nothing else that dropped, I was able to win. Had the new system been in place during these runs, I would have been guaranteed 50 items from Nexus, minimum (assuming 1 boss drops 1 item of loot each). As it stands on the old loot system, I won 3 out of a minimum of 50 (although most bosses dropped at least 2 items, so lets call it 3 out of 100 for the sake of accuracy).

The fact now that the loot automatically comes to me is a massive positive, because should something I need be randomly selected from the loot table, I am not competing with anybody else to get it.

I think people just need to be happy about the new system. The negative reaction from the players experience is simply down to assuming the loot their team mates got would be the loot the group could roll on under the new system. Yes, it's a pain when the gear that drops isn't usable by yourself, but for this negative, the positive offers a vastly superior reward than anything we've seen previously.

Just ran wayword t4 got purple box nothing inside 2nd time since new update today old boxs aren't giving loot and marks glitch please help

Firstly, I'm happy you're not really unhappy with the new system

I think it's because people tell each other what they got that causes the conflict. Just because a healer got a controller item doesn't mean that the controller item would have dropped for the group under the old system. There's a chance that if you were running under the old system, a healer item could have dropped, then instead of the healer complaining their loot is irrelevant, the controller's complaining instead saying nothing ever drops for him.

You're never going to beat this problem with the player base. Somebody will always find something to complain about. But what I like the most about this new system is the fact that whatever drops, it's mine to use, to salvage, to store away for a rainy day, whatever. There's no chance that somebody else is getting my loot, especially not if I feel as though I've done a better job than the other person.

Not targetting you here, but I just disagree with making the items unattuned or tradeable. It isn't the answer because then all you're doing is taking the old system, but adding more loot to it and sharing it out. There will be a whole new array of arguments, complaints and fighting because the group gave Player A the gear because the group prefer Player A more than Player B. It becomes too personal. It's also encourage elitism even more-so and segregate bigger leagues who work together to gear up while telling other members they aren't running with them tonight.

Keeping it personal, private and unique to that player keeps the conflicts between players to a minimum. The game relies heavily on socialising yet in the past has provoked a massive amount of problems due to a luck-based loot system. This new system basically resolves that and I feel after a few weeks, the complaints will stop (there will of course be a few, as with everything, but it won't be as bad).

If you're in a league on DCUO where everybody is nice and fair with each other, then enjoy that and do everything to maintain that atmosphere because it's extremely rare. Unfortunately for most people, it isn't the case. I've been in leagues with some of the most disgusting human beings I've ever met online with absolutely no respect or manners towards other players.

Wrong thread. Not relevant to the topic as this system hasn't been applied to T4 yet, so it won't be looked at.

Make a thread in the Arkham Asylum bug reporting board and report it in game.

So DID you guys infact reduce drops as ive suggested in another post.

Nexus - Berore

[Guarunteed] 2x 86 Items(Weapon or Armor piece),1 FEV, 1 V Plan

- Chance at 1 Expert V Plan
- Chance at a 88 Item(Traces in Time,Time Traveler).
- Chance Exceptional Recovery Kit

Nexus - After

[Guarunteed] 1x 86 Item(Weapon or Armor piece),1 FEV, 1 V Plan

- Chance at 1 Expert V Plan
- Chance at a 88 Item(Traces in Time,Time Traveler).
- Chance Exceptional Recovery Kit

This is what im disapointed with.

i dont mind the new loot system where everyone is guaranteed one loot item from bosses, its basically what we have in challenges already with their looting roles. I would however like to see something implemented where we can get some form of badges or something that can only be used in the raids where if you have a certain amount of badges you can get that one sweet piece you have been looking for forever but it doesnt want to drop for you. it would be a lot of different badges(could be a bad thing) but if you have ran the instance that many times and it hasnt dropped than something needs to give anyway (would be a really high number of badges to get said item) each raid would have its own set of badges as well

I do get your concerns, very loud and very clear. I understand that if you are a tight knit league who works together, then it may affect you, but I just think everyone benefits from the new system, whether you live the pug life, whether you're as unlucky as I am or whether you're in a raid league who work and level together.

Sure, if healer 86+ gear drops, on the old system a good league could ensure the right person gets it, but on the new system, multiple people could get 86+ gear that they can use. In my opinion, a league would benefit more from runs which had multiple people getting more gear in less raids than ensuring a lesser amount of the right gear goes to the right players.

Using your example, lets say 3 weeks in the T5 raids, the final boss drops 86+ healer gear week 1, healer A gets it. week 2, healer gear drops again, Healer B gets it. What if in week 3, 6, 8 and 10 the only gear which drops again is healer 86+ gear? Then nobody leaves the raid with anything good.

Looking at another aspect and using myself as an example. I am still using a level 82 bow. I desperately want a level 88 bow. Assuming one exists and I am able to be part of a raid where it drops, I would much rather a system where I am 100% guaranteed to receive it than have to potentially out roll 7 other people. It's a much easier pill to swallow knowing someone else got the item that I never had the chance of getting via the new system, than seeing my dream bow be randomly selected by the system go to somebody else.

Expanding on weapons further, the new system allows me to experiment with any weapon that drops, without comprimising item level or stealing the item from somebody who genuinely needs it (as happened to me when I ran OP1 a long time ago)

I personally think that for every flaw that you can present me which the system has, I can find you an advantage which more than makes up for the compromise.

I'd like to point out that it's never been guaranteed that 2x 86 pieces dropped. An 85 and an 86 piece perhaps, but never 2 86 pieces. But even then, look at your Nexus After list... if all that drops, it's YOURS. If it's not relevant gear, oh well. If it is relevant then you're a winner

Personally, I think the biggest problem with tier 5 has been that the best available gear is the gear found in the raids. The fundamental flaw of T5 has been that you can't earn the best available gear and it's caused a massive amount of problems and resentment.

What they should have done is perhaps have a T5 set like the Manta/Aquaman one, but then have had the Traces in Time gear in tubes, purchasable only with Marks earned by completing the raids and at a much higher value too. Maybe create Helm of Omnipotence-like gear featuring an artifact from each of the council members (GCPD Batman's chest, Primal Batman's hand wraps, Ninja Batman's head).

I hope they release T6 (or T5.5) gear in DLC10, which is rumoured to be the "small" content. Allow us to gear up in the smaller group content of DLC10. Then in DLC11, which is rumoured to be a "large" content DLC, create T6.5 (or T6), which is only purchasable with marks earned by completing the raids included in that pack.

To be fair DLC7 actually hurt a large-section of players out there, with no consideration was talkin into account of most players...