Mischief- consistent loot tables, or huge range?

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Stefen, Apr 26, 2021.

  1. Stefen New Member

    There's a little ambiguity with the wording of the explanation of the randomized loot.

    Have the loot tables been randomized once, but the size of the loot tables maintained?

    Eg: Will the fbss just move from the frenzy in lguk to the solusek kobold king in solb, and drop exclusively there throughout the life of the server?

    Alternatively, will mobs have huge loot tables, with a chance to drop dozens of items from mobs of similar difficulties?

    This will drastically impact how people play- If the former is true, I don't see the large departure from kromo farmers that many are anticipating. This quote from Niente seems significant:

    "One of the challenges with progression servers is that everyone already knows where the best spots to hunt for loot are and where the best items come from. The discovery of new things in the oldest expansions is pretty nonexistent.

    Now, if you are lucky enough to get one of the best spots for loot, it can be a lot of fun, but
    competition is fierce and you will be on your toes defending your turf. Randomized Loot in EQ is an attempt to solve this problem."

    Are they the best spots because they're dropping the best loot in a new location, or the best spot because they contain a higher number of named mobs on short respawns?
  2. brickz Augur

    I believe your reading of his quote is wrong. He's saying that [on normal servers] if you are lucky enough to get one of the best spots for loot, it can be a lot of fun, but competition is fierce and you will be on your toes defending your turf. So on [this new server] is an attempt to solve this problem.
  3. yerm Augur

    There's 2 possible ways they can do it.

    1. Add the loot IDs to tables, and any time an item would drop it instead drops a random item from that table.
    2. Add the named mobs to tables, and any time a named spawns its item pool is drawn from a random named on its table.

    Everything I've seen suggests it's going to be #2. Most likely every mob that is flagged rare is going to be tabled on a list of rare mobs of that level. I expect either they A) make a table with everything of a certain level, or B) they make a list of everything within 5 of a level, and that's the table. When a rare mob spawns, it will either A call from 11 lists (its level, the 5 below, and the 5 above) and select rare loot, or it will B call from its big list of available for its level, and there you go.

    So if A Froglok Shin Lord spawns and is level 30, you may end up getting a pearl kedge totem or pegasus feather cloak because bilge and quillmane are the same level. You might get an SBD since ghoul assassin is within 5 levels of it. You might get nothing or garbage, though, because unless I'm crazy there are a TON of named mobs that are hunter and either don't have items or don't have items worth writing home about. This will become especially true after a few expansions; Luclin is particularly brutal on having an absolute ton of rare-flagged hunter mobs that don't have real loot tables.
    Herf likes this.
  4. Trevalon Augur

    I think the random loot is an interesting idea. I suspect it will work with taking a 5 level spread of name mobs and putting all their rare loot into 1 big pool and it draws from that pool, or at least that makes the most sense to me.

    Which is interesting. If I can go to Frenzy and get GEBs or The hole and get an SMR, thats pretty cool.

    Means that loot is gonna be a lot more common and the bots won't be able to monopolize the loot nearly as much, which I am all for hurting mass boxers/botters.

    I do think FV rules is a complete nightmare for any guild - instead of gearing up for harder content half your raid is going to sell their raid gear...that sucks for any guild leadership.
    Skuz likes this.
  5. Kadazic New Member

    FV loot works fine for raid guilds on FV. It might even give them an advantage. People dont sell raid loot that they would actually use because they want to use it. When they upgrade they might sell their old stuff but just as often it gets passed down to an alt so you end up with tons of alts in one expansion old raid gear that can seriously help out the raid where needed.

    The thing about FV loot is that there is SO MUCH gear in circulation that it just doesnt hold the same RMT value over time. On FV a generic piece of raid gear might get you a few krono but it doesnt tend to sell for 10-20 krono like I have seen items on other TLP sell for.
    Tucoh and Skuz like this.
  6. Eqfanatic17 New Member

    I love the idea of a new TLP but i hate truebox rules, i get it, everyone hates boxers, because it allows krono farmers and the destruction of your original fantasy of EQ. but newsflash, it isn't 1999 anymore, original EQ doesn't exist, we don't have corpse runs anymore, we have maps, and yes people box... 3 years from now when 90% of the server has quit, boxing is the only way content will continue to be cleared. by not allowing boxing, they are promising a server than won't last. just my opinion.
  7. Lejaun Augur

    I doubt raid loot by real guilds will be that big of a problem. Guild members will either sell items purchased for DKP, which means that you can only get so much loot, or people will save/trade them for alts.

    Box armies farming raid loot will be a thing, of course.
  8. Eqfanatic17 New Member



    it's truebox. how will box armies farm raid loot?
  9. yerm Augur


    The same way they already do on every truebox server?
  10. Eqfanatic17 New Member

    I play on 3 truebox servers, i don't see any bot armies?
  11. theonepercent Augur

    I believe you're reading OP wrong. Nothing the devs have said so far that I've seen has lead me to believe loot is always chosen randomly vs every other "randomized" loot system I've seen which just swaps the loot tables of mobs. No one can answer this except the devs and DW has just said stuff like this is for us to learn.
  12. Protagonist Tank

    If it's all mobs in a level range flagged rare pull from a universal loot table, several game mechanics will become completely impossible.

    Especially read: Certain epics and keying. So especially VT keying.

    If they just mix up the loot tables but then it's static from that, the "exploring" will be over 3 hours after each new unlock.

    The only way this works and is fun is if they put a modicum of thought into what loot does and doesn't get reassigned, with the work done by someone who has actually played a TLP. So....
  13. Thrawnseg Augur

    Unless they exclude quest items and keep those on the mobs that have them, for VT keying and Sky keying and epics as such.

    Not hard to just randomize the loot while keeping quest tagged items the same.
    Waring_McMarrin likes this.
  14. Lejaun Augur

    You know when you see those "Selling raid item xyz" by someone anonymous/non-guilded? Good chance that is a bot army kill.
  15. Protagonist Tank


    Not hard, but historically - they've herped the derp deep and hard every launch on these kinds of decisions. The complete and abject lack of details in this announcement is not encouraging.

    I agree it has good potential, I just doubt it'll have good execution.
  16. a_librarian Augur

    There was a guy doing that on Mangler that was basically an institution. Was selling BIS raid drops regularly for the entire life of the server. Hell he could be there now even, but more likely is doing the same scheme on Aradune. Must have very easily made thousands of krono just from selling Plane of Time loot.
  17. yerm Augur

    If the no trade tag is removed without exemption I do not think this can be a problem. I am not aware of a bottleneck that also is both easy and common. Bloodgill marauder maybe? I think the problem will be if the random holds true universally for all rares of a level range AND they no drop tag certain epic items or other quest features. If lord burgurgles crown can drop off any rare 35-45 it will dramatically help clerics get at it; if that crown is no drop still and is a 1 in a thousand chance off those mobs because of the sheer size of the table with no way to camp it, yeah, absolutely toxic setup.

    I think there are guaranteed to be massive problems in execution. No doubt in my mind. Despite how much I often flame the devs, I don't know that I will here - it's to be expected. It can be worked out. Even if something does seem like a problem at first it may just require time to work itself out OR it may be an issue that should be tweaked.
  18. Protagonist Tank


    Because they do things as low-effort as possible, the reasonable assumption is that they'll use the FV rules for what retains no drop flags - so epic pieces and most key pieces.

    Because they do things as low-effort as possible, the reasonable assumption is they'll just point all mobs in a level range flagged rare from a certain expansion at one universal loot table and anything from that table can drop.

    So, until they release details, the reasonable assumption is that this is a trainwreck that will make several things nigh-on impossible to accomplish.
  19. Zinth Augur

    funny how they have said COUNTLESS TIMES.... "freetrade can't happen because bla bla CS"
  20. yerm Augur


    Yes, and it was true, a phinny clone with free trade would be an absolute CS nightmare. They figured out that if they make everything drop randomly, items cannot be monopolized since they drop like its diablo, so less CS nightmare.


    My assumption is it will randomly select a named and then clone whatever loot that named would drop. Tolapumj might select Overking Bathezid and drop his stuff, or it might select some random garbage. Named like dread widow will final see their loot show up.

    I agree - they will probably copy FV including the no drop tag. Hopefully they can be convinced in the next month to remove no drop from epic items too. We'll see.

    There will DEFINITELY be problems. There's no way around it. It's an ambitious idea so it's gonna have holes in it. I'm glad they're doing something new even if FV loot doesn't even remotely appeal to me personally and I hope they continue to try new ideas like they're trying something new here.
    Skuz likes this.